OWT helps design new look Spiel mag

The consultancy has already worked with Spiel founders Paul Gleeson and Dan Byrne on National Football Museum exhibition State of The Zine.

Ben Kither and Jon Hannon of OWT say, ‘OWT has always been about collaboration and progression, wanting to do things differently, but not for the sake of being different. The content of the new issue fitted well with our ethos.’

Content-wise the relaunch issue is shaped largely by a guest editor – poet/sports writer/broadcaster Musa Okwonga.

Kither and Hannon say, ‘We wanted to make something that felt independent from the previous Spiel and Field [https://www.designweek.co.uk/we-like/playing-the-field/3036499.article] publications that Paul and Dan had worked on, and we were wary of just recreating the zine we made for State of the Zine.’

OWT says the design represents the content ‘rather then working purely aesthetically’ and uses a strict grid system, which juxtaposes with ‘playful’ hand-drawn type and a limited palette.

Kither and Hannon say, ‘We have used only one illustrator and also restricted our colour palette and type choices. By being stricter with the tools at our disposal we created a more coherent issue.’

OWT has gone for a riso-print technique, which has had a huge impact on the design, as the designers explain.

‘Certain colours bleed more than others, some overlap and create lovely mixed colours, others create a nasty streak down the page.

‘You have to keep this in mind – some decisions are made on the printer, a page number that was supposed to sit behind some text may end up being too dominant, for example.’

This means the final design features lots of block colours and large areas of colour, which make the most of the printing technique.

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