LOVE at FIRST BROWSE
Each week a special guest will share with us the three magazines that have meant the most to him.
This week is the turn of Silvia Sfligiotti, graphic designer, educator, co-founder of Alizarina.
#1 / Revue Faire
“This unusual periodical project was started in 2017 by French studio Syndicat. Its subtitle (Regarder le graphisme / To look at graphic design) relates to its unconventional attitude: every issue (each one is part of a 15-issue series) focuses on a specific item: a graphic design project, a printing technique, a reproduction, a curatorial work, a portrait, an Instagram post, and so on, with one or more writers invited to discuss the subject. The theme of presentation/reproduction of works is always central to Revue Faire, and the answer is often different in each issue, ranging to real-size reproduction to watercolour illustrations of the original work. An interesting challenge to the format of the graphic design magazine, and one of the best publication projects I encountered in recent times.”
#2 / Dot Dot Dot
“Founded by Stuart Bailey and Peter Bilak, this magazine only published 20 issues between 2000 and 2010. It slowly evolved from a visual communication / graphic design magazine to a heterogeneous, idiosyncratic collection of contents ranging from literature to music and the arts, selected by the editors and their network of contributors. With its unassuming, standard format, Dot Dot Dot contributed to the development of a set of cultural and aesthetic references that moulded the scene of independent graphic design in Europe way beyond the life of the magazine. After Dot Dot Dot was closed, a new project took off from that point, the Bulletins of the Serving Library, founded by Bailey, Angie Keefer and David Reinfurt.”
#3 / Safar
“It was founded by the Beirut-based studio with the same name, run by Maya Moumne and Hatem Imam. It's a bilingual graphic design and visual culture magazine, that over time is increasingly putting social and political issues – such as Migration in Safar #5 – at the center of its attention, with an interesting mix of essays, short stories, interviews and visual narrative. The design allows Arabic and English to co-exist effortlessly, offering a different side, and a reverse reading order, to each audience. The next issue, reflecting on the consequences of the current political situation in Lebanon in the wake of the August 2020 explosion in Beirut, will be focused on the theme of Power.”
