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. With MySpace aesthetics and “the new ugly”
Posted by Rob Walker on March 17, 2008
Posted Under: The Designed Life
Posted Under: The Designed Life
For those you who remember the earlier discussion here of MySpace aesthetics, this bit from the Times is interesting:
The latest school of style-magazine design is called ‘‘the new ugly.’’ The name was coined last fall by Patrick Burgoyne, the editor of the British design magazine Creative Review, to describe the latest issues of Super Super in London and 032c in Berlin.
Super Super sets out to be the print equivalent of MySpace …
More here.
Burgoyne’s “new ugly” observation dates back to last August, so the new ugly may actually be over. Then again, maybe it’s back.
(Thanks for the tip, discoczech…)
Further diversion may be found at MKTG Tumblr, and the Consumed Facebook page.
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Reader Comments
I assume that the author of the Times story you reference must have heard about “the new ugly” from the popular blog Design Observer, which wrote about Burgoyne’s comment on Super Super and 032c back in November. (Brainiac picked up on that idea and wrote an item on Boston’s brutalist City Hall, and the New Brutalism, that same month.) That’s a long time ago, as I mentioned recently on Brainiac.
Possibly so, I couldn’t say.
Of course I not only missed the Design Observer post, I didn’t even see this Times thing till someone pointed it out to me.
Sorry I failed to note Brainiac reference(s). At least I did point out that it’s old, do I get any credit for that?
I wasn’t faulting you — just the author of the “new ugly” essay in the Times. That trend was ice-cold!
This whole one-ups-manship of who reported what when is the equivalent of posting “first” in blog comments.
Who cares?
With rave-nostalgia fading and 90’s grunge trying desperately to make a comeback it is all ushering in a grand cycle of the “anti-trend” trend. Where people dont care where the influences are coming from and they just produce design influenced by themselves and their environments (rather than copying from their favorite trendy retro design mags).