Season’s greetings from Cozmos Quazar:

Positively Season’s Niceness.mp3

Cozmos on Myspace here. Just beautiful!

It’s my last day at work before the holidays, I’m slowly recovering from the christmas party last night when random browsing leads me to back to k10k’s issue 100 from Joshua Davis. I’m drawn in once again to the touching confessionary tale, one that brings me back to the heyday (or at least my heyday circa 2000-2001) in web design, when anything seemed possible, when the community was tightly knit and supportive, and the “cutting-edge” (irony partially intended) were sites designed with 45 degree angles, tiny nonsense type, and big fat arrows. Dik, surfstation, tDr, alt.sense, dreamless, etc. If you know what I’m talking about…

It seems strange to be feeling nostalgic about designing websites, but I am. Maybe its the season, maybe its the result of dancing my ass off last night like I haven’t in a while. Maybe its a twisted sense of hope that the excitement I felt back then in my “profession” can still be achieved. Because of or in spite of all the web 2.0 blather.

In a day before the popularity of blogs Davis recounts his personal struggles with addiction and poverty, and how Netscape 2.0 saved his life. Read on…

Despite the insane weather outside, Cat and I spent the weekend tabling at the Hot Cakes Craft Fair. Lots of very interesting stuff, friendly people and again, like expozine, a really great vibe. Cat’s crafts did very well and we picked up some unique Christmas gifts for everyone.

Without a doubt, my fave of the weekend, Alex’s disease-ridden preserved plushes; “The Cutest Bunch of Sinister Anywhere!”

PS. The secret is out! We finally received issue nine! We’re working on an amazing launch in January, details soon…

Quite an experience to live in fear, isn’t it? That’s what it is to be a slave. I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I’ve watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die…
Rutger Hauer, as Roy Batty, in Blade Runner

Four Minutes to Midnight is a visceral reaction to the encounters between: typography and language, language and culture, culture and politics, politics and fear, fear and love, love and sex, sex and death. Between death and memory, memory and the printed page. In the wake of our sadness, joy, anger and hope. This issue is dedicated to the birds…

True to the expansive definition that introduces this issue of the zine, Issue 8 features the diverse work of over 20 international writers and artists. Some personal highlights include Ralph Dfouni’s personal account of the war in Lebannon, Vincent Tinguely’s polemical poem Oilers, photography by Brigitte Henry, a graphic interpretation of Nadia Myre’s scar project, and of course Fugue 8. With the Fugue, I think we finally articulated the core concept behind the project; composing all the textual fragments and dialogue we’ve shared into a compelling, 28-page typographic epic.

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an oldie, but a goodie…

An amazing little application developed by Elie Zananiri that allows you to manipulate a live video feed as if it were mapped onto a physical cloth. Even cooler on a multi-touch screen with the trace effect. Check it out here.

While I slowly work on feeding my design work into wordpress, I’ve created a PDF portfolio containing selected projects I’ve worked on over the last few years. You can download it here (it’s 15 MBs though!).

More excitingly for me, I’ve just finished delivering my first class at Concordia University in Experimental Typography. Overall, I was really impressed by my students’ work and enthusiasm for the subject matter. I’ve compiled a small selection of their work into a pdf for presentation purposes. Download it here (2.3 MBs). I’d love to hear what people think, so please get in touch!

The following is an observational “essay” featured in Issue 7 of four minutes to midnight:

SIMON DAVIES
During the orientation session at Post St. Joost in Breda, the Netherlands, my soon to be professor, Simon Davies mentioned to me in passing;

I think the antiquated notion of (graphic) design as problem solving should be buried and replaced with an understanding of design as a process of problem revealing.

I identified strongly with Simon’s words as I’ve never really thought of myself as a very good problem solver, but would still like to consider myself a competent designer. No doubt graphic design does solve some problems. But in the grand scheme of problems, differentiating products in the market and making a text more legible seem pretty trivial, and certainly not important enough to be the basis of a profession. This shouldn’t be seen to discount the important place of good (moral?) craft work within society, but the extension of the designer’s role as official “problem-solver” is based in an ideal of modernism, with design acting in the service of (the captains of) industry. Whose problems have we really been solving all these years?

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It’s time to build a new architecture of resistance…

Issue 7 of FMTM was the first issue published out of Montréal in the new format. Growing out of the concepts developed in my thesis work, but unrestricted by any academic criteria, this issue brings together the work of over 25 artists and writers, remixed, edited and designed by John and myself into a 124 page visual essay on typography, poetry and personal politics.

The issue features a cover design by Abe Burmeister from his Wind Is The Enemy days, and is printed on Strathmore recycled cotton writing paper. Perfect-bound in an edition of 150 hand-numbered copies.

Two years and two issues later, I think it is safe to say our first foray into “radical” self-publishing was quite successful, building a strong community of interest (who knew?) and selling out over the course of the first year. So, if you picked up a copy at some point, thanks!

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