Runner's World Magazine
Sunday, May 1 2005
Published on AllBusiness.com
Robert Festino hadn't even warmed up the art director's chair at Runner's World when the editor dropped a 6,000-word story onto his desk about the tragic turns the lives of Dick Beardsley and Alberto Salazar took after their legendary duel in the 1982 Boston Marathon.
Festino went cinematic, laying out soul-penetrating portraits?two of each runner?full-bleed over four pages. Opposite page five, where the text finally starts, he cranked up the tension with an archival photo of one runner glancing back at the other as they neared the finish. You can practically hear the roaring crowd.
"I thought, 'Wow!'" says editor David Willey, who had just hired Festino to redesign the magazine. "It was risky. It was ambitious. And it seemed that was exactly the kind of statement that we should be making."
Festino's design?working in tandem with arresting imagery commissioned by photo editor Don Kinsella?is an example of the passionate visual story telling that has helped boost Runner's World readership and revenues over the past year.
Launched in 1966, Runner's World had built a stable base of about 850,000 readers. But in 2003 Willey was recruited from Men's Journal to build RW readership beyond hard core runners. He knew he had to deal with the magazine's dated, provincial and uninspired look. "I felt it didn't capture the emotional stuff that's around running?the joy, the pain, all that stuff. [Running is] a really visceral thing. I didn't think the imagery or the design reflected that," he explains.
While searching for a new art director, he was introduced to Festino, then deputy art director at Entertainment Weekly. Willey sent him recent issues of RW and asked what he would have done differently to entice newsstand browsers to pick up the magazine.
Not a runner himself, Festino started studying ads for running shoes and related gear. "The ads were quiet and cool. They showed the form and beauty of running," he says. "I thought, 'Why does [RW] look like this when things runners are associated with don't look like this at all?'" Festino recalls. "I wanted to give it a level of coolness."
Willey was impressed. "He just got it," he recalls. "He's a very story-oriented designer."
Festino wasted no time changing the photographic esthetic of the magazine. He scrapped the smiling-runner-with-lean-body-on-a-beach formula and started hiring photographers who did conceptual celebrity portraiture for magazines like, well, Entertainment Weekly.
First up was photographer Steve Bonini, whom Festino commissioned to shoot portraits for the story on Beardsley and Salazar. For the cover of that issue, he hired John Huet to photograph 800-meter champion Jennifer Toomey.
Festino went cinematic, laying out soul-penetrating portraits?two of each runner?full-bleed over four pages. Opposite page five, where the text finally starts, he cranked up the tension with an archival photo of one runner glancing back at the other as they neared the finish. You can practically hear the roaring crowd.
"I thought, 'Wow!'" says editor David Willey, who had just hired Festino to redesign the magazine. "It was risky. It was ambitious. And it seemed that was exactly the kind of statement that we should be making."
Festino's design?working in tandem with arresting imagery commissioned by photo editor Don Kinsella?is an example of the passionate visual story telling that has helped boost Runner's World readership and revenues over the past year.
Launched in 1966, Runner's World had built a stable base of about 850,000 readers. But in 2003 Willey was recruited from Men's Journal to build RW readership beyond hard core runners. He knew he had to deal with the magazine's dated, provincial and uninspired look. "I felt it didn't capture the emotional stuff that's around running?the joy, the pain, all that stuff. [Running is] a really visceral thing. I didn't think the imagery or the design reflected that," he explains.
While searching for a new art director, he was introduced to Festino, then deputy art director at Entertainment Weekly. Willey sent him recent issues of RW and asked what he would have done differently to entice newsstand browsers to pick up the magazine.
Not a runner himself, Festino started studying ads for running shoes and related gear. "The ads were quiet and cool. They showed the form and beauty of running," he says. "I thought, 'Why does [RW] look like this when things runners are associated with don't look like this at all?'" Festino recalls. "I wanted to give it a level of coolness."
Willey was impressed. "He just got it," he recalls. "He's a very story-oriented designer."
Festino wasted no time changing the photographic esthetic of the magazine. He scrapped the smiling-runner-with-lean-body-on-a-beach formula and started hiring photographers who did conceptual celebrity portraiture for magazines like, well, Entertainment Weekly.
First up was photographer Steve Bonini, whom Festino commissioned to shoot portraits for the story on Beardsley and Salazar. For the cover of that issue, he hired John Huet to photograph 800-meter champion Jennifer Toomey.