Skip to main content

Bug Eyed Wonder


Auckland's iconic Metro magazine has had its ups and downs recently. Some in the bitchy and somewhat inbred publishing industry gleefully prophesised its pending downfall as it passed the 20 year waypoint.

I'm not sure what its circulation figures are or how the advertising revenues are holding up, but I am sure that, like all pulp based media, it is experiencing a great deal more competition from internet advertising; as are newspapers and television. But I will leave that media analysis for another time.

I have just picked up the latest edition. While its cover lacks some of the sass and sex appeal of others it has commisioned recently the content looks brilliant. The design and art direction are far and away the best of any publication in New Zealand. Its generous size and gigantic spreads make it a genuinely luxe experience. It is easy to see why fashion and luxury goods are so attracted to it. They just fit and make other titles look pinched and stingy - even the likes of Fashion Quarterly.
The typography is exceptional and self assured, the layouts sell the stories. It feels like a magazine in the literal sense - a collection of things, rather than a homogenised litany. I enjoy the surprises of turning the pages, though I never feel disoriented. Online they have also risen to the challenge. MetroLive has been useful - I've even used it wen at a loss for an interesting restaurant (try Peter Gordon's Bellota tapas in the Sky City building - in the alley between the casino and the hotel)

You can flip through a sampling of Metro's spreads here.

But, best of all, is Judith Baragwanath's short piece on the apalling fashion crime of Gigantic Sunglasses. Like her I have been bugged by the boggle eyed followers. There is nothing more ridiculous than a dear wee thing with a gargantuan pair of Chanel, Bulgari, Dior ...insert brand here... as they have all jumped on the occhiali brandwagon...especially when barely the tip of their nose prods through the expanse of plexi and plastic. I predict back and neck injury compensation claims in the near future. In years to come photographs will be shown to the grandchildren which will raise the plaintiff question...what were we thinking?...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Johnny Bunko competiton

The Great Johnny Bunko Challenge from DHP on Vimeo . There's a young chap in Indiana, one Alec Quig , who has written to me about creating a career based on a polymathic degree, from which he has recently graduated. He's an interesting young man and his concerns about going forward in life are the anxieties we all face at crossroads in our lives when we are forced to make choices. Dan Pink's latest book The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need might help: "From a New York Times, BusinessWeek, and Washington Post bestselling author comes a first-of-its- kind career guide for a new generation of job seekers.There's never been a career guide like it.the fully illustrated story (ingeniously told in Manga form) of a young Everyman just out of college who lands his first job. Johnny Bunko is new to parachute company Boggs Corp., and he stumbles through his early days as a working stiff until a crisis prompts him to find a new job. St
Post a Comment
Read more and leave a comment

Ze Frank thinks so you don't have to

Ze Frank appeared on my radar when I saw his presentation among the excellent TED Talks videos . This morning I was reading Russell Davies planning blog in which he referred to a clip by Ze Frank - Where do ideas come from. Here's the transcript: "...Hungry Hippo licks Aunt JEmima [sic] writes, "Are you ever gonna break into song again? Are you running out of ideas?" Hungry Hippo licks Aunt JEmima, that's a good question. I run out of ideas every day! Each day I live in mortal fear that I've used up the last idea that'll ever come to me. If you don't wanna run out of ideas the best thing to do is not to execute them. You can tell yourself that you don't have the time or resources to do 'em right. Then they stay around in your head like brain crack. No matter how bad things get, at least you have those good ideas that you'll get to later. Some people get addicted to that brain crack. And the longer they wait, the more they convince themse
1 comment
Read more and leave a comment

Sexist Advertising and stereotypes

Advertising lives in the short-form world. Because mass media is so expensive the 30 second commercial is conventional and because there is so much clutter simplified signals are essential to 'cut through'. One form of communication short-hand used as a default is the stereotype - "A stereotype can be a conventional and oversimplified conception, opinion, or image, based on the assumption that there are attributes that members of the "other group" have in common. Stereotypes are sometimes formed by a previous illusory correlation, a false association between two variables that are loosely correlated if correlated at all. Though generally viewed as negative perceptions, stereotypes may be either positive or negative in tone." In the 1950's and 60's when men dominated advertising stereotypical impressions of women as inferior or subservient were not only commonplace but usual. It was normal to show women as housekeepers, largely because most wer
9 comments
Read more and leave a comment