Archive of information-graphic designer interviews

I just came across Karl Gude’s collection of on-camera interviews with various outstanding information-graphic designers such as John Grimwade, Nigel Holmes, George Rorick and Karl Gude himself. There were a couple of common themes I noticed in the interviews – emphasis on the importance of sketching and planning with A PENCIL, and the repeated mention of how important it is that you are not the only set of eyes who is involved in the creation of the graphic. (I also noticed that there appears to be several original journals from Demetrius of Phaleron’s library in Alexandria in the cupboard above Karl Gude’s desk. I’ll call Indiana Jones. I have 6 week old fruit in my office, so I can’t really talk). Here are links to a few, but take a look through the archive on the right of the screen…
Karl Gude
John Grimwade
Nigel Holmes

Kick-ass vintage infographics: how Godzilla and other Kaiju work

This is awesome! Click here to see all of them.

Austin City Limits Music Festival Program

Not much to say about this… I laid out the interior pages following the notes of the agency who do all the ACL collateral and other stuff. I like the size, and was surprised at how much was able to fit into such a small space. It’s a perfect size for something you might have to lug around with you for 2 or 3 days. I didn’t do the cover, they supplied that. Anyway, it is what it is. Mainly including it just to show the size, which is a little unusual.

I’ve no idea what this magazine ‘Russia’ is about…

… (Russia maybe?) but I like the way a lot of it looks. Take the cover for example. What is that about? Look at the mixture of bolds and bold compresseds used in the logo. Then all that white space around a pencil drawing of a floating head. No type, nothing. Just a couple of lines in a black box at the very bottom.

Possibly the most depressing image I’ve seen (today) on one of the contents pages, but I like the style of photography and it would sit just as well in the front section of a GQ or Esquire. The layout itself is fairly standard, not much going on there.

There’s no set style for the various types of info they display graphically, which lends a nice quirkiness to the already obviously not your run-of-the-mill content, and the style also suits the apparently low-budget for images and/or illustration.

There are also some really good, rich and colorful portraits and fashion pages… no idea if the general film look on some of these was achieved by actually shooting on film and exposing somehow, or if it’s all digital and post. Anyway…

Megan Fox in GQ. Look! There’s other stuff in this issue too!

My wife didn’t like it when this issue of GQ arrived in the mail. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. I could tell by the way it had been left lying on the dining table, for me to see as soon as I came in the door.

There’s really not much to say about this that I couldn’t say about a bunch of magazines out there, except for the fact that it reminds me so much of british men’s magazines all through the 90’s and their porn but not porn approach to content. The pop-art type stuff in the layout is cool, but it’s really overshadowed by… well, by Megan Fox’s tits and mouth, which this article may as well have used as a title. Am I turning into my mother by saying that I almost feel used just because this arrived in my mailbox? Hey, at least it feels like I (and my male weakness) are being taken advantage of, and not the woman in the photo for once.

Also in this issue, there’s a pretty awesome looking shoot with Dennis Quaid. I dunno why it struck me so much, but I REALLY like it. I think the stylist, location guy, photographer, everyone did an awesome job. I shot him once at his house with his then new wife and didn’t think what we got was all that great (to be fair to me though, and because I’m an asshole, I wasn’t even really there for a reason other than to make sure everyone turned up…it was one of those ‘we’re not paying you because look at the opportunity you’re getting’ gigs. You know, the usual shit publishers pull. Oh and the person who supplied clothing for the shoot was a first-class PRICK. Ahem. But Dennis Quaid and his wife were very nice and accomodating.) Anyway, this shoot looks like he had a lot of fun, and it really shows in the pictures.

Some stuff from October 2008’s Fast Company

I couldn’t bring myself to take a picture of the cover, it makes me feel awkward and embaressed in the same way I do when I see or hear Sarah Palin talk. Hard to look at, but impossible to look away either. lke a horrible car accident. Go track it down and take a look for yourself. Anyway, there were a couple of other things inside I thought worth pointing out…

This page is so cool, it’s sick. I LOVE this and I’m going to copy it at the very first opportunity I get. I realize it’s nothing particularly special really, but damn I just think it’s kick-ass! Low budget, easy to execute solutions are always killer. Ok, that’s not true at all, but in this case, it is.

Here’s one of those mini-toc pages that seem to be competing for the Most Abstract Design Regardless of Content or Purpose Award.

On this spread, can you tell at first glance which is an ad and which is editorial?

And finally, so I’m not coming across as Debbie Downer all the time, I include this simply because it looks cool:

Esquire cover makes me sad

So you’ve probably seen the ‘SPECIAL COLLECTORS EDITION’ ’75TH ANNIVERSARY blah blah blah’ of Esquire (the US edition, with the digital ink cover). I was really looking forward to seeing this and now I’ve got it in my hands I have to say I’m pretty underwhelmed. It does…nothing. It makes the type flash a bit, and makes the cover thick, unmanageable and harder to hold, and really serves no purpose beyond making the Ford Flex ad on the inside cover even more annoying (it was annoying to start with simply because I’m … confused and bewildered by anyone who buys a car that uses so much gas right now). But back to the cover. I guess I was hoping for something that, even if it served no editorial purpose, might perhaps offer the reader SOMETHING in terms of interaction or functionality. Even the option to switch the damn thing off would have been cool. Now I understand this was a huge undertaking on the part of Esquire to get this done. Hats off to them for effort. But I’d really like to know what they were trying to achieve by doing this…is it a sign of things to come? A simple gimmick? Was it done just so Ford could run their ad with the same technology? Ultimately does this make a difference to anyone? Are we going to see a glut of magazines with these stuck on the cover? Maybe a couple, but I bet in the long run we don’t.

Haute Living – the shittest magazine to work for ever?

My friend sent me a link to this story, well worth reading. I’m sure everyone has stories that sound like parts of this, but this place – and this guy – seems to take the medal for sheer dumpness.

GivingCity magazine issue 1

I haven’t posted anything in AGES. My apologies to all (both of you). One of the reasons for that is we (that is my business partner and I) have been very busy both with our full-time jobs, our families and putting together and launching our first 100% original, all by us, not working for someone else magazine. It’s called GivingCity (was formerly known as GoodCause until some legal issues reared their ugly and not worth delaying things over heads).

It’s faster to copy and paste here what we say about the magazine on it’s own blog than try to describe it myself: “GivingCity Austin is formerly GoodCause, but the mission and everything else is just the same. GivingCity is a local Austin blog and magazine about philanthropy and volunteering. Our mission is to inspire, connect, and recognize donors and philanthropists – novice and experienced – and raise awareness about the needs of Central Texans.”

So, it’s a PDF only magazine, we didn’t print one. During the design process, we worked on optimizing it to be read onscreen, or if you’d prefer (though we’d prefer you didn’t) to be printed out and read, fitting readable spreads on letter-sized paper. Our goal is to eventually have both a print and digital version available. By that point the print version would be the primary product, with the digtal version probably acting more a supplement to or mid-month update or something…or maybe a seperate entity in its own right. Hell I don’t know yet, we ahven’t figured that out yet.

Anyway, I’m always bitching about other magazines, so now’s your chance to bitch about one of mine! Please follow this link to download the first issue – it’s completely free – and leave a comment either here or on the GivingCity blog. Seriously, I’m always looking for feedback, even if you hate it, please take the time to tell me why. I’m especially interested to hear about how easy/hard it is to read and navigate… there are several navigation options, some built into the layout, and the others offered by Acrobat or the browser/application your computer opens PDF files in.

We’re pretty proud of it, we did it on not even a shoestring budget after all. The next issue is due to be available on December 1st, and we’re working on it in our spare time and whenever we can (we do have full-time jobs as well!).