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Arena HoM/Me +
Posted by Patrick Burgoyne, 16 October 2007, 9:00 Permalink Comments (6)
Adding further fuel to the "New Ugly" debate on magazine editorial design (see here, here, here, and here) comes M/M's Arena Homme Plus, sorry Homme +.
The French duo had a previous and high-profile excursion into editorial design when they took over Paris Vogue a couple of years ago. The hand-drawn, organic lettering and illustration that was such a controversial feature of that short-lived exercise re-appears here. Features lead off with faux-naif drawings in pencil and felt-tip, while more drawings appear as editorial in their own right, flagged up on the features content page as "5 drawings by M/M (Paris)"
Type choices are, well, let's say idiosyncratic
As is the cover treatment, featuring a Juergen Teller shot of fashion designer Marc Jacobs (who has evidently been splitting his leisure time betwixt gym and tanning salon)
Incidentally, the images reveal that Jacobs has a tattoo of a magazine logo on his arm: not that of Arena Homme + but US porno mag, Oui, which has become something of a fave in the fashion world - in a strictly, knowing, ironic sense, of course. In the accompanying interview, Jacobs reveals that: "I have an obsession with text and typefaces." Perhpas he might have a few suggestions for M/M...
6 Comments
Reminds me of martin venezky's work for speak magazine. The cover is very Ed Fella.
2007-10-16 10:49:22
The headlines are a nice reminder of Venezky's Speak magazine. In that respect, they are clearly in the 'beautiful' rather than 'ugly' camp. Think Speak rather than RayGun.
2007-10-16 12:19:14
I agree about the headlines, they're lovely, but the serif type treatment in the features particularly invite comparison with 032c while, perhaps, Super Super's stated desire to be more "humanistic" and less forebidding in their approach has a parallel in M/M's hand-drawn illustrations
Patrick Burgoyne
2007-10-17 12:22:52
this is horrible! it's like a bad imitation of M/M. i hate it. How sad that it's not an imitation, it actually IS M/M.
2007-10-17 16:39:25
i loved "new ugly" last season... but now i'm bored out of my mind my it. already!! also, 032c always seems to get to the punch right before the others though, no? i was really happy when they messed up their old polished look, and then like every magazine followed and it's just made monotonous design more "busy", it hasn't delivered us from monotony... i wonder what they'll do next to thwart design trends. i definitely can't wait. and i'm not buying anything else until someone comes up with something. when's the next 032c? fingers crossed??
2007-11-07 13:20:04
P.S. ok i really love the marc jacobs cover though. awesome, awesome.
2007-11-07 13:21:29
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