12 Comments

...keep the fantastic rag coming.
Please!
sapphil
2012-08-24 11:52:46

thats the worst cover i have ever seen
awful
portillo johnson
2012-08-24 13:00:16

Id just like to say that I didnt see the Olympic issue anywhere it must have literally flown off the shelves.
Wheels
2012-08-24 14:09:43

Perhaps someone would consider doing a review of Hyper-Cubism or Dimensionism. I've started a Dimensionist group at Facebook which gives information: http://www.facebook.com/dimensionism
N. Coppedge
2012-08-27 00:36:47

Setting a quote in a horrifically ugly piece of type design? If its not Sagmeister, its Barnbrook. What a load of self indulgent crap.

Rest of the issue looks very interesting though.
Ben
2012-08-28 10:48:42

@ Ben

The cover artwork links to the subject of our Monograph this month and the whole theme of the issue - help for graduates and young creatives. In response to repeated questions from students and young designers, Jonathan created a series of Tweets distilling useful, practical advice garnered from experience which he sent out earlier this year and which thousands of people found helpful. He then set those words of advice in a series of artworks for Monograph.



This project is about going out of your way and spending considerable amounts on time and effort in offering practical advice and help to young people. What's self-indulgent about that?
 PatrickBurgoyne
2012-08-28 11:57:00

Thanks Patrick

How does laying out the advice like this make it more useful? Ugly distracting design makes things harder to read and gets in the way of what the piece is trying to communicate. I appreciate that Jonathan has taken time out of his day to give (some fairly obvious) advice, but in what way does the design enhance or further communicate this advice? That's what makes it self indulgent.

If this was a piece of art or an illustration, self indulgence is fine, but as soon as you introduce words that are meant to be read you have to consider what effect the design is having on the communication of those words.
Ben
2012-08-28 12:29:41

@Ben

I would suggest you read more about Barnbrook’s ideas and approaches to typography before criticising. That is not to dismiss criticism per se, but to dismiss your method of criticism, which is to denounce work that does not conform to a severely restricted set of criteria. You do not consider the possibility that the design was constructed to challenge those restrictions and in so doing was directed by a clear purpose.
Indeed, against even that approach, I would suggest that Jonathan has tended to fold several competing and complimenting ideas into his work. Thus, rather than simplifying the reading process, he (and his studio) seek to highlight how design impacts upon it. As such Jonathan makes informed decisions not just with the content of the message, but how one may perceive it before it is even read. It’s a method used by many creatives who are interested with the complex relationship between medium(s) and message(s). It may be easier to appreciate this effect by studying the score of a film, and seeing how eliminating it or transforming it radically transforms our affective state and the messages we read into it. Moreover, Jonathan’s work has always engaged with humans as affective beings connected by their inability to ever fully connect, except through a poetic act of creativity. We are more than machines that simply receive, process, and output data. We are in ever emerging emotional states (bored, happy, angry etc.) and Barnbrook’s work explores seeks to explore and develop these modes of being alongside our capacity to reason.
Finally, suggesting that a designer is being self-indulgent does not really constitute criticism, as it does not tell us anything of value. It psimply resents a subjective opinion we can only agree or disagree upon, rather than unveil a new way of understanding or appreciating the work and/or our own subjectivity.
Marcus Leis Allion
2012-08-28 15:41:05

Wow, I love this cover! really huge
Capodanno 2013
2012-08-29 10:10:50

I am really into the mono vibe of Monograph.
Wayne Carr
2012-09-03 16:51:11

Looks like you have a lot of neat articles in your August issue of CR. Curious what google guys had to say about their culture.
Arthur
2012-09-04 15:23:00

Ive just purchased and am reading the september editiong of CR. Being a graduate Im finding the word of advice piece for this years edition particularly useful. However I must say , that I am dissapointed to once again see motion design not get a look in. A creative discipline which asks of so much of those who wish to persue it, to be a graphic designer, filmaker, animator 3d generalist etc all rolled into one. This is a subject I still feel doesnt get the pages it deserves in magazines and as one of many wannabe struggling motion designers some words of advice would have been very helpful and appreciated. Maybe next year.
W
Wheels
2012-09-13 14:43:53

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