things to look at

Chicken magazine

2009-11-20T08:56:00.000-08:00

The cover of the Journal of British Chicken Association from May-June 1963 was printed black on red, and only about A5 size. I think it looks quite striking especially considering the subject matter!

Sunday Times

2009-11-14T23:55:00.000-08:00

Below are a selection of covers and spreads from The Sunday Times Magazine. The most famous being Don McCullin's Viet Cong piece. Rick Poynor writes about The devaluation of photography in magazines in EYE74 stating that it just isn't what it used to be. This is also mirrored in the recent New York Times piece which talks about war photography then and now. I think the below pages illustrate a time when imagery thrived.

Eureka Magazine

2009-11-06T03:12:00.000-08:00

Yesterday saw the unveiling of the second issue of Eureka, the new Times monthly supplement about science.

The Design team consists of art direction by Matt Curtis, information graphics by Matt Swift and design by David Loewe brought over specially from Berlin. The issues have also featured cracking illustrations from the likes of MASA, Robert Hanson and Raymond Biesinger.

There are more pictures over at Mag Culture. Here are some below.

Jeremy compares it to a less dense version of Wired which I would agree with. It seems to us here at Things to Look at that with these publications innovative information design is key in conveying content and injecting humour into the subject matter. American magazine Good could also be slotted into this genre of magazine. The sheer time it must take to visualise all this data is impressive.

One imagines a huge team behind each issue, yet it's a nine-strong team of editor, art director, picture editor, chief sub, information graphics designer, designer, plus 2 additional subs and a researcher. It looks like it's a lot of fun to work on.

Here are a few images of Good Magazine to see how other information design led magazines do it.

Geigy Heute

2009-10-06T14:23:00.000-07:00

A gem of 1958 diagram design, Geigy Heute (Geigy Today) designed by Karl Gerstner 1958 as featured in the recent publication from Lars Muller +Museum fur Gestaltung Zurich, titled "Corporate Diversity: Swiss Graphic Design and Advertising by Geigy"

Paradis 5

2009-09-20T02:21:00.000-07:00

Managed to get my hands on the latest issue of Thomas Lenthal's Paradis the other day. True to form, its the usual mix of interesting articles and gorgeous photography. Highlights include a nude shoot by Juergen Teller at the Louvre and a story on Luchino Visconti by his nephew Luchino Gastel.
The star of the issue by far and away is surely '55, rue de Babylone' a 16 page feature at the home of the late Yves Saint Laurent.
Photographed by Roberto Polidori we see a home of boxes and wrapped art in prepration for the Christie's art auction -
a great feature idea, impeccably executed.

Another Hayman Adventure

2009-07-02T07:21:00.000-07:00

Recent offerings from, Pentagram New York partner, Luke Hayman. We like big bold type on the openers and great infographics. See more on the Pentagram site.

Jan Kaplický Architect of the Future

2009-06-30T03:21:00.000-07:00

The Guardian dubbed him 'the most radical architects of the last 40 years'. Best known for designing the Media centre at Lord's and the branch of Selfridges in Birmingham's Bullring centre, Czech born Jan Kaplicky died this year and is the subject of a new exhibition on at The Design Museum along with the bigger-scale Mariscal, both opening tomorrow. Well worth a visit if you like crazy visions of the future. We, here at Things to Look At enjoyed peering very closely into the models so we could imagine some Logan's Run vision of the future.Here is what Design Museum's Deyan Sudjic has to say on the legend.

Walker Evans for Fortune

2009-05-21T03:10:00.000-07:00

We’re in the middle of commissioning a story here and like a bolt of lightning I remembered one of the most precious pieces of photographic journalism – Walker Evan’s story for Fortune magazine July 1955 on the beauties of the common tool.
There are countless essays on these photographs, its meaning and significance. I admire them for the questions they ask, who uses these tools, what are they are used for, why are they significant? These objects have been taken out of their everyday contexts - suddenly they are presented with such austerity, that they've take on a particular significance, suddenly they are special, important and beautiful. Perhaps these photographs were a metaphor for the social or economic or political class system. I suppose they could be interpreted in many number of ways - one thing that struck me was how stunning they look – something truly special I think.

Wired Magazine

2009-04-27T07:36:00.000-07:00

The EDO held its first lecture of the year last week, inviting the Creative Director of Wired magazine, Scott Dadich, to speak about his involvement with the magazine and the brand new UK edition that's just been launched. It was a glorious technicolor talk with an impressively animated presentation. Read all about it over at the Eye blog.

With an average circulation of 2 million, it was the ethereal dream of the budget that allowed for months of thinking time, grand plans and ridiculous details which made it stand out for us here at Things To Look At. Here are some examples...

You are inspired by a shot from Terminator 2, as many of us are

So you commission some sketches of rockets, some intricate CGI, of many individually crafted rockets with well thought out propulsion systems. A bit of on location desert photography and hey presto, there's your cover!

You get the iconic Martha Stewart to bake you a Wii cake that HAS to taste good and look like a Wii.

You ask the CGI wizards behind Transformers to render out your own 1gig Transformer image which is detailed down to the very last scratch on the eyeball

All so you can achieve the sorts of covers Wired is famed for. Here are a few more from its lifespan, more of which can be seen here or here.

To find out more about the deep processes behind Wired courtesy of Scott's entries on the blog of the US equivalent of the EDO, the SPD. You can even have a crack at designing your own cover here, although we couldn't make the image uploader work.

Other great parts of the talk were of course the amazing infographics

And the amazing attention to detail in some of the photography

Florid Type

2009-04-03T16:26:00.000-07:00

Type samples of fanciful typefaces from the Victorian period of typography, referred to as 'a great weedy jungle'. There was a growing practice of decorating the face of a classic letter style and surrounding it with 'shrubbery and doodling'. It's always interesting when these forgotten faces suddenly crop up in magazines or other contemporary graphic design.

Scroll Alphabet, German Chromolithographer, Louis Prang & Co., Boston, 1864

A leafy Tuscan font from the German calligrapher Joseph Balthazar Silvestre's Album published in 1843

Alphabet Lapidaire Monstre by the Swiss/French type designer Jean Midolle. The bottom third contains the surnames of famous men which correspond to each letter. The font was revived on Urban Outfitter's shopping bags last year.

Initial letters by one of America’s preeminent penmen, Daniel T. Ames, New York, 1879

Geigy

2009-03-20T11:24:00.000-07:00

Corporate Diversity : Swiss Graphic Design and Advertising by Geigy 1940 - 1970
Museum für Gestaltung Zürich; Janser, Andres; Junod, Barbara (Eds.)
2009, 208 p. 385 illus., 360 in color., Hardcover
ISBN: 978-3-03778-160-9
Lars Müller Publishers

There's something very beguiling about medical illustration reduced down to simple geometric shapes. Only in the 50's could an advert for fabric whitener look like a minimalist techno record cover. This is a great book, full of beautiful work.

New vs Old

2009-03-20T03:12:00.000-07:00

Jeremy just unveiled the new Architectural Review logo by Creative director Violetta Boxhill & art director Cecilia Lindgren. Over the years the AR has had various incarnations, it's rather refreshing to see this return to its heritage. One wonders what the redesign will look like inside. Will it also mirror the splendor of past designs? Our delve into the archive shows issues from 1967-1972 art directed by Bill Slack. The Eye blog has now posted up the redesign issue making some interesting comparisons between new and old. Here is a quote from the article about the pages spreads below.

Bill loved punning headlines (which he wrote himself so they’d fit his layouts) set all-caps in condensed grot fonts (like Twen magazine was doing in Germany), with Clarendon for text and captions, and Victorian display fonts to headline articles about architectural history. He mixed black and white architectural photographs printed on art paper with text printed on uncoated tinted stock, would turn the pictures at 90 degrees as content demanded and, where budget allowed, insert a dramatic gatefold.

Parr for Vuitton

2009-02-24T01:43:00.000-08:00

It’s been a while since we put up a fashion photograph on Things To Look At, no better way to kick start it than with Martin Parr’s images for Louis Vuitton I think. This work is particularly interesting, not only based on how good it looks but because there’s definitely an effort here to do something different. Its unusual because its fashion reportage – distinctly different from the posed glossy campaigns from years past. Its an interesting commission on Vuitton’s part to work with Parr, famous for his modern photo documentary style. The images have an easy elegance, it all seems unforced and seamlessly casual. The crops and focused shots on detail are almost movie like, which is further enforced by an apparent narrative. He’s on holiday (the bag), meeting with friends then off to a party in the evening (ok its not an Oscar, but at least there’s a story). Not quite sure how many times I’ve seen fashion campaigns work with the idea of a narrative in this way – I wish it’d happen more.

Designs of the Year 2009

2009-02-20T03:58:00.001-08:00

Just in case you haven't seen the pictures already posted here and here, here, we thought we'd show you some more! Other interesting entries we like the look of are:

The Pixel Clock
It's quite captivating to look at but will it be enough to win?

The Jar Tops
Not only is this stylish and beautigul it always wins for just being a great idea.

The Flyak
I am not sure if it's very practical but it is very long, very thin and very orange.

Italian Vogue
It's always good to have a magazine or two in the running.

All the Time in the World
Another moving piece. The transition between the numbers and letters is very hyponotic.

Job Wouters (Letman)
There are so many other interesting entries, the Wall Appeal, The Wooden Radio, The Jan Bons book. Well worth a visit to see such a varied range of designs.

Designs of the Year

2009-02-19T13:15:00.000-08:00

The Designs of the Year exhibition opened at The Design Museum this week. One of our favourite entries is the credit crunch diagrams designed by Guardian design team, lead by Michael Robinson

"Geometric shapes of proportional sizes show the value of objects past and present or convey the undulating markets in a simple yet clear way. The design team lead by Michael Robinson at the Guardian have consistently covered the financial news using this approach in order to make the information more accessible to a broad readership and convey the information without too much confusion whilst avoiding business terminology.”

Let's just have a closer look at these amazingly well thought out infographics. Click each picture to see the entire news page it came from.

EDO Party 2009

2009-02-11T09:16:00.000-08:00

A new year heralds year two of the newly founded Editorial Design Organisation. Last year we here at Things to Look at saw some iconic people talk about editorial design: Janet Frolich spoke about being the art director of The New York Times and T magazine. Jonathan Hoefler spoke about designing fonts for a plethora of publications ranging from Martha Stewart's Living to The Wall Street Journal. And Robin Derrick took us through 25 years at Vogue. Just some of the talks and debates on offer.

All in all the organisation is a great resource for everyone interested in editorial design from students to professionals. This was fully represented in the turnout at the party last week. Students met and talked with designers and art directors from publications such as Wallpaper, Eye, Creative Review, Case da Abitare plus many more. There was even an exhibition of work people gathered together by attendees which they considered represented the best work from 2008. Work by Studio 8 and Wired featured very prominently on the walls which was interesting.

All in all, a great start to what hopefully will carry on growing year after year. Here are some bits and bobs from the display. If you would like to join up and potentially see Scott Dadich, creative director of Wired magazine talk, sign up via the website.

Futu

2009-01-05T07:58:00.000-08:00

A little late in posting this, but I recently managed to get a hold of Polish magazine Futu, guest designed and art directed by Matt Willey at Studio 8. Apart from the type spectacular which runs throughout the magazine, I thought the info graphics pages really stole the show. For anyone who's worked with quantitive data in the past you will know only too well how difficult they can sometimes be. This solution does away with any complications, presenting the information as a showpiece in its own right - turning the mundane into something really special.

National Theatre Posters

2009-01-04T11:40:00.000-08:00

Poster designed by Ken Briggs and Associates, 1970

Whilst taking on the tiresome challenge of christmas shopping this year, I was lucky enough to come across the National Theater's online poster shop which I think deserves a big mention here. Apart from the boring part of actually raising money and selling posters the website offers a great glimpse into the visual changes that have taken place over the years at the NT.

I remember Simon Esterson's review of Ken Briggs’s National Theatre programmes in Eye 58 and was very pleased to see that his posters were also available to buy. Perhaps a little predictably, I can't help but feel that the 60's and 70's posters are the highlights here - happy shopping.

Type Book

2008-12-12T07:33:00.000-08:00

1930 - the News Chronicle newspaper is formed by the merger of the Daily News and the Daily Chronicle
1960 News Chronicle merges with the Daily Mail

This is the News Chronicle specimen book as complied by the Advertising director: W.E. Tomlin. Tomlin regarded this book as different from the ordinary newspaper type-book because it contained full alphabets on paper which didn't affect the visual weight of the face.

G2

2008-12-09T07:22:00.000-08:00

The Guardian's G2 on Monday featured some beautiful paper typography throughout from illustrator Yulia Brodskaya, also shown are a couple of pieces from her website Yulia Brodskaya

Studio Box

2008-12-04T15:26:00.000-08:00

We here at Things To Look At recently received a link to the archive of Studio Box; the design studio in Milan founded in 1987 by Robin Derrick, Claudio Del Olio and Daniele Basilico. We of course couldn't help but be impressed, favorites include the work on Italian Elle, Ad campaigns for Gianfranco Ferrer, Dolce & Gabbana, as well as the work for Italian furniture giants like B&B Italia, and Capellini amongst others.

The archive marks an exciting chapter in the history of fashion and graphic design, bold and expressive use of typography and image making.
The studio still exists and continues its collaboration with fashion, retail and commercial clients, and long may it continue. Many thanks to Paul from The EDO for pointing this out to us.

Alumni Magazine

2008-11-26T23:56:00.000-08:00

Mag Culture reviewed the latest offering from Luke Hayman: The Harvard Alumni magazine. Since it never made it to press, the only way to see it is online here Jeremy didn't show much of the insides so here are a few really great spreads showing how impactful illustration really can be.

Rolling Stone

2008-11-25T07:38:00.000-08:00

Publication: Rolling Stone
Date: October 21st 1976
Issue Number: 224
Price: 50p
Typography: Elizabeth Paul

What makes two portraits work well side by side? Is it that they are totally different people? Is it that they look almost the same? Is it that one expression is shocked whilst one smiles? Or that one is wearing thick rimmed spectacles whilst another is merely holding some? Looking through this special bicentennial issue of Rolling Stone which showcased 76 Richard Avedon portraits, full size, with no text, it's plain to see that each image has been carefully chosen to sit next to its partner and it's great to think about why they work so successfully as a pair, regardless of the subjects being, at that time, the most powerful people in America.

Show and Tell

2008-11-18T05:36:00.000-08:00

This months Modern Painter has a great feature in it about Brian Dettmer. The concept of hiding and revealing type on the printed page and creating an art object is reminescent of Tom Philips' treated novel; the humument, in which he drew and painted over 360 pages of dense type. The results of which are brilliant and can be found reproduced online on this excellent website.

Architectural Review

2008-11-17T05:49:00.000-08:00

Here at Things to Look at, we have access to an impressive collection of Architectural magazines so we thought we'd put some great spreads up now and again as they really are fantastic. Let's get the ball rolling with this great typographic cover.

Publication: The Architectural Review
Volume: CLIII Number 912
Date: February 1973
Price: 37p (old money)
Cover art: Philip Thompson
Art Director: Bill Slack