ALWAYS WITH HONOR
Always With Honor is a US-based design collective founded by Tyler Lang and Elsa Chaves. Their work has appeared in Monocle, GOOD, Wired and Esquire magazines. Infographics, icons and maps are their bag. What’s not to love?
Above: An illustration for Monocle magazine
Hey Elsa and Tyler, thanks for chatting with Gym Class Magazine.
Elsa and Tyler: Hi, thanks for having us!
You’ve landed some ace gigs, creating illustrations and infographics for Good, Monocle and Wired Italia magazines. Seriously A-list. That must feel pretty good?
Elsa: It’s been great having the opportunity to work with publications that we have read and admired, and it’s also a nice bonus to be able to reference such great companies when we show our moms what it is that we do for a living.
Tyler: Although I still feel like they don’t know if we create designs for the magazine, design the magazine or just choose the magazine’s colors and typefaces.
How do you know each other? How did Always With Honor come about and what’s the thinking behind the name?
Elsa: We actually met and started dating in college at RCAD and have been inseparable since – so we recently decided to take a shot at working together professionally.
Tyler: The thinking behind the name: let’s be epic, but in a fun way.
Above: An infographic for Wired Italia magazine
You’ve worked with clients from both Europe and the States. Where are you based and how is it working with international clients?
Elsa: We were initially based in Brooklyn, NY – but have recently made the jump across the country and are now settled in Portland, OR.
Tyler: Apart from always having to send things six hours earlier than here in the States, working internationally is great. We have to pay a bit more attention to what we’re designing, making sure the work translates universally. For instance, a green rectangle doesn’t always say money.
You’ve created some seriously cool infographics for GOOD magazine. I was around for a Q&A with a couple of the guys from GOOD at Colophon (an independent magazine symposium) in Luxembourg earlier this year. They seem like pretty nice guys.
Tyler: Nail on the head, I can’t say enough good things about those people. I had the pleasure of working for GOOD a bit back, from the owner to the water delivery guy, class people.
Above: An infographic for GOOD magazine
Talk me through the process of creating an infographic for GOOD. How collaborative is the process and how long does it take?
Elsa: GOOD gave us a lot of freedom and input into the transparencies we created, they even used some of our ideas for the content, so they became very personal and fun to work with. We usually sketched/conceptualized together, then took shots individually at the layout, and combined the chosen direction into something we both had a hand in. In some cases one of us will lead the project – Hall of Mascots (Tyler), White House Garden (myself) – but we always try to support each other and lend a hand with the production wherever possible.
Tyler: Yeah, the whole process was very fast and fluid. We were given a week for each transparency, concept to completion.
You’ve already worked with some pretty cool clients. Are there any other magazines you haven’t yet created for but would like to?
Elsa: I would love to work with ReadyMade.
Tyler: Zoo books, let’s talk.
Thanks again for your time, you guys are first class. Peace out.
Tyler and Elsa: Our pleasure, thanks!
More: Always With Honor
ADVICE
New comedy-horror flick The Cabin in the Woods co-written by super geeks Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard. FTW.
Source: Wired
HOT WHEELS
I took these photos with my iPhone while in California last year.
THERME VALS
Above: Peter Zumthor Therme Vals
Like forever ago, I wrote a travel article for an Australian magazine recommending Therme Vals. The editor told me to write the article from press releases issued by Therme Vals and from other people’s reviews on the internet. So I did.
I haven’t been. But I want to go, it looks amazing. @daninfragments gave me this book as a birthday present a couple of years ago.
Must. Go.
Maybe sometime early next year.
MOON
About the moon:
The moon travels around the Earth and is the Earth’s only natural satellite (it’s the fifth largest natural satellite in the solar system).
The moon is the only astronomical object to which humans have travelled and landed.
The moon is about 4.5 billion years old.
The moon is about 250,000 miles (384,400 km) from Earth.
The moon travels at 2288 miles an hour (3683 km per hour).
The President of the United States created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on October 1, 1958.
NASA’s first high-profile programme involving human spaceflight was Project Mercury, an effort to learn if humans could survive the rigors of spaceflight. On May 5, 1961, Alan B Shepard Jr became the first American to fly into space, when he rode his Mercury capsule on a 15-minute suborbital mission. John H Glenn Jr became the first US astronaut to orbit the Earth on February 20, 1962.
“That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.” Neil A Armstrong uttered these famous words on July 20, 1969 when the Apollo 11 mission fulfilled Kennedy’s challenge by successfully landing Armstrong and Edwin E “Buzz” Aldrin Jr on the moon.
Six of the Apollo missions (11, 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17) landed on the moon to study soil mechanics, meteoroids, seismic, heat flow, lunar ranging, magnetic fields and solar wind.
Source: Moon press kit
FRED
Source: ICN
Excited about the A Nightmare on Elm Street remake? Like, yeah! Gotta love a sneak peek too. Yay! It’s all good, peeps. Bookmark the official website. And roll on April 2010.
Lego rules, OK
We recently stumbled across the flickr photos of Halifax-based photographer Chris McVeigh. And, as it turns out, he’s into Lego, Star Wars and chipmunks. FTW. We emailed him some questions and he kindly answered them. The internet’s pretty cool like that.
Above: Halifax Townhouse 1
Hey Chris, thanks for chatting with us. Let’s talk Lego. We’ve had a snoop around flickr and, must say, love your Lego set. Particular favourites are the Halifax Townhouses you’ve built. Are these modelled on actual homes in Halifax? Did you work from photographs?
I took inspiration from multiple sources for my Halifax townhouses, but the first one (pictured above) was modeled on a building right around the corner from here. I kept the scale small and loosely interpreted the design, but curiosity got the better of me and I decided to replicate the house as best I could (taking some artistic license, of course).
Above: Halifax Townhouse 2
You created the townhouses first using Lego’s online Digital Designer. Did you then purchase the specific bricks used? How much did the Townhouses cost to build?
I put together the first two houses in Lego Digital Designer, but I actually built them with a combination of bricks I already had and a custom order from Lego’s Pick A Brick store. It was purely a cost-saving measure; given the choice, I would just have clicked Buy! The most annoying part of the process was creating an inventory of parts I needed. Lego Digital Designer, perhaps intentionally, doesn’t show you a list of bricks in your building. So I had to use the application’s selection tools to choose all identical bricks, move them out of the model, and count them by hand. It was VERY tiresome. So, for the third townhouse (the one I actually posted to flickr first), I just ordered directly through Lego Digital Designer. The cost was $210CDN for that one, or about $198US.
Is there a third townhouse still under construction? How many do you intend to build in total?
There is a third townhouse, yes. It’s actually the second one I designed (hah, confused yet!?). It’s assembled and set up next to the other two. You’ll see an upcoming photo, though I don’t know when I’ll actually post a full photo of it on its own. It’s nice, but I think it skews a little too “girly” for my liking. I’m thinking about making some edits. :D
Above: A screen grab of Halifax Townhouse 3, taken from Lego’s Digital Designer software
A while back we re-created Gym Class Magazine’s HQ using Lego’s Digital Designer. Wanna have a look?
Above: Gym Class Magazine HQ, re-created using Lego’s Digital Designer
Hah, that’s a pretty big building! It might be fun to build.
As well as being a Lego enthusiast, you’re also quite the Star Wars fan. Your photographs with Star Wars Lego characters interacting with real, live chipmunks are genius. Surely there’s some Photoshop magic being worked here?
Only for color edits and nitpicky details. I assure you, the chipmunks are doing whatever it is they seem to be doing, though mutated interpretation is really what makes these photos work. Now what I mean by that is that the camera catches the chipmunks in some odd poses that seem relevant to the scenario; for example, in Oh Noes! the chipmunk appears to be gasping. But he’s not. He’s actually just shoved an almond into his mouth and is pushing it into his left cheek pouch. This is why his tongue is partially visible; normally, you wouldn’t see it.
Above, from top: Space Cowboy and It’s a Trap!
To wrap up, what’s it like living in Halifax? We’ve been to a few cities in Canada, but haven’t yet made it to Halifax. You make it look real cool, is it?
I think it’s like any other city; it is both good and bad. It’s nice living so close to the sea where there is a nicely developed waterfront. And in this part of town, the townhouses are old and colorful and there’s no end to the inspiration for the Lego builder. But there are seedy parts of town, worn out industrial areas, etc.
Thanks for your time, Chris. You rock!
You are very welcome!
For more, check out Chris McVeigh’s website and his flickr. Chris is also on Twitter, you should follow him. Yay!
GCM #03: buy now
Gym Class Magazine issue #03 is hot off the press. That’s right ladies and gentlemen… you can now pick yourself up a copy. Yay! It’s 32 pages A5, litho printed black and white (oh, classy).
It’s jam packed full of contributor goodness. There’s an article by designer/blogger Daniel Gray explaining just how expensive a trip to London’s Tate Modern gallery can be; designer/publisher Michael Bojkowski talks to us about aliens, the Australian graphic design scene and the relationship between magazines and the internet (oh yeah, and he’s created a spacey infographic for us too); illustrator Chris Dent gets all alpha talking about his favourite big cities; we get all zine-tastic talking with Zineswap and Fever Zine editor Alex Zamora; designer Stefi Orazi talks to us about what it’s like to live in London’s Barbican estate and her personal work celebrating great architecture (she’s also given us some badges to giveaway); and last, but certainly not least, our guest art director John Paul Thurlow (he created the issue’s uber cover art) chats with us about his love for magazines and his brilliant Covers project.
Pre-order and contributor copies were posted earlier today!
What are you waiting for? Stop by the shop and take a sneak peek at some of the spreads. Nice one. Who knows, you may even decide to drop some coin and pick yourself up a copy.
Oh, and if that wasn’t enough excitement for one day, while looking for John Paul Thurlow’s address to send his contributor copy to, I re-discovered theses working drawings he supplied while creating the cover. They’re lush… and just had to be shared. Enjoy.
Above: Behind the scenes of the GCM #03 cover, created by guest art director John Paul Thurlow. The bottom photo shows an alternate image proposed for the cover.
Ben Hammersley
So, here’s a question for you… what’s the hottest magazine in the UK at the moment? Well, in the Gym Class Magazine sweatshop (er, I mean studio) it has to be Wired UK. So, imagine our delight when associate editor Ben Hammersley found the time to chat… with us… yes, us! We’re stoked, seriously.
I should point out, Ben mentioned he was happy to answer as many questions as we liked. But, we could only manage these two (and the second question isn’t even really a question)… I mean, c’mon, he’s A-list… and we’re shy.
Above: Wired UK’s first four covers and Ben’s name on the magazine’s family tree
Hey Ben, thanks for finding the time to answer a couple of questions. You’re the associate editor of Wired UK (a magazine we’re big-time fans of). What does an associate editor do?
I’m not really sure what my job title means – it seems to vary from magazine to magazine. At Wired it means that I’m the number two on the magazine, and that I’m responsible for commissioning the Start section, and the features, and generally putting the thing together from an editorial point of view. I’m also the magazine’s representative on Earth for the more geeky conferences.
You’re also an accomplished photographer. Your portraits on flickr are super polished. We think you should slide your portfolio under the door of Alexandra Shulman’s (the editor of UK Vogue) office.
Good idea. I should: Alex is very nice.
More here: Wired.
Kiss & Make Up
We reckon this looks like fun. But hey, don’t believe us… read what The Guardian’s got to say about it: “turn up wearing your pyjama bottoms and do dance moves that might lose you friends.” Fun, indeed. FTW.
More here: Kiss & Make Up
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