Acne Paper No 11

Acne Paper is still my favourite magazine. Issue no 11 was released a couple of weeks ago. Every issue is about a certain theme and this one is the studio issue. As usual there are several editorial shoots in this issue and lots and lots of interviews with artists or people about their creative space and explore the connection between creativity and environment. This issue is the biggest so far with 50 pages more than the last one. You can order it online here. I'm still missing Acne Paper No 1 and 3 to have the complete collection. If anyone knows where I could get them, please contact me via mail. Below some impressions from the current Issue No 11.

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Not Many Kingdoms Left

Pogobooks is making several little art books and zines with different photographers from everywhere. I like the charm of zines because it somehow creates a very intimate feel when I look at them since it has got this self-made and personal touch. Of the few I ordered, Not Many Kingdoms Left by Jeff Luker is my favourite. I have yet to order the one by Tamara Lichtenstein though. I rather buy these kind of books or zines at the moment instead of big photo books and I also started doing my own little zines just for me and my friends. At least for now. It is so nice to have your photographs printed and the possibility to show them anyone anywhere without a computer.

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Marc Jacobs Advertising 1998-2009

I recently bought this book called Marc Jacobs Advertising 1998-2009 which contains all the photographs Juergen Teller took for Marc Jacobs during that time period. I have been a fan of Juergen Teller's work for quite a long time and he is among my favourites (Ryan McGinley, Walter Pfeiffer, Lina Scheynius and the Magnum ones). What I find interesting is that his photographs appear to be random snapshots at first but somehow possess their very own aesthetics. I am sure the settings and compositions are often put together very carefully despite how simple it might look. It is great for a brand like Marc Jacobs to collaborate with the same photographer for so long because it makes their advertisings instantly recognizable and gives them an own strong voice and identity. There are many celebrities and artists featured in the ads like Sofia Coppola, Dakota Fanning, Meg White and Ryan McGinley. I am pretty happy about the book and its quality, I only wished they would have made some of the horizontal pictures bigger than how they actually looked in the ad campaign.

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All photography © Juergen Teller and published by Steidl

Catwalk Colour

I already wrote a little bit about Elle Collections last season here, so I don't want to start all over again by telling you how great it is. I am pretty amazed by the cover and again by the detail and hard work that went into this issue, because it must have taken ages to cut out all these models in Photoshop. They made an even bigger "model rainbow" (I don't know how I should call this) than in the last issue, meaning they took runway looks from various designers and grouped them together according to the colour. Click on the images to enlarge.

PIG Magazine

I recently looked at the March issue of PIG magazine again and it reminded me that I already wanted to show you the magazine back then when it came out. I only got a couple issues after I made a streetstyle spread for them for the new year's issue and haven't had a chance to buy it since then, because it's not available here. It's an Italian magazine and since I don't speak any Italian, all there's left for me are the pictures – but they are beautiful. I have yet to come across another monthly published magazine, that features so many good photographs and also, there's a certain consistency and similar approach to them. It's not all about fashion – there are also articles about musicians, photographers, artists and they always feature a streetstyle spread from a different city. You can download every issue as a free PDF on their website.

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Acne Paper No 2

As previously mentioned, I'm a big fan of Acne Paper and when I spotted issue No 2 from Spring 2006 in an online shop, I had to get it immediately. Every issue is about a certain theme and this one is about escapism. It talks about hidden homes or exotic places, where artists seek peace and can be on their own. It has interviews with various people such as Kim Jones, Richard Prince, Hans-Peter Lindstrøm, Ryan McGinley and an article about Grace Jones. In contradiction to the current issue of Acne Paper No 9, they used semi-gloss paper and the design and layout is beautiful as always. This issue used to cost 4 euros back then, what a steal. So now I'm only missing Acne Paper No 1 and 3 to have the complete collection. So if anyone knows where I could get them, please contact me via mail.

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Grey Magazine

The next magazine I would like to introduce to you is Grey Magazine. Grey is about photography. It comes out twice a year and there are two issues out so far. Although it's a magazine, it comes as a book with a hardcover. There are several different categories inside like Designer, Editorial, Abstract and Interior Design. It's filled with beautiful photographs from the start to the last page with only little advertisment in the beginning and no articles but only short descriptions now and then. In the first issue, there's a manifesto by the editor-in-chief Valentina Ilardi Martin. I don't want to write the whole page down, but here's a short excerpt of it:

„Grey is the result of research and conviction, not strength or false provocation. Each page painted in grey – for nothing pure remains. These pages reclaim a necessary return to the simplicity of beauty, the melancholy on each page recalls a humble antiquity that values the precious work of many, made in the name of passion, dictated by a critical mood which has grown with an eye of respect towards that which has been done and said. Our research aims to transform an image into prose.“

I will buy the issue that are yet to come for sure and it already became one of the magazines I am looking forward to the most next to Acne Paper.

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POP Magazine Issue 22

I've never been interested in POP magazine until last summer, when the first issue of POP with Dasha Zhukova as editor-in-chief came out. In this issue, Dasha Zhukova talks in the editor's letter about how everything is made digitally available today and whether it will be the end of today's print publications or not. At one point, she says: „However, art and fashion magazines serve a more aestehtic purpose than an informative one. It is the beauty of the layouts, the quality of the design, the feel of the paper, all the tactile sensations that make these publications worth buying. These magazines are collector's items of sorts, visual time capsules of the period in which they are published.“ While I think this doesn't apply to all fashion magazines, it certainly does now to POP. I am not buying magazines anymore to keep me updated or to get the latest news, because that's what I have my Google Reader or Twitter for nowadays. I have already written a bit about all this in one of my previous blog entries. This issue of POP Magazine contains over 360 pages and is full of beautiful editorials, well written articles and interviews with a great layout and design.

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This issue is also a good example on how you can connect digital content with a printed publication. They included some graphic markers for something called augmented reality, where you will have to go to their website and show the marker to your webcam – something very interesting will happen. Unfortunately, I couldn't test this so far, because thepop.com/ar and POP's iPhone app are both having problems at the moment.

Elle Collections Spring/Summer 2010

After having seen Susie's blog entry about the Elle Collections magazine, I decided to see whether my local newsagent had it in stock. I've never heard about it before surprisingly. Without much hope, they actually had a pile of copies there, so I grabbed one and must say, it was a very good purchase.

After flicking through the first few pages, you'll notice how different it is from an average magazine. Instead of just showing pictures of the runway collections like those on style.com, there are collage and selections based on a theme. For example a two page spread dedicated to fashion invites or one dedicated to facts about Chanel's fashion show. Also, the typography and design is very beautiful. The cover is a matte-grainy paper and there are different types of paper within the magazine.

There are different articles with questions they asked to various persons, such as editors of magazines or famous fashion bloggers – or a pleasurable article of an editor of The Times about how he experienced his first season at those fashion shows without having had any previous knowledge in fashion.