Yokoland just got bigger
Sep. 1st, 2006 06:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomusAlthough I seem to be writing more and more journalism these days, I've never had a cover feature. Until today. I've just found out that the article I wrote about Norwegian design team Yokoland has run as the cover feature in the new ID magazine.
This chuffs me to the very bollocks, for various reasons. First of all, I'm delighted for Yokoland themselves. Espen and Aslak are just 25; they only graduated from college two years ago. It's great for them. Secondly, because it's an "emerging talent" theme issue, and spotting "barely legal" emerging talent is something I love to do. I'm never happier than when running round art school degree shows. Thirdly, because this feature is one I suggested myself. ID editor Julie Lasky simply commissioned me to write about some young designers. I came up with Yokoland, and she liked the idea and went with it.
And, finally, because these designers come from a part of the world the Anglo press doesn't often cover, and incarnate values I'd like to see disseminated a bit more widely through the Anglo design world. In Yokoland's case, those values are all tied up with playfulness and a slightly retro-1970s aesthetic. I don't want to go into my "politics of texture" thing all over again here, but I think Yokoland's work is politically-texturally... well, right on, actually. If "Yokoland" is an imaginary republic of sorts, a place of trees and games, well, it just got slightly more real. This cover may attract a few settlers. And, as art directors commission them, other places may start to look slightly more Yokolandish. Best of all, the boys may now be able to pay the rent on their office in the world's most expensive city.
You can read the feature online here.
This chuffs me to the very bollocks, for various reasons. First of all, I'm delighted for Yokoland themselves. Espen and Aslak are just 25; they only graduated from college two years ago. It's great for them. Secondly, because it's an "emerging talent" theme issue, and spotting "barely legal" emerging talent is something I love to do. I'm never happier than when running round art school degree shows. Thirdly, because this feature is one I suggested myself. ID editor Julie Lasky simply commissioned me to write about some young designers. I came up with Yokoland, and she liked the idea and went with it.And, finally, because these designers come from a part of the world the Anglo press doesn't often cover, and incarnate values I'd like to see disseminated a bit more widely through the Anglo design world. In Yokoland's case, those values are all tied up with playfulness and a slightly retro-1970s aesthetic. I don't want to go into my "politics of texture" thing all over again here, but I think Yokoland's work is politically-texturally... well, right on, actually. If "Yokoland" is an imaginary republic of sorts, a place of trees and games, well, it just got slightly more real. This cover may attract a few settlers. And, as art directors commission them, other places may start to look slightly more Yokolandish. Best of all, the boys may now be able to pay the rent on their office in the world's most expensive city.
You can read the feature online here.
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-01 04:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-01 05:06 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-01 06:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-01 05:10 am (UTC)Congrats. And Yokoland does look fun and playful.
Oh, and I think I'm going to have to go around finding excuses to say "This chuffs me to the very bollocks".
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-01 05:17 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-01 05:34 am (UTC)Come to think... while I figured from the context that "This chuffs me to the very bollocks" meant "This makes me very happy", and I know what bollocks mean, I still don't know what chuffs means.
So what does chuffs mean anyways? Aside from sounding really silly?
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-01 05:37 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-01 05:40 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-01 05:26 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-01 07:39 am (UTC)And congratulations for it being a cover feature!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-01 08:25 am (UTC)Well done!
The fellow on the left looks 15, not 25.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-01 11:03 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-01 11:17 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-01 11:58 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-01 12:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-01 02:48 pm (UTC)http://money.cnn.com/2006/06/23/pf/expensive_cities/index.htm
this one ranks the most expensive cities as 1-moscow, 2-seoul, 3-tokyo.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-02 12:24 am (UTC)It is basically an 'affordability' index focusing on the locals "buying power" and not on the lifestyle of jet-setting New York businessmen.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-01 02:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-01 04:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-01 11:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-02 06:29 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-02 12:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-01 06:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-01 06:56 pm (UTC)It's been around too long, it's exhausted itself trying to build up and then distance itself from every trend, and it has as much relevance to modern life now as the crepe suzette.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-01 07:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-02 12:01 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-02 11:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-01 08:45 pm (UTC)Modern life is whatever we say it is. That's what makes it modern.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-01 10:19 pm (UTC)Yeah
Date: 2006-09-02 02:03 am (UTC)'Rick' Masters
12 year old Halo 2 Freak
Yeah
Date: 2006-09-02 02:12 am (UTC)Sweeet
Art is tangentially related to the watcher.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-02 04:24 am (UTC)Expensive? Maybe the rents are high and the place is rather small as cities go? I didn't see goods as that expensive. Expensive, sure, but I wasn't shocked or anything. What I did see was considering the small size of the population perhaps the highest ratio of designers to the rest of the population. Of course my friend whom I stayed with not only lived in a 1920s modern house but had his own design studio. He's since had to close the studio because of high overhead and presumably all those other designers milling about, he now works for someone else's design studio.
-ndkent
Oslo
Date: 2006-09-03 01:06 am (UTC)with a giant chandlier made of old glass hanging over the alleyway?
And yes, Oslo is expensive, I had a small not very good lasagna for $17 in some cafe.
Re: Oslo
Date: 2006-09-03 01:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-06 06:45 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-25 02:36 am (UTC)