# Drum Magazine & Sophiatown Photojournalism

> The picture magazine of Black urban Africa in the 1950s. Drum adapted the Life and Picture Post formula to Johannesburg: Jürgen Schadeberg, its photographer and layout artist, and the Black photographers he trained filled it with close, candid black-and-white pictures of jazz, boxing, shebeens, defiance and undercover exposés, behind covers of hand-tinted stars and cover girls framed by a red-box masthead and boxed cover lines. By 1959 it distributed 240,000 copies a month across Africa.

- Period: 1951–1965
- Where: Sub-Saharan Africa
- Origin: Founded in Cape Town in March 1951 as The African Drum, edited by Robert Crisp with Jim Bailey's backing; Bailey took full control later that year, renamed it Drum and moved it to Johannesburg, where it ran through the Sophiatown years, with East and West African editions distributed across Anglophone Africa
- Branch: Pictorial & machine age
- Also known as: Drum, The African Drum, Sophiatown style, The Drum decade
- Page: https://stylogeny.com/styles/drum-magazine/

## Use it with care

Drum's photographs show real, named people, among them prisoners, farm labourers and protesters exposed to humiliation or danger under apartheid, and women cast as pin-ups by a magazine owned and edited by men. Many of the photographs are still under copyright in Bailey's African History Archive (BAHA), and the Drum name and masthead are owned by Media24. Borrow the system (candid black-and-white picture features, hand-tinted cover portraits, boxed punchy cover lines), never a particular photograph, the Drum name or masthead, or a real person's likeness. Do not fabricate 'documentary' scenes of real events or of apartheid-era suffering, and never present a generated image as a Drum photograph or a historical record. Photograph or license your own named subjects; in a generated image, show the subject the brief supplies, dressed and posed with dignity, never an anonymous sexualised pin-up or generic 'township' Black people as retro decor. Drum's glamour sat beside full-page skin-lightener advertisements and sponsored beauty contests: do not lighten skin tones in hand-tinting or revive that beauty ideal.

## How it works

- Let documentary photographs carry the story: shoot close and candid among the people pictured, in black and white, and run them as picture features over several pages.
- Give every cover the same furniture: a short title of your own in white condensed capitals out of a red box at top left, and a red band, at the foot or under the title, carrying a slogan in script or swash italic, the month and the price.
- Put one star on the cover (a singer, dancer, boxer or cover girl), often a hand-tinted black-and-white photograph cut out against flat red, yellow or blue fields or a drawn ground, and pin boxed cover lines and roundels around the figure that sell the exposé, the scandal and the jazz inside.
- Run glamour and investigation in one issue: pin-ups, jazz, boxing, fiction and advice columns beside undercover exposés of farms, prisons and churches by 'Mr Drum'.
- Picture Black Africa as urban and modern (sharp suits, dance halls, shebeens and city streets), not the 'tribal' Africa of the first issues.
- Write cover lines and captions fast and punchy, in capitals with exclamation marks and page pointers ('see inside', 'p. 19').

## Its design choices

Defining choices make the style, characteristic ones are usual, occasional ones turn up now and then.

### Layout & composition
- [Framed panels](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/framed-panels/) (defining)
- [Isolated object](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/isolated-object/) (characteristic)
- [Dynamic asymmetry](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/dynamic-asymmetry/) (characteristic)
- [Column grid](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/column-grid/) (characteristic)
- [Full bleed](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/full-bleed/) (occasional)

### Space & hierarchy
- [Layered information](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/layered-information/) (defining)
- [Sequential narrative](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/sequential-narrative/) (characteristic)
- [Single focal point](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/single-focal-point/) (characteristic)
- [Extreme scale contrast](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/extreme-scale-contrast/) (occasional)
- [Horror vacui](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/horror-vacui/) (occasional)

### Typography
- [Condensed display](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/condensed-display/) (defining)
- [All caps](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/all-caps/) (defining)
- [Grotesque & neo-grotesque](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/grotesque-and-neo-grotesque/) (characteristic)
- [Script](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/script/) (characteristic)
- [Eclectic mixing](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/eclectic-mixing/) (characteristic)
- [Hand-lettering](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/hand-lettering/) (occasional)

### Colour
- [Monochrome](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/monochrome/) (characteristic)
- [Primary triad](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/primary-triad/) (characteristic)
- [Flat fields](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/flat-fields/) (characteristic)
- [Limited spot colours](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/limited-spot-colours/) (occasional)
- [Light ground](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/light-ground/) (occasional)

### Form & shape
- [Naturalistic depiction](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/naturalistic-depiction/) (defining)
- [Rectilinear](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/rectilinear/) (occasional)
- [Angular & zigzag](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/angular-and-zigzag/) (occasional)

### Surface & texture
- [Grain & noise](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/grain-and-noise/) (characteristic)
- [Halftone & Ben-Day dots](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/halftone-and-ben-day-dots/) (characteristic)

### Ornament
- [Restrained accents](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/restrained-accents/) (characteristic)
- [Rules & bars](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/rules-and-bars/) (characteristic)
- [Borders & frames](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/borders-and-frames/) (occasional)
- [Emblems & badges](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/emblems-and-badges/) (occasional)

### Imagery
- [Straight photography](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/straight-photography/) (defining)
- [Treated photography](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/treated-photography/) (characteristic)
- [Photomontage](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/photomontage/) (occasional)
- [Comic & cartoon](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/comic-and-cartoon/) (occasional)

### Medium & production
- [Offset printing](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/offset-printing/) (characteristic)

### Tone & intent
- [Warm & approachable](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/warm-and-approachable/) (defining)
- [Rebellious & subversive](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/rebellious-and-subversive/) (characteristic)
- [Playful & witty](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/playful-and-witty/) (characteristic)
- [Communal & popular](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/communal-and-popular/) (characteristic)
- [Luxurious & glamorous](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/luxurious-and-glamorous/) (occasional)
- [Romantic & sensual](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/romantic-and-sensual/) (occasional)
- [Agitational & persuasive](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/agitational-and-persuasive/) (occasional)

Avoids: Folk & sacred symbols, Non-representational, Typography only, Generous white space, Rational & objective, Calm & contemplative

Palette: #d42a2f, #f3c934, #151413, #ece5d3, #8c8781, #4f7fb8

Typefaces: Condensed gothic capitals (the masthead, in white out of a red box at top left: THE AFRICAN DRUM in June 1951, DRUM after Bailey renamed it), Swash italic and brush script (the white slogan: 'A Magazine of Africa for Africa' in brush script, June 1951; 'Africa's Leading Magazine' in bold swash italic, 1955–1956, and in joined lowercase script, September 1957), Condensed sans capitals (cover lines in black on white or yellow boxes, or in white on red or black boxes or straight on the photograph: 'Mr. Drum Turned Out of Church' and 'Let the People Drink!', March 1956; 'Reef Girls Forced into Love', June 1957; 'Treason Trial – The Big Story', September 1957)

Known for: The African Drum, June 1951: a black-and-white portrait of a boy beside a globe, under the red-box title and over the script slogan 'A Magazine of Africa for Africa'; Henry Nxumalo ('Mr Drum'), 'Bethal Today', an eight-page undercover exposé of farm labour in Bethal with Jürgen Schadeberg's photographs (March 1952); 'We Defy': photographs of the Defiance Campaign printed with Nelson Mandela's statement (August 1952); a 1952 Defiance Campaign issue with an eight-page photographic essay sold a record 65,000 copies; Bob Gosani, secret photographs of the humiliating 'tauza' search dance in the yard of the Fort prison, Johannesburg, shot from the top floor of a nurses' home overlooking it, whose publication in Drum caused a public outcry; Jürgen Schadeberg, Dolly Rathebe photographed for a Drum cover on a Johannesburg mine dump, a shoot that ended with both arrested under the Immorality Act; Drum cover, June 1957: Miriam Makeba at a microphone in a hand-tinted yellow dress before a wall of 78 rpm record sleeves, with the boxed cover line 'Reef Girls Forced into Love' and 'Stars of Jazz' along the foot; Drum cover, September 1957: a hand-tinted cover girl reclining on pink steps, with the boxed cover line 'Treason Trial – The Big Story'; Peter Magubane, photographs of the 1955 ANC convention, his first assignment after joining Drum as a darkroom assistant and driver in 1954

## Where it comes from, and what it’s close to

- Alike in its design choices: [Fotoromanzo (Italian Photo-Romance)](https://stylogeny.com/styles/fotoromanzo.md) (1947–present), 65% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Giallo Mondadori Covers (I Libri Gialli)](https://stylogeny.com/styles/giallo-mondadori.md) (1929–present), 58% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Nollywood Video Jacket & Film Poster](https://stylogeny.com/styles/nollywood-video-sleeve.md) (1992–present), 56% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Black Panther Party Graphics](https://stylogeny.com/styles/black-panther-graphics.md) (1967–1980), 56% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [ACT UP & Gran Fury AIDS Activist Graphics](https://stylogeny.com/styles/act-up-gran-fury.md) (1987–1995), 52% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [American Four-Colour Comic Book (Golden to Bronze Age)](https://stylogeny.com/styles/american-comic-book.md) (1934–1993), 52% alike

## Sources

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drum_(South_African_magazine)
- https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/drum-magazine ('Bethal Today', March 1952, 'the eight-page article' by Mr Drum; the Defiance Campaign issue's eight-page photographic essay; Bailey's takeover in 1951, the move to Johannesburg and the renaming)
- https://meap.library.ucla.edu/about/news/baha-archive-1951-1980-a-pan-african-vision ('heavily influenced by international picture magazines like Life and Picture Post'; five editions)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%BCrgen_Schadeberg
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Gosani
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Magubane
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Nxumalo
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolly_Rathebe
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Hopkinson
- https://peoplesgdarchive.org/item/1658/drum-magazine-february-1955 (only re-hosts Newman's February 1955 cover image)
- https://www.robertnewman.com/1950s-covers-of-south-africas-drum-africas-leading-magazine/ (dated cover images, 1951–1957)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_R._A._Bailey (African Drum based in Cape Town; Bailey's takeover, renaming and move to Johannesburg)
- https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/lifestyle/society/the-long-journey-of-drum-magazine-from-south-africa-to-kenya-2217358 ('established in March 1951 and launched in Cape Town by Robert Crisp'; Bailey 'took over later in 1951')
- https://aha.confex.com/aha/2009/webprogram/Paper1797.html (Lynn M. Thomas: skin-lightener ads in Drum and Zonk!, often full page and in colour, and beauty contests sponsored by their manufacturers)
- https://themediaonline.co.za/2011/10/happy-60th-birthday-drum-magazine/ ('We Defy', August 1952)
- https://henrynxumalofoundation.co.za/about-henry-nxumalo/ (BAHA scans of the March, May and July 1956 covers)
- Anthony Sampson, Drum: The Making of a Magazine (Jonathan Ball, 2005)

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From Stylogeny (https://stylogeny.com/), an atlas of graphic-design styles by Van Riel Online Services. How it is made: https://stylogeny.com/about/. Cite as: Stylogeny, “Drum Magazine & Sophiatown Photojournalism”, https://stylogeny.com/styles/drum-magazine/