Very Elle, Very Cool

With so many photographers and stylists working for both editorial and advertisers, fashion magazines are finding it impossible to create a distinct tone of voice through their imagery. Instead, it is typography that is increasingly being used to separate ‘ed’ from ‘ad’. Joining the likes of David James’ Another and M/M’s Arena Homme Plus is new-look French bi-annual Very Elle, designed by Non-Format’s Jon Forss and Kjell Ekhorn.

Part of the studio’s brief was to use its renowned typographic skills (displayed, for example, in the design of Varoom magazine) to give the magazine a singular voice that would set editorial pages apart from the advertising. “This led us directly to the idea of creating typefaces especially for the magazine,” they say. Forss and Ekhorn created Heroine, an adaptable family of display faces used for headlines and standfirsts. “The magazine aims to celebrate women from very diverse fields so it was important for us to develop a family of typefaces that would not only signal high fashion but one that could span the whole spectrum,” they say. “To begin with we created an ultra-thin version which would be used for the main feature openers in the fashion sections of the magazine. Then we began work on a bolder, much brasher version and then, regular and thin versions.”

They also decided to employ blocks of type with very tight spacing. “To avoid the inevitable problems with clashing ascenders and descenders, we produced alternative versions of each typeface with extended charac ters,” they explain. “These can be altered to get an offending ascender or descender well out of the way and, as a bonus, they also provide an appealing visual texture within the body of the text.” 

The result is a really beautifully crafted magazine that absolutely succeeds in creating a distinct voice - this is, after all, a mass-market publication, not a niche arts title. There have been other periods when type has come to the fore in magazines - think the three B’s of Brodovitch, Brody and Baron. And no doubt advertisers will soon catch up with editorial’s use of elaborately expressive type – it’s often the same people doing both anyway. But for now, editorial pages like these offer a rare chance for typography to shine.

CS Shanghai: Final Thoughts

Shanghai after 4 hours sleep in 3 days and the hottest Szechuan meal known to man

Three days isn’t long enough to do more than scratch lightly at the surface of a place but my time at the Creative Social in Shanghai did bring home the scale of the changes that China has undergone. There are no more Period Police for a start…

We heard about the dreaded Period Police from writer and journalist Lijia Zhang. Her memoir, Socialism Is Great, record her life as a young worker in a missile factory in Nanjing. She had wanted to be a writer but, aged 16, her mother took her out of school in order for Lijia to take over her job at the factory. She thought she was doing her daughter a great favour as a job at the factory meant security for life: “The factory was a mini state of its own,” Lijia said, “it fed us, there were hospitals, a library, a kindergarten school, we had indoctrination at its meeting halls. Our whole life was contained there.” But it was a life that was totally controlled by the state: “We weren’t allowed lipstick, or high heels. The width of our trousers was controlled.” And every month the women among the factory’s 10,000 workers had to line up before the dreaded Period Police to prove that they were not pregnant and thereby obtain their ration of sanitary towels.

Charity Ads: A More Mature Approach?

Kids Company by AMV.BBDO. Art direction/ design: Paul Cohen. Copy writer: Mark Fairbanks. Photography: Thom Atkinson

The unscrupulous among the advertising community have often tended to look upon charity accounts less as an opportunity to help those in need and more as a chance to help themselves. Is a more mature approach emerging?

Charity campaigns have often been taken on with the express intention of winning awards and, in order to do so, many have resorted to crude tactics. In the mid-90s when outrage over ‘shock advertising’ was at its peak, some of the worst offenders were for small charities many of which, miracu lously, were never heard from before or since.

But perhaps there is something of a more mature approach emerging. The first thing that occurs with these campaigns is the amount of copy used. It’s not so long ago that we were all bemoaning the death of long copy in advert ising. And yet all four campaigns use lengthy, discursive texts to make their case: in Kidsco, the copy runs to nearly 400 words. The style is convers ational.

In Qatar, an Art Museum of Imposing Simplicity

The new Museum of Islamic Art, designed by I. M. Pei, opens next week in Doha, Qatar.
Nicolai Ouroussoff writes: "Rising on its own island just off the city’s newly developed waterfront corniche, it is the centerpiece of an enormous effort to transform Qatar into an arts destination."
"The inaugural festivities on Saturday, including a performance by Yo-Yo Ma, attracted art-world luminaries from around the globe.
"Viewed under the light of a spectacular evening fireworks display, the museum’s colossal geometric form has an ageless quality, evoking a past when Islamic art and architecture were a nexus of world culture. At the same time it conveys a hope for reconnecting again."
"Mr. Pei visited several proposed sites in downtown Doha before settling on the area just off the end of the seafront corniche.
"Worried that his building might one day be hemmed in by new construction, he asked Qatar’s Emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, chairman of the museum’s board, to build him a private island so that his monument would be isolated from the rest of the city."
"The building seems austere by the standards of the flashy attention-grabbing forms that we have come to associate with Persian Gulf cities like Dubai and Abu Dhabi."
Mr. Ouroussoff says the museum "recalls a time when architectural expression was both more earnest and more optimistic, and the rift between modernity and tradition had yet to reach full pitch."
"The museum, which houses manuscripts, textiles, ceramics and other works mostly assembled over the last 20 years, has emerged as one of the world’s most encyclopedic collections of Islamic art.
"The origins of its artifacts range from Spain to Egypt to Iran, Iraq, Turkey, India and Central Asia."
“Islam was one religion I did not know,” Mr. Pei said in an interview. “So I studied the life of Muhammad. I went to Egypt and Tunisia. I became very interested in the architecture of defense, in fortifications.”
“The architecture is very strong and simple,” he added. “There is nothing superfluous.”

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/24/arts/design/24muse.html?_r=1&ref=design

CS Shanghai: The City Past and Present

Textile hanging featuring Shanghai landmarks by Jellymon

There’s a feeling that Shanghai has returned to its roaring glory days of the 30s, which means huge energy, huge opportunity…and huge inequality

The first speaker session at the Creative Social Shanghai event this morning was by New York-based writer Stella Dong who recently published Shanghai: the Rise and Fall of a Decadent City. Stella gave a great potted history of a city that, as recently as the 1840s was just a quiet market town. “Shanghai is a city that no longer exists but in many ways has come full circle,” she said. “Old Shanghai was a freewheeling place, it was about being greedy for material things and for life which is what Shanghai is once again after a long hiatus.” Modern advertising came to Shanghai thanks to those lovely people at British American Tobacco who, in the early 20th century, came up with the idea to give away calendars featuring pretty Chinese girls [who also appeared on posters, which other brands copied, see below]. The images became iconic and unique to Shanghai.”

Link: http://www.creativereview.co.uk/crblog/cs-shanghai-the-city-past-and-present/

Killer iPhone Apps

Give an iPhone owner half a chance and they will happily launch into a lengthy demonstration of the latest slew of ‘apps’ that they’ve downloaded for their pocket-sized gadget. Apps are, essentially, packages of software that utilises (hopefully) the best properties of the iPhone’s hardware - ie the multi touch screen, GPS, and the impressively sensitive accelerometer. These properties, combined with a powerful operating system (Unix) and fast internet connection speeds mean that the iPhone is, in short, a creative programmer’s dream come true. Here at CR, we’ve been checking out a wide variety of apps and have compiled a round up of our current favourites…

Link: http://www.creativereview.co.uk/crblog/killer-apps/

Islamic Innovation in Dubai.

Islamic Innovation in Dubai.
Posted by: Bruce Nussbaum on November 12

On the road to the airport in Dubai, I passed a big billboard sign. It said:

“Innovation Thinking Based on Islamic Values.”

Fascinating.

other comment:
Cincinnatus
November 14, 2008 12:36 AM
Hey Bruce:
It's more like Frightening!
Have you any idea what the terms Islmamic Values means? Do you realize that Islamic law, Sharia, and Constitutional Law are 100% anti-thetical? Or are you OK with a Supremacist Ideology, with no Freedom of Conscience, Religon, Speech & Assembly? Are you willing to throw away the Golden Rule? Or the notion that All Men (& Women) Are Created Equal?

If so, then Fascinating may be the correct term.
If not, then mine is.

6 words means a lot. Many things could be thought under this statement.
Depending on positive as well as negative thoughts.