Magazine Age- 05.09.05
The war on filtration has begun. We’ve fought for freedom, property, access… there were newspapers, radio, tv, and now internet. There’s always the next big thing that puts fear in the established and creates opportunity for the next big thing. Well, it looks like the war on filtration of information in a time of a new problem of instant access to too great a wealth of information and misinformation is on.
Here is the newest campaign by the Magazine Publishers of America… on why the Age of the Magazine is coming.
Magazines Engage: In this age of interruption and advertising avoidance, consumers invite magazines into their lives.
That’s what they say anyhow, they also claim that mags provide accountability. Question everything… more imagery after.
These are two of the ads in the campaign, and the initial image is one of many “covers of the future” which are somewhat cliche regarding the issues of cloning, robotics, etc… but an interesting angle. The approach of the site has a distinctly Sci-Fi channel slickly surreal look to it. But you can’t help but wonder if these are taking the early 1900’s approach to predicting a future void of humanity and the crucial human touch… remember by now we were supposed to be floating in space, with Rosie the robot doing all of our work, and pills to learn everything?
Call me crazy, but if anything, our technologies are helping us reach what we’ve always wanted, quench that once inexhaustible thirst for access to knowledge and opportunity, and after we get that out of our system you can go back to choosing what you want to see and when. Often harder than following the path of least resistance, reading-viewing what is force fed. And additionally, it’s great to reach a point where we can have the tools to make bizarre an unexpected a reality… even if that means making our lives and designs MORE human, imperfect, playful, or efficient.
But i’m just ranting now… so much to think about. It’s an interesting campaign… so SAVE THE MAGAZINE. It’s still a nice calming page flipping experience to lose yourself in.
