Stuff from Above

Yay, the Festive Season! (add a sarcastic infliction when reading that if you’re feeling less than joyous about the whole thing, adversely add another couple of explanation marks!!). Boicozine is having trouble not buying presents for ourselves right now though cause there is so much ace stuff around that we just can’t wait to unwrap. Here’s a couple of graphic gift ideas and some other stuff you might fancy (hey, there’s nothing wrong with giving magazines for christmas gifts… not in my book anyways)…

It’s taken a year to come together but you can finally own your very own miniature version of the If You Could Print Series 2008 [ifyoucould.co.uk] in the shape of the If You Could exhibition catalogue. Available via the Kemistry Gallery website or if you’re in London you can pop in a see the actual size posters in the flesh [kemistrygallery.co.uk]. ⑇ Maglophiles will no doubt have clocked this one already. It’s a very welcome addition to the interior design magazine cannon entitled Apartamento [apartamentomagazine.com]. Much in the way Carl’s Cars [carls-cars.com] subverted the car magazine format and Little White Lies [littlewhitelies.co.uk], the cinema magazine format, Apartamento takes a very personal, idiosyncratic and lo-fi approach to it’s subject matter. I skipped the first issue hoping this second issue would be better and it is. Inside you’ll find the editor of Interview magazine’s shady cottage in the middle of New York, Intersection’s Art Director Yorgo Tloupas [intersectionmagazine.com] and the Camelot solution and a Max Lamb [maxlamb.org] D.I.Y. project for you to have a crack at. ⑇ They’re a bit old now but it is the season for giving and Face37’s Type Trumps cards [face37.com] would warm the cockles of even the most ill-humoured type geek. Still available and worth a revisit. ⑇ This is a little off-topic but I found a bunch of old home-taped cassettes in the cupboard. They’re kind of neat looking with the patina of time and wear. Can you still buy cassette players? Has anyone seen any good ones around? Suck UK have made a USB stick embedded in an old cassette which is cute but expensive for the amount of memory you get [suck.uk.com]. You can find them at Pure Groove over by Smithfields (not Spitalfeilds) Market [puregroove.co.uk]. ⑇ Ghost Box [ghostbox.co.uk] has been going for some time now. It’s got something to do with Julian House [intro-uk.com] and his unmistakable graphic stylings act as the thumbprint on everything they produce. I thought it was about time I actually invested in some Ghost Box product as it seems to fit in with some of the Boicovideo projects currently on the go. Other Channels by The Advisory Group [ghostbox.co.uk/theadvisorycircle] features light comic touches in form of slightly wacky voice-overs about kids falling in ponds and stuff. Weird and ace at the same time! ⑇ If you order the physical object rather than the digital download you get The Ghost Box Periodical, an ace little 8-page ‘zine’ style piece of collateral, more of these please Ghost Box [ghostbox.co.uk], they’re ace. ⑇ You probably don’t want to give this one as a pressie, mainly because it’s free and that’d make you pretty cheap but it’s worth noting cause it’s a bit ace. It’s the Tom Dixon Review and is a Tom Dixon (*the company not the man [tomdixon.net]) catalogue disguised as a massive broadsheet. Designed with the usual inventive vigour by, long time collaborators, Graphic Thought Facility [graphicthoughtfacility.com]. It features proper articles and fab cover illustration by former Tom Dixon* employee Jamie McLellan [jamiemclellan.com].