Brooklyn Arts Organization Pioneer Works Creates “Ambitious New Digital Magazine,” Broadcast

Pioneer Works is a free, public, artist-run cultural center that opened in 2012. Since its opening, Daniel Kent has worked as an in-house designer responsible for the creation of visual identity, merchandise, books and of the space mark. He led the design work on Broadcast alongside Andrew LeClair, a designer from Brooklyn who created identities for RISD, the Pew Center and UC Berkeley.

Kent was commissioned to create the magazine’s identity last year and handed over an open-ended design brief – “essentially free to do whatever he wanted”. He brought in LeClair, a designer from Brooklyn who created identities for RISD, Pew Center and UC Berkeley.

The design of the publication seeks to avoid anything that is too “cold or institutional” and aims to reflect the editorial content. Kent and LeClair have built a system of 50 different typefaces that form the organizational structure of the site and give a distinct visual identity to each series and discipline. This approach also underscores “Pioneer Works’ goal of encouraging conversations between fields while emphasizing their individuality,” according to the team.

Much of the design is influenced by the expressive nature of the independent, handcrafted, xeroxed magazines and zines of the 1970s. The idea was to give a nod to pre-internet publication design but not too much. look at “retro” territory.

The first issue of Broadcast features an article by neuroscientist and philosopher Sam Harris on the idea of ​​free will as an illusion, moderated by Annapurna Kumar; a dossier on the ethics of canine cloning; an interview with Dr. Carl Hart on “Drug Use for Adults”; and a live talk with Thelma Golden, director and chief curator of the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York.