Blog | Print Magazine

Jul 4, 2018
5 min

Mort Künstler: Man of Adventure

Mort Künstler is best known today for his vivid paintings of scenes from American history, specifically the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. These works have been featured in books and calendars, and spotlighted in exhibitions around the country. Less known is Künstler’s early work in men’s adventure magazines, a unique genre that populated newsstands from the 1950s through the late ‘70s. Also known as “men’s sweats,” because most covers featured a sweaty, shirtless guy f

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Dec 31, 2017
10 min

Illustration History Gets the Care and Attention It Deserves

Ten years ago, Rick Poynor pointed out in Print that “One thing illustration has always lacked, compared to graphic design, is a strong critical framework by which to assess it.” He went on to note that, “Apart from Steven Heller … one would be hard pressed to name a single highly active writer, an expert, primarily identified with illustration as a subject.” Well, all that’s about to change, in a major way. Enter the Douglas B. Dowd Modern Graphic History Library. Mac Conner

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Sep 8, 2017
1 min

The World Through Magazines

Patrick Roessler, a German design scholar, wrote Viewing Our Life and Times: American and German Magazine Design in the 20th Century: A Cross-Cultural Perspective on Media Globalization in 2006 for an exhibition at the University of Erfurt. Sometimes it takes a few weeks, months and years to get around to reading, enjoying and recommending books. This history of magazines and how they served a cross-national “diffusion of graphic design and editorial concepts” in Germany and

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Oct 23, 2016
2 min

La Petite Mort: Michael Ventura of Sub Rosa Talks Creative Side Project

Editor’s Note: This piece was originally featured in the Print Fall 2016: Special Typography Edition as A Little Death by Karli Petrovic. Grab a copy before they’re gone! La Petite Mort: A Creative Side Project by Sub Rosa Words by: Karli Petrovic What happens when some of your design firm’s brightest creative ideas end up on the cutting-room floor? If you’re Michael Ventura, founder and CEO of Sub Rosa, you find a new way to share that brilliance, sometimes garnering a cult

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Oct 10, 2016
1 min

What This Country Needs Is A Good Art Director

What the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea, to us) needs is not a nuclear weapon, but a bunch of good designers and art directors, notably for its propaganda export magazine, Korea. It follows the same principles as USSR In Construction, Soviet Union magazine and China Pictorial magazine. Make an English (and other) language vehicle for spreading the good word(s) and pictures about these workers’ paradises. Granted, it’s difficult to find Western-style design

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Aug 31, 2015
3 min

A Sparkling New Magazine

Songwriter Jamie Cullum (curator) and designer Kate Monument (creative director) had long wanted to start a magazine. Monument and Anna-Marie Crowhurst (editor) worked together for 10 years and also had talked about “how lovely it would be to create something independent that didn’t have creative restrictions,” says Crowhurst. Then Cullum decided he wanted something amazing to sell at various venues that reflected the things he enjoyed, like film and photography, bats, gaming

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Jul 22, 2015
3 min

Trump: A Smart, Sophisticated, Satirical Graphic Humor Magazine

Never mind the Presidential candidate Clown Car’s current commandeer—that particular Trump may be convenient for cheap laughs (and internet clickbait; see above headline). But Harvey Kurtzman’s Trump, a clever, witty, and graphically attractive blast from magazines’ past (1956-57), deserves our serious respect. You can laugh with this Trump (rather than at it): cartoon social satire with the spirited irreverence of Stan Freberg, Sid Caesar, Ernie Kovacs, and other accomplishe

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Feb 6, 2015
3 min

Skull Art: When Death Covered the Newsstand

Zombie Haiku is the touching (albeit cold and clammy) story of a zombie’s gradual decay—and here’s the unique twist—it’s told through the intimate poetry of haiku. Get yours here. Forget The Walking Dead; they’re so… buried. It’s now the day of the Dead Dead! Vintage skull art and images—covers of cheap, lurid horror, mystery, and thriller fiction that once haunted newsstands, drug stores, and cigar shops—have begun to rear their cadaverous crania. It should be duly noted tha

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Oct 8, 2014
3 min

Like, OHMIGOD! A Totally Bitchin’ Valley Art Show

The San Fernando Valley is a joke. A running joke that had its heyday in the 1970s and ‘80s. There was “beautiful downtown Burbank,” ceaselessly mocked by Johnny Carson. There was the Van Nuys porn industry, most famously ridiculed in Boogie Nights. There was Encino’s “valley girl,” legendarily skewered in the Zappa pop hit. And now comes Valley Vista: Art in the San Fernando Valley ca. 1970–1990, and it’s a major punchline changer for Valley jokes. Robert Williams: “The Brai

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Dec 14, 2012
7 min

Los Angeles Views "Graphic Design: Now in Production"

At a Hammer Museum panel last month, Willem Henri Lucas introduced himself, Gail Swanlund, and Brian Roettinger as three L.A.-based designers who were about to discuss a current exhibition of contemporary graphic design in which none of them were included. Asking the audience to keep that perspective in mind, Roettinger, SCI-Arc’s former design director, observed that, with its East Coast and European emphasis, the show was missing—ahem!—a big chunk of the field. Swanlund als

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Sep 17, 2012
1 min

Scott Dadich on Best Practices in Digital Magazine Publishing

Early last year, Scott Dadich hosted a webinar about magazine publishing on the iPad that provided an insider’s perspective on the rapidly evolving field. In the year and a half since that broadcast, a lot has changed in the digital-publishing sphere. So we’re thrilled to have Dadich returning to host a follow-up presentation, Best Practices in Digital Magazine Publishing, streaming live on September 27. An excerpt of Dadich’s 2011 webinar on iPad magazines (which is availabl

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Aug 31, 2012
3 min

The Cutting Humor of Art Director Michael Gross

Designer kids these days. They’ll never experience the toxic aroma of rubber-cement fumes. Or feel the intense drama of an X-Acto knife slicing into their thumb or plunging head-first into their knee. But Michael Gross remembers. In fact, Gross and his National Lampoon co-conspirators immortalized such experiences in a parody of the graphic design industry that was published in Print magazine. Gross, who currently makes his home in San Diego, developed his conceptual design a

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Apr 29, 2011
1 min

Google Books/New York Magazine

I’ve got magazines on the brain still. I’ve finally started leafing through the New York Magazine collection on Google Books. It is awesome. Start with the first issue, it’s pure Milton Glaser genius. Tons of great illustrations and reminder of how simple print can be. If you want a reminder of how complicated (but no less beautiful) print can be, check out this video on how Bloomberg Businessweek is made. #googlebooks #magazines #newyorkmagazine RELATED POSTS SPY Magazine On

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Jul 2, 2010
1 min

Gourmet Returns as iPad app!

I was delighted to read that Gourmet magazine will be resurrected as an iPad app, just in time for me to use the device in the kitchen and perhaps try my hand at a recipe or two when time allows. The news brings back the memory of a Gourmet magazine in the late 1970s. Maria and I lived in Syracuse, New York, and Thanksgiving was approaching. Maria, a loyal reader and collector of Gourmet, spotted a recipe for Mont Blanc, that sweet dessert made of pureed chestnuts and whipped

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Mort Künstler: Man of Adventure

Illustration History Gets the Care and Attention It Deserves

The World Through Magazines

La Petite Mort: Michael Ventura of Sub Rosa Talks Creative Side Project

What This Country Needs Is A Good Art Director

A Sparkling New Magazine

Trump: A Smart, Sophisticated, Satirical Graphic Humor Magazine

Skull Art: When Death Covered the Newsstand

Like, OHMIGOD! A Totally Bitchin’ Valley Art Show

Los Angeles Views "Graphic Design: Now in Production"

Scott Dadich on Best Practices in Digital Magazine Publishing

The Cutting Humor of Art Director Michael Gross

Google Books/New York Magazine

Gourmet Returns as iPad app!

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