This article, "The Science of Covers," on the WWD site is meant to give one helpful hints about making a great cover, but all it actually does is give one insight into why so many magazines suck so hard. It's really very disturbing.

Flickr Finds: We love buttons! Check out the Flickr Buttons & Badges pool.

ASME's top covers of 2007. I don't think these people read too many magazines, and they certainly don't have much sense for design.

Marian Kester's essay on the punk poster and it's success in the bay area in particular talks about a history of poster making in San Francisco from '60s concert posters to political flyers as well as the relationship between punk and technology. This DEVO quote sums up the latter quite well: "The more technology you have, the more primitive you can be. With synthesizers you can express guttural sounds, bird noises, brain waves, blood flow." The last line of her essay is particularly amusing to me, an SF native: "So—elsewhere, money talks, nobody walks—and the weather stinks." I love it. Leave it to a bay area person to insult the weather in the rest of the country. Hee. But she does have a point, especially back in 1981 when she wrote it: Most cities are car cities and there just isn't enough foot traffic to justify flyering. Plus it's just too damn cold in the winter to walk around wheat-pasting.

Here, in installment two of my post on Street Art: The Punk Poster in San Francisco 1977-1981, I will show you 9 more posters and give you any information I can find on their makers. See installment one for more history and posters!

Continue Reading PF Collection:
Street Art, Part 2

No Mark Will Shine
By Mark Borthwick
Published by the journal and
bagged with their issue #21.
64 pages, full color, soft cover.
$15

the journal, a Brooklyn-based quarterly art magazine, includes some kind of art object with each issue. Their most recent is bagged with a beautiful book and poster by artist/Brooklyn resident/hippy Mark Borthwick. Our friend LVS was so taken with the book that she asked to write a guest post. Below are her thoughts on Mark Borthwick's No Mark Will Shine. Before we get there, I'd like to mention that this issue of the journal also has a selection of zines in the back. They're not so much reviewed as displayed, but if you're looking for some new little mags to buy check there. Also, on behalf of Print Fetish, I'd like to wish you all a happy new year! Back to the review:

Lately I return home from vacations with a couple rocks. Yesterday I came back from a vacation in Colorado with two white quartz stones shot through with red seams. These stones are more exciting to me than the pepper grinder or fancy sweatshirt I received as christmas presents.There are certain things that are simply beautiful—gold, sunsets, flowers, and stones to name a few. Looking at Mark Borthwick's book No Mark Will Shine, I am sure he is a kindred spirit. Inside are photocopies of his collections of feathers and dried flowers as well as photographs and words. Among the photographs are images of a little child with messy long hair building a teepee out of sticks, a exalting woman with flowers on her head, and a group of people (including Borthwick) wearing wreathes and capes. The scenarios are child's play or drug induced psychedelic joy. Pastoral scenes of friendly donkeys and running horses are interspersed with intimate portraits of a young naked woman. Each figure is repeated many times and in different forms. We see the donkey in color, as a stencil, as a close up with a hand, then as a word and an ink drawing. Typed and handwritten words, photos, paint, scans, photocopies and music (the book comes with an audio cd) seem interchangeable. The images fade in and out of reality taking on the semblance of memory or a drug haze. They become symbols of joyfulness like constant reminders that beauty is always present and natural. Throughout the book images and words are crossed out or obscured by paint, other words images or what looks like burn marks. This obstruction can take the form of decoration, obscuring, or highlighting. By collecting beautiful objects and memories and re-envisioning negativity, Borthwick constructs his own joyful world.

Where to buy: the journal website, or various cool newsstands.

The Kamui Magazine Rack basically looks like an oversized napkin holder, but the good thing about this design is that it keeps magazine covers visible. Because of the size and shape, this is one of the few magazine racks that works on a tabletop. Available in white, black, blue and red.

Available at Loft Party for $37

Our pals over at The Pop Manifesto have a new issue up. It's bright, it's fun, it's full of short interviews with artists and musicians and photos and stuff. There's an interview in here with Serps Press guy Thomas Jeppe about his obsession with/books on homemade tattoos.

David Hepworth's Review of the Year: Magazines in The Guardian asks "Have the glossies lost their shine?" (link via MagCulture)

ASME's names Best Magazine Covers of 2007. Ho hum.

North Drive Press #4 is out. I checked it out at a friend's house and it looks fantastic. As soon as I get one, I'll review it.

Viva La Marriage (or Mandrills Don't Need Love)
By Frank Olive and Rudy Shepard
Edited by Gabrielle Giattino
Published by Swiss Institute / Contemporary Art
8.5" x 11"
260 pages, Black and white, Softcover
$20

I've never worked in a gallery, but I can imagine from my years of working on magazines that hours of sitting around in the office is probably required. Frank Olive and Rudy Shepard are both artists who manage galleries (The Swiss Institute and The Drawing Center). Viva La Marriage is a collection of a year of their faxed correspondence. I love faxes. I love the way they look: the weird feeling paper, the messy print quality that varies greatly from machine to machine, the transmitting of visual information over the phone lines, etc. This book is great. I like the rhythm of it—back and forth between Olive and Shepard, between simple notes about office annoyances and diagrams of boredom, riffing off each other's drawings, word plays and inside jokes. The length of the book and the volume of drawings also helps to kind of put you in that stuck in the office all day mindset. Viva La Marriage originally accompanied a show at The Swiss Institute called, "Do You Like Stuff?" Every day the show was up, a new fax from Shepard was tacked to the wall accompanied by a response drawing from Olive.

Viva La Marriage is available from The Swiss Institute Shop for $20.

UPDATE: Frank and Rudy also have a blog.

Tonight, Friday December 14: Helmut Lang's first solo art show, Next Ever After is opening at the journal's gallery in Williamsburg. The show is the result of a year-long collaboration between the journal magazine and Lang. The Winter 2007 issue of the magazine has a big feature on Lang with studies for Next Ever After and a conversation between Lang and curator/writer Neville Wakefield on his move from fashion to art. 168 N 1st St Williamsburg. 6-9pm. Free.

Also tonight: Community Books in Park Slope is hosting a reading and party for WFMU's book, which we reviewed recently. WFMU will be broadcasting live from the bookstore as Bronwyn C., Ellery Eskelin, Dave the Spazz and other WFMU personalities entertain. I bet this will be fun. Community Books. 143 7th Ave @Carroll St. 6pm. Free.

Printed Matter has three book launches this weekend:

On Saturday December 15th, there's a party for both Kathe Burkhart’s The Liz Taylor Series: The First 25 Years, 1982-2007 and Guy Richards Smit’s The New Adventures of Grossmalerman #1. Burkhart's book contains almost every image the artist has made of Liz Taylor since 1982. One of her paintings is pictured above. Smit's comic trilogy stars his artist anti-hero Jonathan Grossmalerman, a loathsome character who is constantly involved in various gross misadventures. This first installment takes place at his art opening and includes some accidental decapitation, egomania, international intrigue, and other assorted bloody things. Printed Matter. 195 10th Ave @22nd St. 5-7pm. Free.

On Sunday December 16th, Printed Matter is having a party for artist, critic, and Art Forum production manager Jeff Gibson's book Sarsaparilla to Sorcery. In the book, Gibson combines abstract photographs of light sources with images torn from old encyclopedias. Printed Matter. 195 10th Ave @22nd St. 3-5pm. Free.

Butt took too long to put a black person on the cover and it's quite bizarre that they've never included an interview with Vaginal Davis before–but finally with issue 21 they've done both. Vaginal is an L.A icon, so for me it's kind of strange to discover she's moved to Berlin. Being in Europe, however, has not stilted the full-on 24 hour hollywood performance art of her conversation. Also: real life photos of 1976 Christopher street by Sunil Gupta; pretty East-London lads by Andreas Larsson; interviews with DJ Daniel Wang, portrait artist Don Bachardy and a sexy French, horticulturist escort named Xavier.

The November/December issue of The Believer has a lot of art related stuff such as an interview with the only art critic I care for, Dave Hickey. Do I agree with everything he says? No. But he has the rare quality of thinking for himself, he's a curmudgeon and it's always fun to hear what he has to say. Smart magazines realize that Lagniappe (a l'il something extra; an unexpected gift) is something print has over the interwebs and in that spirit The Believer comes with 18 temporary tattoos by some of the coolest illustrators on the planet, including Raymond Pettibon, Believer stalwart Charles Burns and Print Fetish reviewed Ron Regé Jr.

I-D's December/January cover star is the diva actress of our time, Cate Blanchett. She's not just beautiful, in fact she's entirely imperfect and completely captivating. Models should be more like her, a mouth watering subject for any photographer, and the photos by Matthias Vriens do not disappoint. I-D headmaster Terry Jones Interviews artist Francesco Vezzoli who discusses his upcoming work at the Guggenheim starring Blanchett, his current muse. Terry also interviews Karl Lagerfeld, with a nice black and white spread of the man preparing for the Chanel Cruise Collection 2007 in L.A. My favorite thing in this issue is the photo spread of hot, weathered surfers wearing fashion in Hawaii at the 11th Annual Quicksilver Edition Paddleboard Race by Laetitia Neg.

One of Mr. McGinnis's magazine stacks this day last year.

Print Fetish is 1 year old today! What have we learned? The Internet only means the end of particular business models... corporate media and newspapers will shift almost completely online, while print media will target smaller audiences with more specific interests. Point of view, the quality of design, editorial selection and arrangement will improve to appeal to more refined tastes, while advertising will have less influence over content. Print is NOT dead, nor will it die. In fact, hand made book-arts, 'zines, small press and independently owned magazines are more prevalent than ever, even in the face of horrific media consolidation.

Spoonbill & Sugartown in Brooklyn; photo by Is It Cool Enough For Marty?

Its cheaper and easier to print full color on high quality paper than its ever been. Print is thriving because of new media technologies, not in opposition to it. Computers and scanners make it easier to layout and prepare files while the Internet forms a symbiosis with printed matter. A few magazines are ahead of the curve and already working this symbiosis like Dazed & Confused's Dazed Digital.

Back issue promised land, Dorama in Japan; photo by jazzlah

The cool kids, not just the old dudes, still want to hold their own work in their hands. They still want the finality of their art and words on paper, and so does the audience. Print forces one to make choices in their art because they must conform to the structure of an object. They must proofread, color correct and edit length–and unlike the internet, once it's out there, its done, there is no going back to fix it. The audience appreciates this effort, and still respects and craves it.

A few of us even have a fetish for it.

Lula, girl magazine of my dreams, has a new issue out with Kirsten Dunst as cover star and guest editor. I feel generally whatever about Ms. Dunst but this issue is really good. Her cat is adorable. As I said before, I like the kind of comprehensive coverage Lula has. They do really well packaging stories and exploring themes. There are also these gorgeous photos from Rinko Kawachi. I'm totally in love. Other highlights include: an accessories story starring cats, Corinne Day's dreamy photographs, the model's awesome eyebrows in "Love Letter," an interview with Brooklyn band Au Revoir Simone, many many princess dresses, and the lovely vision of Mia Farrow, an inspiration for Lula girls everywhere.

Arthur Magazine is our favorite free music and arts magazine and their second issue back is strong and full of good stuff. It's too cold outside for me to venture to the coffee shop, so I took advantage of their free PDF download and am reading the magazine in my living room. Issue 27 gives us a very helpful article on how to keep the house clean without chemicals; political action, marketing strategies and magical thinking in The Center for Tactical Magic's monthly column; Ian Svenonius on Baltimore rock band Celebration (also ex-members of Love Life, I like these guys, go listen); an excerpt from Abby Banks' book Punk Houses (I actually want this book for Christmas, so make a note); and a conversation between Six Organs of Admittance's Ben Chasny and Om's Al Cisneros; and also a bunch of other stuff.

Me Magazine #13 sure has a hot cover. I'm feeling black and white lately. This issue of Me stars the adorable Ryan Donowho, indie actor, Brooklyn resident and musician-y type. Now, normally, that combination would make me barf, fall asleep and/or put the magazine down. My general love of Me Magazine prevents me from doing so. Mr. Donowho's friends talk about him, he talks about himself, the usual format. His friends include rapper Scavone, tap dancer and musician James Sutherland of the Sub/Hitters, musician Christian Zucconi of the band Aloke, and painter James Gillispie. I feel medium about this issue but overall am totally into the concept of Me Magazine.