FrontPage is closing.

That's right. Yeah. You heard me. FrontPage Newsstand on Jasper Ave will close on the 18th of July due to rent costs. Sad, isn't it? Don't we (and I mean the royal, collective society "we") read magazines anymore? Newspapers? Anything? Are we all THAT glued to our computers and our TVs and iPhones? You know, there shouldn't be two newsstands in this city, there should be some on each corner. Especially because downtown Edmonton seems to have this strong "community" - it seems big enough to attract a Sobeys and a flipping Farmer's Market but somehow there's no room for one of the biggest Saturday-afternoon-walk attractions in the downtown core.

Great. Just watch, as Hub Cigar will randomly close next and all of a sudden I'm going to have to buy my mags at Chapters. And we all know how much Heather Reisman loves her censorship. Cripes. Mom and Pop shops, beware. It seems Edmonton is not the place for you, to the detriment of any shreds of independent culture we have left.

Intricate Patterns in Illustrator!

Found this link today. There's some good possibilites there.

EDIT: Actually, the whole GoMedia site is a pretty sweet resource. Check out the free stuff here.

Laurentien Pencils

I found some Laurentien pencils at work today and they just reminded me so strongly of colouring books and childhood memories and after school things. Back then, I was happy to have all these colours to play with! Green skin? No problem! Gold eyes? Done! Now I'm pretty stoked that the design has remained the same for 20 years at least, complete with painted numbers corresponding to each colour. There's something with the history that I appreciate - there's no need to update the pencil designs for the sake of flash or branding. I'm glad they've stayed the same.


Also, these pencils appeal to my love of colourful things in sets. Maybe I should post more things in sets sometime soon.

Cinemathon - July 12, 2008

Hold on to your hats, Cinema-thon is coming up on Saturday, July 12! It's a fundraiser for Metro Cinema and I swear it's going to be a fun, fun party. Nay, a circus! What's going on, you ask? Well, there will be some quality bands (Field+Stream, Electricity for Everybody, a DJ set with Jaycie Jayce and NIK7) as well as the results of the FAVA HD competition and some great shorts from the Prairie Tales 2008 series. As an added bonus there will be video artists jamming all night long and for all you drawers out there, art making on the sidelines is a must! There will be drinks and food and we're hoppin' until 3AM.

Poster by yours truly - take a look for the details and if you like, you know, doing things that are fun and late night this may just be your bag. F-U-N!

Dalek + Swindle

What I do love about working with my Magazine Project interns is that they're like a small army of search engines, always scouring the interweb for new, shiny objects/magazines to show. This makes things especially hard because then I have to sit on my hands and resist the urge to ditch out on a meeting to rip on over to frontpage and buy the New Neat Shiny Art/Culture Mag in question. This particular Juxtapoz cover and Swindle mag (yeah yeah, I sure you've all heard of them) were found by a couple of my interns. Thanks, guys!

Taking a flip through Swindle magazine is worthwhile. Its writing isn't trite and the cover art is usually incredible. Issue #12 had a gobstopping cops and gangsters photo shoot that was much more a visual essay or narrative piece than just another photo shoot. They also featured Dalek a while back. No, not the Dr. Who episode, but the artist James Marshall, whose work is on the Juxtapoz cover above. I am completley cowed by his complex use of colour and geometry and solid compositions, and I just rolled over to his website and signed up for his email list.

Darren Booth

Just saw a posting over at drawn.ca about the work/life book for uppercase gallery - what made my jaw drop is the cover by illustrator Darren Booth. Golllllllly!

Work/Life is here.
Darren Booth is here.

Charley Harper - An Illustrated Life

Wandering through Montreal last winter I stumbled onto (into?) the Drawn and Quarterly shop in Mile End where I proceeded to black out and feed my book addiction while my friend patiently waited for me. For hours. I can't say it was the worst place to be stranded!

One lovely book that I didn't pick up due to its sheer size (how shall it fit in my backpack?) and hefty price (how shall I pay my rent?) was an oversized tome of the late Charley Harper's illustrations.

He is a master colourist and his graphic but simple illustrations of birds, insects and nature are brilliantly composed in flat planes of colour. It reminds me of 50's kitsch mashed with modernist influences, though of course no modernist would ever allow this much color into their work, which is just fine by me. He's also known for some children's books such as "Birds and Words", which the publisher's website tells me is a classic. I'm looking forward to discovering more about him.

Read more/order (I wish!) here.