Contents are organised according to intertextual and intervisual relations rather than according to a fixed chapter structure. Each issue works with a basic motif and its variations to create a distinct jazz-like rhythm and flow.
The content of domus becomes a flow of ideas that runs across all the pages. In each issue, we build the score of a composition of content in order to create a harmonic whole.”
Flavio Albanese, Domus 913, Editorial
A set of columns channels the vastness of reality into the cultivated eccentricity of the magazine. Columns link the roof to the base. Constituting the basic layout element, a variety of columns has been chosen in reference to the dynamic of a story in order to create a suitable or even unsuitable rhythm.
Each article extends horizontally over multiple columns, sometimes even continuing on the following page.
The content has remained divided into three main areas: the streams – news briefs found in the first pages of the magazine; the highlights – those parts of the text highlighted by underscoring, boxes, etc.; and the main stories – the actual articles that form the issue content.
Streams
Columns help to divide content and publicity
Issue No. 913
The first Domus issue redesigned by onlab
Structure
Visual leads introduce a story, while cut pages offer a playful structure, hiding content and revealing it after turning the page, providing additional content such as both quotes and architectural plans, sketches, details or construction phases.
Archive
A section showcasing a selection of articles published in past Domus’ issues
Cover and wrapping principle
Being one of the decisive elements, onlab paid particular attention to the cover: every cover is considered an art piece being kept free from text. It has been defined that no architecture is shown on the cover either. Since in Italy all magazines are required cellophane wrapping, onlab used the wrapping as a means to create a compelling effect: wrapping and cover were both designed and printed as a composition.The cover is still more intimately constructed with its “outer” cover, because the overlapping of their two images produces a third. As a rule, the cover picture corresponds to a statement. In general it is what best describes the vision behind the choices within the magazine. In this way the image that comes across loud and clear is shaded into a multilayered story. What appears well defined turns out to be only a fragment of another image: a part, albeit important, which shows however that it possesses no univocal meaning. It is only a fragment of a statement with different points of view, that doubles and multiplies to become part of a confused, enigmatic image, charged with mystery and the unspoken.The image vanishes, however, with the act of unwrapping the magazine, with the removal and disposal of its outer cover. In a sense, the cover likewise interprets this aspiration to pass from structure to flow: from a fixed, clear and defined image to a more iridescent, changeable one that is open to interpretation.