These seem very fashionable right now

  I keep saying that 2022 was a lot like 1973 stylistically, so now that it’s 1974 I find myself strangely compelled by these Audi 50 press shots. You might know this car better as the Volkswagen Polo, which it later became, though with a lower specification initially. It lasted longer than the original Audi. […]

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A format so old, it’s new and radical

Above: I spy Natasha Lyonne and a Plymouth Barracuda. So the car is part of her screen identity? So it should be, it’s television. I might have to watch this.   Two very fascinating responses come up in Wired’s interview with director Rian Johnson on the Netflix release of his film Glass Onion. I’m not […]

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January 2023 gallery

Here are January 2023’s images—aides-mémoires, photos of interest, and miscellaneous items. I append to this gallery through the month.     Notes Rosa Clará image, added as I was archiving files from the third quarter of 2021. The Claudia Schiffer Rolling Stone cover came to mind recently—I believe it was commended in 1991 by the […]

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After eight years, a new template for Lucire’s online edition

  Those were two pretty intensive days but Lucire’s web edition now has a new template. Before you head over there excitedly expecting all change, it only exists on two pages so far, and they are of the same article but in different languages.    The look itself is not that different, either: we wanted […]

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On publishing in 2021, as told to Business Desk

Above: Coverage in Business Desk, with me pictured with Lucire fashion and beauty editor Sopheak Seng.   Big thanks to Daniel Dunkley, who wrote this piece about me and my publishing work in Business Desk, well worth subscribing to (coincidentally, I spotted an article about my friend and classmate Hamish Edwards today, too).    I […]

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Helvetica in metal, 1985

This was the back of Mum’s 1985 tax assessment slip from the IRD. Helvetica, in metal. The bold looks a bit narrow: a condensed cut, or just a compromised version because of the machinery used?    Not often seen, since by this time phototypesetting was the norm, though one reason Car magazine was a good […]

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Another innocent post at NewTumbl that’s too much for the moderators

Even though I like NewTumbl, it’s never a pleasure to be proved right again about its user-based moderating process, where there is no appeal. Alex at NewTumbl, who empathized with my situation, says this is the latest one to fall foul of the Republic of Gilead user base—and which would have had a pass at […]

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The return of borders?

Nadia has done it for ages, but I noticed Glamour did it for a while in 2018, and Wheels has stuck with it for its “new look”. What’s the deal with bordered covers?    I still prefer them bled, especially as I remember the difficulties of doing them back in the old days, and print […]

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How to lose readers: accuse them of something they don’t or wouldn’t do

Here’s a sure-fire way to lose readers and cost you ad revenue.    It seems Haymarket’s Autocar (which I have been reading in print since 1980) wasn’t pleased about people using online ad blockers, so it created a warning.    The trouble is I don’t use ad blockers. In fact, you can see a massive […]

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Why paywalls are getting more prevalent; and The Guardian Weekly rethought

Megan McArdle’s excellent op–ed in The Washington Post, ‘A farewell to free journalism’, has been bookmarked on my phone for months. It’s a very good summary of where things are for digital media, and how the advent of Google and Facebook along with the democratization of the internet have reduced online advertising income to a […]

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