Vogue Paris' hot chill

If any of you are in europe right now, (or your international press stand), I’m sure you’ve taken a look at the latest Vogue Paris issue. For august we have a special London issue with Daria Werbowy photographed by David sims.

Werbowy is wearing an awesome Ralph Lauren Jacket and all in all this cover looks pretty cute. The colors are nice and the model looks great, (though I could’ve done without the nose piercing…). The typography is very messy however, its quite crowded and you are losing any sense of priority on this cover. Everything is sitting really tight and I found it hard to read. I can honestly say though that this cover looks a hundred times better than the U.S and U.K editions, (by saying this I’m merely pointing out that those two look aweful not that this one looks amazing..).

The only thing that bothered me was the whole theme of this issue. As I mentioned this is a special London edition, and apparently to us french people, a London edition means winter style and cold photoshoots. It seems a bit chilly for an august issue which is disappointing but clearly you can’t have everything (trying sure wouldn’t kill you though…).

From Vogue to Vague

So I finally have a bit of time for myself and decided to take a little trip to the south of France for three days. But, of course, my obsession for the editorial world is not at rest and I had a few hours at the airport to catch up on what I’ve missed commenting on these past few months. Let’s start with a recent cover, I’m looking at you Vogue U.S, I’m pretty sure you don’t want me to be looking at you right now…. For their July cover they have singer Katy Perry. But wait…this looks familiar…

Yes they did. This cover looks an awful lot like their December 2012 issue with Anne Hathaway. Come on, I know it's summer and that this is a small issue but I'm surprised nobody noticed this. The color scheme is the same, green, pretty red flowers, that weird sad empty gaze is still here and honestly it wasn't a winning cover in December and it's not one now. However, this cover is the least of Vogue's problem right now.

 

I'm not even going to mention the layout and graphic design from the spreads inside the issue…Ok well that's a total lie… I have to mention that. When I flipped through the magazine and saw…whatever it was that I saw I'm still not sure, I had to look at the cover twice to check I was indeed looking at Vogue U.S, that's not a good thing...

I do not understand how the whole artistic direction of this publication can be so wrong. If you swapped the current cover with the ELLE logo no one would notice the difference…(that is an insult to ELLE actually, their layouts are divine compared to this) I’m not talking about the pictures as there are some good series in there but Oh My God the typography?? It looks like a failed merger between 4 or 5 different magazines! (no Vogue…that’s not a good thing when you look like you’re stealing layouts and fonts from everyone else…). Maybe the art director is on vacation who knows, it doesn’t make that much of a difference. I have, many times, lashed out at Vogue U.S because this publication which is supposed to be so elegant, fashion oriented and forward is simply a mess. They don’t even have a signature typeface (or one particular typeface that stands out more than the other for that matter, it looks like they are just using whatever they are in the mood for when they make a layout..). I isolated a few spreads to compare and contrast them with layouts from other publications like Vanity Fair and ELLE in case my point isn’t already made, check them out below:

All I can add to conclude this post is this: What it particularly sad is that Vogue U.S is not the magazine is used to be anymore. I find the whole publication to be a bit all over the place way too often (design wise, the photoshoots are still good). I'm liking the foreign Vogues a lot better these days.

It's all about Vanity Fair France

I've been off the grid for a while and missed commenting on a lot of covers in the past months. BUT, I do have a good reason! Since october 2012 I have officially been working as part of the Art department team at Vanity Fair France with Yorgo Tloupas (Art Director) and Genève Doherty (Associate Art Director) on the design of Condé Nast's newest baby. After months of hard work, late nights, junk food and team work, the first ever issue of Vanity Fair France is finally available and we are all so excited!

Who else could have been worthier of our first cover other than Scarlett Johansson? A gorgeous woman with amazing talent. She opened the doors of her parisian life to our team.

This first issue is very dense and has a lot of fascinating articles and great photography. We were able to get talented illustrators (one of my favorite parts), as well as great photographers and writers. So for everyone out there who is not able to go grab their first issue, here is an exclusive sneak peek at what you are missing out on, time to go grab yours! (also available on iPad of course with lots of extra images, animations and interactive delights).