BloombergBusinessweek
And just when you thought BloombergBusinessweek couldn’t get any… well… funner. (Yes, we do mean funner.)
Gorilla Film Magazine
Gorilla Film Magazine is… well, how do you say… yes, that’s it: Gorilla Film Magazine is ACE. Highlights of issue two include:
A look back at John Carpenter’s 1982 flick The Thing. “[The film demonstrates] our insignificance, the happy fluke of our species survival, and how ultimately, faced with the vast, indifferent alien universe, we’re fucked.”
An overview of different film narrative templates. Turns out, Fight Club and Star Wars are essentially the same film. “The trick is to make something seem fresh and exciting, and that’s where the real challenge lies.”
How to write a film script. “The important thing to remember is it will be really, really frustrating, and moments of brilliance at 4am will reveal themselves to be nuggets of shite the next day.”
And will The Evil Dead be the next victim of Hollywood’s horror revival? “The Evil Dead – which once stood in stark opposition to commercial filmmaking – will be dug-up, coated in Hollywood dollars and used as a profit spinner.”
5,000 copies of Gorilla Film Magazine are distributed around London… for free! Yaay. We like free stuff… especially when they’re this good. Peeps outside of London can subscribe to Gorilla Film Magazine here. Re-sult!
News
Enter the world of photographer Steven Klein.
Pentagram über partner Luke Hayman talks through some of his favourite magazine covers. BloombergBusinessweek gets a mention, as do SPIN and Zeit Magazin.
Enough already! One magazine, three different size formats.
Birthday boy Jack Nicolson looks every bit the crazy on this 1975 People Weekly cover.
Top shelf speakers confirmed for Printout.
SPD takes a look at the new GQ iPad app.
Richard Turley / BloombergBusinessweek
BloombergBusinessweek is on top of its game. It’s ace. We’re also impressed with the magazine’s new app (so much so, we subscribed). Gym Class magazine’s Steven Gregor caught up with BloombergBusinessweek creative director Richard Turley (all hail!) to get the app’s inside story.
Congrats on your new iPad app. How long have you been working on it?
We’ve been working on it for about a year or so. But I need to say early on that I was a very, very small cog in a very, very, very large machine. The real work was done by Moment Design (an agency here in NYC) and by a large number of Bloomberg developers.
What were your most important criteria when working out what your app would be?
The two main criteria in stage one of the app’s development (which we released last week) are: focusing on the magazine as a reading experience, as opposed to a magazine experience; and for intuitive navigation.
Downloading each issue is a breeze… was small file size a priority? With that in mind, can we expect more animated/video content in the future?
Yes… and yes. The most exciting bit of the process for me will come in a later version (hopefully the next version) when we start developing and commissioning video, charts and animation content specifically for the iPad and our new website (it’s forthcoming too).
Generally speaking, how do you think magazine apps are performing (not including BloombergBusinessweek)? And how do you see magazine apps developing?
As a preface, I don’t spend any time whatsoever thinking about mags versus iPads, apps, the future of magazines, media in the future… any of it. I really don’t. And to that end I don’t really know how others are performing and I have no idea where apps are headed.
It sounds like blasphemy, but I don’t look at any magazines on my iPad. I use it all the time, but for email, the internet… I love Twitter and Facebook.
I really don’t mean to be evasive, but it’s the truth. I’m sure that will change as apps take over my digital life, but currently I’m firmly web 1.0, well… 1.75.
So, in lieu of personal insight… I had lunch with Mark Porter (my old boss) a few weeks back and we talked about iPads and apps and so forth. His take, which I agree with, is that this is all R&D and it’s a case of getting in there and seeing what happens.
That sounds like a simple and insightful way to deal with the changes within our industry.
By Steven Gregor
Scream 4
Kyle over at The Fox is Black talks Scream 4 and hyper-reality. Yaay!
News
New US Wired creative director Brandon Kavulla (formerly US Men’s Health design director) plans to simplify. Read more here.
US-based industry magazine Adweek relaunches, new design by Pentagram super-partner Luke Hayman. Read more here.
Hideous website, but… the 2011 PPA Awards shortlist has been announced.
This week Fantastic Man recommends colour.
And Lineread #3 is available now… here! Re-sult!
Bloomberg Businessweek
The fine folk at Bloomberg Businessweek have released an app. Ace! We had a quick look during our morning commute… here’s what we love about it:
It’s not expensive. The app is free for all existing print subscribers and just £1.79 per month for digital-only subscribers. That seals the deal for us… we’re subscribing to the print magazine today.
A Highlights screen replaces a traditional contents page. It works well, helping users jump to sections/lead articles within the app. The opening video with cover concept commentary by Creative Director Richard Turley is ace (magazine design geek win!); a pity there’s no mention of the iPad in the first video tho.
Section contents also aid navigation.
Content is templated; it runs like a website. That’s no criticism; in fact, for a weekly news magazine like Bloomberg Businessweek, it feels spot on. The app is engineered well to help users consume the content. Nice work. Unfortunately, tho, there’s little of the design joy the print magazine is famous for.
The app delivers the content in both vertical and horizontal modes. The vertical view scrolls down like a website; the horizontal view scrolls across and the copy flows freely in three columns per screen (similar to The Times newspaper app).
They’ve nailed bookmarking and social networking. There’s also a handy search function (which looks through all downloaded issues on the iPad).
Body copy can be increased/decreased in size.
The app can be downloaded from iTunes. The print magazine (with free digital subscription) is available here. Go forth and buy magazines…
PORT
PORT magazine’s iPad app launched early last month. We downloaded it before seeing the print edition of the magazine. And, interestingly, as we navigated our way through it, we found ourselves, well… satisfied.
Serious hype surrounded the launch of the magazine’s print edition, and like everyone else we were looking forward to getting our hands on it. But while flipping through the app for the first time, we were completely satisfied. It was clear, quickly, we didn’t need the print edition to fully enjoy PORT. So much so, if there’s an app accompanying the magazine’s second issue, we’ll happily purchase it over the print alternative.
Specifically (nerd alert, nerd alert!), here are some design/navigation elements within the PORT app we love:
The white border/margin running around the perimeter of the Spring Essentials Style Briefing section… a simple way to contain the section within the app;
The counter showing where the user is within a slideshow/gallery… it makes sense to adopt certain website design fundamentals;
The combination of down and left-to-right navigation within the app creates pace and variation;
Photography running across screens gives the same feeling as a spread within a printed magazine… it’s a nod to what’s come before without any nasty page-turn metaphors;
It’s easy to lose one’s place inside an app… the red-coloured ‘slugs’ within the Commentary section work well in down-reading articles; and
Photography looks ace on an iPad, there’s no denying it. The highlight of the first PORT app for us is the Greenland feature… it contains lush imagery running across numerous screens.
The app is available to download for free from iTunes. Go get it if you haven’t already. Oh, BTW, the print edition is sold out.
Linefeed Reading List March 2011
Lots of magazine LOLZ. Yaay!
Esquire UK
Exciting times at UK Esquire. There’s a new editor on board… and the art desk has been hard at work implementing big design changes. So, what can we expect? A Grazia/Auto Trader mash-up? Nah, unlikely. Gym Class magazine’s Steven Gregor spoke with Art Director David McKendrick to get the latest. Read on magazine loving peeps, read on…
You and the Esquire art department have been rockin’ some great subscriber-only covers. The December 2010 Jake Gyllenhaal cover is our fav. Which cover from the last 12 months is your fav and why?
The Jeff Bridges subscriber cover is my favourite, in part because he rendered the logo. That cover is the collaboration of photographer Rick Guest and Jeff Bridges. It’s quite rare to get the star so involved and for them to understand what goes into making a cover. This, for me, is a real triumph. I mean, Jeff Bridges drawing your logo on set is pretty cool, no?
Alex Bilmes is Esquire’s new editor. His first issue is out next month. What have you guys got planned? Will the magazine be structured differently? Are new regulars planned?
Mmm… what do we have planned? Well, it’s the 8th of April today and we have just put our first issue under Alex to bed. As you’ll see, it’s quite a different beast. That’s all I really can say. The last three months have been an amazing journey… and I’m knackered.
So, from an art point-of-view, you’ve re-designed Esquire?
Yeah, you can expect massive changes. The very talented Declan Fahy [Deputy Art Director], the hard working art team and I have been flat out for the last six weeks, weekends and all. That’s an indication to the level of change readers can expect.
Which magazines/art directors are you inspired by? Do you have a favourite magazine/art director? Which one and why?
I tend not to look at magazines for inspiration. There is so much more to design/art direction than magazines. I don’t find it that helpful to look at what other mags are doing.
That said, I do like magazines that achieve the very difficult balance of good design and being commercial… this is true design. Anyone can produce a nice magazine, but producing a quality magazine that people outside the media industry will consume is a true inspiration.
So, I think Grazia is well executed and is very commercial; that’s genius. Making people outside the design community aware of good design is so important.
Personally, my favourite magazine is Auto Trader, but that’s for different reasons.
By Steven Gregor