Book review: Graphic design ideas

100 Ideas that Changed Graphic Design

100 Ideas that Changed Graphic Design has to be great book for starting arguments. Like all lists, it will divide, inspire, frustrate, inform and irritate its readers. Why’s that in? Why’s this out? You must be joking …

The authors propose 100 ideas, with a spread devoted to each: some technical (overprinting, Letraset, split fountain printing); others stylistic (expressions of speed, loud typography and white space); some objects (graphic design magazines, book jackets); and techniques (the grid, pixellation). And then set out why, arguably, the idea has been influential, with two or three examples as evidence.

So we have ‘body type’ – that’s type printed on flesh (what do you think of that one? Why isn’t it a tattoo?); self-promotional (vanity) publishing; manifestos along the lines of the Pre-Raphaelites’ Germ (though Marinetti’s 1909 article on Futurism is the first mentioned – and the blasting and blessing of the Vorticists’ Blast is far more fun, both to read and look at); and provocative gestures (what, no Churchill?).

Churchill’s V-sign

And no juxtapositions from Lilliput, an idea seen as much in the US and the UK? Or duotone, or printing poor pictures big, or CMYK, or integrated cover illustrations and text, or self-referential magazine covers, lenticular technology, or hand-drawn headlines?

Juxtapositions from Lilliput

Of course, there is also a danger here in repeating too many examples that have been wheeled out so many times before and on this point the book gets it about right.

The text belies the US-centric viewpoint of its authors, as in this commentary on a VW advert (1962): ‘The white page emphasized the undersized Beetle’. ‘Undersized’ – that could only have been written by a North American. These cultural differences are often overlooked by publishers and academics, yet they can make a big difference. For example, how many times has the New York Times printed the word ‘fuck’ in the past 30 years? Once. Even a comparatively reserved British paper such as the Financial Times has used it 430 times in the same period. (And what about censorship as an idea?) The editors could have been a bit more clever here.

The big issue is whether the book is true to itself. What is the underlying logic and narrative the authors set out? Here, it ultimately fails. Idea No 1 is ‘The Book’. Fine. But then it jumps several centuries to focus on the 20th. The Victorian is mainly treated as a form of nostalgia, rather than as the source of so many more of the ideas than the book gives credit for. The book itself gives no hint of selection, though the blurb in the press release does, talking about the ‘best examples’ from the past 100 years. So how does ‘The Book’ get in!

Yet, as long as you mentally insert the phrases ‘from a US perspective’ and ‘of the 20th century’ in the title, Steven Heller and Véronique Vienne provide plenty of irritation/inspiration value to inspire late night arguments among students and professionals alike.

• 100 Ideas that Changed Graphic Design by Steven Heller and Veronique Vienne, Laurence King (2 April 2012), 216 pages (paperback; colour throughout) £19.95

‘Advertising is now so near perfection’ – who said it?

Lovely quote from John Plender, writing in the Financial Times:

‘the trade of advertising is now so near perfection that it is not easy to propose any improvement’

But who said it?

Follow the link to the article to find out,  and I’ll add to this blog in the new year to keep  everyone else on tenterhooks!

 

 

Burberry riding high

Vanessa Friedman has blogged about Burberry chief Angela Ahrendts being appointed to the prime minister’s business advisory council (with a nice line about David Cameron being ‘not remotely threatened by the populist side of new rival Ed Miliband and his TM Lewin high street suits’).

According to the FT’s fashion editor,  ‘as the largest major glossy fashion [magazine] advertiser in the UK, Burberry has the financial power to incentivise editors – with knock-on positive effects for the local economy’.

Burberry is truly riding high – at £10+, its share price is the highest it has been since the company listed in 2003.

Corrine Day, Kate Moss and The Face

Corinne Day image on the V&A website

I’ve just caught up with the Review from Saturday’s Times , which carries a front-page obituary by Amy Raphael for photographer Corinne Day who dies a week ago (‘She never stopped being a rebel’).

The 3rd Summer of Love shoot for The Face in 1990 brought the 15-year-old Kate Moss to the pages of a magazine and is regarded as being the pivotal point in the change of fashion from power-dressing to grunge.

But Day’s watershed shoots did not end there. Her 1993 Moss shoot for June’s Vogue put ‘heroin chic’ all over the papers. Of course, the term had been around for a while – Mick Brown used it about Boy George’s addiction years before – but now the idea had a personification in the shape of Moss, a waif in ‘grotty knickers’ and a vest. It divided the magazine world.

Marcelle D’Argy Smith, editor of Cosmopolitan, told the Independent the pictures were ‘hideous and tragic. I believe they can only appeal to the paedophile market.’ Vogue was accused of peddling porn and editor Alexandra Shulman had to defend herself against accusations of child pornography and encouraging anorexia. The Daily Mail talked of  ‘the darkest regions of human sexuality’.

But Day was away and anti-glamour imagery became the name of the game, with David Sims, Juergen Teller, Craig McDean and Glen Luchford following Day into the pages of Vogue.

In 1997, her photographs were even in the relaunched Penthouse. A Dazed & Confused picture of a pair of soiled knickers won a ‘yukkiest picture’ accolade from the Independent.

But the Raphael piece tells of Day collapsing on a shoot in New York for Interview the year before.

Day carried on working, with her work shown at the V&A and the Photographer’s Gallery, and a Moss commission from the National Portrait Gallery. She also charted her life and illness in a book of photographs, Diary, that came out in 2000.

ASA to vet websites with Google

The Advertising Standards Authority has done a deal with Google to extend its rules on accuracy and decency to company websites, social networks, blogs and apps. Transgressors will be named and Google will ensure the ASA ruling comes up alongside searches on the company. The Financial Times has done a Twitter session on the implications.

Facebook beats Google for US hits

Facebook has overtaken Google in the US for the number of US visits, says the Financial Times.

The paper quotes data from research firm Hitwise showing Facebook’s home page took 7.07% of US web traffic to Google’s 7.03% – the first time Facebook has beaten Google.

Bauer’s Carvosso in fiery debut

Bad taste joke of the month – or possibly just a very old one – from Abby Carvosso, new head of magazine sales at Bauer Media, in a Media Week interview with Harriet Dennys:

‘High praise is also reserved for Heat, which Carvosso describes as “on fire”, before cackling with laughter at her own, unintended, pun.’

In the run-up to Emap’s launch of  the magazine 11 years ago last week, television advertising showed people reading the magazine and bursting into flames. This led to 150 complaints to the Independent Television Commission from viewers who said it was ‘distressing’ and totally inappropriate’. The Fire Brigades Union said at the time: ‘It is wholly inappropriate and totally insensitive to use these images in this way. People who have lost a family member in a fire could be grief-stricken by these advertisements.’

Emap tried to defend itself in Scotland’s Herald, saying: ‘We have taken a surreal approach to the creative idea of reading the “hottest” new weekly entertainment magazine which covers the burning issues of the week.’ Also, it told The Independent: “The scenes involve a lot of water or situations which make it obvious that it isn’t real. It is not our intention to offend and we don’t feel we have.”

This seemed a strange defence – if any of its magazines had 150 letters on a single topic it would certainly have taken notice.

Publishing companies tend to have relatively high staff turnovers and so have short memories, but the value of a trawl through the archives should never be overlooked (or perhaps Carvosso did look at the cuttings and decided to dust off the joke).

Heat first issue cover – and cover for test issue, Pulp.

FT’s How To Spend It goes online

The new website for How To Spend It, the monthly luxury magazine for the Financial Times, goes online tomorrow.  The advent of  Howtospendit.com – which dubs itself  ‘The world’s most luxurious website’ – coincides with the 15th anniversary of the magazine and promises a “highly innovative and visually stunning digital format”.

The design was handled by Razorfish and uses Adobe Flash 10 to translate ‘the glossy magazine reading experience into a convincing luxury online environment’ with a 3D viewing format.

The website will feature exclusive online content:

• Van der postings: Lucia van der Post, launch editor for the original magazine, is the new star columnist;
• The Aesthete – a new magazine column about the world’s tastemakers;
• Technopolis TV – magazine columnist Jonathan Margolis with weekly video bulletins from the world of gadgets and technology.
• Reconnoisseur – daily insider intelligence from magazine contributors.
• Daily gift guide launches in November
• Videos of the magazine’s most visually compelling features, including a behind-the-scenes video of an underwater fashion shoot

Editor Gillian de Bono said:

How To Spend It set the benchmark for luxury lifestyle magazines 15 years ago and now we want to establish the brand as the benchmark for luxury lifestyle websites too. To this end, the print and online operations are fully integrated, produced and edited by a single in-house team using the same top-tier writers, photographers and illustrators.

Launch sponsors include Rolex, Krug and Harry Winston.

Until now, there has been a digital facsimile edition of the magazine.

IPC forms central digital sales team

IPC Media is to centralise its digital advertising sales across the company, with the like of nme.com, goodtoknow.co.uk, trustedreviews.com and whatsontv.co.uk under the same umbrella.

Sam Finlay, advertisement director for IPC Ignite, will head a 27-strong team with AOL Advertising’s Harry Harcus in the advertising operations role with 12 people.

Reader’s Digest in peril in US

The US business of Reader’s Digest has put itself into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection to buy time in reducing its $2.2bn debts, writes Martin Wainwright and Stephen Brook in the Guardian.

That’s a big beast to go down. But, like Picture Post, Punch, Lilliput and Illustrated Evening News in the UK or Life and Saturday Evening Post in the US, such titles have a finite life.

There may be attempts to revive them – and several of these titles live on as ‘brands’ in some diminished form or as picture libraries (images from Lilliput and Picture Post were held by the Hulton picture library, which was subsumed by the BBC and later by Getty) – but there is a lifecycle for magazines.

Reader’s Digest chief Mary Berner summed the latest problem up as “a balance sheet issue and not an operational issue” in the Financial Times. That’s undoubtedly true with buy-out investors led by Ripplewood Holdings set to lose $600m.

However, Reader’s Digest has a long-term problem of falling sales as its ‘baby-boom’ readership dies off. In 1999, then chief executive Thomas Ryder said the group’s strategy was to focus on those over-50s readers. They’re now all 10 years older and I doubt that today’s 50-year-olds are replacing them. The figures show what’s happening.

In 1999, RD had 1.25 million subscribers – it’s now down to a bit over a third of that at 463,597 – with about 150,000 of those sold at less than half price. Some 12,354 copies are sold in newsagents, a level at which it would be dumped by the likes of WHSmith if it were not for its reputation.

It’s a long, slow slide and the publisher has appointed high-profile editors to bolster sales while turning itself into a services company selling just about anything it thinks it is good at to the over-50s, with the magazine acting as a marketing front.

As for the concept of summarising other publications, that’s a lot older than RD, being made a staple of publishers by Victorian titles such as Tit-Bits and Answers (and Answers was the inspiration for the World-Wide Web!).