Plazm to participate in De Zines exhibition, Barcelona Spain. Opening 29th of June

‘De Zines’ is an attempt to reflect and catalog contemporary editorial creation within independent publications today and how this work relates to the current social, cultural, and political environment. Around 400 international publications have been gathered from established magazines to handmade 'zines and a selection of experimental magazines.

In a time of constant technological evolution and immediate access to information through the electronic network, paper, as a media for the dissemination of culture and information, seems destined to disappear. However, the number of small, independent publications continues to grow. Digital and analogue can coexist, and, in fact, can serve vastly different purposes. While digital is immediate and global in its distribution, analog is selective, tactile, and durable. 

'De Zines' posits that independent publications—descendants of punk, Dada, the Situationists, and the Fluxus movement, among others—will remain a vital part of the future of media for some time. The exhibit is articulated as a consultation room, a space that does not only creates traffic but a place to stay. To "create networks among people with a similar vision in a global and plural world."

Inéditos 2010

La Casa Encendida 

29 June to 29 August 2010 / Room A

Ronda Valencia, 2

28012 Madrid - Spain

T +34 902 43 03 22

La Casa Encendida is open from Monday to Sunday from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day of the year except national and Community of Madrid holidays.

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IDEA Magazine #341

New issue of IDEA on newsstands now!

featuring:

Critical Mass
Compiled by Ian Lynam + Idea magazine

A 100-page inquiry into contemporary critical practices in graphic design featuring: 
Mark Owens, Zak Kyes, Jon Sueda, Brian Roettinger, Daniel Eatock, Scott Ponik, Michael Worthington, Yasmin Khan, and Metahaven.

The feature includes two new lengthy essays:

Subterranean Modernism: A Critical Retrospective
By Randy Nakamura + Ian Lynam

On the Uselessness of Design Criticism 
by Randy Nakamura

Critical Mass offers a comprehensive overview of not only critical graphic design practices, but a critical look at the recent history of graphic design, citing undercurrents of informed practice and the effects of historical influence.

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Cooper Black Condensed

New typeface release from Wordshape/MyFonts:

Cooper Black Condensed is a less wide, but not squished variation on Cooper Black.

The history of this typeface:

Cooper Black, the most famous and successful of Oswald Cooper’s type designs was released in 1920, following a year of development fleshing out the weight of the typeface and filling out the full character set. Cooper redrew the lowercase characters multiple times, toying with the rounded forms of the “m” and “n” and engaged in a lively debate with Barnhart Bros. & Spindler’s General Manager Richard N. McArthur over the final form as McArthur requested that the typeface be drawn bolder and bolder. Cooper famously said the face was “for far-sighted printers with near-sighted customers”, and the public agreed. Sales of Cooper Black were voluminous, and Barnhart Brothers & Spindler had a difficult time keeping up with the demand for the typeface. Conservative typographers were critical of Cooper Black, though it was overwhelmingly popular, helping to shape the American advertising landscape through the 1920s and 1930s.

1925 saw the release of Cooper Black Condensed, a “condensed but not squeezed” variation on the Cooper Black theme. McArthur and Cooper had the usual lively back-and-forth over the shapes of some of the letterforms, in particularly the uppercase “Q”, resulting in a thoroughly accomplished alphabet. The first showing specimen of Cooper Black Condensed compared the new face with Cooper Black, showing that it was 20 less wide and that it promised to “show something of gentility while being able to spit on its hands and make itself useful”.

This typeface is the result of researching and faithfully redrawing characters from Cooper’s original drawings and series of engraved proofs for the typeface. The typeface includes the full range of punctuation and diacritics that fill out a full character set. The typeface has been lovingly kerned for the smoothest result in text setting.

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