Altered States

        

I found this great website called ‘Australian Green Hosting’ which offers carbon neutral website hosting. I’m of the belief that every small thing counts and this initiative is something that I’d really like to support and be a part of. At this point in time I’m not sure what my requirements for a website would be but it’s important to me that I would be doing something to negate the extra energy consumption - whether it be carbon offsetting or eco web hosting. 

I’ve been reading the task sheet for our final year project and I came up with a list of skills/ attributes that I think we’re meant to demonstrate throughout our assessment. 

In no particular order these are: 

• Strong personal aesthetic
• ‘Real world’ market research
• Business acumen
• Exploitation of new and relevant technologies
• Professional presentation 
• Strategy 
• In depth research 
• Self criticism/ discipline
• Creativity 
• Innovation 

[Narration] In the end we had pieces of the puzzle, but no matter how we put them together, gaps remained. Oddly shaped emptiness mapped by what surrounded them, like countries we couldn’t name. What lingered after them was not life, but the most trivial list of mundane facts. A clock ticking on the wall, a room dim at noon, the *outrageousness* of a human being thinking only of herself. 

I am obviously not smart enough to understand how this whole website thing works. At least I’m trying! I found some Responsive CSS ‘frameworks’ thanks to a very helpful article. (Is it wrong that I’m biased towards the prettier ones?) Seriously though, these framework descriptions read an awful lot like my dreaded high school maths homework. 

I love the branding work of NZ artist, Raewyn Brandon. She’s worked with a number of different companies across a wide spectrum of industry and I think her work is really of the moment and fresh. 

This is an example of her work for a NZ based fashion label. I’ve included the blurb from her website because I think it’s interesting to read about the inspiration and process behind creative works. 

“For this project… [I created] a new campaign name, campaign poster, lookbook Poster and four postcards for a 2010 summer range. 

The campaign name ‘Simply Deconstruct’ was based on the seasons clothing having very simple pieces, but in a very modernist, deconstructed way. This inspired the design concept of chopping up the photographs in a simple grid and arranging them in a deconstructed layout. I chose to maximise negative space in my designs to keep within the feel of NYNE’s existing branding”

View her website here and check out the rest of her work! (because I am too lazy to post it all here) 

While I might not be unsure of the exact form that my final year project will take, I AM sure that I want to make a fully functioning, user interactive website. I’ve already enrolled in a course at uni (Intro to Web Design and Development hooray!), but I’m trying to get a basic understanding before I start. 

I just discovered a reference to Responsive CSS software that means your website will be compatible on all screen sizes - this is particularly relevant for iPads and smartphones. 

Also something my boyfriends mum said to me today has really stuck with me. In order to come up with an idea that is truly unique and innovative I need to expand my horizons and experience new things! A late New Years resolution? 

Another great site- How I Met Your Style is the product of two photographers who wanted to create a platform through which they could introduce the ‘behind-the-scenes’ style of majors bloggers and designers. A sort of mismatch between street style sites such as Garance Dore and Stockholm Streetstyle and the more voyeuristic The Selby (Is in your place), How I Met Your Style is already proving to be an online hit. 

I appreciate the layout and design of the blog. It’s homely and still clean and crisp. Plus it functions as a website really well, it’s accessible and enticing. 

I’ve lost count of the many ways that I LOVE Tavi Gevinson. Seriously. She’s like 15 and she already has the kind of influence and pulling power over the fashion industry that many 40 year olds would kill for. To add insult to injury her recent addition online magazine (or is it just a website? I give up) ‘Rookie’ is one of the most cited fashion references around. 

What I love about Rookie (and Tavi) is her dedication to time. ‘After School Special’ - ‘Dinner Time’ - ‘Sweet Dreams’. Anything updated that frequently is going to the top of my bookmarks list. None of this ‘weekly’ crap, give me hourly updates anyday. 

One could hardly write about the magazine industry and not talk about Vogue and in particular - Vogue.com. Anna Wintour’s ‘better-late-than-never’ contribution to the virtual world of fashion magazines. Now more user-interactive than ever before, Vogue.com was designed as opposition to the much loved online style bible, Style.com. Anna’s own reasoning is far more eloquent, as told to WWD “The Vogue reader is completely engaged in the world of technology…I felt it was crucial that in this era we take the authority, quality, and beauty of Vogue and bring those values to the digital realm. The fashion world moves so quickly now, everyone here at the magazine wants to be able to bring it to the Vogue reader on an hourly, not just monthly, basis. Also, there is just so much — too much, almost — out there on the Web. Vogue.com isn’t going to be covering everything — just the right things.”

MORE FROM WWD: Contentwise — in addition to ramped-up collections coverage and original features from the likes of creative director Candy Pratts Price — the site is set up to showcase high-quality videos and photos. “Enhancing the sense of community on vogue.com” was another priority, said Palmer. Along those lines, users now can comment on stories, connect to most social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook), create “lightboxes” with their favorite looks, vote for the Ten Best Dressed and see what’s happening elsewhere online via The Aggregator, which pulls fashion news from across the Web. 

From Trendland, I discovered mention of a French based video production company, ‘Fly [16x19]’. I’m not sure they’re worth all the hype Trendland gives them (admittedly the article is old - perhaps there’s a new ‘best’ now). I watched their Freya video and it seems like your average fashion video albeit with a ‘model of the moment’. Groundbreaking it was not. So is ‘video advertising’ the future of the magazine industry? 

“Fly [16x9] is a one of the best Fashion video production of the moments. The French company is creating fashion advertising (or short films if you want to call it like that) for luxury labels such as Givenchy, Prada, Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior, Yohji Yamamoto, YSL, Sonya Rykiel, Junya Watanabe, Rick Owens,  Ann Demulemeester, Miu Miu and Kiki De Montparnasse. 

Unlike anything the fashion, art, and creative worlds have ever seen, FLY is a unique, multi-sensory journey into the fashion magazine of the future. FLY’S visionary collection of exclusive short fashion films, interviews, documentaries, and music videos are released on a limited edition DVD with a graphic silkscreen cover printed on recycled handmade packaging that you can buy atMicrocinemaDVD”

From Fieldguided 

“…My friends Laura Jane and Liz have started re-writing all of The Beatles songs as short stories or essays, a very ambitious project that will span nine volumes called Let it Be Beautiful — if anyone can do it, they can. They have printed the first six stories as zines as a preview. 

I read them in the order of Beatles songs I liked least to the ones I liked best, so: Another Girl, Like Dreamers Do, Penny Lane,Because, A Hard Day’s Night, The Inner Light. The stories are about Laura Jane and Liz’s lives — sort of, but not really at all — just as they are sort of, but not really at all about the Beatles and their songs.

Laura Jane has “Lennon” and “McCartney” tattooed on each of her arms in cursive script, and they’re my favourite tattoos on anyone ever.” 

This idea is both unique and beautiful. The Beatles have had such a strong influence on so many people across the creative fields and to see their music translated into stories and presented in such a manner is so cool. I only wish the presentation lent itself to collecting - zines are not exactly known for their longevity. 

Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people. Unfortunately, that’s too rare a commodity. A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have. 
 

STEVE JOBS, WIRED, FEBRUARY, 1995

two things

two things i love : polly stenham and cool fonts. 

One thing I love in art/ editorials/ illustration is the pairing of an inanimate object with an image of a person - I think that use of OBJECTS as opposed to literature (visual imagery) can give away so much about a persons personality. And without reverting to tired cliches or pop culture references… Or perhaps I’ve been reading too much Sherlock Holmes? Either way, these illustrations by Bernadette Pascua pair water colour waifs with unusual or contrasting objects.

I think we all have an object that we cherish, which may be somewhat at odds with our appearance, that speaks volumes about our inner most desires or hidden personalities. 

via MISSMOSS: all illustrations by Bernadette Pascua 

Sofia Coppola on Film The Australian Centre for the Moving Image

Federation Square

February 23rd — February 27th, 

The Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) will dedicate a night to applaud the hand that has crafted some of the silver screen’s strongest female protagonists yet, Sofia Coppola, this Febuary. Coppola’s Oscar Winning work will be showcased for five nights of dreamy visuals, meditative insights and indie rock sound tracks. ‘The Virgin Suicides’ (1999), ‘Lost in Translation’ (2003) and ‘Marie Antoinette (2006) all share the auteur’s respect and devotion to portray female heroines caught in the throws of crisis as she illuminates their navigation through a misunderstood and often disillusioned world. ‘Sofia Coppola On Film’ will run from Thursday 23 to Monday 27 Feburary at the ACMI in Federation Square.

via MISSMOSS: I am so impressed by this animated gif lookbook for Verrier by Reed & Rader. It’s always nice to see something new being done within the realm of the ‘lookbook’. Static images can be so boring sometimes - be sure to check out all of them here. via Design for Mankind

“I like drinking coffee alone and reading alone. I like riding the bus alone and walking home alone. It gives me time to think and set my mind free. I like eating alone and listening to music alone - but when I see a mother with her child, a girl with her lover, or a friend laughing with their best friend, I realise that even though I like being alone, I don’t fancy being lonely. The sky is beautiful but the people are sad. I just need someone who won’t run away.” 

Another interesting trend that TRENDLAND has identified is a move to more vintage style print media as exemplified by the old school revamp of the New York Times Magazine… Interesting. Perhaps the future of magazine design will see a melding of cutting edge technologies with vintage style graphic design?  

TRENDLAND’s article on print layout and web design might make my brain a little bit sore but mainly it gets super excited at all the possibilities for innovative web design out there! 

I’m a bit of a typography nerd so hearing about services like type kit and plugins (truth be told I have no idea what a plugin is but the website is exceedingly cool) like lettering.js make me want uni to start already so I can get started!!!! To my mind the article is about the evolution of web design into something more exciting, innovative and user friendly with new applications for media and a big bad world of implications for the fashion magazine industry. I’m sorry if I’ve got the wrong end of the stick there :) 

Read the TRENDLAND web design review below… 

“It is not often that I review web design on Trendland, not because I don’t like it, but more because there is nothing too exciting to talk about it. Well, there is now. This past Sunday I surfed for hours on some of the best web/graphic design and typography websites in the world. I was already excited for the arrival of CSS3 + Html5 (almost a year ago) and the growing popularity of the @fontface, where you can now embed pretty much any fonts on your websites. With services like Typekit and plugins like lettering.js, typefaces are seeing a big revamp on the web. It is very stimulating, but that’s not it! The most exciting is seeing the ability of full control editorial design on the web. And I couldn’t wait for that!

 

With the incorporation of Media Queries, where the content and format alter positions automatically depending on the screen size, whether its an iPhone, iPad or a large screen. For example check this page and re-size your browser window, you’ll see what I mean.

 Basically its the idea of matching design to content and breaking free from the template that 99.9% of the sites have on the internet. Great designers such as Gregory Wood, Jason Santa Maria, Dustin Curtis, Trent Walton andYaron Schoen have already designed their sites that way, and it is such a pleasure to go through and read articles that way -  the feeling of magazines cannot get closer.” 

my idea for this final year project is complex to say the least. 

what I want to achieve is a vibrant, dynamic and diverse physical and virtual portfolio that I can use to find work in the field of fashion design development/ writing/ marketing/ graphic design. 

my initial idea was to create a fashion magazine. I interned with an honours student from QUT last semester who created a very cool magazine called SEAM for her honours project. it was beautifully presented and she’s gone on to get work with a locally produced magazine, MAP. The issue with producing a magazine is that I’m worried it’s not hands on enough. I ultimately want my work to be the main focus of whatever I produce and that’s not the case with a magazine where I would be responsible for sourcing and curating other peoples contributions. Also I’m not entirely sure the market is there for another cut and dry paper magazine. I feel like the market is moving towards more interactive and user generated forms of media… 

I was browsing the ‘mag|blog|web’ section of TRENDLAND when I stumbled upon this post regarding a new London based publication called ‘USED’ magazine. The stricking visuals on the front cover initially caught my eye and the editorials inside promise to be just as vibrant…. enjoy! 

“A beautiful new publication arrives on the market: USED magazine. Brainchild of the London based creative agency Useful , (known for their art direction and editorial design of the Topshop 214 Magazine), USED is a new bi-annual publication focusing on the interaction between fashion and art. The first issuejust launched this November

Through a rich visual aesthetic and editorial voice, USED combines fashion shoots and art features, creating a sophisticated visual language that challenges the way consumers read and explore content.

With an international distribution to over 12 countries, a print run of 10,000 and a cover price of £6 each issue is designed as a collector’s edition, aiming to keep ahead of typical trend based editorial by exploring innovative and challenging ideas.”

Ultimately this magazine fails to offer anything new. Sure it boasts contributions from members of the world’s leading fashion magazines, (Pandora Lennard from Tank and Tui Lin from POP to name a few), but beyond that it doesn’t go further than your standard Vogue or RUSSH. Beautifully presented and probably worth a read, USED is yet another addition to the staid world of fashion literature. 

…this tumblr is a virtual scrapbook for all the scribbles, half-thoughts and poorly constructed plans I will devise during my third and last year of Fashion Design. Please excuse my excessive text posts - I’ll try and post plenty of photos to balance it out :)