Applied Arts Illustration Annual Let Down
Thursday, June 03, 2010
Always excited upon receiving mail, I quickly perused the 2010 Applied Arts Illustration and Photography Annual yesterday, after tearing it out of its packaging. That was about the high point though, as things went downhill from there. In summary, the entire issue was a big disappointment for me.
First, there is barely any illustration in the annual. 15 mere spreads. Compared to previous years, a ghost of its former self. This issue is much heavier on the photography, which I don't mind, except I never would have ordered it, much less paid $25 for it. And even worse, there aren't even any articles in this issue. That's pretty sad.
To compound the problem, the illustration included is not all that exciting. Nothing jumps out as being really solid or innovative. A handful of the usual talent, along with a pile of stuff that mostly just reminds me of stock illustration.
What really got me was the presentation. All of the art is presented in dull small boxes, despite the switch over to some kind of grotesque large format vertical magazine. If you go through the trouble to make a magazine an awkward, unusual size, then it should probably be for a reason. And as my final complaint...the magazine was redesigned to feature CMYK printer registration colours. A graphic arts magazine using the CMYK...now that's not too cliche and overused
1 comments
Hey Jason,
ReplyDeleteWell first off, I'm sorry you were disappointed in the issue. We always try to put out a magazine which readers will enjoy, so I hope we'll "win you back" with an issue down the road.
It's true that there's a higher number of winning photography entries over illustration. I don't work with the Awards directly so I can't speak for certain, but if there are more photography winners than illustration, there are only two reasons that I can think of that would make that the case: either the entries were lower in number, or the judges weren't as taken with the work.
Our role in any of our Awards is acting simply as the pipeline between the entered work and the judges. The process comes down to what work is entered and what the judges think of the submitted work. We have absolutely no say in the judging process itself.
Over the past couple years at least, the Photography awards have had larger numbers than the Illustration awards. Maybe it's a reflection on the relative sizes of the two industries? I can't speak for certain, but as a fellow subscriber, that's my assumption.
As to the presentation, we decided on the CMYK-based colour scheme for our recent redesign because that was our original colour scheme when we launched in the magazine in the late 1980s. Cliche? Perhaps, but we like to think it honours the field we all work in.
As well, the larger format, in our opinion, provides more room for the work to be displayed in than our previous size. If you compare this year's to last year's Photography/Illustration annual, the work has a bit more room to breath and the pieces are generally larger in size.
Ultimately, everyone has their own opinion and they're completely free to hold it. We're proud of what we produce, but we're always open to feedback and suggestions on how we can make our awards, our magazine and our website more relevant, interesting and — above all — inspiring to our readers. Feel free to give me a shout if I can help with anything else; my e-mail is stuart@appliedartsmag.com.
Stuart Thursby
Community Coordinator
Applied Arts