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News from the Magosphere March 14th ’11

March 14, 2011 in Archives, Buzzwords, Clever ideas, Death of print, Magazine covers, News round-up | No comments

Australian design magazine redesigns
Looks interesting – wish its international distribution was redesigned also. Speaking of which…

Graphic design magazines of the world
…unite! Michael Bojkowski, art director of Grafik, is writing up a series of excellent summaries of others in their field. Perhaps an interesting international content exchange of sorts could be arranged?

Subscribers don’t like magazine going online only
I’m sure there are sound financial reasons for not offering the option of a refund – and instead asking subscribers to give more for the privilege – but in PR terms, it does seem to have been handled poorly

The best and worst selling covers from 2010
Kate Middleton comes out pretty badly from this

Seven years of The Nation covers
Fiddly navigation aside, this site from designer Stephen Kling contains inside stories, rejected covers and a lot of sharp political cover satire. Hit “Table of Contents” for further tales (via Unbeige)

101 Ways to read the New York Times
Well, almost. Such is the power of diversification

Seven ways magazines are using social media
Not as witless as some of the articles on this topic

Emphas.is launches in beta to crowdfund important photojournalism
Part Kickstarter, part lobbying group, part community forum, it has an amazing board of reviewers, including many top magazines represented. I also love that anyone who funds 50% of a project gets first refusal rights on publishing the result (with the photographer’s approval)

This is the best time to be in magazines!
He’s right, though it’s certainly not the best time to be a publisher

Egoïste returns
Four years since the last one, and as heavy as it ever was (thanks Kati)

If you haven’t got a correspondent…
Call a phone box. Lovely sideways piece of thinking by the SZ magazine

JPG brings in a famous guest curator
Great concept that fits the mag well. Unfortunately, the online preview of the issue only features one photo from the set he chose

Archive magazines online alongside yearbooks, newsreels and music
This kind of contextual linking is only going to get bigger. Can’t wait

Test drive a car on a print ad
Via a natty iPhone app and some smart thinking

How the Businessweek cloud cover came about
Always assuming it wasn’t a conceptual copy of this Italian newspaper supplement cover from January. Sidenote: I’m really enjoying Richard’s tumblrlog experiments

New York is placing archives and unused cover concepts on Flickr
There’s a lot to enjoy right there – you can also follow art director Chris Dixon on Twitter

What happened to the staff after the newspaper closed
They should illustrate and publish their survey via The Newspaper Club, for irony kicks

Videogame magazine nostalgia
Cos it’s not just about the pixels

Review of 2010: Onwards, upwards

December 19, 2010 in Archives, Buzzwords, Clever ideas, Death of print, Fashion, ipad, Magazine covers, Opinion, Personal promotion, Review, stack, Stranded magazine, Trend | 3 comments

It’s been a fascinating year for magazines.

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Stranded is digital!

October 8, 2010 in Buzzwords, Clever ideas, ipad, Stranded magazine, technology | No comments

Stranded is now digital! Available exclusively via the Zinio platform alongside side projects with similar budgets such as Rolling Stone, National Geographic, Esquire and The Economist, it’s a clean $5, all of which goes to the International Rescue Committee.

Zinio’s reader is available on iPhone, iPad, PC, Mac, Game & Watch, all LG front-load washing machines (not the 89T washer-dryer) and ZX Spectrum.

And you can buy the Zinio edition of Stranded here.

For the story behind Stranded, click here.

Ten things #8: Filling the pages

October 7, 2010 in Buzzwords, Death of print, Review, technology, Trend | 1 comment

(Image: an Indigo digital printing press by HP)

The last ten years or so has been a remarkable time for personal publishing. The rise of online is very well documented; however, we’ve also seen a huge reduction in the barriers to entry for self-publishing in print.

Desktop publishing software has become affordable (or even free), print-on-demand suppliers such as Lulu and MagCloud now remove much of the financial risk of short-run creations, and The Newspaper Club has made newsprint available to everyone. All you need is some design knowhow, and some words.

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Photoshop is not the only fruit

September 18, 2010 in Buzzwords, Fashion, Magazine covers, Trend | 1 comment

The November issue of Spanish Elle is trumpeting “12 famous women without Photoshop or make up” – four of them are featured on the cover.

They promise videos to come of the Making Of – which will presumably reveal the use of heavy-duty studio flash, and, in order to get those backgrounds appearing identical, colour correction.

We’ve seen all this before, many times. I’m not the first to point this out, but a sense of perspective among all this holier-than-thou, please. You may not be able to remove pimples in camera with a swipe of a clone tool, but you can sure make them all but invisible with the right studio and camera set up, if you know what you’re doing. Photoshop and make up are not the only tools we have, they’re just the ones that we’ve made the public feel angry about.

Ready or not, here it comes – part one

July 23, 2010 in Buzzwords, Opinion, technology, Trend | 7 comments


(Image by the Clippy Image Generator)

The design-related Blogotweetspheroid has been bubbling with bile at new venture Ready-Media, a creation of Satan and his minions well-known designers/typographers Roger Black, Eduado Danilo, Sam Berlow, Robb Rice and David Berlow.

I’ve not commented until now, as I’ve been trying to get my head around the controversy. Here’s how it looks to me, and you might not like it.

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About the WiPad

May 31, 2010 in Buzzwords, ipad, technology | No comments

The Wired iPad app seems to be the first one that people are really taking seriously, following Popular Science‘s early foray into the arena.

The major sticking points against it so far seem to be based around its size (500mb), the fact that it’s made up of flat, exported PNGs, and how you aren’t sure when to scroll down, and when not, all of which are eminently fixable.

Oliver Reichenstein of Information Architects (who design news websites, among other things) however has spotted what he feels are more fundamental issues with the design. Over on the IA blog, he takes a much closer look at the grid and typography of the thing, and in doing so ends up in a fascinating conversation with the font designer of much of Wired‘s content, Jonathan Hoefler, and the creative director of NYT Online, Khoi Vinh.

What you get is a fascinating masterclass in some current design thinking (and disagreements) over designing for the iPad, and for screens in general. Essential reading, basically.

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