by Shane de Lange (@shanenilfunct) Let’s delve into great Media design from South Africa and around the world:
- Local/print: House and Leisure joins the fray in yet another fledging revival of modernist tendancies
- Online: Marie Claire — Women and Guns provides meaningful insights into the relationship between females and firearms in America
- Local/print: Tate Etc. celebrates the work of iconic South African photographer, Santu Mofokeng, written by Sean O’Toole
- International/print: The California Sunday Magazine places emphasis on America’s food security using the photographic prowess of Trent Davis Bailey
- International/print: Wired portrays a bruised and beaten pioneer still at the front guard of the social media battleground
- Iconic: Print and Mark bow out with dignity — the end of the beginning from two iconic publications
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House and Leisure (South Africa), Collector’s Issue, February 2018
A few months ago, on 1 December 2017, I posted a cover for Icon Magazine, clearly depicting the influence of Russian constructivism and Bauhaus tendencies; the latest issue of House and Leisure seems to follow this trend. Albeit showing an obvious Eurocentric influence and with a strong reference to early modernist tendencies, it’s encouraging to see local publications show an appreciation for formalism and the fundamentals of design — even if it’s delivered to the reader in an overtly appropriated way. An awareness of design history and its key movements and exponents, locally and globally, is of paramount for the production of culture. A tip of the hat to inter-world-war avant-garde tendencies, it will be interesting to see what comes from the discovery of the African modernists by the mainstream media, especially South African artists like Ernest Mancoba, and the clear influence of Africa on European modernism. An immense contribution to be revived here — more of Africa’s design heritage needs to filter into the mainstream media.
Wired (US), March, 2018
One can imagine that the spaces between various social media platforms must be battlegrounds. It’s also common to have blurred borders between the real and the fake in today’s digitally charged world. The day-to-day manipulation of information tends to distort our perception of society and the world at large, particularly when it comes to the way we communicate and relate to each other on social media.
The cover for the March 2018 issue of Wired magazine may be interpreted as a picture from the social media battlefront, sporting a composite portrait of a battered and beaten Facebook cofounder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. Essentially a carefully illustrated photomontage, this cover was created by New York–based artist, Jake Rowland, who’s known for his digitally appropriated and rearranged artworks. Cut and pasted together from a variety of photographic sources, this image of Zuckerberg was made to match the subject matter of the article inside. Battling in the trenches, Zuckerberg is under a barrage, blasted from every angle. But, as this cover portrait implies, Zuckerberg is still alive, worse for wear but dusting himself off.
Our world is a milieu of fact and fiction; the stunned expression on Zuckerberg’s face speaks volumes. A testament to the manner in which the virtual and digital are penetrating the real and the physical.
Tate Etc. (UK), issue #42, Spring 2018
Tate Etc. is one of the best sources of international news about modern and contemporary art, with a variety of perspectives from artists and writers from around the world. The cover features a young, little known at that time, Pablo Picasso standing proudly in front of one of his early sculptures, still maintaining a somewhat innocent and youthful energy that only naivety and curiosity can create.
Presented in the form of interviews, profiles, features, issue #42 of Tate Etc. includes an essay on iconic South African photographer, Santu Mofokeng, written by prolific and influential South African writer, Sean O’Toole. Always a proud moment when SA’s creative currency is celebrated internationally.
The California Sunday Magazine (US), February, 2018
The cover to the latest issue of National Magazine Awards nominee, The California Sunday Magazine, places emphasis food security, based on an article by Mark Arax titled “A Kingdom of Dust”. Artfully photographed by Trent Davis Bailey, the cover image depicts the scale to which Stewart Resnick, one of the most-powerful farmers in the US, has transformed, or rather terraformed, California’s landscape. The composition is calculated and formal, with a subdued monochromatic grey colour palette, reminiscent of Stephen Shore’s work, accentuated by a diagonal line separating the dry desert land from lush, green agricultural growth. The image implies a sense of divide and conquer. And rightfully so, as Resnick’s kingdom comprises entire towns, something he tries to keep under the radar in an attempt to control what foods American’s consume. His dependence on water seems to be his Achilles heel: the only factor that he can’t control.
Online
Marie Claire — Women and Guns (US), February, 2018
Marie Claire was a 2017 Webby Awards Nominee for Best Individual Editorial Experience for the website “Women and Guns”. The site is provocative to say the least, diving under the surface of a pertinent issue in America traditionally dominated by men. America is literally crazy about guns, and the issue of gun ownership in the US persists as aggressively today as it ever has in the past, proven by the heartless and violent high-school killing in Florida earlier this week.
As its name suggests, Women and Guns announces that this issue is not pertinent to men only, investigating the relationship between females and firearms in 10 layered articles that portray how various women in America live with, and die by, guns. Each article is interactive, helping to amplify the meaning of each story, taking full advantage of the possibilities provided by multimedia design, accompanied by world class art direction. Online publishing and storytelling at its best.
Iconic
Mark (Netherlands), December 2017/January 2018
Print (US), Winter/Spring 2017/2018
Another iconic publication to refocus towards digital media has been the highly influential Print magazine. Yes, with issue #71.4, the printed incarnation of Print comes to an end, transforming it into a “thriving online community” to quote Print itself.
Designed by the editor of the magazine, Debbie Millman (also the host of Design Matters and cofounder of The Masters in Branding at the School of Visual Arts in New York), this final cover celebrates the magazine’s 77-year-long print run, listing many historic figures who contributed to the magazine and helped to develop it over the decades from a technical trade journal about printing into a glossy magazine encompassing the entire rubric of visual communication. Stephen Heller, Millman’s Masters in Branding cofounder and regular collaborator, describes this event as a kind of metamorphosis, with a new digital iteration, as “more than a mere magazine, but a community—in a sense, a family—of shared interest that has promoted, critiqued, enlightened and introduced a broad swath of art and craft from which its readers have carved out not only careers but creative lives.” The ultimate irony, the end of Print in print.
Shane de Lange (@shanenilfunct) is a designer, writer, and educator currently based in Cape Town, South Africa, working in the fields of communication design and digital media. He works from Gilgamesh, a small design studio, and is a senior lecturer in graphic design at Vega School in Cape Town. Connect on Pinterest and Instagram.
Cover Stories, formerly MagLove, is a regular slot deconstructing media cover design, both past and present.
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