Category: <span>Design</span>

Published April 24, 2009 by

Magazine

For a recent assignment I went on a little bit of a magazine spree. I never used to believe in magazines, didn’t like spending money on things that you read once and have read-once value. I’m slowly being convinced. These are some of the marvels I got my hands on. Australian magazines the lot of them.

frankieFrankie

The clear winning favourite of most of my friends. It’s full of fun, cute interesting things, it’s a bit sassy, makes it’s statement and each issue comes with a rather splendid poster. Good photography, good writing, great feel. My 50ish year old male tutor at uni thinks it’s one of the best positioned magazines out there – it targets it’s audience so well. I couldn’t agree more. I love it. I buy most issues (except when I’m feeling like I’m being sucked in and do the whole ‘don’t buy to rebel’ thing), the truth is I really am sucked in and I really love that they use an ‘unknown’ on each cover.

mixtapeMixtape

A little A5 production, in it’s early years so it seems. It’s based on a blog – which is cool. Cute stuff, lots of DIY. I bought it because it was small, fairly inexpensive and looked cute. I might buy it again but it’ll probably be dependent upon content. Love the good DIY project. Mixtape is down to earth, friendly and not pretentious at all. It did carry the feel of a blog in being a little haphazard in what it wanted to be – but as the cover says it’s about the small things in life that make you happy – and in that they’ve done quite well.

peppermintPeppermint

It’s eco fashion. I bought it because I was interested (and the uni thing). I haven’t read it cover to cover and am a little disappointed it isn’t more practical, but that’s probably more the fault of me living in the outer east of Melbourne more than anything. It’s got a nice feel and it’s really positive to see a magazine targetting this kind of thing, again I’m not a huge fashion person but there are plenty out there to whom fashion presses big buttons. Great article on fair trade and a decent one on green graphic design.

harvestHarvest

Brand spanking new, in it’s second issue. Harvest looks at ‘fresh Australian writing’ and I certainly wasn’t disappointed. It is quite different from the others and is more a mook (I think that’s what you call it!), the most inspiring personallly – it appears I really am a wordy person. I’m still digesting it, for $15 the volume of content is phenomenal. Writing like this makes me happy. It’s not devoid of nice imagery either but the imagery is there to support and not to demand attention. Lovely variety. Lovely, lovely words. Lovely, lovely, lovely.

Books Culture Design Life Uni Words

Published April 10, 2009 by

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© Rebecca Matheson 2009

Branding Design

Published April 2, 2009 by

Illustration

As life as a design student progresses, my interest increases in both the very ‘boring’ matter of php code and very inspiring angle of illustration. I would love – as I have said before to take an illustration class – it seems that uni assumes that you can draw – or doesn’t care beyond the very first subject offered – Intro to Communication Design.

I found a site today on Illustration and watched one of the tutorials on there and happily learnt a few new things about Illustrator and now would rather like to invest in the tool that turns the painstaking pen tool variants into something more like drawing in Flash. I never said that. I never would shun Adobe. But it really isn’t made for impatient people. And oh gosh to discover the intersect/paths something tool – it’s something I’ve wanted all along – but never have known what to look for.

Here is the site: Illustration Class.

I truly love people who put helpful things up on line.

Design Uni

Published March 27, 2009 by

Fairtrade t-shirt Take 2

This is the other version (also not quite there b/c at the moment it’s kinda sitting on his neck) with the city more on the guy’s back.

Which is better? This one, or this one here?

fairtrade2

Design Social Justice Uni

Published March 21, 2009 by

Tripod Lamps and DIY Solar

w2949I’ve noticed a few tripod lamps around lately of varying degrees of attractiveness. Not sure what I think. Anyway, you can DIY. Although you’d want to spend minimum $ on a tripod or use one that is bung but still upright.

Also I thought this solar heating thing would appeal to my Dad – who now has 15,000 Litres of water in an inflatable bladder (Yes, that is what I said) under his deck and has just installed an evaporative cooler. Fortunately for my mum and sisters, we don’t have copper pennies in Australia, if we did, they would never forgive me – their days of crowding in front of the gas wall heater could be over.

Design Sustainable