Cultural nuances of editorial design in a digital era

I hate cults

MySpace Versus Class-A Drugs and Douglas Coupland!

Discuss.

MySpace isn't the "teenage networking" site that the media was quick to label it.

Audience demographics released last month confirm what most Gen-X'ers could've told you, like, two years ago: GenX is using it.

Nearly half of MySpace's users are over 35. If you lower the age grouping classification to 29, the numbers would easily indicate that more than half of the users are Gen X - extending to even the tail end of that generation.

Click here to find out more.

And if you're wondering ... Douglas Coupland is on MySpace!

Drug-induced enlightenment?

I'm pretty sure that it was Oscar Wilde that once said, "All art is vile."

While I don't entirely agree (I'd say that only some art is vile) ... the man had a point.

Which leads me to the subject of visual enlightenment. Enlightenment is relative. What enlightens me won't necessarily enlighten you — and vice versa. Likewise, the art you love isn't necessarily the art I shall love. Just because you love your design work doesn't mean I should ... yada yada yada.

But, the subject does trigger some serious curiosity — and I am curious as to what are the most commonly referred-to mediums for enlightenment (visual and intellectual) today? Is it books? Is it the internet? Television? No-frills holidays? High-street fashion retailers? Booze? Class-A drugs? Myspace?

I can say, at least for me, it's probably a fusion of all types of media, art and literature ... and travel ... but this can't be true for everyone as I meet so many people who never read and have no idea what's going on in the world ... I meet others who could care less if trees were green and people purple.

Modernism breeds apathy and society today is the most apathetic it has hever been , I would say.

So what enlightens you?

Newspagedesigner

This is a beneficial site for anyone interested in Newspaper design... you can check out various portfolios (it's brilliant that one can browse by journalist or category).

It's also a good forum to share work and get feedback ... what I enjoy most about this site is that it shows a great cross section of work from various cultures and backgrounds and levels of experience and styles ...

A brilliant way to learn about the cultural nuances of media design and engage in a positive and constructive discourse.

Andrew Pommier

Andrew Pommier from Toronto is a great artist. I have always liked his style and he has illustrated for many skateboard, apparel firms and tonnes of magazines. I think he even has a book out in England. Anyway, I just found his site. Trust me, no one draws a bunny rabbit like this guy.

D-School List

Businessweek magazine, on it's site, has a list of the top design schools (D-Schools) according to their "expert panel". I'm not sure who is on that panel, but hey, atleast our school made the list. We're about half way down. Cool.

Disappearing problems?

Layers. I'm almost all about it. Just found an e-magazine that seems interesting enough from my initial glance over the site... once you switch off all the ads (there are so many of them) ... there might just be some valuable information beneath the commecial guck. Layers is claiming to be the "How to magazine for everything Adobe" ... and considering how horrific my Photoshop skills are ... well I'm sure I (and you) could pick up a few handy pointers.

I love Harry

I have a wonderful friend back in Canada that I missdearly,named Harry Gils. He is a great photographer. and we met about eight years ago when we both worked for the same skateboard magazine in Toronto. I was working as a writer and he as a photographer. We became wonderful friends and collaborated on a bunch of stories. I'm getting nostalgic... you readers of this won't care about any of that, but Harry is a great photographer, he's the product of Dutch immigrants to Canada and you should check out his website if you have a minute... he's a big deal in Canada. Harry rules.

Top 10 Books ...

Funny trivia discovery: Australia's (as a nation) favourite books, as posted on ABCnet.au.

The list is pretty predictable, I'd say, for any "Western" English-speaking country.

It is as follows...

1. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkein
2. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
3. The Bible (Various Contributors)
4. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
5. Cloudstreet by Tim Winton
6. Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix (Book 5) by J. K. Rowling
7. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
8. The Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams
9. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown and Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
10. A Fortunate Life by A.B. Facey

My personal list of top ten ... if I had to go on personal favourites. (Disclaimer: I love reading and this is not a definitive list simply out of the fact it's next to impossible for me to limit my

1. Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
2. Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut
3. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
4. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
5. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
6. A Taste of Honey (a play), by Shelagh Delaney
7. Generation X, Douglas Coupland
8. Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown
9. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
10. The Alchemist, Paolo Coelho

OH ... and 11: Famous Five (series), Enid Blyton

The culture of 'cool'

I was reading someones blog entry about Nike Swoosh tatoos on Nike employees.

I know it's true because I've seen the pictures. It was a big story in the media when I was a university student in Canada. In 2003 I visited Nike's campus (that's what the firm calls it) in Beaverton, Oregon, for a story I was doing for Transworld and the head of the shoe-freak phenomnenon SB division gave me a fantastic tour of every nook and cranny on that campus. And I even met one of those notorious Nike employees with a Swoosh tatoo. "No way" I thought. "Is that real?"

Walking away, my contact read my mind (and smirk), and said, "By the way, that swoosh was real."

Anyone that has grown up in a society obsessesd with popular culture , namely North America or Britain, has a deeply personal relatinship with the phenomenon. It could be conscious or subconscious, but it exists.

It's somewhat of a joke for people from other parts of the world, but most "dialled in" North Americans can tell you how much Tom and Katie Holme's baby weighed when she was born, what city Tom Green is from and how much Toy Story II made at the box office.

That's just it. The concept of being "dialled in". It'ss a term used all the time in the media and only those who are dialled in actually know what it means. It's a secred that started on the playground. The secret of personal consumerism and culture of identifying with a brand.

But the question is simple: how far can marketing and branding go before it becomes psychotically egoistic?

Tattoo artists being brought into offices by corporate hq? C'mon Nike.

Design versus illustration

There's a website that I like to checko out occasionally called


Click Design Observer . It's basically a site for design nerds, that, as it 's tagline honestly says, features writings about design and culture.

Anyway, the site currently has a commentary up, by Adrian Shaughnessy , on "Graphic Design vs Illustration". It's a fascinating read for anyone that feels illustration does or doesn't have a role in the world of design.

In the piece, he writes: "To understand the contemporary state of illustration, we need to look at its relationship with graphic design..

Shaughnessy reflects back upon the time when design and illustration were once "indivisible" and then goes into the evolution or devolution (for some) of illustration as a form or medium of design and art.

His concluding statement is an eloquent reflection on what many of us already believe. He writes:

"Graphic design’s ability to deliver explicit messages makes it a major (if little recognized) force in the modern world: it is embedded in the commercial infrastructure. Illustration, on the other hand, with its woolly ambiguity and its allusive ability to convey feeling and emotion, makes it too dangerous to be allowed to enter the corporate bloodstream. Our visual lives are the poorer for this."

For the love of Italian design

THERE is something about Italian packaging design that makes me sigh. It's gorgeous. I can't think of any other country that has a history and tradition of such beautiful packaging. I attribute the global popularity (and successful commercialization) of traditional Italian products not simply to good quality (clearly other nations produce good quality products too), but to their beautiful and timeless design that has always captured and offered a feeling and taste of the good life. This isn't limited simply to foodstuffs, but extends to all facets of commercial and product design. I have been studying and cross examining numerious images of traditional Italian products and packaging, to identify what key elements transcend all of the items - clearly it's the work of different designers who all manage to, in some way or another, create the same effect. Of course, other than the use of classical typefaces and very little (if any) "white space", the traditional Italian (flag) colours of deep crimson red and emerald green are unanimously popular among Italian designers. Oh, la dolce vita, indeed ...

Who am I and what am I doing here?

I'm a Masters student in the Editorial Design programme at the Utrecht Graduate School of Visual Art and Design (maHKU) in Utrecht, The Netherlands. The idea for this MA blog should be credited to Hein Eberson, instructor of the MA Editorial Design Digital Concepts class. Basically, we — the students — have to do one. (To check out the school click here). And if you care, Café Solo, my personal blog, can be found on Wordpress, by clicking here.

That said, the hope is that both those who love and loathe design will find a rant to either love or loathe from Cult of MaHKU.

That said, if you're wondering Yeah, but why 'Cult of MaHKU'? ,,, myself and about 40 or 50 other students are paying a notably large wad of cash in order to force ourselves into submission to the able-bodied instructors at maHKU in order to achieve enlightenment ... and a glorious piece of paper that will, one year from now, identify us as "Masters".

So the point of this blog is to keep its readers updated with my visual enlightenment throughout the year. This will not only be academic, but social, cultural, intellectual, spiritual ... everything.

Power comes in all shapes and sizes ... and typefaces and colours.

Software glitches humble us.

Welcome to the Cult of MaHKU.