READING LIST 10/09
Michael Bojkowski’s Linefeed Reading List is a monthly highlight. Here’s the latest edition. Go on, watch it. It’s twelve and a half minutes of pure magazine goodness. Yaay!
AIR FRANCE
Above: Some of Air France’s latest adverts
Ah… the latest batch of Air France adverts are just lovely. So French. Aw…
LINEFEED REPORT
Above: Linefeed rocks!
Gym Class Magazine was invited by Michael over at Linefeed (love the Linefeed, peeps) to be a roving report at this year’s Publish & Be Damned fair in London. We jumped at the chance and recorded some interviews and general banter. It’s now available for your listening pleasure over on Linefeed. Thanks to all the interviewees… French artist David Lasnier; Monika magazine; illustrator and author Tom Gauld; German book publisher Lubok Verlag; and Fever Zine editor Alex Zamora.
Oh, and a big thank you to Gym Class Magazine’s star reporter on the day, Dan! Yaay!
Listen to the report here.
i
Above: Portugal’s award-winning newspaper i
Ace covers from Portuguese daily newspaper i over on flickr. And an interesting interview with its art director here (with some lush layouts from inside the newspaper). Looks cool… just wish I could read it.
DETAILS
Above: Photographs from Close Up and Private
Hello Sergei and Nello, thanks for chatting with Gym Class Magazine. Who are you guys? Where are you from? What do you do for a living? What are your back stories?
Sergei: I was born in Kharkov in 1952, second biggest town in Ukraine, in the academic architect family. After graduation from Kharkov Academy of Art and Architecture in 1975 I have worked as a practical architect, in 1983-1986 studied PhD “Means of Visual Information in Architecture” at Kiev School of Architecture, worked as an art director in the magazine “Morning”; were initiator and founder of Centre of Contemporary Art “SOVIART” in Kiev and its first art director and curator; moved to Denmark in 1990 and live and work here as a visual artist; in 2002 founded of Senko Studio – the non profit place where I present various pieces of art produced by emerging and promising artists.
Nello: I’m a Visual Designer and Art Director, I was born in Turin, Italy, in 1979. I graduate in Graphic Design (Bachelore Degree, 2004) at Faculty of Architecture in Turin and in Visual Arts at IUAV University of Venice (Master Degree, 2007), Art and Design Faculty. From 2004 to 2006 I was involved in the XX Olympic Winter Games Committee as web designer and in those years I also founded and directed Playzebra magazine, an independent experimental annual publication about contemporary art, printed in 5 issues untill 2007. I am used to work with the contemporary art world for events, books, magazines and catalogues design with a graphic design studio in Turin called Zebra, but I also continue my activity in web design working with an important Italian creative web agency called DGTmedia. Since a couple of months, I am based in New York and I work mainly as freelance.
You both curate an online project called Close Up and Private. Love it! What’s the project all about? Where did the idea come from?
Sergei: I do work with collage as one of my artistic form of expression and taking pictures of everyday dressing up, which depends of your mood, time of the year or limits of your budget is a very creating process. I thought, what a liberating and sincere way of showing it to those who want to see it and internet has this quality: showing of without showing much. I could not realize the idea before I got in touch with Nello Russo, very talented art director and designer, whom I knew from different art cultural events: “Teach Me” in Venice, “Colophon” in Luxemburg. Nello created the design of the web site exactly as I wished, when the images come as a row, just as you were sitting in the pavement café or passing by in the metro passage.
Nello: I knew Sergei from many years, we have a sort of artistic and professional feeling and when he came to me last March with the idea for this new project I though that Close Up and Private could be really impressive. The project comes out working on it, I have started with the logo design and then with the web site layout trying to have a pure and minimal layout, what Sergei expected.
What inspires you both?
Sergei: My kids, music, my wife, art, food, fashion, magazines, creative people I meet.
Nello: Good and clever ideas. But also: healthy foods, vintage video games, my girlfriend, my bunny, contemporary art, interaction design, artist’s books and magazines.
Who are the guys you photograph? Have you both always been into fashion?
Sergei: On the most of pictures there are my two sons, whom I very grateful for understanding and support. I take photographs as I do collages: combine parts of clothing by my artistic instinct and lows of composition and by cutting unnecessary of, sometimes even face. Sometimes I meet people, which style I like and photograph them. Have I always been into fashion? I guess so, more emotionally than professionally.
Nello: All the pictures are made by Sergei and portrait their sons and other people he meets. As a designer I worked for some fashion projects in past years (i.e., in Playzebra Magazine 5 I have worked with brilliant fashion designer Maria De Ambrogio for made and serie°numerica brand), but I’m not a professional of this field. I think that the power of Close Up and Private is that it is not only fashion, but also contemporary art through fashion.
Describe your own personal style?
Sergei: It is very easy – it is Close up and Private style.
Nello: Minimal-urban-chic (maybe).
What’s the future of the project? How do you see it developing? Do you see it ever becoming a printed zine or publication?
Sergei: It could be great to print Close Up and Private book – a pocket size. We will see if we can develop this idea. I also think the images would look good as a photo exhibition, at the gallery or the right exhibition space.
Nello: Yes, a printed version of the web site issues could be the future, we are thinking about it; a limited edition of t-shirts featuring artwork by Sergei will come soon.
Love the project. Thanks for your time.
More here: Close Up and Private
OWEN FREEMAN
Above: Illustration goodness by Owen Freeman
Hey Owen, thanks for taking to time to chat with Gym Class Magazine. We’ve had a snoop around your website… your work’s great. How you do you describe your illustrative style?
At the moment, I would describe my illustration approach as a mash-up of everything visual I’ve enjoyed up to this point. Comics and animation I watched when I was younger, as well as film and artists I’ve only recently discovered are all huge influences, but stylistically I’m not sure I’d be able to define how exactly. I read a quote somewhere that I liked: “Style is everything you do wrong, consistently.”
What/who are your inspirations? What do you like to draw when you’re not working?
I owe comics and movies a huge debt for inspiring me to draw for the pure enjoyment of telling stories. I have an ongoing exercise to do a new drawing or painting every day, which started in 2006. It’s been really beneficial to keep up with figure and landscape studies and to keep things moving with new tools and paper, etc. so the drawing part never feels too much like work.
Where are you from and where do you live/work?
I grew up in Washington State, but lived in Los Angeles for the past several years. I am currently traveling for the year in Europe, working from London at the moment.
Where did you study? What’s your back-story?
I graduated from the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles earlier this year, prior to that I worked as a graphic designer for several years and painted on the side.
You’ve done work for New York, LA Weekly, FHM and Out magazines. Pretty impressive. Are there any magazines/clients you haven’t worked for but would like to?
I’ve, of course, always wanted to work for Rolling Stone, Wired, Esquire and so forth, but I think the greatest thing about illustration, and what I’ve been incredibly lucky to find already, is that often it is the projects you don’t anticipate that really throw you into the most interesting places artistically.
Thanks for your time, Owen. Much appreciated.
Thanks very much.
More here: Owen Freeman
CLASSIC
Above: Londonist’s ultimate tube map
DROP CROTCH
Above: Drop crotch
Gotta love a drop crotch! These lush examples are from Swedish label Fifth Avenue Shoe Repair. I’ve so gotta upgrade my hung-over-on-a-Sunday wardrobe. Yes, yes I do.
STYLIST
Above: Stylist launches tomorrow
New women’s freebie magazine Stylist launches tomorrow. If you can’t wait ‘til then, or if you’re not in one of the UK cities it’s distributed in, check it out here. Looks good… thinking its male counterpart needs to pull its finger out.
Thanks to Stuart for the heads-up.
iA
Above: Lush work by Information Architects
Everyone here at Gym Class Magazine world HQ is well excited because issue #04 is being printed by Newspaper Club. The new newspaper format (we’re upsizing from A5 to a massive 317mm x 457mm) means we’re tinkering with the design. Gotta love a re-design! We’re also toying with the idea of introducing a new font. Yaay! For the pagination geeks (size matters!), we’re still undecided on the number of pages – it’ll be either eight or 12 pages. More news soon.
But in other – more exciting – re-design news… check out this newspaper design goodness by Information Architects. Lush, man. Lush.
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