Time Keeps On Slipping Into The Future
Have you ever tried to pinpoint the exact time when you decided you wanted to be a designer, illustrator, blog host or whatever? You you ask me I’ll always cite i-D’s Heroes & Sheroes issue from 1989 [i-dmagazine.com/63] as the main reason I wanted to become a Graphic Designer. Under Terry Jones [wikipedia.org] direction, Stephen Male created a joyous riot of colour, imagery and ideas. Much of the graphic techniques employed came about from messing around in the tactile world of graphic reproduction, pre-computers. A mere two or three years later and everything had changed with the rise of the Apple Mac (I touched on this briefly in the Colophon2007 compendium, ‘We Love Magazines’ [gestalten.com]). It was during this period in time that I was studying Graphic Design at university and one of the first books I remember buying and making my own mini bible was Terry Jones‘ book ‘Instant Design: A Manual of Graphic Techniques’ [flickr], the back cover of which you can see above.
Inside Mr Jones outlined the many visual effects you could achieve with relatively little equipment and a whole lotta pace. These included using handmarks, stencils, typewriters, photocopiers, collage (or ‘montage‘ as he preferred to call it), polaroids and video. I remember finding photocopiers particularly intriguing (in a design sense, I wasn’t some wierdo photocopier fancier. Promise.) and experimented loads with cutting and pasting blown up typefaces all over the place (sometimes tracing and redrawing them with technical pens to get cleaner lines). Results were relatively instantaneous, but most importantly it was really fun.
Unfortunately my book got damaged by a pesky housemate towards the end of my studies when rain came in through an open window and we have remained apart even since, apart from a brief flirtation (with said book, not the housemate) a year or so ago at the Dover Street Market [doverstreetmarket.com] where expense dictated browsing to be the order of the day… until now. I found a copy in Brighton this weekend and we are now reunited. I want to share Mr Jones’ thought on time with you, dear friends. This text is taken from the back page of said book and goes some way to explain why he thought it’s good to consider design as being ‘instant’ in the first place…
“Time is our most precious commodity. I believe you can only live for the moment, learn from the past and work for the future. Time influences the human state of mind; friend or enemy, we make time or we lose it. Our lives are measured by it and history makes us feel guilty when we waste it…. Clocks are monuments to the world’s greatest commodity… Human preoccupation with time stops when we die and one of the greatest epitaphs, ‘I made the time’, is inscribed on the tombstone of the British painter Stanley Spencer… as Manley Buchanan said… ‘Time is running and passing and running so you better all get it right this time cos’ there might not be a next time’.
Side Notes: Steven Heller is a fan of i-D [aiga.org/defining-style-making-i-d]
A very brief interview for Eye Magazine [eyemagazine.com]
in Colophon2007 / Graphic Design / Ideas / Modern Relics / Publications
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Reading Matters
Hand Job: A Catalog of Type
The Princeton Architectural Press [papress.com] have been making some interesting publishing choices of late, particularly those of the non-architectural kind. Hand Job is an investigation into hand-drawn typography and recent trends away from mechanical typesetting. If that sounds a bit dry the physical publication is anything but. What you get is a lovingly crafted catalogue of modern day illustrators happy to play with type. The book is curated by Michael Perry [midwestisbest.com], a Brooklyn based designer, and features the work of 55 different designers and illustrators, big and small such as Travis Stearns [iammintcondition.com], Adrian Johnson [adrianjohnson.co.uk], Matilda Tristram [lovelycat.co.uk], Adam Hayes [mrahayes.co.uk] and loads more. You can get your grubby mitts on a copy by visiting [papress.com/handjob] or your friendly neighbourhood design bookshop.
Nico
You may have noticed a shipment of bulky silver ‘book like’ magazines appearing in stores around London town. This is Nico magazine [nicomagazine.com] and is your first stop should you wish to catch up on this year’s Colophon2007 event, held in Luxembourg earlier this year. We’ve already talked about Colophon loads on Boicozine, mainly because we did a spot of ‘live blogging’ [see boicozine/colophon] from Colophon via MagCulture [magculture.com/blog], but this really is the definitive magazine companion to the event. There are interviews with most of the lead speakers by Andrew Losowsky, one of the event curators and it’s published by Mike Koedinger [mikekoedinger.com] whose team pull off the whole thing so seamlessly. That’s just a small part of this lush publication though, there’s loads more to check out and this is only issue one (which I guess means Mr Magazine [mrmagazine.wordpress.com] will be making sure he has his copy).
Colophon Redux, Part Four
More reportage from Colophon2007 [colophon2007.com], the International Magazine Symposium, held at Casino Luxembourg in early March.
Sunday, Day Three
Magazines that break boundaries
Curator, Jeremy Leslie gave a lush presentation to kick off the last day of talks at Colophon2007 that simply presented a personal selection of inspirational magazine design and editorial through the decades, and I’m not just gushing about it cause I was writing from his blog, honest. Some of the magazines in this presentation included The Face [wikipedia] and Speak [speakmag.com].
Advertising (ahem)
Boz Temple-Morris, forever to be known as the inventor of Death cigarettes [wikipedia/death_cigarette], played devil’s advocate today in presenting a round table discussion on advertising and how drawing advertisers fits in (or in many cases doesn’t) with producing an independent magazine. The main problem with introducing advertising into independent magazines seems to be that it automatically compromises the editorial of said magazine. There were many solutions to this dilemma breached including setting up an umbrella agency to feed carefully selected advertising to independent magazines or creating promotional opportunities that brands could tie themselves in with (Tokion [tokion.com] are particularly adept at this technique) or just ignoring advertisers all together and use other resources to fund your magazine.
Paper murderers and print junkies
No discussion of magazines and magazine design would be complete without some sort of homage to typography. Lars Harmsen [bastard-project.com] and Flo Gaertner [slanted.de] presentation provided this, also giving us an idea of creative trends spreading out from Germany and Europe as an added bonus, all set to a distinctive musical soundtrack. More a mini typeface appreciation society than topical discussion, this was a great follow on from Jeremy’s presentation earlier today. Some of the magazines included in this presentation included brand eins [brandeins.de], Spex [spex.de], Mono Kultur [mono-kultur.com] and Mark magazine [mark-magazine.com].
Colophon Redux Ends. A warm, round of applause goes to Mike Koedinger [mikekoedinger.com] and his team for greasing the wheels that made Colophon2007 run so smoothly and made it so much fun. Thanks!
Colophon Redux, Part Three
Further reportage from Colophon2007 [colophon2007.com], the International Magazine Symposium, held at Casino Luxembourg in early March.
Saturday, Day Two
From the vaults
Magazines serve to document of our times, lives and ideals so it was more than appropriate for Horst Moser, designer and author [independent-medien-design.de], to present a selection of images from ‘the world’s largest private magazine library’. His discussion underlined just how magazines stand as documents of our times, often more relevent than books or film because they often feature discussion on various media within their pages. Examples were culled from his extensive and very impressive library.
Slanted and enchanted
Some cheeky scamps had set themselves up in the mailbox room and were creating and defacing various portraits and posting them up on the walls at Colophon2007. Turns out it was fellow blog enthusiasts, Slanted [slanted.de]. There is now a whole wall of these images in the foyer which you can see if you visit the Colophon2007 Flickr group [flickr.com/groups/colophon2007].
I also posted a discussion on the round table topic for today, which was ‘Editors vs. Designers’ but most of it has gone. I may attempt to resurrect it at a later date. As a type of summary, didn’t seem to be a lot of tension there (this could have been because most of the magazine creators on the panel were from independent magazines). The hot topic seem to be more about creativity (designers and editors) versus commerical concerns (advertisers). Which fitted neatly into Sundays round table chaired by Boz Temple-Morris. I also missed possibly one of the more exciting discussions of the day presented by David Renard. I’m having trouble admitting this because of the resonating discussions about his presentation. I even got caught up, mid bus ride, in a candid discussion (literally) between Mr Renard, Samir Husni (Mr Magazine) and curator Jeremy Leslie, luckily bowing out before having to admit that I had not been in on his talk. Oh the shame! Still I’ve fessed up. Now, maybe someone can fill me in on what happened… please.
Colophon Redux continues…
Colophon Playlists
As part of Colophon2007, a number of magazines from around the world sent in playlists which made up a mad kind of ‘Radio Colophon’ which was on high rotation in the ‘Room with a View’, store, bar and bistro in the glass entrance to Casino Luxembourg…
Lodown [lodownmagazine.com]
Varoom [varoom-mag.com]
Colophon Redux, Part Two
More reportage from Colophon2007 [colophon2007.com], the International Magazine Symposium, held at Casino Luxembourg in early March.
Friday, Day One
Serious Blogging
The Press Conference begins, officially launching Colophon2007. It’s wierd sitting at the back with all the cameras. I feel like a bit of an imposter. Press Conferences only seem to be relaxing for the Press. Do they get fed at the end? Does that mean I get fed at the end too? I saw some people running about with mountainous trays of delicious Lux sandwiches. Mmm… sandwiches. Downstairs the queue for Flash Passes is already reaching out the door. Over 500 flash passes have been already been purchased with even more being sold this morning. Altogether over 2,500 people are expected to attend the event. About half an hour ago it was pretty calm and senere in here but that all about to change.
Around the world in 15,000+ magazines
As I expected Samir Husni, aka Mr Magazine [mrmagazine.com] covered a whole lotta ground. Starting with the premise that Print is Dead, a topic that still seems to rear it’s head every few years, he then took us on a whirlwind journey through the treacherous and very serious world of magazine publishing in the States and beyond, expanding the discussion out into how the more traditional magazine format fits into the current and turbulent media landscape.
The weather’s wine, wish you were beer
I’m sitting in the ‘Room with a View’ at the moment. The view is looking farily wet, but no less picturesque… well maybe a little). I just missed curator, Andrew Losowsky’s [losowsky.com] round table discussion on distribution entitled ‘The Hard to Sell’. Actually, I was a bit late and the only place left to sit was inside the Streets/Fruits/Tune [fruits-mg.com] room which felt a little weird, especially because images from Brick Lane in London kept flicking up on the screen which happens to be just around the corner from where I live, a little slice of London in Luxembourg via Japan.
Colophon collaboration
Luis Mendo from Good Inc [goodinc.nl] delivered a rallying call to arms on Friday evening to get people involved in the first ever Colophon Magazine [colophonmagazine.com]. What I thought would be a brief discussion of the mechanics involved, became a presentation on idea generation complete with a spot of audience participation. Luis started with a film about the Colors magazine ‘Notebook’ project [colorsmagazine.com/notebook] and went on to divulge his own personal ways to stimulate creativivty and generate ideas. John Brown’s ‘Pick Me Up’ [johnbrowngroup.co.uk] got a look in as the first example of a creatively led project.
Colophon Redux continues…
Mag Spotting at Colophon
Magazine title spotting was major sport at Colophon2007 in the ‘Room with a View’ store. Everyone seemed to have their favourites yet were looking to be surprised. Mr Magazine [mrmagazine.com] added to his burgeoning library of first editions. Myself, I had a lot of trouble deciding and went back several times before purchasing a copy of Lemon [lemonland.net] and Spectator Cut & Paste [spectormag.net]. There were many freebies too. I’ll be posting more about me magazine purchases later on, below you can see a handful of welcome visitors. Look there’s soDA [soda.ch], Palais (the magazine of Paris’s ‘Palais de Tokyo’) [palaismagazine.com], OK Fred [slidelab.com], Bulgaria [bulgariamagazine.palvelukeskus.net] (who looked like they did loads of issues but actually produced four different covers for their annual publication) and Afterall [afterall.org].
Colophon Redux, Part One
I blame the internet… for everything, usually. A book I bought goes missing… the internet ate it, running late for work… bloody spam comments took too much time checking, bad hair day… well, I’d think of some way of blaming the internet. You know what the internet has gone and done now. It’s only deleted all me posts from MagCulture’s [magculture.com/blog] live blogging experiment whilst at Colophon2007 [colophon2007.com] in Luxembourg. Luckily the internet can back stuff up for you too, suddenly we’re friends again! Only I’ve had to rewrite these a bit, but they’re better now, I think. A big ‘ta very muchly’ to Jeremy at
Thursday, Preparations
Magazine people are the nicest sort of people
I’m sitting on the grand staircase at Casino Luxembourg [casino-luxembourg.lu], which I’ve decided is my fave spot for now. Things are starting to wind down after a frantic day getting spaces ready for tomorrow’s launch. A few of the magazines are still prepping their spaces. On the top floor Shift! [shift.de] are getting their ‘This should be made public’ artwork lined up using bits of string, Yummy magazine [eat-fast.net] are sticking the last of their little packets on their walls and Carl’s Cars [carls-cars.com] are putting bags of car shaped sweets on their walls. Other magazines with rooms at Colophon2007 include Coupe [coupe-mag.com], Frame [framemag.com], Omagiu [omagiu.com], Rojo [rojo-magazine.com], S Magazine [spublication.com], Street/Fruits/Tune [fruits-mg.com] and thisisamagazine.com [thisisamagazine.com].
Magazine people manufacture mystery
Something spooky has been going on in the Omagui room [omagiu.com]. For a start, it’s kinda of dark. There’s just a desk, a lamp, some chairs and what looks like a couple of military uniforms in the large-ish space (no windows). On the desk are a stack of Omagiu magazines and a big red book. Weird thing is every time I’ve looked in stuff seems to have moved around and yet I haven’t seen anyone around setting things up. It’s spooky.
Closure
Deep down in the underground vaults that lie beneath Casino Luxembourg is special place. Some might call it a sacred place. It’s a place where those that have been well loved (and sometimes equally well loathed) have been lain to rest. The names of those that fought and have fallen strewn the walls and nooks and crannies of this subterranean world… Yes, I’m being a tad melodramatic. This is the Magazine Graveyard (see ‘Your subscription has been cancelled’ in the official Colophon book, ‘We Love Magazines’ [die-gestalten.de]) where you can read about magazines that have made a mark on the cultural landscape before being taken out of print (but often not out of circulation). This is proving to be one of the most popular exhibits at Colophon2007 even before it’s opened.
Colophon Redux continues…
