Left: Country Roads' June 2007 cover, a work by Anna Macedo titled "Libra Fantastico." Right: Country Roads' September 2013 cover, a work by Anna Macedo titled "Little Juke Joint."
Anna Macedo, a creative spirit of the first order.
In September 1995, when Dorcas first invited Ashley and me to join her in publishing Country Roads, the person she made clear we had the most to learn from was Anna Macedo. As an artist, designer, and creative spirit of the first order, Anna was at that time at the height of her powers—a giant on the Baton Rouge advertising scene with a reputation as one of Louisiana’s great creative talents.
Back in 1983, when Dorcas first hatched the idea of starting a magazine, it was Anna to whom she turned to figure out what Country Roads—a magazine for “adventures close to home,” should look and feel like. So it was Anna who came up with the magazine’s visual signature: the chapbook-style artwork, the logo with the trotting horse, the approachable, scrapbook-y quality of the page layout; and certainly the little flourishes of warmth and whimsy that separated early issues of Country Roads from its brethren, marking it as something quirkier, more handmade, perhaps—than your standard magazine fare. Like Anna’s artworks, her page designs were little masterpieces—layered collages brimming with evocative visual cues and playful references that made reading those early issues a bit of a visual treasure hunt. As a reader you wanted to run your hands over them, and felt like a welcomed guest let in on a funny story with a punchline soon to come.
Country Roads' September 2008 issue, featuring artwork by Anna Macedo titled "Why Did the Chicken. . . ?"
By 1995, although Anna’s visual signature had endured, the publishing world had moved on. Magazine design had migrated to the desktop computer and Country Roads’ page layout process, which still consisted of using hot wax to paste text, images, and headlines onto art boards in Dorcas’s back hall—was the relic of a bygone age. So, when Ashley and I arrived, armed with youthful enthusiasm but not the first idea how to put together a magazine, Dorcas sent us straight to Anna.
[Read this story by Anna Macedo: "Design Veterans of the Digital Revolution".]
Artist and designer Anna Macedo's mark still lives in Country Roads' pages today, in the typesetting, the design style, and the spirit.
What followed was a crash course in the hidden artistry of page design. For a week Ashley and I sat at Anna’s elbow, spellbound as she took the raw material of storytelling—text, artwork, type treatments, flourishes, and curlicues—and wove them into illustrated manuscripts that invited the reader in, drew the eye to what mattered most, and encouraged it to linger. Late on the day that first redesigned issue was scheduled for the press, we realized to our horror that we had somehow forgotten to consider the cover (rookie mistake), and were left with about thirty minutes to conceive and execute what was certainly the most important page layout of all. After a moment’s thought, Anna turned from her computer to her drafting table and, armed with a hot wax roller and an Exacto knife, began dissecting a pile of art books, tourist brochures and travel journals. Then she assembled this beautiful collage of Louisiana imagery that, just like that, felt like a postcard from home. Thus was the tradition of Anna creating Country Roads’ covers born.
Country Roads magazine Early Spring 1996 cover, the first issue overseen by publishers James and Ashley Fox-Smith, with the invaluable help of Anna Macedo.
So here, in this first issue to be published since Anna’s passing, we pay tribute to Country Roads’ creative wellspring, gentle teacher, and dear friend, by sharing a few of her masterpieces that graced the cover of the magazine she ushered into being. Shine on, Nana. Your memory will always be a blessing.
See more of her work at annamacedo.com.
