sustainable architecture:magazine

Following, am citing a very interesting review I found about Sleaze magazine and this review basically sum up’s Sleaze’s identity.

A declaration: I’ve never liked style mags. The editorial content is always smug and unispiring, the ’style’ is usually non-existent and these glossy paperweights are so jam-packed full of adverts that it takes a massive suspension of disbelief to feel that you are actually reading a magazine, and not merely a self-satisfied, Hoxtonian version of the Argos catalogue.

Here are some highlights from the flyer that was released for the rebranding of it:

Rising from the ashes of the traditional style mag market Sleaze is a satirical, ultra-opinionated overview of contemporary British youth culture; a culture that’s been hijacked, washed out and bastardised by the mainstream. Independently published, Sleaze is the only magazine with the balls to question the relentless hype and consumerism plaguing fashion, music, cinema, media and art.

Style mags are written for the advertisers, not you. Luxury brands have bought the style press. We’re going to write an independent honest magazine for the reader.

We don’t give a fuck about celebrity. It’s not real life. It’s an unattainable carrot-on-stick. No more two-bit celeb covers. No more lifestyles of the rich and famous.

The brand identity therefore is iconoclastic, anti-consumerist, anti-hype, anti-sell out, anti-mainstream. However all these where just in theory because practically form what I’ve read is that Sleaze was nothing of those. It was an ordinary lifestyle magazine that did not differentiate at all for the others. Half of it was just advertisements and one of its flyers for the branding of the relaunched magazine, featured Victoria Beckham. Even though it was a half burned poster of her at the end of the day it featured a star. They used hed image to sell, and this more than a decate ago could have be called ironic, today it’s just the old same stuff.

To conclude, Sleaze’s ending remains unknown, but it doesn’t prevent me or anyone else to think that the reason it died was because it was just another brand.

image: sleazeflyer  Originally uploaded by mcharalambous20

Originally uploaded by mcharalambous20

Here am citing some of the quotes I found when reading an article about typography and its relation to architecture.
“Graphic design repeats in miniature what architecture does monumentally.”

‘The union of type and architecture does exist. Recently, the Cal Trans building in Los Angeles, designed by Thom Mayne, incorporated the building’s address in a stunning projection of huge architectural numbers from the facade’.

Print is a bimonthly American magazine about visual culture and design and it was first published in 1940. Print views commercial, social and environmental design; the good, the bad and the ugly.

Pntri is a general interest magazine, written by cultural reporters and critics who look at design in its social, political and historical context. Print has a wide range of audience, from designers to art directors, illustrators and photographers, educators and students. Print has undergone a complete redesign in 2005.

emigre_layout

Originally uploaded by mcharalambous20

‘Featured in this issue is the work of graduate and undergraduate graphic design students at California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California. Because we are always interested in what the future of graphic design might bring, every once in a while Emigre focuses on a particular design school whose work we feel might have an impact on the development of design.

This issue consists of actual school assignments whose mechanical parameters were slightly altered to fit the page size and printing restrictions of Emigre magazine.

The student projects featured include interpretations of critical writings in graphic design, both visually and verbally, as well as projects ranging from typeface designs to the design of the cover of Emigre magazine’.

emigre

Originally uploaded by mcharalambous20

It’s time for the Big Bens, wooden shoes, Eiffel Towers, lederhosen, cowboys and Indians, towers of Pisa, bowler hats, kangaroos, and exotic beaches to move over. For this issue, designers from around the world update their national symbols. Featuring work by Wolfgang Weingart, Rick Valicenti, Neville Brody, Steven R. Gilmore, John Weber, Malcolm Garrett, Jeffery Keedy, Mitsuhiro Miyazaki, Allen Hori, Philippe Apeloig, and many others.

The magazine has changed formats several times: it was first published quarterly in a large format and each page measured 285 mm x 425 mm, starting with issue 33 each page is about 8.5″ x 11″ , it changed into a multimedia format (a booklet where each page is 133 mm x 210 mm, plus a CD or DVD) starting with issue 60; and finally, starting with issue 65, the magazine became a book format, published twice a year, where each page measures 133 mm x 210 mm.

Emigre is a graphic design magazine published by Emigre Graphics in 1984-2005; It was published in California by Dutch-born Rudy Vanderlans who was the art director using fonts designed by his wife Zuzana Licko. Emigre was one of the few publications to use Macintosh computers and had a large influence on graphic designers. It had a variety of layouts, used guest designers and opinionated articles that had a effect on other design publications.

The magazine had a focus to people that migrated out from other countries, but often carries a connotation of politico-social self-exile. The first eight issues were concerned with boundaries, international culture, travel accounts and alienation. Also the first eight issues incorporated a dynamic aesthetic that caught the attention of designers and led to the next stage of the magazines revolution.

In the very first issue, the magazine explored design as a subject devoting issues in typography and graphic designers. Therefore Emigre became a blackboard of essays and writings on design. The magazine changed its format in 1995 and from its over-sized layout it went down to a more friendlier text book format. The magazine kept its character until 2001.

Emigre then took a 180 degrees turn with four re-formated issues in 2001 and 2002 that included one DVD and three CD’S featuring music.

The last six issues of Emigre where co-published by Princeton Architectural Press as small soft-cover books. The last issue titled The End was published in 2005. Overall the magazine had a complete series of 69 issues.

USP is a marketing concept. Some good examples of products with a clear USP are

• Head&Shoulders: “you get rid of dandruff”
• Olay: “you get younger looking skin”
• Red Bull: “you get stimulation of body and mind”
• Coca cola: “Live on the coke side of life”
• Ronseal: “You get exactly what it says on the tin”

Some Unique Propositions that were pioneers when they were introduced:

• Domino’s Pizza: “You get fresh, hot pizza delivered to your door in 30 minutes or less–or its free”
• FedEx: ” When your package absolutely, positively has to get there overnight”
• M&M’s: “The milk chocolate melts in your mouth, not in your hand”

CRITISM OF USP THEORY

The perception of something being a USP is quite stiff. In the examples above, Head & Shoulders is not the only product on the market that will get rid of dandruff, neither is Dominos the only pizza delivery chain with a similar thirty-minute guarantee. In both instances, the products can be said and identified to be as market leaders in their categories . Although they have the original USP, the public eye has stop to view it as unique. In other words, what was originally a USP has become mrely a perception of superior quality, something quite different. In the example of Ronseal, “(doing) exactly what it says on the tin” could be argued not to be a USP but rather a clever advertising slogan implying reliability or honesty.

USP’S

WALLPAPER* “Design Interiors Fashion Art Lifestyle”

ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST “The international magazine of design”