Eureka Magazine

Yesterday saw the unveiling of the second issue of Eureka, the new Times monthly supplement about science.

The Design team consists of art direction by Matt Curtis, information graphics by Matt Swift and design by David Loewe brought over specially from Berlin. The issues have also featured cracking illustrations from the likes of MASA, Robert Hanson and Raymond Biesinger.

There are more pictures over at Mag Culture. Here are some below.

















Jeremy compares it to a less dense version of Wired which I would agree with. It seems to us here at Things to Look at that with these publications innovative information design is key in conveying content and injecting humour into the subject matter. American magazine Good could also be slotted into this genre of magazine. The sheer time it must take to visualise all this data is impressive.

One imagines a huge team behind each issue, yet it's a nine-strong team of editor, art director, picture editor, chief sub, information graphics designer, designer, plus 2 additional subs and a researcher. It looks like it's a lot of fun to work on.

Here are a few images of Good Magazine to see how other information design led magazines do it.

Geigy Heute

A gem of 1958 diagram design, Geigy Heute (Geigy Today) designed by Karl Gerstner 1958 as featured in the recent publication from Lars Muller +Museum fur Gestaltung Zurich, titled "Corporate Diversity: Swiss Graphic Design and Advertising by Geigy"

Paradis 5

Managed to get my hands on the latest issue of Thomas Lenthal's Paradis the other day. True to form, its the usual mix of interesting articles and gorgeous photography. Highlights include a nude shoot by Juergen Teller at the Louvre and a story on Luchino Visconti by his nephew Luchino Gastel.
The star of the issue by far and away is surely '55, rue de Babylone' a 16 page feature at the home of the late Yves Saint Laurent.
Photographed by Roberto Polidori we see a home of boxes and wrapped art in prepration for the Christie's art auction -
a great feature idea, impeccably executed.

Another Hayman Adventure

Recent offerings from, Pentagram New York partner, Luke Hayman. We like big bold type on the openers and great infographics. See more on the Pentagram site.

Jan Kaplický Architect of the Future

The Guardian dubbed him 'the most radical architects of the last 40 years'. Best known for designing the Media centre at Lord's and the branch of Selfridges in Birmingham's Bullring centre, Czech born Jan Kaplicky died this year and is the subject of a new exhibition on at The Design Museum along with the bigger-scale Mariscal, both opening tomorrow. Well worth a visit if you like crazy visions of the future. We, here at Things to Look At enjoyed peering very closely into the models so we could imagine some Logan's Run vision of the future.Here is what Design Museum's Deyan Sudjic has to say on the legend.

Walker Evans for Fortune

We’re in the middle of commissioning a story here and like a bolt of lightning I remembered one of the most precious pieces of photographic journalism – Walker Evan’s story for Fortune magazine July 1955 on the beauties of the common tool.
There are countless essays on these photographs, its meaning and significance. I admire them for the questions they ask, who uses these tools, what are they are used for, why are they significant? These objects have been taken out of their everyday contexts - suddenly they are presented with such austerity, that they've take on a particular significance, suddenly they are special, important and beautiful. Perhaps these photographs were a metaphor for the social or economic or political class system. I suppose they could be interpreted in many number of ways - one thing that struck me was how stunning they look – something truly special I think.

Wired Magazine

The EDO held its first lecture of the year last week, inviting the Creative Director of Wired magazine, Scott Dadich, to speak about his involvement with the magazine and the brand new UK edition that's just been launched. It was a glorious technicolor talk with an impressively animated presentation. Read all about it over at the Eye blog.

With an average circulation of 2 million, it was the ethereal dream of the budget that allowed for months of thinking time, grand plans and ridiculous details which made it stand out for us here at Things To Look At. Here are some examples...


You are inspired by a shot from Terminator 2, as many of us are


So you commission some sketches of rockets, some intricate CGI, of many individually crafted rockets with well thought out propulsion systems. A bit of on location desert photography and hey presto, there's your cover!


You get the iconic Martha Stewart to bake you a Wii cake that HAS to taste good and look like a Wii.


You ask the CGI wizards behind Transformers to render out your own 1gig Transformer image which is detailed down to the very last scratch on the eyeball



All so you can achieve the sorts of covers Wired is famed for. Here are a few more from its lifespan, more of which can be seen here or here.



To find out more about the deep processes behind Wired courtesy of Scott's entries on the blog of the US equivalent of the EDO, the SPD. You can even have a crack at designing your own cover here, although we couldn't make the image uploader work.

Other great parts of the talk were of course the amazing infographics



And the amazing attention to detail in some of the photography