5 reasons i hate left magazine publishing...

1. What kind of industry do you want to be in that fires entire departments before Christmas?

2. If I'm going to be badly paid and have bad benefits, I at least want to be supporting a good cause...

3. .....


yeah. I can't do this now--I just heard horrible news from my friends in birmingham about department/job cuts and magazines folding and I just want to curl up in a ball and cry. My heart goes out to all of you---like many of my former co-workers, I put my heart and soul into an industry that has stabbed us collectively in the back by economic greed and lack of planning for new media and increased costs. I was lucky to leave when I did, to find another job so quickly and in a foreign state. My anger is making me rage right now--this is practically turning into a 'personal' blog post I hate so much.

Luxury city magazines go first....

So my arch-nemesis, Niche Media, the company responsible for all the 'luxury city magazines' around the country fired everyone....and it's not fun to report because my friend Stephanie worked at Philly Style and is now unemployed. 

Going all the way to my grad school days, in my project (read: thesis) I talked about the difference between Luxury titles and traditional city magazines, pointing out that while the content is not entirely there, they would survive longer than their traditional counterparts because in the world of luxury cars and fashion, things like the 'recessions' don't bother advertisers.

Looks like I was wrong. Or at least didn't take into account all these luxury titles were owned by one company. Wonder what the story is there...

Gone to California to race hot rods...

Sorry for the lapse in posts. The best way to describe it is to tell you the story about my shopping experience yesterday. Helping out my best friend shop for a wedding dress, I mentioned to the saleslady how there was plenty of time before the wedding---liz is trying to schedule something in early january.

her response? 'THIS january?'

And suddenly, just like that, I realized it was half-way through October.

Culture update: Smithsonian Portrait Gallery

So one thing I love about DC is being so close to these museums we can go into for free. Today I went to the Portrait Gallery that's off of the Chinatown Metro stop and saw this great exhibit on hip-hop culture. Some of the exhibit:

B&W Photography by David Scheinbaum These photographs were really powerful. He plays with light and shadows really well, but my favorite one was the movement seen by the crowd and DJs...I thought these captured the energy and excitement at clubs when these artists were performing.




Portraits by Kehinde Wiley. These were commissioned by VH1 for the Hip Hop Honors in 2007, but I think they were amazing. The Three Graces, below, takes classical themes and relates them to hip hop with bright colors and the elegant decoration shows the flashiness of the style. Definitely check out the rest of these on the web site.

Olympic Commericals: United

Every 'big event' one company usually stands out as having the most interesting, or at least intriguing commericals. For the olympics, the United Airlines videos have caught my eye the most:









I was really impressed with the sequence of these. They start with your typical, traditional United video, i.e. the Raphsody in Blue music played to a fun, light cartoon of sea animals. It introduced fun illustration and imagination to the traditional soundtrack.

The next two videos, of the man on the street and woman in the air, takes more variation on the soundtrack but keeps a more traditional narrative. Finally, the last video drifts the furtherest from the iconic music as well as in its illustration concept. It's more about the colors and lights, with no real plot, just beauty.

Why I like these videos is even though the four have their own individual task, they flow together nicely. They came out gradually over the course of the last two weeks, and I believe that the first few help the viewer become 'ready' for the more abstract videos toward the end. Also, it's just gorgeous illustration

Proof Design and Swimming do mix...

TV Guide what were you thinking? 

Found here

So for you non-swimmers out there, this photo might seem perfectly fine except when you realize:

1. Goggles OFF while swimming?

2. He casts no shadow! He's a vampire!

3. I know he has the torso of a 6'8" man and the legs of a 6'0" one, but in all of the lovely graphics NBC showed off last night as he won the 200 IM did they say he had the head of a pigmy.

Top Five Reasons I love the Olympics

1. The Slate Twitter updates: (hysterical!)

2. Um.....water polo is AWESOME? I wait four years to see this being played on TV...

3. My DVR. Finally technology has caught up to my dream of watching every sport at the speed it was meant to be shown...volleyball? Over in 2 minutes...Michael Phelps' 400 IM? Replayed to see his crazy backstroke-to-breaststroke turn...Mens' Water Polo? Slow Motion Replays, my friends.

4. No matter how much I whine and complain, I secretly love to see the Americans beat up on the French. Especially if it's by a fingernail.

5. Did I mention the abs on those water polo players? SLOW MOTION REPLAY MY FRIENDS!

I'll see everyone in three weeks. 

A moment of zen..

Yeah, I'm pissed Suede's still on Project Runway, too. At least you have new blogs to read!


Charles Dickens Haiku
(because I was bored and this idea is too good to pass up)

Fun with Rollovers...

Nothing helps Monday go by faster than Photoshop rollovers...

JCrew: Usually you try to hide your Photoshopping...not point it out so obviously.

And this was shown to me by our now-former intern: 

Glenn C. Feron for hours of celebrity retouching fun...

...come on, he can transform Nina Garcia into a Eva Longoria-Parker!

My hero

He really makes this show.

Tim Gunn is amazing.

Your reasoning is flawed...

Gawker has a rant today about why bloggers should stop writing for free. While they aren't necessarily talking to me--with my six subscribers and my lack of interest in making money from this venture--they forget that at the heart of blogging to begin with was people expressing their personal thoughts. I'm talking LiveJournal, angsty emo-type postings from early 2000. 

The problem now is people are trying to make money out of these ventures. They say 'gee, people like me, how can I profit from this?' It's the American Dream, and it's unavoidable. It should not be, however, law. Let the people post, I say! 

FOUND ONE!

[Pic from Gawker]

Borders is holding my copy until close of business! Can't wait to read it—not sure about my thoughts on this, but expect a wonderfully long, drawn-out post over the weekend.

Covers I like this week

While I'm still trying to track down my copy of Italian Vogue, I thought I would pass along this jem:

(seriously--can anyone find me a copy? )

ONE HUNDREDTH POST

So you may wonder why I haven't been blogging on topic lately...and the answer of course is I've been staring at this for the past month:



Now, let's just say I've been trained to hate this magazine. A month ago I could list about ten reasons why the magazine was the devil incarnate's half-brother (Rachel Ray still holds the top spot) but after this issue I have nothing else to say. This, better than any other issue EVER CREATED for ANY food magazine, better exemplifies what a food magazine is suppose to do: get you to eat what is on the page. I swear, I want to bite into the paper, these shots are so amazing.

Look at this photography. While Bon App is best known for a style I like to refer to as 'Glamorously Disgusting' close-ups, this issue really pulled itself together giving me nothing but beautiful shot after beautiful shot—ever one of them making me crave whatever I was looking at:

Yum.

And the design isn't too bad either. This was my favorite spread, both in photography and in how they laid out the information:

So the feature is on four different sauces to use in various ways. First, they include those little color-coordinated circles next to the recipes, and then on the opposite page they list all these way to  use the different sauces, again incorporating the color scheme into the list. They make these seem easy, versitle, and beautiful!

I don't even care if those chocolate drips on the cover are Photoshopped (my eye tells me no, but then my experience tells me probably)

As so I'll leave you with my favorite shot of all:

DCite: Proud to be a Starbuck Patron

So my posts have been slipping—perhaps it's because my coffee drinking has been completely knocked off its regular schedule by the lack of coffee grinders in my apartment and horrible stuff I get at work. 

Which is why Starbucks closing 600 stores is COMPLETELY relevant to my design blog:

What is with Florida? And Dallas? COME ON CAFFEINE FIENDS, ACT LIKE THE ADDICT I KNOW YOU ARE! hehe. Glad to see DC isn't losing very many stores, all my early morning haunts in Courthouse and Falls Church are safe. Glory Be. 

Top Five Mad Men moments from Season 1...

...okay I lied, I am doing a post on Mad Men. I can't help it, I love this show—I cry thinking about the pain it's going to put me through every Sunday after I watch another perfect episode and know I have to wait A WEEK for another look into this world I would have loved to be apart of. 

I really shouldn't do this because it's rewarding the people who 

haven't seen the show yet, but (ahem) 

SPOILERS AHEAD!

5. Ken Cosgrove (Aaron Staton) gets a story published in the Atlantic ("5G") and the rest of the ad men react with ever increasingly grades of jealousy. (Pimping your wife out to an ex to get published, Pete? That's why we love ya.)

4. John Slattery's slippery comeuppance in "Red in the Face" after making a pass at Don's wife Betty. Oysters and Nixon. Yum.

3. The emotion in Vincent Kartheiser's face when he thinks he's been fired by Don ("New Amsterdam") It's telling that this sort of amazing acting is so commonplace in this series, I wasn't shocked for a second to see the show nab so many Emmy noms.

2. Christina Hendricks (Joan the head secretary and redheaded bombshell) and January Jones (nervous, picture perfect wife Betty) in everything. Betty's nervous shell of a life and marriage compared to Joan's control and confidence she has with men play so nicely against each other. 

1. While most people will tout "The Wheel" for its magnificent writing, I personally like "Babylon" the best. The last scene, with Joan and Roger Sterling at the hotel room, paired with Don Drapier listening to that wonderful music...there's this sense of emptiness in what these people have created for themselves. An emptiness I think plays at the heart of this show—the '50s promised a perfect life to people returning from a decade of war, and in the '60s these empty dreams are starting to unravel. 

Can't wait for Sunday.

[slideshow on IMDB, to 

wet your appetite for season 2]

Project Runway is baaack!

...and I can't find my camera USB cable so my critique will have to wait awhile longer. Needless to say I already have my favorites. :)

Deziginer's Best Places to Live

So CNN released their Best Places to Live in 2008 and as it it a slow Friday, I thought I'd compare all of my former residences and see if all this moving around was really a good thing or not...For anyone who cares, Plymouth, MN is the BEST CITY, just so I know what I'm missing out on.

Each city will be graded on the very subjective Deziginer Llama Scale (DLS...don't ask)

CRIME

Everyone who visited me in Birmingham knows I love to rant about the crime rate there. It's equal to the crime in DC, and yet the population size hardly compares. (BHAM: -10) Add your abysmal AQI ranking (-5) and Bham loses out to Arlington, who gets a -2 for the property crime...I'd better buy that aluminum bat and pepper spray for when they come to steal my computer...

WEATHER

Let's see. I'm use to Austin's high temp (+5, because everything about Texas rocks) and I honestly don't understand how Birmingham has a higher precipitation than the DC area, and yet it's DC that has daily showers in the summer and Birmingham that is constantly under a drought. -20 to both for not being like Texas.

FINANCES

Well, the chances of my finding a rich husband are better here in Arlington, that's for sure (+1) and I'm going to give Arlington a +50 for the job growth as an appreciation for helping me find a job there. (Technically it's Vienna, but I'd never actually live in Vienna so I'm counting Arlington as my ideal hometown). Birmingham gets a -5 for the INSANE sales tax (I can't believe I spent money in that state) and a -12 for the job market sucking...wait. I'm changing that to a +10 because had the job market not sucked, I'd never have moved to NoVa. DC gets a -15 for the Auto Insurance Premium (that's $1000 dollars difference!) Also Arlington gets a -5 for the 'car tax' I'll have to pay once I change to VA plates. Stupid car taxes....

MARRIAGE AND COLLEGE

So Birmingham is stupid....and divorced! Geeze look at that number. Bham was a notorious 'singles unfriendly' town so they get a -10 for not liking my decision to be a self-sufficient woman (ROAR!) Arlington has all the brainiacs in the DC area(+10)...and also the highest marriage rate (-30!) DC actually made the Top 10 Cities for Singles (except this in no way correlates to those singles looking for significant others...so -18) At least we are all resourceful enough not to take exorbitant vacations (-100 Plymouth...we're in a recession, get with the thrify spending!)

BARS! (and Culture)

Well I never really gave into the whole Birmingham has a bad bar scene, but honestly only 102? I'm giving that a +10 because the chances of seeming knowledgeable about the city nightlife are greatly improved. -20 for lack of museums...I think I went to both...the art museum and the vulcan, right?...actually i KNOW there are more museums in Birmingham, this entire count must be rigged, so +30 to even things out. And what the hell is with Plymouth having almost as many museums at the DC area?! What could be that exciting to learn about in Minnesota?! (-30 for being unnecessarily smarmy)

HOME PRICE

And Suddenly I'm thinking I should move back to Birmingham. +50 on the cost of a home. (-40 for this number not including the Mountain Brook or Homewood "cities")

HEALTH

After learning that the south is so fat, you'd think the BMI would be higher there, right? +8 for having great food, diabetes rates be damned. Except what exactly does Alabama have to stress about? No clue where that hypertension number came from....maybe here.

SCHOOLS

Don't really care that much about schools—be that I'm out of it and don't have children—I will note that there must be a good system of privates in our nation's capital...+100 for being around so many awesome museums.

FINAL TOTALS:

So if I calculated my random tabulations of whimsy correctly, Austin gets +5 for being a Hot, Texas City....Plymouth failed miserably with a -130 just for being too perfect, Birmingham, despite all its faults, only had a -14, DC gets a 47 out of my patriotic duty to boost its appeal, and my current city (or dream city) of Arlington barely broke even with a 4. 

Dont try to understand my math. It was created by the llamas. 

Cool Typography

These are all from a performing arts catalog. I was intrigued by the combination of types—classic scripts and type-settings paired with modern rough san serifs. Interesting. Also I really dig the faux watermarks and that girl's dress.

Words of Wisdom: Logos AGAIN

Here's a thought. When you have the most recognizable logo IN THE WORLD:



Why would you change your logo and risk customers confusing you with an energy company, or worse one of those 'not-really-a-web-site sites':



I honestly thought I had typed in the wrong address. Twice. I still don't believe that's Wal-Mart.

Words of Wisdom: Political Satire

Maybe it's because it's early on Monday morning and I haven't had my coffee yet, but I don't see any even slight humor in this cover: 


Words of Wisdom (as if this needed to be said?) Don't draw something like this during an ELECTION YEAR unless you want to royally piss off your already liberally minded readership. Sure, I understand you're doing satire—but while there is still a contest going on—while people still have to make the decision, drawings like this will only go over the wrong way.

Here's the real question: jump forward a year and Obama is already in the White House: would this photo still be offensive?

Found it on Politico via MediaBistro

Photoshopping just got Political...

We laugh at the dumb idiots who get caught Photoshopping, but what happens when it's a country and the subject matter could very well lead us to another stupid war:

[New York Times]

Covers I Like This Week

It kills me that i love this..................(drool)

A nice come back to the Time cover from oh-so long ago. It goes to show that one word (Yet) can have a huge impact on a design, even if the entire thing is a complete rip off of something else. This is what I will forever look to when I want to make a statement on an existing idea...because to me it's managed to stay original, despite the homage to the other cover.

The subscribers' version is super hot. and as a reminder, Project Runway starts next wee gwenyth k and I will continue my blogging on the show. Welcome back, hundreds of viewers who randomly found me on Google Search!

UPDATE: I totally realized now that's totally Gwyneth. I see those legs and that dress and automatically think heidi. it's totally Gwyneth...it's written right there. totally. (can't hardly wait anyone?)

Can I buy this T-Shirt now?

[Available at my oh-so-favorite website, Angry Journalist]

With the news that reporters, copyeditors, and designers are now telecommuting from India I feel it's time to take a stand. For the last few months I've teased about wearing the above shirt to the just-opened Newseum and see what kind of response I get. Probably a lecture from some old guy.

Now all I have to do is decide on a date. It should be symbolic, or ironic, or both. Any ideas?

Reasons I Can't Hate New York: New York Times Magazine

So I'm in LOVE with Mad Men. Just got the DVD from my sister who has connections—she totally scored me the limited edition--looks like a zippo--set and I've gone through most of the episodes once already and can only patiently wait to watch them all AGAIN, but this time with commentary. ANYWAY. That's a post I prol won't do just because I'm just a geek for the show it would be too hard to stop sounding like a blubbering fan long enough to write anything critical about it. 

This post, on the other hand, is about the New York Times.  Specifically their magazine—more specifically their covers. Check out a few from the past few weeks:

I swear, it almost makes me want to subscribe. Or even read. (I know!) The illustrations feel very retro, the spacing is genius, the colors are really embracing the summer, and the typography is just amazing. It's really not fair that the best design is out of a newspaper shop—shouldn't they be bad at this?