Pentagram’s Luke Hayman, designer of, among others, Time, New York, and Travel + Leisure, was asked how this new format would change the world of magazines and came up with five ways off the top of his head.

A reversal of a decades-long trend

“For as long as I’m been alive, publication formats have been getting smaller. First, oversized magazines like Life and Esquire either disappeared or switched to conventional formats to save money on paper and mailing. Then editorial content started moving online, shrinking to fit computer screens and then even smaller for PDAs and 140-character tweets. The iPad represents the first time this trend has been reversed. Instead of smaller, more low-res content, we have the chance to get bigger, brighter, sharper content. Designers used to making it smaller may have trouble learning to go the other way.”

The end of frequency

“Say goodbye to the idea of monthly magazines, or weeklies, or dailies. Print publications, already under siege by the Internet and 24-hour news cycle, will have to learn to adapt to a world of instantaneous updates. This is most obvious for news and business publications, but it’s just as true for fashion, entertainment and specialized titles.”

A reset on advertising

“The mean little conventions of online advertising—banner ads, pop ups, and so forth—aren’t popular with readers, with advertisers, and certainly not with designers. The iPad’s a new medium that will create a whole range of opportunities. Once people start exploiting what it can do, we may see the kind of creative renaissance that will deliver the next George Lois or Lee Clow. People will start subscribing to certain i-mags just for the ads alone.”

A new way of telling stories

“Editors have been telling us for years that people won’t read long stories online. Yet they will read 1,000-page novels on their Kindles. What will they be willing to read on their iPad? I predict the return of long-form journalism. At the same time, visual storytelling will take deeper, richer forms. Information design will be more important than ever. Something like New York’s Approval Matrix that we designed back in 2005 with Adam Moss is popular in print but will really come to life in this format. Some people might subscribe to it all by itself.”

A new role for print

“If digital magazines with rich, uncompromised, real-time content corner the market on delivering what you need to know right now, what’s the point of print? I think that the publications that end up enduring will be the ones that exploit what print alone can do. The best ones will be things that you want to save, not toss in the recycling bin. They’ll project a sense of craftsmanship and permanence. And each one should be an object that just feels terrific in your hand. If you’re spending most of your free-time holding an iPad, you just might welcome a change of pace.”

Editorial Design, New York, Luke Hayman

All text and pictures taken from pentagram design’s blog

So another person we have in issue #2 is Clayton Patterson, photographer, documenter and long time resident of the L.E.S.  A lot of you have probably seen clips from his DVD called Captured.  Captured is a collection of his video footage from the Tompkins Square Park Riots. We met up with Clayton….shit, probably like 6 or 7 months ago to interview him.  I think we only got to ask him two questions and he talked for over an hour.   It always amazes me when someone has such a good grasp on their ideas and beliefs, that they can just spit them out.  I can’t do that at all, I need to think everything over and over and over and then I have the worst time explaining things, which is probably why I am having such a rough time with this article.  Clayton talked about so much interesting stuff that I don’t want to exclude any of it, so I am having a rough time trying to figure out what the focus of the article should be.  He obviously talked about The Tompkins Square Park riots, documenting the Hardcore scene during the ’80’s and ’90’s, how he changed the history of the hat..yeah Clayton made that claim..crazy right?  But I think this dude might actually have done that.  He talked about the NYPD and the changes they made as a result of his tapes, he talks about the shift in technology and what effect it will have on subcultures going forward???????? What the fuck.  I want to print his views on all of this.  So here I am writing an intro for his interview and trying to work everything down to give this some direction.  I am locking myself in my office and not coming out until I am done.

It is great though because Clayton is totally working with me on this.  I am going to give him the first round of our interview along with my intro and he is going to kind of fill in any gaps, elaborate on stuff, touch on stuff he may have left out etc.  I think being able to work with people in this way is going to make the content so good.   We have been doing this with all our interviews/articles, doing like 3 or 4 rounds of interviewing so that the content is on point.  Anyway I need to get back to work on this so until next time….peaceeeeee.

Another snow storm in New Jersey and I just bottled 250 bottles of merlot in the basement.  This much snow in jersey reminds me of a snowboard video a friend left at my house in high school.  The Meltdown Project by Mack Dawg films used Dead Kennedy’s Holiday in Cambodia as an intro that instantly gets you hyped.

Joe and I were in Detroit I think around 2000.  A friend and artist Drew Bachrach was showing us around his home state of Michigan. (Dearborn / Detroit) I was shocked by the abondenment of houses all around Detroit.

I found this photo series called 100 Abandoned Houses.

“The abandoned houses project began innocently enough roughly ten years ago. I actually began photographing abandonment in Detroit in the mid 90’s as a creative outlet, and as a way of satisfying my curiosity with the state of my home town. I had always found it to be amazing, depressing, and perplexing that a once great city could find itself in such great distress, all the while surrounded by such affluence.” by Kevin Bauman

The first time I heard Kill Holiday was in 411vm. I could never get the CD in Jersey until my friend Mike O from the band Endeavor got a copy for me from Carl / Ferret Music. I think Ferret was distributing the CD or something.

Here is the 411vm Section

I stumbled upon the site These Americans through American Suburb X.  I am fascinated with the times of my grandparents and American culture from the 30’s to the present.  Check out some photos from These Americans and take a look at American Suburb X as well.

Fred Gall from Issue #1 of The Art of Storytelling Magazine gets “First Look” at the Thrasher March 2010 Issue.

Here is a little piece from the video, but check out the entire video at Thrasher.

For some reason last night I ended up on youtube watching clips from Vietnam movies, specifically Apocalypse Now.  I ended up coming across the trailer for a DVD  about soldiers who surfed during the Vietnam War.  The DVD is called Between The Lines. Looks like it could be real good.  It is narrated by John Milius who I believe was in Apocalypse Now

Synopsis:

BETWEEN THE LINES explores the Vietnam War through the prism of the surfing sub-culture. The film offers unique insight into the dramatic effect that the Vietnam War and draft had on young American men who rode waves.

Between the Lines explores the choice that most draft age surfers faced during the Vietnam War era: either go to war or evade the draft. It was one or the other. Between the Lines delves into the lives of two surfers who choose opposite paths. Pat Farley and Brant Page.

While following the lives of these two surfers the film chronicles the impact of the Vietnam War on the surfing lifestyle. From the peaceful shores of Hawaii to the canopy jungles of Vietnam, Between the Lines excavates the surfing cultures response to an extraordinary circumstance.

The first time I could remember seeing a guy on a Harley was on the New Jersey Turnpike at around the age of 9 or 10.  It was raining really hard and this dude was going about 70mph.  He looked so cool just not giving a fuck about the rain or the danger around him.  I have always been fascinated with bike culture, but in the last week I found some black biker gang photography that I fell in love with.  The stereotype is some crazy white dudes in the Hell’s Angels, but these photos show the great black biker clubs of the 60’s.

“When you talk of the Outlaw Bikers you automatically think of ‘Them Crazy White Boys’ doing what a lot of folk wish they could do. Live Life Like You Want & F*ck You And Your Rules. Well Guess What? There was some crazy Black bikers who felt the fame way, and didn’t give a F*ck. Thus was born the Black Outlaw Bikers ! ” by theselvedgeyard

On Saturday night we finally linked up with DALEK for an interview.  Due to conflicting schedules we thought we were going to have to push him to another issue, but everything worked out.  It was real cool because Chip who apprencticed for DALEK for a couple of years is the one who conducted the interview.  This worked out real well because Chip knew all the right questions to ask to really make this interview different from anything DALEK has done in the past.  Probably the most interesting part to me was talking to DALEK about the designer toy industry and his experiences in that field.  DALEK had a ton of success with the vinyl toys, but he had a lot of real interesting stuff to say about oversaturation of that market. He also talked about his graffiti days and being down with NAA.  He  gave us a few good top 3’s for 80’s flicks and music albums and he talked about traveling and moving all around the world as a kid and the influences that had on his art work.  The interview was over 1 hour which means I will be transcribing like a mother for the next few days but it will be worth it for a good finished product.  DALEK sent us over a grip of images and photos this week.  We have also decided to do a split cover, so 1,500 copies will have a cover designed by DALEK  and 1,500 copies will be a cover designed by JOR.

So I want to fill everyone in on the course we are taking with the mag.  We are getting a lot of emails asking when issue #2 is going to drop.  Well we decided to make The Art of Storytelling  a book format, kind of a magazine/book hybrid.  We are increasing the page count to 200 pages and stepping up the paper stock.  It is going to be real thick and hefty and is going to be limited to 3,000 copies, released twice a year.  Our decision to go this route is two fold.

First off we have been developing articles and interviews that, in our opinion, are way more in depth than what other magazines are putting out.  We have been taking the time to get vintage photography and structuring the feature stories more as retrospectives and really digging in the past to give you a historical look at the subcultures that we cover.  For instance issue#2 features Zephyr, The Getup Kids, Shut Skateboards, and Joker Brand clothing amongst others.  All of these people went into their personal photo albums and pulled out photos going back some 10 -15 years, no stock or publicity photos were allowed, that to me is a waste of space…save it for the blogs.  Some of these people literally went into their mothers attic to get us the photos we needed. The result is completely original content and photography.  I would rather see all this hard work put into a more permanent type of publication.  On top of that, in terms of presentation, the book format gives us more pages to work with to give these articles the space they deserve.

Second,  the print industry is changing by the minute.  With the new “tablets” being released relatively soon we recognize that content will get even easier to deliver to the public.  If people are going to drop their hard earned money to actually buy content,  and advertisers are going to spend money to advertise then they want a solid, original product.  That is what we are producing with these books.

All that being said, we are super excited with the content we have compiled for issue #2.  There is no doubt that when people open this issue it is going to be a “what the fuck” kind of thing.  Post some comments regarding the new format, I would like to hear what people have to say.

Over the next few weeks I am going to do a series of posts about each of the feature’s stories for this issue.  I am going to talk about the process behind putting that section together, what problems we encountered, why we decided to cover a particular person etc.  I am going to talk to Chris and Justin and have them do the same for the design side of things.  It has been a fun process learning how to put a magazine together from scratch and I think by bringing everyone into our process will be a cool way to run our blog.

One of my favorite (fashion) photographers started a Tumblr account.

Check it out: TerrysDiary

Blink 182 are now selling an exclusive Haiti t-shirt with all proceeds going to The Red Cross. The shirts are $15 and available on the bands site: http://www.blink182merch.com

Just wanted to do a follow up post for the one Chris did last night on Jay Reatard.  It was kind of weird finding out about something first on our site.  Last year at ASR tradeshow, Larry, myself and my friend Rusty went to see Jay Reatard play live.  I absolutely hate going to shows but this show was amazing.  It was a real small venue with a ton of energy.  I couldn’t find any youtube videos from that show which sucks but I posted this one instead. We have been talking about doing something with Jay for quiet a while and were putting it off until issue #3 but sadly that will never happen.  I was just reading an interview with him that I wanted to share.

RIP Jay Reatard

So I read today that after two times in Bankruptcy Polaroid is making a big comeback!  Lady GaGa is slated to be the creative director.  Oddly I think this is actually a good pair and you will most likely be sure to see licensed Lady GaGa polaroid cameras as well.  I am very curious to see the creative direction we will see in the future from Lady GaGa and the design team.

“Speaking of Polaroid’s iconic instant camera, the brand plans to bring it back with similar styling and with its classic instant film. The cameras will retail for around $100 and be released in 2010″ by Brand Channel

Just got back from my trip to California. It was my first time there and for a New York City girl like myself, I couldn’t have been more out of my element. Aside from the obvious differences – like the lack of black clothing, the warm weather, and an overabundance of happy people- the societal and cultural norms are enough to drive a New Yorker crazy. Wherever we went we were warned to not jaywalk, which is unheard of in New York; we’d never wait for the walk signal to cross the street. And we don’t always cross at the crosswalk; the middle of the street is just fine enough for us to dart in front of a speeding taxi.

We do what we want, when we want and we are outspoken about it. That’s what I love about being a New Yorker- we have no filter, we always say what’s on our mind. Unlike Californians, New Yorkers are used to a fast-paced way of living. We hop off crowded subways onto jam-packed sidewalks while talking on our iPhone’s, e-mailing on our Blackberry’s and telling tourists how to get to Times Square.

I think I could definitely live in California for a while though. The beaches are amazing, the sidewalks are clean (for the most part), the people are friendly, and the atmosphere is laid-back, something I’m not used to here. Plus, In-N-Out itself is enough for me to stay for years.

“Jimmy Lee Lindsey Jr., the Memphis musician better known by his punk-rock stage name Jay Reatard, has died, his record label Goner Records said on Wednesday. In a statement posted at goner-records.com, the label said: “It is with great sadness that we report the passing of our good friend Jay Reatard. Jay died in his sleep last night. We will pass along information about funeral arrangements when they are made public.” by Davie Itzkoff for New York Times

Photo: Deitch Projects

Photo: Monica Almeida / NY Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/12/arts/design/12moca.html?ref=arts

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/12/arts/design/12muse.html?ref=design

Man this is some fucked up shit.  The justice system can be so messed up.

For all you product and package designers, tired of waiting for samples from vendors.  Check this out from wired.com report at the CES.

I just found this video clip by accident.  It is such a good piece with Mike Vallely talking about his experience at the Brooklyn banks.  Knowing that the future of the Banks is somewhat up in the air, he came back to get some last photos of himself skating there.  “It was the best skatepark in the world because it wasn’t supposed to be a skate park” Check it out.

I have no comments for this just watch it….

Photo: NPR: All Songs Considered

Danger Mouse and the singer/songwriter of the Shins James Mercer collaborated under the name Broken Bells.  I only heard the opening track “The High Road” on NPR: All Songs Considered and I am super psyched!  Check it out!

Bill Moggridge, one of the founders of the design firm IDEO has been appointed the new Director of the Cooper Hewitt Museum.

He was recently interviewed for the documentary OBJECTIFIED and also well known for designing the first look of the commercial laptop.

Check out the article in the NYTIMES.

For anyone who missed this last night check it out.  He has been promoting his new book  LA Woman,  you can find out more at Estevan’s blog.