Tom Ford

The awards mentioned in the previous post are restricted to French publications, but if they looked elsewhere I'm sure these would have made it into the shortlist.

Congradulations Dolce & Gabanna

After flicking through a recent publication of Pop magazine it takes more than 50 pages to reach any editorial copy. Like most magazines of its kind, it's full of advertising campaigns for fashion brands. Until recently, I had not really given too much thought to the sexist depiction of women in these adverts. But then I found that in 2008 Dolce & Gabbana won the 2008 Macho prize for this advert. I was surprised that this award even existed and whether it's a good or bad prize to win I am still unsure of.

What's The Problem?

So what's the problem with the world? I'm sure we all have our own opinions but do any of us ever take the time to listen to anyone else's opinions? J.r.carnest decided to ask people for his final major project for Vancouver Film School.

"I’ve been always interested in people’s different opinions and point of views, especially what we as human beings think about our little world and what better question than ask people what they think the problem in the world is and not just that but also, if they gave me an answer, ask them if they have a solution for that problem or if they have been doing something about it and that is what this documentary is about. The objective was to show people’s different point of views and put the question out there to people think about and maybe start doing something".

An interesting insight into peoples thoughts about the world we live in. Delivered in the form of a 16 minute documentary with some great animation at the start.

Watch the film here

The Endurance

Currently on display at Liverpools Maritime Museum are photographs from Ernest Shakletons 1914 Artic Expedition. Frank Hurley was the official photographer on the ship and 150 of his photographs are featured in the exhibition. I was blown away by the collection, especially the shots taken during the 10 months the boat, The Endurance, was trapped in ice) and how he was able to battle the fierce weather conditions to capture the harsh reality of the Antarctic.

After this he went on to capture images of WW1 and WW2, taking considerable risks to photograph his subjects.

Internet Art

If I were to buy a piece of art, it would be to have on display in my home. I would buy it because it would be a physical thing which would add character to the room. The point of displaying it in my home would be that I would see it everyday and I would enjoy looking at it.

So what happens when the art you buy isn't a physical piece of art that you can't touch?

Rafael Rozendaal makes interactive art through the form of a website. So if you want to purchase his work, you purchase the domain name. As well as the domain name, you get a certificate, which is also a contract stating that the website must remain open for the public. It's a great way to own the piece and to share it with the rest of the world. But why pay to own it when every time you want to see it, its free? Although you do get 'collection of...' in the title bar of the website which is a nice touch.

I think it's a great idea and an interesting way to bring art to the masses, but the idea of paying for it when it's free seems strange to me. I must admit though, I think his work is amazing. I could spend hours playing with the websites. And yes, I did unravel the whole toilet role.


www.newrafael.com

Pop Art

Love or Hate?

Who likes Contemporary Art? If you do, why?

I found myself asking this question during a trip to the Saatchi Gallery the other weekend. I must admit, I could walk past some of the pieces with little or no interest in them, wondering what the hell the curator was thinking when deciding what to include in the exhibition.

I find it a love or hate relationship. If the piece does not affect me in any way, then I think it to be pointless and in most cases, over hyped. But when the piece affects me in ways I least expected, then I find myself loving the piece and wanting to tell everyone about it. Littlewhitehead's It happened in the Corner (second from top) stirred a mixture of feelings. Making the viewer curious to find out what everyone is looking at in the corner and why, but at the same time creating a great sense of unease and nervousness as to the reason for the crowd and a reluctance to pursue your curiosity.

Another Blog - Continued

The design blog and its purpose is something which I have questioned before in recent posts. They range from those which are updated a number of times on a daily basis, usually offering a limited commentary on the work like Form Fifty Five or It's Nice That. To the design blogs which posts lengthy essays on a less regular basis than the previous examples, such as Design Observer. Both kinds of blogs are good in their own right and have people reading them for different reasons.

Interestingly, on a recent post on Form Fifty Five, its purpose is questioned and the question is asked whether they should provide a 'more shared thought' on the designers and their work. Here's an extract from the post:

One thing that does seem a little negative about all these sites is that there is very limited information on the work found or shared thought.
This is something the FFF Team have been talking about for a while now. Should we spend more time writing in more detail about single projects, rather than just linking a designer with the obligatory ‘Mr. X has updated his portfolio’. In the next couple of months we’re going to restructure FFF’s design and team and see where we can take where we can take things in the future.

Also, read the second to last comment for an interesting view on the subject:

Glenn, I use this website as a quick and easy browse to see what is going on. I tend to read a bit of the blurb that the editors write but mostly click straight on the link and view for myself. I do not come here for a lengthy read merely to look at the pictures and click on the links.
Also, the speed and number of quality posts that FFF feature is what is key for me. Nearly every day that I come back there is something new to look at. I know you all have jobs outside of FFF and therefore if you had to post a lengthy indepth essay a lot of the time then a majority of the editors would be put of (I assume).
This website (FFF) is targeted to, IMO, the design community therefore a lunch hour is all we have really, considering the rest of the day is consumed by a multitude of guff. If I wanted to more indepth look and education I would pick up a book, and if I wanted to read specifically online I would go to other blogs (Design Observer, Thought of the day, etc…).
If it ain’t broke…

Print On Demand

With long print runs being more cost effective, there are always going to be left over magazines. A thorn in the side of publishers everywhere. Various print on demand services have been popping up recently, but MagCloud seems to be leading the race, combining print on demand services with distribution. Could this be the start of an exciting new era for print?

Distribution

 
As mentioned previously, distribution is a factor causing dwindling magazine sales. Consider the Newsagent is a great essay on the subject.

The Future of Magazines

The demise of the magazine industry can be put down to many contributing factors, such as environmental pressures and rising distribution costs, but none so much as new media technology which allows the consumer to access media-rich entertainment, news, analysis and opinion delivered the instant they are relevant. Blogs fall into this category, delivering daily posts on all that is relevant (and sometimes irrelevant) about the world we live in. In this case, lets take design blogs. They deliver constant updates on design, photography, illustration, architecture, installation, and art amongst many other things which are accessible at only the click of a mouse. What's even better about this experience is that when the blog has said all it has to say, the click of a link will introduce you to more pieces of work by the creative through their website, enabling you to learn more about the work and the creators, something which magazines can never compete with due to their physical limitations. This, combined with the standards of design blogs being so high at the moment and for free, their seems little future for design magazines.

We Make Magazines

After looking through the book We Make Magazines, it is hard to imagine the statement in the my previous post being true. After just a quick flick through you will find yourself browsing a directory to over 700 of the most cutting-edge independent magazines. It creates a great sense of warmth knowing that inside those magazines their is so much creativity waiting to be read and admired.

This directory is only a small ending to the book though. We Make Magazines includes spreads from some of the best independent magazines the world has to offer. Not only does it show over 100 creative and diverse magazines in detail, it offers an fascinating insight into them with mini interviews on cetain topics such as; What is your relationship with advertising, What is the secret of your success, Where do you want your magazine to be in five years, as well as many others. This provides a valuable insight into these magazines on surface level but I would have preffered some more in depth answers than were given.

Dispersed throughout the pages are 'Tell us everything" interviews with selected magazines. These give a much more in depth insight into that specific magazine concerning the beginning, how it is made and the future of the magazine which make for an intriguing read.

We Make Magazines is a great source of inspiration and reference when it comes to magazine design and layouts and along the way offers some interesting (although not hugely thought provoking) interviews.

The Last Magazine - Continued

"Within twenty-five years a mere 10 percent of the paper-based magazine industry will remain, sustained by connoisseurs, aficionados, and aging Luddites. David Renard. (2006) The Last Magazine, New York: Universe Publishing.

Yes, another quote from The Last Magazine (see earlier post) but one I find worrying and reluctant to believe, no matter how much truth to it. The last thing I want to see is some of my favourite magazines bite the dust because of the virtual revolution. One which has already succumb to the statement is Grafik magazine, although the reasoning for this may not actually have much to do with the magazine itself and more to do with the publishers going into liquidation. It still surprised me as Grafik is/was one of the most popular Graphic Design magazines, always to be sure to have its rightful place on any designers or studios bookshelf.

But with magazines like Grafik, Computer Arts and Creative Review for example, it is key to have an online presence so they can communicate with the target audience through the website and social media platforms amongst others, but when they have blogs, articles and special reports on the website all for free, there seems to be little point in spending your hard earned money on the printed item which can be quite expensive (take Grafik for example... £9!) This is a tricky balance to achieve, with the website having to be interesting enough to visit it, but not have too much on it so that people stop buying the magazine. But the magazines who survive will have to find this balance and ultimately have a magazine which offers more than digital.

After this surprise, it makes you wonder what magazine will be next to go. Could the shift to online media finally catch up with some of the major players in the industry? Pop, Dazed and Confused, GQ, will they be able to survive in the future years?

The Last Magazine

"Magazines as we know them, are dying. Ink and paper, the materials that have defined magazines for over 250 years, are dissolving gradually into digital bits and bytes". David Renard. (2006) The Last Magazine, New York: Universe Publishing.

This extract is the extremely relevant opening sentence to The Last Magazine. Described as:
An anthology of 150 of the world's most cutting-edge art, fashion, photography, architecture, and design periodicals currently in publication traces the evolution and future of magazines in the digital age, in a visual survey that features essays from such top industry thinkers as Steven Heller, Terry Jones, and Robert Sacks.

As the world and the design industry move to all things digital, The Last Magazine questions the future of the printed medium and where its future lye's within its rapidly changing environment. With words from David Renard, Angelo Crimele, Nick Hampshire, Rankin and Bob Sacks to name a few, sharing their valuable thoughts on this topic, it makes for a truly interesting read which delves into all areas of the magazine industry, from design to distribution. If anything, after reading the essays from these industry experts at the start of the book, I was left wanting to read more on the subjects and dissapointed that the rest of the book did not offer this.

But with over 250 pages packed with magazine spreads ranging from childish illustrations to photo journalism that your mum might mistake as a spread from a porn mag, my dissapointment was thrown aside with the visual feast that is served up. Whilst turning the pages, you really get a sense of the freedom and creativity which these magazines thrive upon and what makes the experience so much more pleasurable is the insight into the many different cultures which are represented. With the book measuring a hefty 250mm x 330mm, the images are a perfect size to see the magazines in the detail they deserve.

With the rise in design blogs making magazines dated as soon as the ink is applied, The Last Magazine makes you admire the people who refuse to be beaten and continue to make compelling, relevant and intriguing publications. The opening essays combined with the many examples of the best magazines make The Last Magazine a valuable source of written information on the magazine industry, and also a perfect reference book for inspiration.

Battle of the...

Whilst I'm on the subject of blogs, I'd like to get your thoughts on creating and maintaining one. As I said in my previous post, I have blogged before. I have previously used tumblr to create postings on the design related world and as you can see now, I'm using blogspot.

So what I'd like to hear from people reading this is which one's better?

I know what I think. I find tumblr much easier to use when it comes to posting images, video and music. I also enjoy the news feed of all your blogger friends posts, a little like the facebook homepage. It is through these unexpected postings that I have found some very interesting material.

One thing that tumblr doesn't have is a commenting system like blogspot, hence the reason for the switch. For some people comments are an unwelcome addition to their blog and a way for people to clutter their minimalistic style sheet, so tumblr is fine, but for people who's blogs rely on comments to provoke conversation and interesting reading, blogspot has to be the answer out of the two.

But when it comes down to it, as a designer it always comes back to the same thing about blogspot. Why does it look so ugly? When creating this blog I browsed a few of the themes and was horrified! What ever happened to less is more? Does this bother other people enough to make the switch to another blog such as tumblr? Or maybe there are other blogging platforms out there which combine the best of both? Any insight to this would prove very interesting.

Since I'm backing the blue corner, is anyone going to back the orange?

Another blog

I'd like to start this blog with a little wikipedia fact: In June 2008, Technorati was indexing 112.8 million blogs, a figure that is likely to have risen significantly since then. This may come as a surprise to some people but to others, this figure will represent all those terrible blogs we've stumbled across on our various searches inside the world wide web in search for something interesting.

So the question is “Does the world need another blog”. The answer to this question is obviously no, but still hundreds, if not thousands of blogs are born every week from the insignificant ramblings of people who think that the world cares about what funny dance their cat did that morning.
The design world is no exception when it comes to cat dancing bloggers though, with the mass posting of peoples work with no real academic insight or beneficial rationale concerning the reason for the post, other than that of design eye candy.

Don't get me wrong, I love design eye candy. I too was also guilty of jumping on the eye candy band wagon, but with stats low on my blog I soon realised I was an insignificant blogger with my posts being lost in the sea of millions of design related images already out there. It is increasingly harder for new design blogs to be recognized by a mass audience as their are so many already out there, and people tend to read a couple of their favourites on a regular basis. Many of those design blogs who pull in the crowd were their at the start of the the design blog boom and are updated daily with postings on all of designs latest news. So for new blogs, just the prospect of having a few hundred regular readers can be a challenge.

Knowing that I can not keep up to speed on the numerous daily postings of whats in and whats not, I intend to discuss and review my findings within the design world rather than throw them in your face in such an impersonal manner with no explanation like before. Hopefully then some people may find my comments interesting but just like so many other blogs out there, it is likely my thoughts will go unnoticed by the vast majority of people.

I'd love to here what you think makes a good/bad blog and if you agree/disagree with my ramblings.

All comments welcome!