TORONTO—The Walrus art director Brian Morgan has fine-tuned the magazine’s look and feel as part of a “re-engineering” that will debut in the upcoming March/April issue. Morgan, who, according to The Walrus editor and co-publisher John Macfarlane, collects “fonts the way some people collect books,” has added an array of typefaces to The Walrus style guide.

A new look for The Walrus

Morgan left Maclean's magazine in August to return to the general interest title after former art director Antonio De Luca departed for New York.

Morgan tells us he searched long and hard for a main body text font that was “going to completely disappear” – in other words, not draw attention to itself. He eventually decided on King’s Caslon, described by Morgan as “nicely spaced with beautifully drawn forms.” He was a “little less rigorous” when selecting display type, and for now will work with a combination Bodoni FB, Scotch Modern, Archer, National and Ambroise, “a beautiful, classic and funky Didone, carried over from the earlier incarnation,” which served as Morgan’s initial point of inspiration.

For the magazine’s logo, Morgan commissioned French typographer Jean François Porchez to redraw the letterforms. The logo’s look hasn’t changed dramatically from the previous incarnation (though keen eyes will notice the “wonderfully eccentric” squiggle under the letter “A”), but the decision to push the word “The” down beside the word “Walrus” has created room for a skybar that allows the magazine to sell up to four stories.

Morgan says that while re-thinking the cover, he used much of what he learned under Ken Whyte during his time as deputy art director for Maclean’s. “The relentless attention to selling that Ken Whyte has is sort of liberating, refreshing and focusing,” he says. Along with the skybar, Morgan plans to use cover images directly connected to a feature in the magazine, something Macfarlane was also keen on doing. Because of these changes, cover flaps – which, according to Morgan, are expensive and difficult to sell to advertisers – will no longer be used. Contact: www.walrusmagazine.com