Avant Garde Press: Redesigned (a while back)

Last summer, two of the most inspiring and admired fellow designers/friends; Christina and Myria and myself, took over the redesign of an independent free press publication. For this we formed a little design alliance called mychart. 

About the publication: Avant Garde is a free press publication which elaborates on stories related, but not limited just, to arts, culture, fashion, design and matters that affect, or are part of, the contemporary reality of the island.

On the new design: Departing from the initial use of the term Avant Garde, which derives from vanguard: the very front line of military formations during operations, we created the new identity of the publication. With references to military semiotics and by graphically distorting or exaggerating, if you like,  the strictness and order found in the military visual world, we created the new brand/identity of the publication. Along with this new identity, we created a series of icons and gimmicks that correspond to the categories, themes and stories in the publication and which work with clean and "sturdy" typographical treatments. 

The covers: As the new design team of AG, we were assigned the first three covers of the revamped version. Each month a guest, or invited designer creates the cover and people are also free to submit ideas, so anyone interested can mail their ideas over at the AG website. The first re-installment  of AG came this past August, with a "Summer Love" overall theme (Can't you feel the heat?), and for this issue's cover Christina was called to the task. The second redesigned issue was Superhero-themed and I was the designated cover designer this time. I usually block when I am asked to render something that's vast and vague at the same time; and though I had something very Roy Lichtenstein in mind, I decided to deviate my initial thought (something that doesn't happen very often) and go with… well, what I went with. Have I mentioned that I really love superheroes? Then for the third redesigned issue Myria went with a very hand-made feel for her cover, with all the trimmings and an awesome custom made font. From there on our guest designers took over. Last January I designed the cover for the Wine Routes of Cyprus issue which stood as an impulsively interactive cover. 

All the issues are available for online reading at the AG website, (the publication is in Greek).

The Weather Is Beautiful...

Over the past few weeks, I've been crazy busy working -among a myriad of other things- on one of the publications I'm art directing under the umbrella of IPWT. It's an English-Russian publication based here in Cyprus and this time around (the 4th Issue, to be precise) Status Magazine, focused on the various aspects and faces of spring. 

The above composition is what will adorn the cover of this issue. Despite my feelings towards the blatantly banal topic of flowers, my latest "friction" with the concept of floral prints and patterns made the creation of the above kaleidoscope-oid illustration a great experimentation with flower forms.

I should be posting the covers and layouts of Status Magazine on the IPWT website really soon.

"The weather is beautiful, wish you were here."