Almost-After

Now that we’re seeing glimmers of the post-corona future, though, we’re talking in different terms. This magazine, for example, is being closed under what you might call “new normal” conditions. Or “almost-after.”

For months, our usually lively, hopping office was shut into three separate zones, each sealed off from the others. A skeleton workforce was allowed to enter each zone only on closing days, while everyone else worked from home. That spare staff meant there were no shared lunch hours and no schmoozes, no meetings around a table, and none of the shouting from room to room that occasionally punctuates the loaded countdown to deadline: “Wait, I need you to reclose page 81! Where’s the ad for page 69? The US printers are having an issue with the cover!”

Closing a magazine under quarantine conditions strained our efficiency; we had to create new systems to manage the workflow when so many stages of the process were taking place in different locations and times. It also disrupted the usual creative process, when so many talented, passionate, and dedicated people worked together. No longer were we discussing a design together in the graphics studio, calling over this person or that person to get a second opinion, arguing over a cover line or brainstorming together for the best visual concept to convey a theme or mood.

A lot of us kept hoping for that definite “day after” when everything would be back to normal: the office would be pulsing with colleagues and creativity and the magazine would be shaped once again by the more-than-its-parts magic that comes with great teamwork.