Too True

Check out more New Math at pan-dan.

Interface Matters

This is a great article about how today brands are defined by their interface. Rather than summarize (because it's currently very late), I've pulled some of my favorite quotes.

"The superficialists might say, that brands create identity through consistency, which creates trust. Sounds logical, but brands are not logical, they’re emotional. If you see a brand as an interface it allows you to explore the notion of brand experience being user experience. People don’t analyze usability, they enjoy it. For the customer usability is a matter of well being, while using. And being well means not needing to think in order to act..."

"Usually strong usability, simplicity and a clear focus automatically lead to a strong identity... Craigslist and delicious with their standard link colors are not pretty, they’re strong, and as they’re interactive products, they’re strong through functionality. Facebook, maybe is an example of a very usable website that might go for a more audacious interface/brand identity..."

"That branding doesn’t equal to creating a logo, is an simple truth that brand consultants have been fighting for a long time. Yet it’s never been so clear until recently: Brand equals interface not surface..."

http://informationarchitects.jp/the-interface-of-a-cheeseburger/

I knew I was not as crazy as I thought to be obsessing about the interface of the New Athenian - I want to approach all aspects of this project as a brand building exercise and getting the navigation right felt like it should be an important part of that and now I know why.

Inspiration

I've been unhappy with the magazine section of the site for a while now, but unable to devote the time to redesigning it, and hesitant to add content until that is taken care of. However, I believe I have found inspiration.

From the beginning Adam and I have wanted to magazine to be innovative in more than just its content, and the look and feel has been a very important aspect for both of us. And, while the wallpaper was a great source of inspiration for us, and continues to be a great aesthetic, well Victorian Paisley has its limits...

I grabbed this menu from a cafe in Rochester, N.Y. this fall when I visited my friend Julie and this is what we're going to jump off from in terms of the site's table of contents and organization. The look and feel of the design is great, and I like that it is at once both clean, clear and logically organized, but also busy and visually very interesting. And, just somehow it feels like it fits with what we have thus far.

Moreover, I recently got some business cards made with the New Athenian's website included at the top, so that I'd be forced to make this idea into a reality sooner rather than later.

I won't give a time line, because I'm just not comfortable doing that. If I did that the terrorists would know just when to check back here (haha such an outdated joke). But, our time horizon is within the next couple weeks.

I will concurrently be working to build my online portfolio for advertising and such, so hopefully we'll have a big launch party for everything! Though, that's much easier said than done.

Thoughts about Publishing

Recently I’ve been doing two things (among many others), reading about the perfect storm that continues to soak newspapers in debt and prompt many to question their future/ existence, and ways that technology may either finish off (unlikely) or transform (almost certainly) print.

As both Adam and I explore the world of online publishing, it has become clear that there is a lot happening that many people, even those in the industry, just aren’t that aware of. For example, a recent blog post I came across via a friend’s Twitter feed decried an article in the NYT discussing the implications of Twitter vis a vis traditional journalism. Responding to this article, the post pointed out that it seems inconceivable that journalists should still be on square one with this, asking questions that are, at best, "16 months old." And, this is the New York Times we're talking about, is it really ok that they still don't know? The author of the post writes:

“No, it's not OK for you to be so goddamn behind the times, or to make weak cynical jokes about tech users. Or to pretend that people who use the technology have never thought about the problems that come with it. We get that.

Mainstream news media is still relevant, still powerful, still immensely useful. But we've got to communicate to them that this cutesy curmudgeonly bullshit attitude toward technology and the people who use it has got to stop.”

I agree, though I don't think I'm as upset about it as quoted above. Thus, in the spirit of moving forward I’ve got a story about something that could be one of the next big things for the future of print (that I hope NYT has heard of). A new program, (that recently entered a closed alpha), called printcasting, allows you to take other people’s blog posts, and edit, arrange and publish them into magazine form. This publication can then be viewed virtually or printed. Imagine the potential for creating regional or even community specific magazines, taking blog posts from citizen journalists around the community, adding a little context, some original reporting, editing and bam! you have a comprehensive, geographic specific publication.

I think that this is a big deal because one of the "futures" of the Internet, that I believe is already clear, is aggregation. The success of sites like HuffingtonPost.com or RealClearPolitics.com, as well as Digg.com and Reddit.com, is because they sort through the cluster f@#k that is the Internet. Whether by editorial decisions or popular vote, these sites serve a vital function in an age where there is more information than you can shake many magnitudes of sticks at (and I would guess that at least 70% of it is not even worth a shake). These magazines will let similar sites come into being, online and off, for very small, specific groups by drastically lowering the entry barrier for information aggregation.

Twitter changes the way I use the internet, and the internet shapes the way I live my life to a large degree. Therefore, duh. Get with it newspapers, I'm starting not to feel bad for you anymore. I think that Printcasting, if it works, will be one of the next big step in bridging the gap between virtual communities and real world communities. Using the Internet in yet another way to augment, rather than replace reality. Twitter already does this, and things like printcasting will help take it to the next level.

Wallpaper

Over the long weekend I watched one of my favorite movies, The Royal Tenenbaums. As with all Wes Anderson films, the almost surreal style of the set does just as much for setting the tone and feel of the movie as the characters themselves. One of my favorite parts of the movie is the design of the Tenebaum house, and one of its most noticeable features is its eclectic mix of wallpapers. Sounds strange, but if you’ve seen the movie you know what I’m talking about.

I was already thinking of this motif, but I decided to try it out and I think that it looks great. The new design features Victorian style wallpaper, like the ones below, in each of the three sections.

What does this have to do with Athens or Boston? Glad you asked. Old, it’s really old. But, classic as well. And, I can’t say for sure, but I imagine most of the old brownstones around town to be filled with this stuff, wall to wall. And finally, it’s our magazine, so we’ll do what we want.

Our Newest Designs

In our quest to design a logo, and in a larger sense to create an image and feel for the magazine we have 2 more concepts to show. This time in the form of ideas for our masthead.

For the logo we have settled on the image of a half laurel writhe, for reasons far too pretentious to go into now. And this is our try at integrating this image with our name.

Breaking the rules

After breaking the cardinal rule of never letting your blog go for more than a week without an update, we’re back. Though I’m sure we lost all 3 people reading it already.

We’ve worked on finalizing SOME content for the first issue and it will be up by December 8^th! This will also include a redesign of the current beta site that is currently up on our dot com.

We both would have liked to get the entire finished project up all at once, but with time constraints and poor scheduling it seems that, like this blog, SOMETHING just needs to happen or we’ll totally stall.

As I have tried to learn Dreamweaver (a web design software made by Adobe) I have had many successes but many, many more failures. And, as a result, we’re currently looking into just using iWeb instead (a simpler, drag and drop software made by Apple) until I can get a better handle on coding.

Why don’t you just write the content and get someone who knows what they are doing to build your site? You might ask.

Well, unfortunately there aren’t many people willing to do that for free and what’s more it would be great to learn how to do this myself. Also, Adam and I disagree over creative stuff as it is, and I can’t imagine how bad it would be with a third person in the creative process cluster f@*k that is this magazine.

We have liftoff.

It's been a bit since we've have an update here because we have been working hard to get something up on our actual URL. And, after much troubleshooting, we finally have a site! It's pretty bare bones and the first issue is still in the works, but it's something.

Check it out at NewAthenianPress.com.

Leave your feedback, problems and thoughts here. We'd love to hear what you think! Stay tuned for more.

Adam and Jason

Making: About Us

Yesterday Adam and I (along with our on-the-spot photographer and columnist Ted), took to the streets of Brookline to take our head shots along with some other pictures for the site. For a while we have had the idea to take a picture of the two of us in Boston Common sitting on a bench with books, a printer, coffee cups, news papers, a phone etc.. strewn about us as if "Boston was our office". In this spirit we took these pictures here in Brookline, on a rainy day to contrast the eventual Boston Common pictures we will take on a nicer day. Ultimately, we hope to have it set up online so that every time you click on these pictures they will switch from the rainy to sunny day versions, and possibly, eventually change for all four seasons - as we will eventually publish issues quarterly.

Enjoy.

New Athenian Press? Really?

Caution: Blog Rant.

Stranger with no manners: "You know, you really should work on your name."

My overly polite brain: "Well maybe you should go work on your face, and then go screw yourself because you'll be prettier."

Jesus! Why does everyone think everyone else wants to hear their lips jabber about? Just because you manage to manifest a congruent thought, that does not mean you have to move your lips in praise of it.

I'm probably being a little harsh, actually scratch that, I am being harsh. But for good reason, as most deserve it. Not to be insulted or harassed, but rather to serve as nice eye opener, most effectively delivered graphically or in a disturbing way, (and if this comes a cross as too aggressive, well then you're just too sensitive).

Now don't get me wrong, I say stupid shit all the time and in case you were wondering, this is not just about words or opinions, this is about knowing when someone cares or not.

Like for example, I care when you block the store entrance with your 4 lane wide stroller and all I can see is one brat knocking shit over and making it quite impossible not to stare and judge. You really need that coffee with a name containing three languages to take your kid to the library? You also know that as opposed to all the nice back streets in this neighbor hood, you decided to take your precious on the busiest, overcrowded, taxi-swimming most polluted street in a five mile range for a stroll. Good work there super mom, try really thinking about you kid sometime. I didn't want to walk out of the coffee shop with an opinion on child rearing or birth control, but know because you didn't seem to care to control your quite large and overbearing orbital of a world from ramming into mine.

I also care when, while I wait for my stress-free two train and one bus ride home from work, you sir care not to notice that I have been waiting on the platform since long before you arrived. I know it's hard to wrap your head around it, but just because we are not at the bank, an amusement park or somewhere that serves food of the fast variety, it is possible to form a line, without little poles blocking your ability to move in a straight line. It easy to see why it's a hard habit to break, as I'm often drawn in a straight, unyielding path when I see something that I just can't wait for, like a seat on the train, as you did by decided that when you entered the station. But you know what, you're going to a goddamn Red Sox game you drunk fuck! Where you will happen to be sitting for four hours straight, so maybe my day wasn't all that bad. But the last straw is soon to be broken when I truly won't care about ever being courteous to any single person in this city, and I will never be bothered about being polite ever again.

And, I most certainly care, when I am working on a when I'm working on a piece for the magazine. A piece that takes me out of my comfort zone, which is best described as very enclosed and lined with pillows. I need to find everyday people and ask a simple question. You then in turn, write your answer, where I then collect it and incorporate it into a word on the street opinion piece. So, I've already asked you for one opinion that you weren't going to give anyway to anyone. Lucky you that I care to ask right? Well luckily me that you care to give your opinion on other things as well. Especially things that are none of your business, things that took me and my partner a lot of thought and effort, things that I didn't ask you about, like the name of out magazine (which by the way can not be changed at this point anyway). You might have known this if you'd care to ask about something worth while, but instead you decided to tell me what you care about, about my project.

Next time, think before you start drooling over your self for your original thought, and think if I actually care to listen, think and respond to your asshole talking. Yes your opinion came from your asshole. So now I'll take my own advice and shut up because why should you care much about what I think...? and well anyway, I got other things to care about.

So, more about why we picked the name next time.

- Adam

Meetings

We need a better model for our meetings. They are productive, but unfortunately eat our time. And working 9 to 5, neither of us have that much to spare. Often we write things and then pass them off to each other, but it's difficult to get the most out of collaborating when you aren't right there with someone to explain your work, or to questioning theirs.

When we do find the time for meetings we do well, but only thanks to our systems. For writing, one person will draft the article, story or poem as best they can. Then the other will sit down and read it. At this point writer and editor will go over the piece, at times line by line, the editor explaining what he understood and the author discussing what he meant. Changes are then made on the spot to clarify, simplify, reword etc. It's extremely time consuming to mini-workshop everything like this, but we've found it gets the best results.

Our second task is putting together the layout of the magazine. For this use a "storyboard" notebook from one of Adam's old film classes, and approach the layout of the magazine like scenes from a film. We construct the content and images on every page, like frames, to directly correspond to the one's before and after it. Another way to think of it is that it's essentially one long, unbroken scroll, that when completed is accordion-ed into a magazine format, (examples coming soon).

Our Office/ Kitchen Table
Our Studio/ Bedroom

- Jason

Looking Back

Spending time sitting in the Park Street stop with a friend of mine, talking about graduate school and the future, I found my self talking about my post graduate year at KUA more than a few times. I am a pretty nostalgic person to begin with, but today I realized that there is a lot to be gained from sentiment, literally.

Pouring over old pictures and projects, I found hundreds of things that I had completely forgotten about. Looking at these now I find it hard to believe that these are my pictures, or why I'm not still doing this. There's a lot to be found in the past. A lot that can inform the present. I'm just glad I had enough foresight to save any of this.

Tap, spring 2005. NIKON coolpix 4200. Photoshoped.
Rehearsal 1, spring 2005. NIKON coolpix 4200. Unchanged.
Rehearsal 4, spring 2005. NIKON coolpix 4200. Unchanged.

- Jason

The Logo

There is a lot to say about this part of the project. As an Ad. major I want to launch the site perfectly. I want to apply what I know about branding and message development to the larger framework of the magazine because, well it feels like I should...

When Adam and I sat down, however, we quickly realized that designing the logo should really be the last thing we do, not the first. The logo would embody all of the design elements that we would have to live with from now on. As a result, settling on something without time to think it over, even something as "simple" as say, picking a handsome font, would come to haunt me in the months ahead. Everything, it seemed: the colors, the typefaces, the diction, the tone, the imagery, the feel, the angle of the drop shadow! should not be constructed, but come naturally from the rest of the project.

And yet, a part of me is still attracted to starting everything with an single idea, one word or a simple picture, and working that outwards. Applying it to every page and business card like a delicious frosting. This is a very attractive method for achieving an elegant consistency and unique feel for a brand, but it was not going to work here. And, in many ways I believe that such an approach fundamentally risks significant shortcomings in substance, i.e. all frosting, if not done just right.

All this being said, I am currently guilty of attempting to merge these two approaches. A cluster f@#k? Maybe. I have, since the beginning, been attracted to certain design elements that I've held onto and continue to reinvent and reintroduce into our new ideas. For a taste of the look we're talking about now here are some of the concepts we've been tossing around for our banner.

click to enlarge

- Jason

Something b New /b

Having relied on programs that allowed me to drag and drop just about everything, I am finally learning the beauty, and pain, of html. Ultimately I don't think that we will code the New Athenian, as I just don't have the time to become adequately fluent in html to pull it off. At the rate I am learning, at best it would look like something from 1997 that someone forgot to delete. But, while I might not be able to do it myself, at least I can better appreciate the work of those who write all of their own code.

This experience has also sparked some interesting questions about design. In this brave new web 2.0 world I have been wondering if some sites aren't becoming a little too slick or a little over designed?

Specifically 'web 2.0' refers to the new type of website construction that uses the wonders of the internet to foster and augment true two way communication (i.e. slapping on cool new gadget high speed can accommodate and calling that progress). In a way Wikipedia was web 2.0 before we had the name for it. But today it's evolved into something very different.

This trend has a distinct web 2.0 look associated with it that is decidedly not wiki. There has been the adoption of a certain type of design that is pretty flashy and very impressive. The drawback is that it feels a little too perfect. A little too polished. Super clean! And, ultimately a little claustrophobic? In some cases it allows fluff to replace actual content.

There was something terrible and great about 1997 web sites and I want to discover just what that was. Something about not applying a gradient to absolutely everything...

I'm not advocating going back, but let's remember how many people thought that clean exposed concrete wouldn't be something we'd hate the 70's for forever.

www.macaroondesign.com

- Jason

The Project - Adam's Take

So... Jason told me to keep this short and sweet, but I often have trouble with such things, so while I'm ahead I'll keep it that way. NewAthenianPress.com: Coming Soon. The end.

In all seriousness, I do enjoy writing and I do enjoy blabbing with my fingers, I do believe it's called blogging. I just don't like people telling me what to do, and I especially don't like doing what everyone else can do. So maybe that's why our project is a little behind. We'll both moan and groan about not having enough time, but it really comes down to the fact that all our time is spent arguing, which in the end will yield a higher quality product, but like most radioactive material, it takes time and effort not to destroy what we already have by being bumbling assholes with quicksand egos. And, like I said, I enjoy everything about this project, except maybe the project itself.

Of course that's going to be taken way out of context, and the next thing I know I won't have a partner, a girlfriend, and apartment, a job, or even a cat. So let me explain my motives. There has never been anything in this world that has engaged me more then the written word. I discovered my love shortly after I got my first A in high school, and once I found that writing was more than the commas and spelling I knew I was done for. I've given much for this love, and what I've taken away from school was thankfully enough to hold my own in life, giving me the free time to argue and lament on what we will make, (once we get our shit together and figure out what the hell we are doing).

It it amazing to sit down and marvel at the ideas that come about with great minds, so I tell Jason to turn off the god damn television because Good Will Hunting is too distracting while we're trying to get real work done. Recently we've come up with some pretty good stuff, though it's taking a lot of time. There is a process to creating something this big, and it's a process that neither of us knows very well yet, so it keeps us on our toes. We watch and observe, take and digest, then work it around us, forming something that we think others might understand - or even enjoy? We are failing and learning just like any other child, but luckily we already know what electricity is and we bought those little plastic safety things for the holes, and that in the end might be the best lesson of all. Take what we give you and figure it out for yourself.

- Adam

The Project - Jason's Take

Knock, knock.
Who's there?
:::whisper::: Two friends writing a magazine together...

A little over a year ago Adam and I conceived of the idea to publish an online magazine together. We started with the name and built from there. The New Athenian Press, we decided, would be a way for us to flex our creative muscles and keep us sharp. Adam is at heart a writer and I, well I'm not exactly sure, but I like dabble in everything. And, more importantly, we both have a lot to say, things that we hope others might find engaging. On the rare occasion that we agree on something it's usually for different reasons, and when we disagree it makes for some interesting arguments, that hopefully you'll soon be reading on newathenianpress.com. We're several months into the final phase of the project at the moment, but we've been stuck here for a while now. Turns out launching a online magazine with filled with original content, witty observations and intelligent graphic design, accompanied by an equally elegant and creatively formatted print edition, while working full time and going to school, isn't as much of a breeze as we thought it would be. Go figure.

That being said, we're still very optimistic and diligently working to make this project a reality. We have made a lot of headway thus far and what we have looks and reads great! The hard part is that we've got too many ideas and not so much focus. For instance, I almost bought a $200 Muppet for a photo series on Disenchantment. Mistake. And, our meetings sometimes adjourn not with the conclusion of ideas, but with the accumulation of spirits - making for some interesting layouts and poor grammar.

So stay with us, and we'll keep you posted.

- Jason

the New Athenian Press .blog

This is the story of two roommates launching a magazine called the New Athenian Press. Based in Boston, the journal's name derives from the city's ostensible title of "Athens of America." Here is a chronicle of our project from idea to action.

About Us Draft 1:

"The New Athenian Press is a journal (online and off-line) written and published in Boston, MA; a city ostensibly known as the Athens of America. While the editors often hold different views and opinions, they agree on one simple fact, challenging conceptions of the world is essential for every one, as ultimately, our understanding of the world should be fluid and plastic, always open to discussions of change and new ideas. To this end, the New Athenian Press covers issues that challenge contemporary culture and accepted "common sense." Through discussing, analyzing and sometimes critiquing culture, the editors hope to offer new ideas into old arguments and reexamine traditional beliefs and ideologies from new perspectives, through articles, literature and the arts.

For students and parents, young professionals and business executives, optimists and pessimists, democrats, republicans or otherwise, it is more important than ever that we all take an interest in the dynamic and sometimes divisive issues that permeate the world around us. And today more than ever it is possible for us to share our ideas and learn from one another about them. No matter what we can always be better, and this starts with opening our minds, accepting that the world is complicated, and jumping in head first - every day."