When interviewing Dorothy Freudenberg for this month’s feature article, I was struck by her statement, “I realized a subject could speak more profoundly and eloquently sometimes in a different color than its given color; that allowed me to break the rules about what I thought things should be…” That got me thinking about my own subject: the “art” of laying out Cascade A&E.

Since books first began to be written, designers have been playing with layouts, fonts, images and color. A text presented in one format may be completely unappealing to read if the fonts are inconsistent, layout is distracting or color in dissidence. It is the job of the graphic designer to create a text that people will not only want to read, but be compelled to read. This is achieved in countless ways: a great cover image, the overall structure, logo, fonts and much more.

As I am just now reaching my first year mark as editor for Cascade A&E, the time has come to get past what the magazine has been and explore how we can make the pages speak more eloquently (and maybe even break some rules of what should be). We have a new look to the cover, contents page and headers...but in truth, I hope the design can change and evolve over time.

I like to call my job, “a giant game of Tetris.” Many different pieces filter in each month, and I try to figure out not only how it will all fit on a page, but how can it speak more profoundly.