The next issue of Plazm is in full production mode, thanks in part to a grant our new parent organization, New Oregon Arts & Letters, received from RACC.
The Plazm 30 theme is rebirth. If you have an idea for publication, would like to place an ad, or make a tax-deductible contribution, send email to editor30@plazm.com. We are also celebrating by curating thirty designer and illustrator responses to the letters and numbers “Plazm #30.” A lovely version by Ed Fella appears above.
Our editorial team is Joshua Berger, art director; Jon Raymond, editor; and Tiffany Lee Brown, editor. We thank the Regional Arts and Culture Council, and the devoted grantwriting volunteers at New Oregon, for making possible this Opportunity Grant.
Reservations accepted: artist dinner July 24, Portland
Linda Austin (Performance Works NW) and Tahni Holt (Monster Squad) have been hosting artist talk dinners around Portland this summer. Come to the Plazm/New Oregon smackdown 7/24, featuring Josh Berger vs. Tiffany Lee Brown—and you—discussing art, media, and performance. Vegetarian food; allergies accommodated. Email hello@tahniholt.com ASAP as reservations soon close.
Bob Garfield is a writer who used Crowdspring to get a cheap book design made. Then he found his own type of work being shunted to cheap labor. Now he’s worried. We all should be.
Change is inevitable, so perhaps we stop making a living by writing, designing, and the like, and instead make our money developing technologies that convince other people to write, design, and otherwise provide content for free or very little dough.
More at Ad Age.
Though it doesn’t explain why this website is called “27b slash 6” instead of “27b stroke 6” (which is what they actually say in the movie, Brazil), this post about a lost cat and a typical designer is… lovely.
Plazm magazine seeks Advertising Sales Representative
What if you sent off your most impassioned manifesto ever, and even CNN reported on your lame choice of fonts? “These widespread abuses of printed type threaten to erode the very foundations upon which centuries of typographic history are built,” quotes an article here. Even the Wall Street Journal took note of a fan’s tweet: “nobody who posts official statements in Comic Sans MS should be running an NBA team.”
But Comic Sans is fighting back in McSweeney‘s: “…think again, nerdhole, because I’m Comic Sans, and I’m the best thing to happen to typography since Johannes fucking Gutenberg.
“Sorry I’m standing in the way of your minimalist Bauhaus-esque fascist snoozefest.”
Ever notice how some 70-99% of the graphic designers and art directors mentioned in design books, at awards—even in otherwise progressive magazines like Plazm—are male? Let’s assume for a moment that women have also influenced the aesthetic and political juggernaut of visual culture. Where can we find ’em?
One good place to start is “Thunderbitch: Women Designers in Northwest Rock 1966–2010,” opening August 5 in Seattle at Tether. Taking its name from a pseudonym for Catherine Weinstein, an early rock poster maker in Portland, this exhibit spans the emergence of psychedelic rock, DIY punk and new wave, grunge, riot grrl and today’s contemporary silkscreen gig poster movement from Washington and Oregon.
Can’t make it? You’ll want to check out the catalog. Oh wait: they need help funding the printing. Step on up at Kickstarter.
