{"id":25729,"date":"2011-02-17T09:01:00","date_gmt":"2011-02-17T17:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mehallo.com\/blog\/?p=25729"},"modified":"2011-02-17T12:22:08","modified_gmt":"2011-02-17T20:22:08","slug":"spy-the-archive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/mehallo.com\/blog\/archives\/25729","title":{"rendered":"SPY, the very good (Google) archive"},"content":{"rendered":"

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‘[Spy] was cruel, brilliant, beautifully written and perfectly designed, and feared by all.’ –Dave Eggers<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

SPY Magazine.<\/a><\/em> The New York monthly. The most influential magazine of its time. The Rosetta Stone of modern periodical publishing. Really.<\/p>\n

SPY<\/em> took celebrities and the super rich to task for being, well, celebrities and super rich. Donald Trump<\/a> was a frequent target. And the best part: SPY<\/em> was caustically funny<\/em> and incredibly smart<\/em> in the way it did what it did. <\/p>\n

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crafting spy’s ‘look’<\/strong>
\nThe design itself<\/a> is a work of art – from the drop caps in the letters column to the details in their Naked City<\/em> section (above). <\/p>\n

A strong house style filled pages – set forth by Stephen Doyle and innovated by SPY’s<\/em> first art directors Alexander Isley (1987-88) and B.W. Honeycutt (1988-91).<\/p>\n

From the tall, thin modern SPY <\/em>masthead and typography to clip art icons, rebus-like floating celebrity heads and their use of Dwiggin’s newsy<\/em> Metro typeface<\/a> – the complexity of each issue was tempered by some great visual organizational skills. <\/p>\n

Each SPY<\/em> was loaded<\/em> with content – TONS of text – it took some doing just to read<\/em> each issue.<\/p>\n

At the time SPY<\/em> really hit, I was working for a newspaper. And I remember having the longest conversation about SPY’s<\/em> design and content with a co-worker. We couldn’t figure out how they manage to pull it off. The detail, the text wraps, the photo licensing. At the time, digital production software not quite yet the standard, SPY<\/em> was insane<\/em> for the visual games they were playing.<\/p>\n

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relive spy<\/strong>
\nAnd as of this week, Google is hosting scanned copies of SPY.<\/em> Half are live, the rest are on the way. Go here.<\/a> <\/p>\n

more spy: the book<\/strong>
\nSPY: The Funny Years<\/em> was published in 2006. Written by George Kalogerakis, edited by founding editors Graydon Carter<\/a> and Kurt Andersen<\/a> – designed by Alexander Isley Inc.<\/a> – this hardcover history goes behind the scenes, finally explains how it was done. <\/p>\n

How a little operation went out, fucked with the status quo, never got sued for it (tho there is a footnote on this), invented internet journalism and a bunch of other things. Snag your copy here.<\/a> Dang cheap!<\/em><\/p>\n

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Pictured up top, now former California governor<\/a> in his early days from SPY’s March 1992 ‘Power Bimbos’ article on celebrity nudity (which, of course, predates the advent of Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian)<\/p>\n

Below, some SPY TV stuff (more here<\/a>)<\/p>\n

And at bottom, my SPY stash in its very own genuine unbleached, corrugated fiberboard box with strategically-placed, handdrawn customized lettering<\/em><\/p>\n