New Work: ‘Dairy Today’

DJ Stout has redesigned the magazine Dairy Today that is launching this month. In addition to a bold new logotype, the magazine will feature a stylized “portrait” of a dairy cow on the cover of each issue in an effort to differentiate it from its competitors. This is the second dairy magazine and the sixth agricultural trade publication Pentagram’s Austin office has redesigned. Stout and his team previously reworked three magazines for the American Quarter Horse Association, Dairy Herd Management magazine and Drovers magazine (about the beef industry).

How does one art direct a cow? Video after the jump.

Dairy Today is currently rated third amongst a group of three trade publications covering the dairy industry. The primary objective of the redesign initiative was to improve Dairy Today’s over all visual presentation and to give the publication a more distinctive and memorable brand identity so that it might begin to move up in the rankings. The challenge for Stout and his team was working within the parameters of the magazine’s low art budget and small design staff.

One solution was to create the simple cover convention of featuring a “portrait” style photograph of a dairy cow every issue. Dairy Today had previously featured a variety of low quality imagery that was literal in its depiction of editorial subject matter, but not memorable or unique within the magazine’s publishing category. Photographer Randal Ford was commissioned to shoot the series of cow “portraits” for the bi–monthly publication. Two years worth of covers were photographed in a single day’s photo session saving Dairy Today money and providing them with a distinctive and memorable visual cover identity.

“I wanted to show portraits of dairy cows on the cover that showed their individual personalities—so that they were more than just commodities the way beef cows are,” says Stout. “That’s easier said than done because those damn cows don’t have much personality.”

DJ Stout (at left) art directs a model for the Dairy Today cover shoot.

In addition a new bold logotype was created for the cover that downplays the “Today” part of the publication’s name and highlights the word “Dairy.” Singling out and underscoring the word Dairy strengthens the graphic impact of the cover presentation and allows the publication to take ownership of the word Dairy that is powerful and effective within their publishing arena.