The Revenant

  • Mackenzie Turton
The Revenant is a quarterly publication that focuses on bands that in retrospect should have been very successful, but just didn’t make it big at the time, despite being acknowledged today as extremely influential and responsible for inspiring many younger musicians. The second issue of the magazine focusing on the ’70s American power pop band Big Star and third issue on the English new wave group band Talk Talk. The main focus was the design of the 16 printed page section focusing on Big Star, beginning with a spread for the feature well of The Revenant.
A revenant is a person who has returned, especially supposedly from the dead, i.e. a ghost. The magazines recurring structure is based upon the line which runs along the masthead; referring to a string, which is how ghosts were first represented - a white sheet on a string. The line/string holds onto the body copy tightly as if it was the ghost as the magazine is largely focused on interviews of people from the past. The ghost returns through the words in the magazine as a ghost is depicted to be noise and speech instead of a physical form. This is also echoed in the fact that you don't see big star themselves; instead you get a feel for the times in William Egglestons photography as he not only did their album artwork but featured on the songs by playing the piano (he was also a close friend and big photographer at the time of Big Star). The poster does have small images of Big Star hidden among the other Eggleston photography as its fun to try and find them. Using just Egglestons photography gives the magazine a colour scheme and style unique to the era; this will change with the next issue as each magazine will reflect a particular band and their time period. Each image reflects what is in the body copy for example; a picture of a car is on the spread about Chris Bell because he tragically died in a car crash, an empty seat is depicted on Alex Chiltons' spread because he was an outsider and although he often tried to take main stage he never really succeeded.

The approach is unusual in the fact you never see the band in the magazine; instead the audience is emergedinto the bands era and attitude; you learn about them through their own words and in their own world. Do you need to see something to believe it?