Gratuitous Type Issue 4

Gratuitous Type is a magazine of design and art edited, designed, and published by Studio Elana Schlenker since 2011. Elements of the magazine’s design and structure appropriate conventions of pornography magazines to frame its otherwise innocuous subject matter. Extending this concept to its covers, each plays with strategies of censorship—in this case, acetate screenprinted with copper dots obfuscates the issue’s cover image. Trim size and saddlestitch binding remain consistent from issue to issue, while all other elements of the publication are redesigned with each new iteration. Nearly all photography in the magazine is commissioned and art directed exclusively for Gratuitous Type.