Help a graphics goblin!
Sep. 3rd, 2007 03:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomusI'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?
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?![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-03 07:15 pm (UTC)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.