SB ... Issue 1 is here

So after 7 weeks of work, 3 photoshoots, many hours editing and producing we have completed the first issue of SB. 

With a nude, illustrated cover its a complete surprise when you open SB. But here is a sneak peek.

The stories we were told accompany the coloured images of indivuals SB.
A personal story of one of our Grandads and his war experiences.
Things to do on a rainy day or when you simply have a few moments to spare.
An insight into our own step back into the 1940's through the revival day we visited.
The inspiration for our 1940's shoot.
And our (the editors) SB.

Visit http://www.followsomethingbeautiful.blogspot.com/, The London Zine Symposium (29.5.10, Brick Lane) or NTU's Zine Symposium (Bonnington 27.5.10) to discover more or pick up your own copy of SB.

Charlie xoxo

"20" The Exhibition

SHOWstudio have created '20' The Exhibition, a celebration of Masion Martin Margiela. One of the most infleuntial Fashion Designers of recent generations.

The unique exhibition captures Maison's vision and imagination at it's best, it will incorporate photography, film and innovative instillations.

Margiela questioned the basics of fashion and experimented with ways to portray his unique designs and discoveries.

The exhibition questions "what fashion is, how we clothe the body and ideals of human beauty, are these still as groundbreaking as ever." SomersetHouse.org (24.5.2010)

Running from the 3rd June to 5th September.

C x

Lots of Beautiful things

Seeing as we are asking all of our friends and family to submit their 'Something Beautiful', we only thought it fit that the SB team select an image. We could only pick one for the final line up so here are the rest of mine that didn't make the final line up:

I took this in Berlin and just thought that for something that is normally considered so unsightful, i found quite magestic

Bournemouth Beach

Art Foundation "Beauty and the Beast" project

Scotland

NYC - Brooklyn Bridge, 2007.

NYC 2009

London. Red tulips with a blurred Millenium wheel in the background, an interesting take, angle and perspective on it if i do say  so myself.

The Rialto Bridge, Venice. 2006

The Venetian Festival, 2006.

All Beautiful, i hope you agree?

K x

Richard Warren

Based in Manhattans Garment district Warren has been shooting intimate apparel and fashion for over twenty years. What is so intriguing about this photographer is his need to tell a story, often even making the set himself, Warren states;

           

‘It’s more interesting to tell a story within a fashion spread. This same process can be and should be applied when branding a product in advertising or even developing spreads within a catalogue.’

The elegant and bredth within the titles of his work explain his creative thinking. E.g. ‘Hitchcock Blonds’ (Above) His titles conjour up the emotions that he wants to evoke. The foremost importance with the photography within this shoot is that the atmosphere is created and captured, something that Warren seems to do instinctively. The product is second to the ambience and feel of the campaign. It is his attention to detail and charming ‘story telling’ style that makes him the ideal photographer for this brief.

‘I don’t usually separate story telling from the technical aspects, because to me it’s part of the whole package.’

Keep checking out his website to view his latest projects – I can’t get enough! 

P X

SB Logo

Over the past few days I have been devising the logo for Something Beautiful. To fit with our agreed design aesthetic, we wanted it to be simple but strong using neutral, tonal colours.

Typorgraphy is very interesting because just the font or size can completely change the associations that you have with the word and letters. Trying to evoke the SB brand essence and what the mag is all about was very difficult but with the ok from the other girls, I think i've just about got there!

Below is a sample collection of my development...

and this is the finished SB logo...!

Let us know what you think!

:)

P   X

The French prove beauty comes in various forms ...

French Marie Claire for June 2010 have produced a shoot embracing curves and the 'plus-size' model.

Models of all different shapes and sizes have donned swimwear (sometimes less) to prove beauty comes in various forms.

Hayley Morley and Laura Catteral are showing the world size 12+ is something to be celebrated.

Captured by Thierry Lebraly and Bruno Juminer respectively, the two girls are modern day pin-ups in pieces from Princesse Tam-Tam, American Vintage and others.

Charlie xoxo

HUCK

After my interview with Charlie (one of our SB contributors) he excitedly told me about his favourite magazine HUCK. Charlie said it covered art, fashion, travel and music, all the things he was interested in and that he often used it as a first point of call for inspiration. Later that week when I visited Charlie again I saw, true to his words, he had issues of Huck pilled on his desk – easy to flick through whenever he needed. As Charlie chatted away I picked up Huck and started to flick through.

When I got back I decided to check out Huck online. It is a bi-monthly magazine and is published in English, German and French but distributed worldwide.

It states on their website that they hold ‘a firm belief that many of our heroes have incredible stories to tell, we have enlisted some of the world's best photographers and writers to get those stories out to you.’ I really liked this statement, what can be more engaging than reading about or from people you admire and respect. It also states that they include ‘a rich assortment of features, HUCK represents the paradigm-shifting notion that there's a wider dimension to life, and that many of us have a powerful interest in art, pop culture, the environment, fashion, and the world at large.’

I think the large scope of consumers that Huck can appeal to is cleverly quite broad. It has a cool, creative, environmentally aware, sporty kind of vibe with Huck’s ‘friends’ including  ‘1% for the planet’ (a company dedicated to businesses effect on our planet, they believe the true cost of doing business can be mitigated by a simple pledge to the planet.) and ‘ISPO’ (ski and snowboarding events).

Huck is also available for free online making it very accessible and aiding access for a wider consumer base. Its online presence is strengthened further, by being able to follow Huck on Twitter and keep up to date with them via their facebook page.

Along the right hand side of the website it also has ‘Most viewed this month on Huck’ I think this is a really nice touch as it allows you to see quickly what people are viewing and enjoying and even tweeting about.

All round I think a great mag and website….definitely somewhere that inspiration could be taken for SB. Check it our yourself at -

http://www.huckmagazine.com/

P   X

A step back in time...

When me and Kim started our adventure on foot around the parts of Nottingham (which to us remain unseen) we discovered a cultural gem in the form of the '1940's knees-up hosted by the Brewhouse Yard Museum.

The revival day saw people dressing up, swing dancing, becoming ration sellers and paramedics and even a RSPCA rescue worker; cars that were driven in 1940's were parked on the museum's courtyard and had people living in the era reminising and reliving the many memories they each had.

One thing you dont associate with the era of war and depression was romance and happiness and both of the qualities were clear when we were speaking to the various characters throughout the day. I throughly enjoyed my step in time and made me think just how different things are today, I'm writing an article on our step back in time.... so you'll have to wait until then to read my full story.

Charlie xoxo

I Love You

Since our trip to Gay Parie in February, we have fallen for 'I Love You' magazine.

Issue 4. The SuperWoman issue is out now, and can be ordered of http://iloveyoumagazine.blogspot.com/.

Here are few of my favourite pages.

C x

London Zine Symposium

When we started Something Beautiful the idea behind it was to sell 5 copies of our magazine at the London Zine Symposium on the 29th May 2010.

 The London Zine Symposium brings together zines, small press writers, radical press and comic creators to celebrate DIY and zine culture.Held at: The Rag Factory, Heneage Street, London E1 5LJ

This year will mark the fairs 5th anniversary and to commerate this occasion a book has been produced by the Symposium's creators; also, Housmans will be hosting an evening of entertainment and information with zinesters, such as Rumlad, Last Hours, Hey Monkey Riot and Morgenmuffel. They shall be recounting tales of punk rock, vegan mass catering, UK social centres, revolution, anarchy and of course, zine-making.


I cannot wait to go and explore and discover the thousands of different zines on offer there, we may find our new must read mag.

Charlie xoxo

No.Zine

As zines go, this one is pretty good. Looking through the pictures i love the little quirky features like the titles and graphics and the illustrations are pretty good too!! Will definitely be keeping my eye out for this.

I think it's good how the bright colour front that contrasts with the white back but still features the pink of the front in the image. (issue 1)

i LOVE how on the title (on the left page at the top) computerised text has been scirbbled out and correcteed by what looks like hand! Nice touch. (issue 1)

The illustrations are good too. Not perfect but interesting, i also think certain images used such as the Swastika are quite controversial and unusual as most people avoid these types of toppics and images that carry such bad associations.

All in all, brill zine.

K x

On the search for some inspiration

Myself and Charlie went on a little wonder around Nottingham today on the quest to investigate what our lovely city has to offer us and 'Something Beautiful'. We were searching for locations for shoots, features, articles and basically just anything of interest. We had a fun walk around the Castle, Brewhouse Yard Museum, the canal, the lace market and so on and potentially we have a lot to work with. But the most important find of the day came from a poster on a fence beside the Brewhouse Yard Museum advertising a 1940's Knee's up revival day - GOLD!! We couldn't believe our luck, we have just decided to theme our first issue on Time and mainly around the 1940's/50's and by pure coincidence we spot this. Excellent.

Definitely going to this ...
https://www.thingstodoinnottinghamshire.co.uk/results/735/Brewhouse_Yard_Museum/1940s_Knees_Up.html

(last years)

K x

Spencer Tunick recreates Lowry

Photographer Spencer Tunick has been commisioned to create an exhibition to commerate the 100th anniversary of the Lowry Art Gallery in Salford, Manchester, UK.

Tunick's aim was to recreate Lowry's work by capturing the movements of everyday people, it just happened that these people were naked. He is photographing the models in 8 different locations in and around Manchester.

9,000 people applied to be in the 1,00 models the photographer used for his work, he thinks that people have started to accept his contreversial work and now want to be a part of it.

Spencer Tunick explains, “Salford and Manchester presents an intriguing prospect for my latest UK installation based both on the rich industrial heritage that exists across both cities and the art of LS Lowry. LS Lowry's paintings depicting the mass of everyday people who contributed to the industrial machine of the 20th century, also provide an interesting frame of reference in terms of the compositional possibilities of the installations.”

This exhibition is being considered for our art review section in Something Beautiful.

Charlie xoxo

Take me back in Time.

To tie in with our theme of 'time' for the first issue of SB we decided to create a photoshoot focusing on the style of the 1940’s. My brother James, a photography student is featuring in our ‘up and coming’ section of the magazine and agreed to photograph the shoot for us.

We researched the iconic style of 1940’s women and re-created it give a modern twist on a classic look. The red lips, smokey eyes, pale faces and wavy hair are the key elements that make up that iconic style and these elements are now used and are iconic to a younger generation as Hollywood, red carpet glamour. We decided to have the shoot in our magazine in black and white drawing inspiration from a selection of photographs I found taken by Richard Warren titled ‘Hitcock Blonds’

Kim and I acted as models for the afternoon as my brother moved and directed us and the lighting to aid the look we were trying to create. Charlie acted as stylist assisting Kim and myself to make sure we were looking the part at all times! James took a total of 249 photographs of us and here are a selection of the best ones – but for the final chosen and edited versions…….well you’ll just have to wait for the magazine!

P X