It’s here!

As of today, Love Japan magazine issue 2 is now available to buy in print and is also free to read online! (Although, I’d recommend getting it in print… because it’s a magazine.)
I got my copy earlier in the week and it looks great.

I’ve worked alongside some super talented and passionate people over the last few months and I’m really excited for the world to see the magazine, at last. I designed this issue but also look out for my own article in the Travel section!

Love Japan Magazine Issue 2 is jam packed full of interesting articles and interviews covering a wide range of topics from food, fashion and art, to lifestyle, travel and events.

Our first 20 print orders get a free gift of either a ‘I ♥ Japan’ pin badge, or Japanese food stickers. Click here to make the jump and grab a copy of the mag!

We hope you enjoy reading the magazine as much as we’ve enjoyed creating it!

Coming Soon!

We are literally putting the final, final touches to Issue number 2 of Love Japan magazine. It will be going off to print very soon. I can’t share much more than the cover at the moment but a complete 88-page print version will be available to buy very soon. Exciting!

UPDATE:

We’ve decided to upload a complete version of the magazine, rather than a snapshot version as we previously thought about doing. We think this issue is just too good to keep only for print! The full magazine will be published online at the same time as print copies becoming available for purchase – which is looking like it’ll be early September. (We had a last minute addition to the magazine that we didn’t want to leave out!)

BUT don’t panic Japan fans, keep an eye on the Love Japan Twitter, Instagram and Facebook accounts over the coming weeks as Emily will be sharing snippets from Issue 2, ahead of its full online and print debut.

Love Japan Magazine: Issue #1

You may remember at the end of last year, during my Christmas break, I spent some time working on the branding for a new Japan-themed magazine – Love Japan Magazine. Well, Issue #1 is now out there and it’s awesome!

I didn’t have too much involvement in the actual layout of the magazine… But I designed the patterns that are in use for backgrounds and page borders, as well as suggesting font combinations when I did the branding work. Plus, one of my photos is in there – see if you can find it. I have also made some overall typographical and editorial design tweaks to the final magazine – as an editorial designer in my day job (2.5 years and a middleweight designer now, by the way!), I thought I could put my skills and expertise to good use.

Emily has done an amazing job pulling everything together – not to mention coming up with the idea for a well-researched, well-written and well-designed Japan-themed magazine in the first place – and there are some excellent articles, photos and illustrations that have been contributed to the magazine from a wide range of people, all over the world.

I’m excited to say that, although I didn’t work on the design for the layout of this issue, I will be having more involvement in Issue #2. I’m meeting Emily to discuss things [over some Japanese tea] in London next weekend. So stay tuned for more details on #2! And for now… here is Issue #1:

Snufkin makes an appearance on CR

A little Snufkin appears on Creative Review's January Music Issue. A little light reading for my train journey back to Falmouth tomorrow.

New design for Creative Review

I'm tempted to buy the latest edition of Creative Review as it has had a re-design. "with a new size, new paper, new typography and, yes, a new logo". Also, the cover illustration is by Anthony Burrill, whose work I like. Not certain I like the typography for the logo, but we'll see...

I don't buy the magazine, or any design magazines really, that often. Mainly because a) they're expensive b) I read the blogs and bits online, and c) we have them all in a journals room at university.  However, there's nothing like having your own copies of the magazines to flick through.

"We knew that we needed to make the printed magazine even more distinct from the website. It had to be more tactile, more of a joy to handle, better quality. But finding the resources to do that is not easy in the face of a recession that has affected advertising, and therefore paginations and revenues, so badly.

We discovered that changes to the Royal Mail’s pricing structure meant that, by reducing the size of the magazine slightly to 250mm square we could save money. Which is all fine but not worth doing if the smaller format doesn’t feel right. So we had some old copies of the magazine cut down to the new size and found that it really worked. It felt good in the hand.

Then, we thought, what if we took the money that we would save from the size reduction and put it (and more) into the paper stocks. So instead of 90 gsm, the text pages are now on 135 gsm with Crit on 115 gsm uncoated. Instead of 250gsm, the coverstoack is now 300gsm. The thickest, best paper CR has never been on. Despite the mail cost saving, we are now spending more money per month on the production of the magazine, but we believe that our readers will appreciate the result – the pictures here don't do it justice. You have to pick up a copy to really appreciate what a difference the new paper makes."

And so, I think I have been persuaded to go out and buy a copy.
http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2010/march/cr-april-redesign