“Get closer to Sydsvenskan with your Ipad”
Funny! But I still believe in the real touch you feel from the book or actual printed magazine though.
Category: SCREEN
Book porn!
Bibliophilia or bibliophilism is the love of books. Accordingly a bibliophile is an individual who loves book [wikipedia]
This weeks Swedish culture show talked about “book porn”—the increase in exclusive and limited editions book design (as in contrast to the Ipad and reading pad).
I’ll happily translate the whole story for you if you are interested or want to use it for your major project.
Here is a summary
- The surface seduces
- The sense of touch is becoming a more important part of cover design. It is what separates the actual item from the Ipad. (Also smell is important)
- The book is a way of decorating your home and has been a status symbol for several centuries
- The design of the cover is extremely important
- The book does not have to be limited edition, it can still use nice design. Limited edition and exclusivity means some people are excluded
- PLAY with the shape and design of the book
Q (reporter): Will the book become a collectors item in the age of digitalisation?
A (book designer): Hasen’t it always been?
Q: Yeah, but will it become more of a staus item?
A: Yes, I believe so.
Books covered with exclusive Scottish tartan fabric, covered in Pucci fabrics, stitches on cover…
Find the show here (about 7 min long), 46:30 and onwards http://svtplay.se/t/102834/babel
RE: Print: the sunset industry
When I did my BA we went to visit Sweden’s biggest paper press. It was such a sad and depressing place. About 90 % of the employers were male and over 45 years of age. The equipment and computers used were over 20 years old! They simply had no visions at all. And guess what they said, first thing when we arrived! “Welcome to the dying business”. No wonder printed papers are declining if that is the state of mind of the business.
And also… Speaking of print; I went to an offset printing office the other day and they gave me this magazine “POP – the Power of Print”. I think that just makes them seem even more desperate. I’ll read it if I have time and post the best parts. 🙂
Everything Ipadable
I was thinking about what’s happening as we move into the digital age of the screen and Ipad. My essay is about record covers and it had me thinking on how all oup pop cultural items are now in our Ipad.
Records, magazines, comics, books, movies, TV shows—even Scrabble is moving to the screen or Ipad. This had me thinking maybe the only “pop cultural-item” never to be transferred to the screen is clothes and fashion?
Then I saw this video, haha!
But, seriously, the thought is interesting. Will these un-padable items matter more to us in the future? I believe so. But maybe I’m wrong.
Do you want to do a Virtual Letterpress?
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/821242145/lettermpress-a-virtual-letterpress-on-your-ipad
I just found a letterpress simulator online which called LetterMPress, and it will be released for iPads. Maybe it’s a good idea for more people experiencing letterpress, but I’d personally rather just go to the print studio downstairs. Because of the internet, the heavy digital use on some level, is ruining “traditional fun”. What I’m interested in is that the limitations and the possibilities of the medium. I’m sorry that I cannot help but be cynical about this sort of things, especially when someone making design-works by automatic programs or softwares…
Print: the sunset industry
Is the position of print technology threatened in this digitalised era? In 1990’s, magazines in the US has a notably 50% decline in its advertisement pages in comparison with 1980’s. Readership has decreased over time. Print is no longer the first choice of medium with its given limitations.
Despite of these figures, some designers think that to assume it’s nearly the end of print technology is premature.
… no matter what print is (or isn’t), words are just ideas waiting to be read. And reading will never die. Reading is your ticket to the world.
– Jessica Helfand
Like print, digital is just another platform of graphic design expression. Typography is a big part of graphic design. It’s function is to present words and meanings. As long as messages need to be conveyed, communication will be carried forward on both platforms through type.
David Carson, who published RayGun in the 90’s, is someone who has no problem with the debate about the print and screen technology. He mainly adopts the spirit of digitalisation into his editorial layout. To him, the end of print means the beginning of this marriage, which is relevant in that era.
Is google making us stupid?
I can’t agree more with Kenya Hara on this: ‘a situation in which we awake one day to find that what is active is not our senses but only software, is not some kind of science fiction tale; it’s already here, and it is prevalant’. Thus to agree that google is making us stupid as well as digital technology, so let’s hope that there is no end to print despite the pulping problem it causes. Why is there such a thing as freesheets (Stylist, Shortlist)? They only pollute our environment, they can easily exist as digital. I guess that’s same with free newspapers.
LOL
Email, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, LinkedIn… It appears our world has never been more interconnected. It is everywhere, at anytime, within easy reach. But when it comes to relationships, are we still capable of differenciating electronic one of physical one? Are we substituting virtual life for real life?
From a general point a view, digital medias seem to be cold and inhuman. Can we actually compare a real-life hug to a “poke” on your facebook wall? Of course not. But we probably find it easier to communicate that way. We engage ourself less by avoiding face to face confrontation. While the social medias seem to be driving us apart, it also appears it can also take us to a whole new level of closeness, like peer-to-peer networking for example (where tasks are equally distributed between peers). The main issue I can’t succeed to answer is if we are losing a bit of our humanity on the way… Can both realities live together side to side, or is internet stealing bit-by-bit a part of our freedom without us noticing it? An article from The New-Yorker raises in a funny-clever way the issue of “How the Internet gets inside us”, see the link below.
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2011/02/14/110214crat_atlarge_gopnik
One thing that qualifies new social technologies for sure is probably how confusing it is and how blurry its limits are.
POST TYPOGRAPHIC MANIFESTO
This is a manifesto written by PostTypography.com, find it here (opens in new window).
The manifesto can be linked to a lot of the texts that we have read. It touches on The Crystal Goblet, representing thoughts similar to Keedy´s text and mentions quotes as “the medium is the message”; it brings up the revolution of the computer and by being a manifesto in it self—i guess you can also say that it links to First Things First, as it also (somehow) questions the role of the designer. Read it and see what connections you can find.
This Post Typographic Manifesto strongly critiques Warde´s Crystal Goblet—“We step on your crystal goblet of typography at the marriage of liberty and design.” Referring, i guess, to the way a glass is broken at a jewish wedding and a wish for deign to be free of rules, do:s and don’t:s and limited only to designers (democratic typography).
Some other interesting quotes (feel free to discuss them over this blog):
- “Typography is dead. You have killed it.”
- “If the letters used to construct your words are invisible, does not the message also go unnoticed and unheeded?” (Critiqes Wade)
- “Never forgetting the struggle of the Desktop Publishers and those who came before, we of the Post Typographic movement seek no less than the democratization of typography.”
Here’s a picture I found referring to this manifesto…
http://www.posttypography.com/site/index.php?action=manifesto
PS. Read Andy´s post underneath, this is kind of the contradiction of that one. Talking about democratising design and not being limited to rules. (although Andy has a good point :] )
Is Work Making Us Stupid?
One of the main problems I have while working is keeping my focus and my concentration. With regard to Nicholas Carr’s article ‘Is Google Making Us Stupid’, perhaps it is not just Google that is making us stupid but modern life itself. There is no doubt that I constantly go off on tangents while searching for information on the internet, often spending half an hour hopping from one hyperlink to another, until I realise that I’m now looking at photographs of some person I don’t even know, who might be a friend of a friend. Possibly we can look at modern life in the same way. One distraction after another. Phone calls, text messages, emails, faxes, instant messaging, tweets, pokes on Facebook, pokes on the shoulder, knocks on doors, people shouting across rooms. The list goes on. There are some Eureka! moments now and again for everyone but in most cases graphic designers and creative people in general need a certain amount of uninterrupted time to focus on the task at hand. We are creative problem solvers. Constant interruptions and distractions can only stifle our creative prowess. This is a battle we will have to overcome because this is the world we live in.
Andy Mac Manus
LCC MAGD GROUP V 