magazineBrands - archive magazineBrands Antwerp: April 2010

ESPN & Mirabella + TAR

Going places? The Mirabella cover was one of the world's first computer generated faces to capture artificial perfection. The robotic digitalised sports cover for ESPN gives this swimmer an über-human 3D effect.
TAR Art went a step further with this issue showing Kate Moss.Have a look at TAR MAG

Labels: magazine covers, USA

Draft cover art

Groundbreaking? It's all in the eye. Draft was launched in Spring 2005 and set up to publish high quality previously unpublished work by the most important practitioners working in the visual arts. Both established and fledgling.

Its aim is - or was - to publish a constantly original magazine, in which everything featured is genuinely an exclusive, one that works outside the prevailing systems of PR and syndication and relies on an editorial vision and direction. Web: draft magazine

Labels: magazine covers, UK

Saudi Photography magazine Alzawiah

Images spreak a global language. ALZAWIAH is the first independent Saudi photography magazine. Still at the beginning of making true publishing history, yet with some very intriguing cover images. Seemingly simple, sober and strong.

Labels: photography

Pop & Rop

What's really new? POP from Sweden was a music magazine published from 1992 until 1999. Only just over ten years ago, that may seem or feel pre-historic. It may sound boring and uninspiring. Yet this Swedish POP was ground-breaking for a new kind, modern-feel over all approach and design. It may seem minimalistic in retrospect, but that was just the whole point. Form and function in a well spoken way.

By contrast ROP magazine is a self-made, self-art-directed and fully self-generated magazine, where form and content are modeled, photographed, written, edited and designed by a 25 year old graduare in communication design. 250 pages of and by the same 25 year old. Topics are favorites and a mix of interest, the printed format is 250cm x 360cm. Have a look at the whole issue at ROP MAG

Labels: Germany, Sweden

I Like My Style & Me Magazine

Introspective. In the age of selfmaking magazines 'I like my style' (Germany) and 'Me Magazine' (US) focus on user-generated content.

Total reverse, Ilikemystyle.net works like a social network, as content is uploaded by readers to fill the print edition. Just launched, its first issue is an impressive 266 pages and the magazine even works magazine reviews like French Paradis, Paris Vogue et al.
Website: ilikemystyle.net

American ME Magazine has already been published a few years - since 2004 - and continues convincingly to built on its reputation.
Me Magazine is devoted to getting to know emerging creative talents, exploring the lives of guest editors and their circle of friends. Website and previous issues:Me Magazine

Labels: Germany, USA

Karen and Monika

Karen and Monika
View and review. In the age of celebrity namedropping, calling everyone by their first name as they would be your neighbours, have a look at Karen and Monika.

Karen / made out of the ordinary
KAREN is a very extraordinary ordinary magazine and has become decidedly cult reading. More interested in the weather than what to wear, sell by dates than celebrity, and serves up a delightful dish of the everyday, gently observed and presented as something quite unique. It's another way of looking at, and dealing with daily life. Beauty is a washing line, health is Pat’s and Carol’s bunions. Art is a visit to the local tattoo parlour, and gardening is a mole that needs catching in the garden. Website Karen magazine

Monika / about what is said.
Monika is an arts journal that does away with bylines. As respite from the exhaustive branding of conventional media, contributors adopt a disguise that enables them to experiment with new material or style, to bypass expectation and to play. By placing the quality of her content over the marketability of her contributors, Monika invites readers to decode identities, unravel mysteries and embrace the unfamiliar. Website Monika magazine

Labels: magazine design, UK

OK Festival - video en verslag

Verslag van het OK Festival Arnhem door Arnhem Direct

Labels: OK Festival 2010

Dorade (France)

OUT with the old and IN with the NEW. Dorade from France captures a decided fast-forward take on magazine-making, personal indentity, style choice and use of photography. Well done, et douze point pour la France. Or, as they brilliantly are well and able to describe themselves on their Dorade website;

'Brilliant and sinuous, collector of photographic discoveries and forms of criticism, Dorade is an artistic periodical where mermaids admit to their slightly fishy odour. Dorade is a show, a series of performances, and a statement in serial issues. Neither old nor young, but both naive and sneering: it enjoys drawing poetic parallels between the people and places it examines. Does Dorade draw its inspiration from the people it encounters or is it an inspiration in and of itself? All those who have featured in its pages tend to resemble it, becoming a caricature of themselves – like Dorade, the sponge that absorbs and expectorates them.

Somewhere between a chic shark and a straight talking carp, Dorade enjoys rolling around in breadcrumbs, asking silly questions then gleaning spawning theories, maximising the absurd and pursuing metaphors to the bitter end. Although it may take the joke too far, it knows how to make up for it the next time around.'

Labels: France

archive, books and context

Total recall, total relaunch of magazineBrands.be under construction!

Magazines, magazines about magazines,
books on graphic design, photography,
illustration, focus on every aspect of print
media over the last 100 years.

Total reverse with the old, and inside out with the new - from OK Festival Arnhem via Jan Knaap's Babynummers up to Sanoma's Mediaparade and DK's future of publishing video