If only all magazine spreads could look this cool (from Blowback).

the joys of Blowback.

glad to see ILM getting round to this ...i have been enjoying this freebie since catching #1 by chance.

today i got Outlaws vs Blowback mix cd, to celebrate the end of their first year.

its a fine mix. a lot more interesting than their proper album.

and the mag is def my fave at the moment.

not that i am biassed of course.

hmmm call me trad/reactionary, but i though one of the aims of typography is to aid communication, especially through clarity. this magazine seems as messy as another around at the moment, so i dont know if this guy could be called an ace typographer.

y'know, wouldnt it be amazing to have a magzine, you could, y'know, read? like where there wasnt white text on a light coloured background, or images didnt obscure interesting bits of text etc?

my dadsa kind of an old fashioned printer so maybe this is why i am such a fuddy duddy, but its just my 2 cents, la

this was diff to the normal layout.

not loads of money involved, this is a lo-budget/for love freebie mag.

No one said anything about money! stuff like this isnt made virtuous by the fact it is being done for the love of it all. Bad design is still bad design.

i'm sure they'd love you to get in touch and help em out and show em how to do it right ..

or something. i couldn't help but think that all the confusing text was raygun's way of not sharing the secrets of thee undergrount.
m.

Besides, just glancing at the first two at least, it all looks legible enough if you tilt your head a bit. ;)

mbv succeeds as sound and music. but if the AIM of mbv is transmission of the lyrics, it fails. i personally don't think mbv cared about the perceptability of the lyrics. i think they were meant to be this tone/dream providing element of the music. "ewy-ew-ew" indicative of ethereal sex beauty without the explicit description as such.

raygun occasionally "failed" at the transmission of it's content by putting font backwards, obscuring words, etc etc. well, unless it meant to keep certain things secret, and it probably did, so maybe it was a success in providing a little leg, but not the "goods" as some might say.

there IS something to be said for simplicity however and transference of information. i could see how many people would expect fairly explicit textual information from a magazine and therefore be annoyed by the flash of a spastic, jungle-real layout.

like mtv's rapid flash video techniques, sometimes, just sometimes, not everybody wants to pretend they have ADHD just to consciously keep up with the media they're being bombarded with.

somebody who dislikes that should be allowed to regard it as crap.

i don't, but hey...
m.

As for this:
Isn't all this a bit like saying all lo-fi necessarily sucks, or mbv is shit because you can't really make out the lyrics? You know, disregarding the aesthetic aims?
Basically, what msp said. If the magazine was actually aiming to get some information across, the design of Raygun was fucking horrible. If it was all about design, why bother interviewing the bands at all? Just put in some pics and then sprinkle the pages with random words in eye-shattering colours that intersect and interlock. Would have the same effect, with less expense or time.