Help a graphics goblin!

[imomus]

I'm writing an article for 032c magazine about IDEA. The first thing to say about this magazine is that it's expensive -- Magma in London will let you have a copy for £28.99 ($58 US), at ProQM here in Berlin it's €45,55 ($62 US). So, sitting over twenty of the magazines (worth more than $1200) I feel like a graphics goblin guarding a valuable hoard of design gold. I didn't actually buy any of these magazines -- half of them are on loan from 032c's office, the other half were bought by Japanese art student friends and bequeathed to me when they went back to Japan.



We've established the price of IDEA. It's as expensive as it is for several reasons; almost no advertising, lush illustration and printing throughout, an affluent but very small worldwide readership, and quality writing. A cynic knows the price of everything, the value of nothing. So what's the value of IDEA? Magma's blurb justifies the outlay with this assessment in bold, doffed caps: "FROM JAPAN - THE MOST STUNNING & GROUND-BREAKING GRAPHIC DESIGN MAGAZINE". The main reason I personally love IDEA (though not enough to spend my entire weekly rent on a copy) is the regular column from my art-journalism anti-hero, Kyoichi Tsuzuki. It's called When Flying Pigs Design.

The man responsible for Tokyo: A Certain Style, documentations of spray art trucks and other such grassroots, non-design designs doesn't, himself, have much time for the professional design world. "Architecture and design magazines are kind of stupid," he's said. "They just want to cover big, beautiful buildings... The design trade and profession are boring. The art of reading clients' moods is everything, while what passes for high-end professional quality, utterly bereft of any real vigor, creeps into every corner of the design world ... Design was supposed to be something more exciting!"

But I'd be interested to know what this bi-lingual graphic design magazine means to you, if indeed it means anything at all. I know that Click Opera is read in graphic design offices the length and breadth of the world. So, designers, do you have copies of IDEA on a shelf nearby? Do you sit in the corporate mediapod flipping through them? Does IDEA give you ideas? Does it do stuff the web and the real world can't? What's your favourite bit? What could they be doing better?

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

The main idea I get from IDEA is that I resent the very idea of a magazine that is priced so I can't afford it. There are several magazine that cost one fifth of that which are just as "ground-breaking".

There, I've given you my answer. Now Momus, could you please answer my questions?

1. Kafka or Beckett?
2. Name five things you love about London, and five things you hate about Berlin.
3. Can you draw?
4. You never talk about cooking. Why not? Are you immune to the sensual pleasures of cooking?
5. What and when was the longest time you spent away from the Internet this decade?
6. What city you've never been to would you most like to visit?
7. When was the last time you had sex with a non-Japanese woman?
8. High-profile blogger... low-profile musician... soon-to-be novelist... don't you think you're "overstretching the brand" and "diluting the message"?
9. Five things you love about America; five things you hate about Japan?
10. The last book you bought (with your own money)?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Ooh, a quiz! Goody, another excuse not to start my article.

1. Kafka or Beckett?
Both, really, but Kafka wins.

2. Name five things you love about London, and five things you hate about Berlin.
LONDONLOVE: Speed of life, bigger Japanese community, the art schools, Chinatown, my friends there.
BERLINHATE: Slow life, too few Japanese, drunk punks with dogs on strings, provincial feel, petty authoritarianism of officials and citizens alike.
3. Can you draw?
Yes, but I hate my drawing, which makes me like other people's drawing more.
4. You never talk about cooking. Why not? Are you immune to the sensual pleasures of cooking?
I admire people who can cook, and cooking culture. But I'm too Calvinist to spend two hours on something that'll take ten minutes to eat. Deep down, I resent having to eat at all.
5. What and when was the longest time you spent away from the Internet this decade?
A matter of hours.
6. What city you've never been to would you most like to visit?
Calcutta.
7. When was the last time you had sex with a non-Japanese woman?
Confidential! But I am far from a "white male who exclusively dates Asian women".
8. High-profile blogger... low-profile musician... soon-to-be novelist... don't you think you're "overstretching the brand" and "diluting the message"?
No! Digital Age dilettante and proud!
9. Five things you love about America; five things you hate about Japan?
AMERICALOVE: politeness, positivity, plasticity, professionalism, pioneering spirit.
JAPANHATE: sound pollution, apoliticism, provincialism, people puffing on cigarettes, um, pass.
10. The last book you bought (with your own money)?
Walahfrid Strabo "De cultura hortorum".

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes, that fifth JAPANHATE hate would have to be panel discussions.

[(Anonymous)]

I know that Click Opera is read in graphic design offices the length and breadth of the world. So, designers, do you have copies of IDEA on a shelf nearby?

IDEA isn't much read by real-life designers. Nor is intended to be. It's for people like yourself (albeit richer ones). Fascinated outsiders looking in.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

IDEA isn't much read by real-life designers.

Is this because, for them, in Tsuzuki's words, "the art of reading clients' moods is everything"? Might design improve if more designers read IDEA?

[kaipfeiffer.livejournal.com]

i doubt music improves when musicians read good music magazines.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

i doubt music improves when musicians read good music magazines.

Oh, I very much disagree. I've cited the decline of the UK music press as a motor of the decline of UK music. I was very much inspired by reading the NME when I was a kid, and even now reading Pitchfork makes me think "Wow, there's stiff competition out there, I'd better be good!" (Oddly enough, I don't get that feeling actually listening to the music. The music you imagine just reading a page of music criticism is so much better than the actual music.)

[(Anonymous)]

Magazines such as this are about glamorising design, design-as-Other. But for designers, design is not Other. Designers may flick through these mags, but it's not where they're going to get their ideas. You don't get ideas from other people's finished, polished ideas. You get them from raw materials. Just like a novelist is more likely to be inspired by a newspaper article or a documentary or a picture or a movie or something rather than another novel.

[(Anonymous)]

Christ, the English version of their website is full of spelling mistakes and, er, bad design. I dunno, I think the whole super-expensiveness of the magazine makes it a bit tacky. Like rappers drinking Cristal champagne or something. I agree, actual graphic designers is not the market. It's the rich hangers-on who are buying it.

[akabe.livejournal.com]

Idea surely looks better when you're not in japan.
it's more book than magazine which basically does more than justify the price - domestically ¥2500 is not that much. i did once spend a fortune in not-yen on an issue on brilliant masayoshi nakajo which was well worth it. (a fan of warp records would feel the same about the issue you have in front of you). assuming one is into the stuff a particular issue covers you could say a good issue of Idea is 'priceless' in that you're not going to find that content anywhere else. and highly keep-able. (the fact that design itself is in a bit of a rut these days is not really their problem)

[akabe.livejournal.com]

ah, and i have to ask again. that's not denim you're wearing ?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

It's hemp.

[cerulicante.livejournal.com]

I read IDEA over here in Japan and all I can say is that I can proof their English/translate for them and do a much better job that whatever/whoever they have right now.

once again Adorno...

[(Anonymous)]

Again this is an Adornian issue ... The price you pay is the central part of the value you atribute to the thing bought... "If it's expensive it should be good!", especially in the cultural universe of distinction such as design. I never read IDEA, but it's so obvious that association rarity = distinction = pricey = uniqueness, and so on... the value of such a magazine is the price someone is willing to give away in order to be special.
I wouldn't be admired if any designer's office have copies of that magazine... but I can asure you that you can find copies of IDEA in some of the trendiest design shops [the same question... what about expensive designer stuff, from cloths to furniture, do designers buy such socially distinguished objects?]

Pedro Félix

[genviev.livejournal.com]

i get to look through IDEA at my local library, in Singapore. Other than that, i don't see it on the shelves even in our only two major bookstores like Borders and Kinokuniya. That puzzles me to some extent.
It's my favourite graphic magazine for print design cos printing and photography is precise and honest. I love to see posters with japanese typography and aesthetic, thin lines, grey and grey colours. i look forward to these traditional standards of perfection when i flip through IDEA, sometimes i think a pullout or two with the original paper stock for a particular print work would help me understand better. Compared to the other graphic mags, this one has more patience and an age-old sensibility which i respect. IDEA is Fab:)

[audiodregs.livejournal.com]

I love Idea and have definitely taken inspiration from its pages for both "real design situations" (aka corporate money) as well as "fake designs", which i would guess means indie, no budget projects and small experimental vanity labels and the like. There isn't any other print design magazine that I find interesting.

I have a couple copies that I've inherited, since its too expensive to buy. I've seen it go for about $100 US in SF. but its really not crazy expensive by Japanese standards. Especially if you think of it more like a book and appreciate the detail spent on printing technique, spot colors, quality paper, foldouts, and all that. Mostly I read friends' copies, but I also found a used one at Book Off the last time I was in Tokyo.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

[commeunegarce.livejournal.com]

My (ex) Japanese boss told me not to read IDEA. Our clients were mainly salary-men and we were supposed to avoid making and even reading about, as he called it, "avant-gardiste design", because our salary-men weren't able to understand it. Somehow it was true, but I still read IDEA and I love it.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Ah, the pleasures of transgression!

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

"A cynic knows the price of everything, the value of nothing. "

Vs. "A fool and his money are soon parted." ;)

If someone enjoys IDEA and is rich enough to buy it, good for them. Personally, the internet has made magazines much less valuable to me because I can find fantastic design, music reviews, video game reviews etc. online for absolutely nothing.

I also can't help but feel magazines like this are very simular to what Nike does when it sells trainers/sneakers for £120 a pair -- Creating elitist demand. People buying it to add to their collection, something to show off or at very least make yourself feel just that little more elevated. Turning something into a luxury predominantly with the price tag. I dont like design that does this at all.

I would never buy 032c magazine. I would never pay £9 for something so anti-design, I dont like that style at all. As for IDEA, I've never read it, but looking at the website, I have to say I really like a lot of the stuff I'm seeing. Do I like it enough to pay £30? Probably not because the internet has just as much great stuff for free. Thumbs up for IDEA magazine's content, Thumbs down for its price tag.

[pinkfoils.livejournal.com]

I own the Kazunari Hattori 100 pages issue. Worth every penny. I don't think people would be so bitter about the cost if they flipped through an issue that featured someone they liked [which is the case with me and why I ordered that specific issue, which by the way, was more like $40 something in the U.S., ordered through a Japanese bookstore]. That same issue includes a beautiful printed and illustrated poster on bonsai/seikei technique. It's pretty inspiring throughout, and I wish I could afford to buy it all the time.

what designers read...

[ajkandy.myopenid.com (from livejournal.com)]

I rarely purchase design magazines anymore. Print and ID are similarly expensive, coming in anywhere from $20-60 CDN, and I hate having my reading flow consistently interrupted by bound-in paper samples. Whenever I pore through the design annuals it seems like the same coterie of design superstars is always represented, anyway, and it's always for high-budget, name-client stuff. I wrote an article for The Creative Forum sometime back called "What To Expect from a Design Career," and the truth is, most working designers don't get to play in that arena; they're making datasheets and websites for the X-32 Plastic Laminator Company or their equivalents. It's not art, it's craft, and it deserves to be done well, but there's not a ton of graduate-level communication studies knowledge needed.

I generally start the day with a survey of various design blogs - Design Observer, Speak Up, Newsdesigner, Ikeahacker, Graphic Design Bar, and some more specific to web design: 31Three, Jambor-EE, A List Apart, Airbag, Zeldman, Andy Budd, What Do I Know, UXMatters, and Clear Function.

Beyond that I subscribe to a ton of Flickr folks in the design field. Patrick Haney has a great, continually-growing set of 'web design inspirations' for instance.

Re: the british music press -- I think it all went downhill in 2000 when Select Magazine changed to that daft small perfect-bound format just before vanishing completely. And as Mojo continues its retro-necro-fetish, Q has now become the magazine of endless lists. "EXCLUSIVE! The Top 100 Songs To Listen To While Eating Take-Out Sushi!", etc.

Re: what designers read...

[ajkandy.myopenid.com (from livejournal.com)]

and furthermore, before reading this post, I'd never even heard of IDEA, nor ever seen a copy on newsstands, at people's workplaces or homes...maybe its range of influence is a bit smaller than you think it is?

I'm just glad I buy them in Tokyo.

[(Anonymous)]

I have been collecting IDEA magazine for the past 10 years now and have quite a few of the special editions and multiple editions they put out. Although I'm not in the Art / Design world, they give a very good representation of different styles that is out there and styles that do not generally appear anywhere else. Idea magazine is also just nice to flip through. There are other magazines out there that do something similar, but only IDEA magazine does it with style, be it their choice of paper, media or designers they have doing special one of Mooks.

The quality since I started collecting has not kept up the same pace and in the past couple of years I really need to stretch out and buy them. They have covered quite a considerable amount of ground it artists and there is only so often you can do the same artists again.

But in a general overview, they are worth every bit of money!

fleep...
--
http://fleep.com

[crtzmo.livejournal.com]

i had a chance to visit idea's publishing space in ginza's recruit building about five years ago.. seriously antiquated macs, a dark, dank, cramped office. three or four 30-ish women do the grunt production for the editor, and EVERYTHING is copiously proofed in the production process (thus the excuse for lackluster production computers and crappo monitors -- everything is done off of the computer, just assembled on macs during the production phase). an archive exists of every issue made, the first few are no different than the last couple that i've purchased.. how rare is that??

i've bought select copies of idea for years, and really don't know anybody that buys every one.. just the ones that are appealing. indeed, paying sticker price in japan is nice, but i still haven't bought the ones that i find outside of my taste/interest just because i don't pay the extended cost i once did when i did not live in japan.

idea must hate the web, with it's lack of controllable colour space, no typography to speak of -- and thus shows very little interest in such. they're stuck in the past, which perhaps turns some people off, but for me that's the wonderful thing about it. they don't really seem to be in competition with anybody, not a tool for the local ad man, etc.

indeed, a rare, special publication. i would call it a design JOURNAL, however, instead of a design MAGAZINE.

[(Anonymous)]

and EVERYTHING is copiously proofed

Everything except the English text. I know the magazine's primarily about visuals not words, but nonetheless I get suspicious when you can't get basic stuff like that right. How much would it cost to get a competent English-language proofreader to look over stuff?

[cerulicante.livejournal.com]

I'll do it for tuna. And I have a valid work visa!

[(Anonymous)]

yeah, yore right. fcuk them and there lack of english editoral staffs.

i wasint suspicous beefore, but i am know.

just to make shure, what are you suspicous about? for me it's there totle lack of respect for my language! it shouldn't cost alot for an editor -- heck, i'd proofread there stuffs for free if i could get free copys.

lol

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

avid fan

[ianlynam.livejournal.com]

I don't purchase every issue of Idea, but very well near. I've had a collection going for about 7 years now and have only skipped a few issues (while fresh on newsstands) due to mediocre content.

Cover price: Idea is infinitely better than every other design magazine out there. only Emigre and Dot Dot Dot got close in terms of interesting content. I will gladly pay full cover price for Idea in lieu of ilk like Print, Communication Arts, +81, IdN, Graphic, ID and most other design magazines...

Then, there is always Book-Off. I've rounded out my collection for a cool ¥3000 since moving to Tokyo.

True practitioners don't read Idea: hmmm... bullshit. Almost every designer doing interesting work in the current milieu reads it.

Content: Idea usually does a better job of covering work than the featured folks do in the rare occasion that their work gets printed in a monolograph.

Translation: They need help. I've written them offering assistance as a proofreader and never heard a word back. Not surprising, as that was mightily rude of me, however, they do need to get that up to their production level. Why blow insane amounts of cash on printing when the content is riddled with typos and grammatical errors?

Context: What Idea covers is infinitely more interesting than other design magazines. The work gets its due in full color with spot varnishes, metallics, a bound-in poster, and as of the last two years, some really great incisive, insightful writing by folks like David Cabianca, Andrew Blauvelt, Lorraine Wild, Jeff Keedy, and others.

Most design publications are really fucking bad. Seeing Idea years ago blew my mind compared to what was on newsstands.

The past: Pre-1998 Ideas are pretty crappy. I suggest skipping. Skimpy page count, more typical format, and just kind of "meh" in general.

[cap-scaleman.livejournal.com]

I can't find IDEA in the stores, I can't order it from the net...

where oh whereee

[(Anonymous)]

You can get it from these guys:
http://www.youworkforthem.com/product.php?sku=P1078

$40 dollars isn't tooo bad.

^____^

one more thing

[ianlynam.livejournal.com]

I forgot this major point: the writing that Paul Elliman (http://www.otherschools.com/)was doing for Idea is some of the best out there. His work is up there with Dunne + Raby in looking at graphic design sideways and breaking out of typical design writing constraints.

MOOK

[(Anonymous)]

IDEA is not a magazine, IDEA is not a book. It is a MOOK. Every issue is focussed on a designer or area of design in a way that is as contemporary as a magazine but as thorough as a book. Think about what you spend on some design books and suddenly IDEA seems very reasonable or at least competitive. For me the MOOK is the perfect complement to the Webpage in this moment of history.

Re: MOOK

[(Anonymous)]

uh, isn't that the same as a JOURNAL? MOOK's more fun to say, though.

(btw, is it MOOK like a cow's MOOO, or MOOK like BOOK -- as of now I am doing cow version as it just feels right).

IDEA

[(Anonymous)]

There are a few good Asian design mags like IDN or +81 with some great work (usually printed extra thumbnail size) with mediocre English articles. There are more than enough English language design resources, so I never buy with the intent on reading. You buy Idea because it's got all the design you wish was yours, printed how you would have wanted it printed. Idea has always been a cut above, for all the reasons already mentioned. I will say that when friends come over to my apartment and start browsing my books, I try to keep them away from the Ideas. Non-designers always tear through magazines like they were all Newsweeks, and $60 magazines require careful handling so as not to rip the foldouts and get the glossy black inks all fingerprinted. The guys at Zakka would yell at you if you didn't treat the books in there like newborn infants. Incidentally, just so you know, Zakka moved to DUMBO.

J

[(Anonymous)]

I agree with Ian Lynam's comments. You already mentioned the price, but I'll willing pay it so I don't have to trawl through half a magazine of adverts (have you seen the likes of Casa Brutus recently?). And who says designers don't read it? Have these people asked them all? It was recommended to me by about half a dozen of my friends when I asked for a decent magazine - all of them designers. For me - as somebody working in design/media in Tokyo - I look to magazines such as IDEA to see what people are up to, read some good articles and see some great images. I don't collect them, or any magazines, instead I pass them on to my (mainly student) friends who would prefer to pay for food than read glossies. OK, the English isn't spot on, but it's a damn sight better than my Japanese and how many bilingual issues of Western magazines have you seen? (I mean generally, not you personally, Momus...) IDEA, in fact, inspired me to form a design group with some Japanese friends. No other magazine has had that effect on me, whether it was ¥2500 or ¥25.
Richard.