The magazine's original format, designed by Robert Kingsbury in the late 1960s, gave a decorative spin to the chaotic look of the underground press. By borrowing decorative devices from nineteenth-century typography, such as "scotch rules," borders that combine a thick and a thin line, Rolling Stone recalled the flamboyantly off-center dress of fin de siecle bohemian dandies. (Victorian bohemia fueled several icons of 1960s counterculture, from the Art Nouveau-inspired psychedelia of Victor Moscoso to the cover of the Beatles' album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.) Rolling Stone was shaped by a series of art directors, including Mike Salisbury, Roger Black, and Fred Woodward. When Woodward arrived at the magazine in 1987, Rolling Stone had shed its garb of hippy historicism in favor of a tidy format that consistently used the sans serif typeface Franklin Gothic. One of Woodward's first moves was to bring back the decorative border used in the early years of the magazine. The border became the identifying feature of the editorial pages, allowing Woodward to discard Franklin Gothic in favor of an unlimited palette of typefaces, many of them created exclusively for the magazine by type designer Jonathan Hoefler. According to Woodward, "Anything that went inside the border was Rolling Stone. It was actually very liberating. I was nervous about doing it, afraid that the border would be too confining, but I found that I could try anything within the limits of the border." [back] © Copyright 1996 Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum

Rolling Stone Magazine, 1993, offset lithograph Designer and art director: Fred Woodward Photographer: Andrew MacPherson Photo editor: Laurie Kratochvil Publisher: Wenner Media, New York Rolling Stone (Alanis Morissette) Magazine, 1995, offset lithograph Art director: Fred Woodward (b. 1949) Designer: Geraldine Hessler Photographer: Frank Ockenfels 3