Two ends of a spectrum

Today I've been impressed by two items of publishing, both at opposite ends of the media/medium's spectrum.

Firstly, this morning I got my first copy of Varoom through the post. For those who don't know, it is the magazine of the Association of Illustrators. We'll, it used to be, it is now the newspaper of the Association of Illustrators. It is sensitively designed, beautifully laid out, and, suiting its content, tactile. Intelligent writing about contemporary illustration and its relation to society, graphic design and art make this a fully formed publication and it is stuffed with great work.

What is really interesting about this publication though, is that it has rejected its previously 'glossy' magazine format as a response to the economic crisis on everyones doorstep. This has resulted in the price dropping to an affordable £15 for 4 issues (one issue free for subscribers), with no change to its previous high editorial standards. I've only read Varoom in libraries, or been loaned someone else's copy, but I can immediately see this new stance of change for survival sake, sets it apart from many other design/illustration magazine's out there. Instead of trying to impress with some major stylistic overhaul, it has zagged where everyone else is zigging, and is all the better for it. Eye and Creative Review are great magazines for different reasons, and I will continue to get both until they give up due to falling sales, and, I suspect, the strength of the free content available on their blogs. But Varoom really does beat Grafik–which is untrust worthy in its existence, having nose dived several times in the 10 years I've been reading it–and It's Nice That, which is a new kid on the block. While being well produced with varied content, which strangely makes it more transitory than interesting, it does tend to be much more of a surface read and concerned with the über trendy. But then a magazine with the word 'nice' in the title always was going to be more of a showcase rather than a critique.

So, onto my second revelation of the day; I downloaded The Guardian iPad app this morning. I wasn't expecting much, to be honest. I like the paper edition, and usually flit between that and the website depending on whether I want to sit, read and contemplate, or whether I want to get the most up to the minute information. I wasn't sure this was going to be anything other than forced content. However, after 10 minutes getting to grips with how it functions, I must say I'm impressed. It's certainly better than the website in terms of making you feel like you are navigating through the days paper edition. And as long as you've wifi connectivity, it links to the most recent stories on their website, (and external sources). This, on first impressions, is a real contender to the print edition and certainly beats the New York Times app, the only other newspaper app I've downloaded, (but stopped using once I had to pay for it). The layout of the articles is logical, it is clear how to get between stories, suggests other stories that relate, and like the paper edition, as opposed to the website, each page feels like it belongs to the whole. One of the things I don't like about guardian.co.uk is that when I jump to an article, because of the greater blank space around it, I feel like I've left the main website. In design terms, the app has the sense of cohesion between different elements that is lacking online. In this, the design team behind this app have managed to make the interaction relate much more to the paper version than the website, which is an impressive feat in itself.

Whether I will completely go over to the app version once my free trial runs out, or still continue to buy the daily print version, is difficult to say. During the week I can get the paper cheap from the Student Union shop at work. The paper version also gets me away from a screen for a while, which is always a good thing. However, the advantages of getting the Saturday edition for the iPad was that I didn't get the frustraitingly ultra-middle class Weekend magazine, (apart from the odd article). But then I didn't get the excellent Guide either. Nor does the print edition's commitment to commissioning contemporary illustrators seemed to have made it across the digital divide. So I guess I'll have to use my few months free trial wisely to assess the pros and cons between print and digital, but on the current evidence, this app will set the bar for many other cross overs.

Inkonomy

From The Guardian sometime this week.

Rolling news

Much as it maybe painful to look at pictures of Rupert Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks, there is something strangely comical about seeing their decapitated heads roll around the screen on this Guardian Twitter gauge. Press play on the timeline and image circles bob about, grow, shrink and crash into each other depending on the amount of tweets sent with the #notw hashtag since last week.



It is a great piece of info graphics. Take a look here. Sorry Apple mobile device users, Flash required.

Hacks hacking hacked

The recent and still unfolding events at the News Of The World have bought back memories from 25 years ago as I stood on a picket line in Wapping in support of striking printers and journalists.

The dispute was staged as a protest against Rupert Murdoch moving News International from Fleet Street to a fortified industrial plant at Wapping, along with the introduction of new technologies, working patterns and no-strike clauses. As a printer at the time, I felt it important to show my support.

Despite having lived in Nottinghamshire during the 1984-85 miners strike and attending many demonstrations in solidarity with their cause, Wapping was the first time I saw indiscriminate and heavy handed police tactics. On a nightly basis they ensured The Sun, News Of The World, The Times and Sunday Times left News International on time. In the name of Murdoch and Margaret Thatcher, they were brutal. I can assure you that printers' blood runs red. The irony that the Metropolitan Police are involved in this current scandal isn't lost on me.

Murdoch had good reason to fear his workers. During the '84 miners strike, the unionised workforce refused to print a front page of The Sun where by a casual photograph of the NUM president, Arthur Scargil, was made to look like he was Sieg Heiling. The paper had to run without the offending headline and photo, and instead displayed a statement that introduced the public to the historic vocabulary of print unions, (union branches are called chapels and shop stewards either Father or Mother of the Chapel).

Left: The offending article, right: as it appeared on the news stands. Image courtesy of: the-sun-lies.blogspot.com

These sort of insidious tactics to discredit political opponents were common place in the pages of The Sun and the News Of The World in the 1980s, and not much has changed in 25 years. Their influence doesn't stop their though, I've always believed that these papers editorial stance influences the public mindset; you only have listen to a pub conversation to realise how the national debate on immigration aligns so closely to that of a right wing press. Successive governments and power hungry opposition parties realise this, which is why they desperately rewrite policies in an effort to keep in touch with a tabliod version of public opinion. No wonder there is so little explicit and intelectual ideology in politics in 2011.

It doesn't stop there either. It is impossible to discuss these papers without mentioning the duplicitous attitude to sex, as scandels appear next to page three 'beauties', and pedophiles are shamed next to half-naked women dressed in school uniforms. Mixed values emerge, and ones that have bought attacks on innocent people after a pedophile naming and shaming exercise by the News Of The World under Rebekah Brooks', (nee Wade), editorial control. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that I have ever been able to find that is redeeming about these publications.

Billy Bragg's take on the tabloids

As I remember back to standing on the picket line at Wapping, I could be forgiven for thinking that there is some sort of moral victory in the News Of The World being axed. However, I know this is just game play and while The Sun still stays in circulation, I can not toast the demise of this single despicable cog in a wider power machine that is Rupert Murdoch's empire.