“Matt Willey recently recorded his decision-making on a feature design for the Royal Academy magazine. It provides a very useful insight into how page designs get arrived at, one that anyone who’s ever designed a magazine will recognize.”

Famed newspaper (re)designer Mario García launched a blog last month: “A blog about storytelling, design, the projects we work on, the things we learn along the way.”

Derek Powazek: “For the last year, I’ve been working on a project with HP Labs called MagCloud. The idea is simple, really. MagCloud enables anyone to start a magazine — real, live printed magazine — with no giant pile.”

“When living in Japan, Fiona Harding created a project called 100 Post Its in Japan, and now wants to spread the urban guerilla art love with the world by inviting everyone to participate in a global Post-It Note Project.”

“This collection contains letters that I received from trucking companies, private carriers, manufacturers, and suppliers during the time period between the late Fifties and early Sixties. A few were letters that my dad received. After that time frame I didn’t maintain my correspondence with trucking companies other than pertaining to my later career in the industry.”

“This is a DIY [video] I did on how to make a one sheet zine. D-I-Y — a real American Hero! Remember kids, Folding is half the battle. You’ll need: One piece of paper, scissors and a Pen…” (And here’s a step-by-step on Flickr: Wanna make a neat, fun zine that only uses one sheet of paper? Of course you do.)

“Although some of the topics are universal to all fields of design, this book is designed for the graphic designer. It’s well-suited for students and emerging professionals as a
handy reference guide. It would be perfect for a freelance designer working on their own, providing them with information that will benefit their designs and business.”

“Welcome to The Museum of Forgotten Art Supplies… where tools of the trade that have died or have just about died a slow slow death are cheerfully exhibited. Due to severe government budget cuts to the arts, our little museum’s acquisition funds are frankly, well, bupkus. So, we welcome Drawgerers to submit images of any artistic tools, machinery, gadgets, etc. that they feel have bitten the dust.” (Thanks Chris Glass!)

“There have a few interesting articles recently that have focused on the design of the New Yorker magazine, both praising and critiquing its consistency, and mainly taking issue with the inside of the magazine, but what is taken as a given by both is the very central role illustration has in that design, particularly in its striking covers. Made all the more striking of course as today there is so little use of illustration so central to a magazine’s brand image…

Over time however the ‘Poster Cover’ and its defenders in the magazine’s Art rooms began to slowly lose favor to the philosophy of ‘cover lines‘ and what would begin as a whole new direction in magazine cover design. This I think can also be seen as a sure sign of the rising influence of marketeers and advertising suits within a magazine’s boardroom and the increased marginalization of its art department’s influence. The magazine cover had become in many cases no more than a grotesquely enlarged small ad.” (Thanks Design Observer!)

“Grid-it notepads are a series of notepads based on the layout grids of famous publications: ‘By moving the grids from the backround to the foreground, and divorcing them from their content, we pay homage as well as render the invisible visible.’”

Awesome! “News, information, reviews and history on the subjects of beautiful magazines, self-published ‘zines, handmade books, small press, comix, art books and miscellaneous printed ephemera.”

“(*Smartest, Prettiest, Coolest, Funniest, Most Influential, Most Necessary, Most Important, Most Essential, etc…) The essential strength of a magazine is its ability to amplify. An idea, or an image, or a story, set within the pages of a magazine and assembled by the right hands, can become the grist of breakfast chatter, dinner-party conversation, or elective body debate around the world. Until recently, with the advent of USA Today and the national editions of The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, newspapers were by and large local endeavors. Magazines were national, and as they became international, their power of amplification grew exponentially.”

“If you’re like me, you live your life on post-its. Everything from grocery lists, to new ideas, to super important phone numbers that I should never, ever lose. It means that when I’m looking for that super important number, I have to look through every other post-it to find the one I want. Enter the OVERnote. The OVERnote is something I came up with to help me navigate this paper sea. Now my notes are self-catagorizing and I can find things at a glance.” (Thanks Magnetbox!)

“What do corporations expect to reap in return from their zines? Not direct sales. Filled with the typical zine fare of rants, comics, interviews with musicians, and poetry, U Don’t Stop—like most other astroturf zines—doesn’t openly sell its patron’s products.”

“Reasons behind the name Aboveground Zine Library? It fits the idea of the library just right. Why isn’t it called underground zine library? The reasons is simply, it’s not an underground zine library. It’s out in the public and the library isn’t stashed in a secret location.”