Adventures in a world of print
Teenage magazines have been around for a long time, and Honey was one of the forerunners when it launched in 1960. This edition is from 1964, and features include ‘how to have a party’ and ‘how to get the perfect figure’
So – nothing much has changed I guess.
Honey was well-loved and sold as many as 250,000 at its height, but by the mid-eighties, the new owner IPC merged it with 19 magazine – one of my first jobs in the industry. Previous editors of Honey included Glenda Bailey and Eve Pollard.
ROOTING through the CMYK drawers the other day we found two sheets of A4 featuring some rather shaky handwriting that caught our eye. It was a questionnaire filled in for Caledonia magazine by the maverick poet, singer and harmonium player Ivor Cutler.
The ailing genius’s answers, posted to his native Scotland from his adopted home in north London, never made it into print because Caledonia, a glossy consumer magazine that we had much fun producing for five years, folded shortly afterwards. Two and a half years later, on 3 March 2006, Cutler himself passed away aged 83. But now that his characteristically whimsical responses to the magazine’s standard questions have been rediscovered, it seems only right to share them.
The V&A have a postmodern exhibition on at the moment. Right up my street. Neville Brody and Terry Jones are talking this Friday about their massive contribution to the magazine culture that flourished in the eighties (sold out I’m afraid). But it got me thinking about the last time Neville Brody was involved with the V&A. It was back in 1988 when there was a retrospective of his work. The book of the exhibition is on every designer’s shelf. Continue reading ‘Telly addict’
Femina: French magazines from the Belle Epoque
We are going all French here at CMYK Towers. Emma, our intern from Biarritz is helping on the advertising side of things, and Benedicte, our freelance designer from Bordeaux is laying a few pages out for Scotland in Trust magazine.
I had a few copies of ground-breaking French magazine Femina, dating from 1906, lying around, so I asked Benedicte to give her opinion. The magazine is still going in fact – Emma knew the title, however, it seems to have morphed into a fairly standard women’s magazine, lacking the identity it had in the early days.
Another lovely vintage magazine from 1960, called Arizona Highways. I guess they don’t get much snow down there, so the cactii (and candles) serve as the festive cover.
What makes this magazine so fascinating though, is not the kitsch photography, but the fact that whoever owned the magazine before us, had been sent it by a friend who had written all over the pages! Serving as a kind of magazine/postcard, each page has a personalised caption scribbled on in fountain pen.
They wish their friends in Scotland a Merry Christmas, and point out things like “our church” and “a Joshua tree – don’t try to climb it!” Above, they mention a “Lost Dutchman Mine” in Superstition Range. Obviously, they were keen for their Scottish friends to visit Arizona. I wonder if they ever did.
The inside back cover reveals “A Cowboy’s Christmas Prayer”. Brilliant stuff.
Merry Christmas everyone!
Well, it’s the first of December, and half the country is covered in snow – but spare a thought for our cousins in British Columbia – who get more than their fair share of the stuff.
This vintage copy of Beautiful British Columbia is from winter 1974, where, apparently, Christmas is a game of golf.
My wife’s parents (who lived in Orkney) used to subscribe to this magazine – mainly for the stunning landscape photography. The publication was actually produced by the British Columbia Department of Travel Industry – to entice people to visit this amazing part of the world. So that’s where Santa goes on holiday…
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