Maybe it’s because I just saw that “Helvetica” movie, but I thought I should share this with you: Brian Hoff’s “10 Common Typography Mistakes.” This is a great primer for anyone DIY-ing the design of their own marketing materials. Even if you have no professional design training, using these tips will get halfway to having a professional-looking brochure or web site. via swissmiss
My in-laws gave me an Amazon gift card for my birthday (yeah, they rock). I planned to spend it on some kind of paper craft book, but everything out there was too specific, or childish, or boring. Then yesterday A. pointed me towards Papercraft: Design and Art with Paper and I freaked out a little. Actually, I should say that A. Pointed me toward this post on Daily Icon, which has a lot of amazing images from inside the book. It’s not due to come out until September 9th, but you can pre-order it from Amazon.
Yasmine may not actually be a posting a print a day lately, but she is CRANKIN’ on this magazine. Published monthly? Seriously? I know it’s a pdf publication but that’s still ambitious. I wonder how long she can keep it up. I probably would have folded by now.
Issue 2 is a little heavy on the vintage-inspired photography, but it also has some neat features, like interviews with two 15-year-old artists (one of whom is a Biz Miss in Liberia–go Lovetta!) and a funny article about “Recession Projects” by Maria Adelmann. She’s like a one-woman WPA, both sponsor and recipient. My favorite thing about Parasol, though (aside from its price–nothing!), is that every article (and ad) is linked, so if I want to find out if I can afford those gorgeous flats from the vegan shoe company profiled on page 26 (answer: no), all I have to do is click on the company’s name. Now if only Kindles came in color and cost $50 I’d be all set.
Speaking of the WPA, A. told me about a friend of a friend who just started a new WPA in NYC with a donated office space and a whole slew of grants. Is anyone doing that sort of thing in the Bay Area? Please let me know. Also, does anyone know more about the NYC project? I can’t find them online except for a link to a Rhizome page, which I can’t view because I’m not a paying member. Bahstids.
It’s been way too long since I posted last, I know. We adopted a dog last week and it’s craft fair season again, so what little work I’ve been able to accomplish has gone exclusively towards getting ready for last weekend’s Indie Mart, and this coming weekend’s Unique Los Angeles. Still, I’m able to read the interwebs a little during meals, and yesterday at lunch I read Hugh MacLeod’s “How to Be Creative” manifesto, also called “Ignore Everybody” in its soon-to-be-published hardcover form.
MacLeod’s manifesto is a really refreshing read, because it puts the American dream back into perspective. It never promises anything–least of all that your creative idea will be successful–but it reassured me that my dreams are worth pursuing, and that success is still a reasonably attainable goal as long as I’m willing to put the hours in.
“How to Be Creative” is organized into 37 little chapters (40 in the hardcover edition), each titled with an original, pithy truism, such as ” Selling out is harder than it looks” and “Never compare your inside with somebody else’s outside.” While I agree with some of MacLeod’s proscriptions more than others, the sentiment behind each idea is sound. For example, on “keeping your day job” (#7), I may not agree that I should just “find that extra hour or two in the day that belongs to nobody else but me, and…make it productive” because I want more than an hour a day to be creative. As long as my life is financially stable, I don’t think it’s necessary to put a lot of time into a day job I don’t find especially meaningful. But I do agree with “balancing the need to make a good living while still maintaining one’s creative sovereignty” (i.e. the “Sex and Cash Theory”). In other words, it’s important not to compromise your creative work in order to make it more marketable, because that’s not fulfilling either.
I would recommend reading this manifesto to anyone who struggles with creative work, whether you’re in a band, thinking about starting a business, or just wondering where to go with your art. You can read the first twelve chapters on MacLeod’s web site, or you can download the first 26 chapters in pdf format at ChangeThis. I think now that he has a publisher, however, you won’t be able to read the whole thing unless you buy the book when it comes out in June.
I discovered an interesting site today called “design glut.” The intertubes led me first to their store (they had a pork chop bank), but I was intrigued by the following description near the top of the page: “Our webzine is an inspirational resource for entrepreneurs.” More accurately, their webzine is a series of interviews with successful designers. More inspirational than resource, I’d say, but good breakfast reading nonetheless.
It does make me a little upset and covetous to read entries where the founding waifs interview successful designers their own age (24-year-old cool hunters get invited to Davos? Seriously?) but those are my own issues. I just can’t handle people who are two or three years out of undergrad and already “experts” about something. Expertise is your consolation prize for getting older and less attractive. I’m sorry, but that’s just the rule. You’re not allowed to have youth/beauty AND expertise/money. It upsets the balance of the universe or something.
A few months ago I wrote a post about Ponoko, a service which allows you to create and sell custom laser-cut products on demand. Today I was introduced to yet another interesting on-demand service: MagCloud. MagCloud allows you to publish magazines on demand, at a cost of $0.20 per page. They handle all the printing, binding, subscriptions and distribution, so you can focus on the creative work of putting the publication together. Even better: while they are still in Beta mode, publisher proofs are free (excluding shipping). All you have to do is upload a hi-res pdf.
Like other on-demand production services, MagCloud isn’t cheap. An issue of Craft would cost $30 to produce this way–twice the normal cover price and significantly higher than the cost of a subscription. But without advertisers to satisfy, magazines published on-demand can be a lot more streamlined about their content, which can help cut down on costs. Have you ever noticed, for example, how many magazines these days have more than one product review section? Craft and ReadyMade have at least three apiece (tools, kits, books, music, etc.). I recently learned from someone in the industry that these reviews exist primarily to lure advertisers. Companies that advertise get first dibs on submitting products for review, thus gaining free publicity alongside their paid advertisements.
As a new service, (they’ve only been around since July), MagCloud is still somewhat limited in its parameters. Shipping is currently only available in the U.S., U.K. and Canada, and there is only one page size available (US letter, trimmed down to 8.25″ x 10.75″). They are also conspicuously missing an FAQ page. To get all the specifics you need to look at their front page, their blog and the help section.
Still, with most of my favorite publications out of print or on the verge of total blogdom, I’m happy to see that there is hope of filling the void. I can’t wait to see what innovations occur in publishing now that anyone can run a magazine.
Tip: You can use MagCloud publications as textbooks, catalogs and portfolios, too! At $0.20 cents a page, it’s a lot cheaper than making color copies.
