Revisiting literary magazines through typographic aesthetics: The case of Planodion (1986–2012)

This article is concerned with the twofold identity of the literary magazine: as a material object, endowed with specific visual and tactile characteristics, and as a textual medium, active in the intellectual sphere. Moving beyond the traditional dichotomy between form and content and following a phenomenological approach, I examine the literary magazine as a multi-layered structure whose visual features (illustration, binding, vignettes and margins) work along its seemingly invisible aspects (form and content of text). I focus on Planodion magazine (1986–2012) and employing the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, I attempt to conceive the literary magazine as a living body, an expressive space capable of accommodating divergent experiences and meanings. Inquiring into the typographic aesthetics of the literary magazine, I also probe the boundaries separating discourse and image, and query their supposed autonomy.