Tour de Kyoto

Bicycle culture is on the increase around the world; the number of related events, projects and collaborations seems to be growing every day. It’s good to see that the Paper Sky Bicycle Club is continuing to expand on their series of talks and events with their annual Tour de Kyoto in the old capital, Japan’s most bike-friendly city.

The event took place over ten days during the Golden Week holiday with the simple idea of bringing Japanese local culture and people together through cycling. The first stage began with a ride around the city, taking in beautiful temples and parks and a climb up the steepest hill in Kyoto. The day ended at one of the last remaining running water …read on

, 29 July 2011

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Joseph Del Duca photographer

Sunshine to moonshine?

Italian fashion shooters are like busses: even when you’re not waiting for one, two come along at once. Photographer Joseph Del Duca (call him Jos) is based in Florence, Italy and is into keepin’ it real. This time, I was sold by the natural sunlight and that good ol’ American dreamy summer look. (After this shoot, I reckon the girls finished off their latest batch of moonshine and went alligator rustling.)

, 22 April 2011

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Max Margheri photographer

Bring the smize

Max Margheri is an Milan-based fashion photographer who has seen pay-days from Italian Vogue and the like. The 31-year-old was born in Italy but grew up in the USA until he was 12.

He approached levelmag.com saying he loves to “collaborate w/ magazine no conventional” with an offer of doing a photo shoot, and being intrigued, I agreed. The results are linked below. It’s high fashion like Level has never seen before… but an agreement is an agreement… and I like a gorgeous model as much as the next chap.

, 19 April 2011

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Call me sentimental

Maybe it’s because I have kids, or maybe it’s because I started at my craft before the ubiquitousness of computers and will always prefer hands-on work over computer-generated stuff—probably a bit of both—but I love these charming magazine covers from Romania.

They feature in a new 160-page book titled Graphics Without Computer–40 Years of Modest Achievements which, as well as these covers from children’s titles, features print work from packaging to propaganda.

, 26 January 2011

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You may have noticed the wealth of interchangeable-lens “enthusiast” compact cameras that have bundled onto the market a late. They have most of the bells and whistles of digi SLRs, including the possibility of a bag of lenses, the occasional quandary of which lens to use (occasionally resulting in missing the Kodak moment), and then the later possible considering if the photo wouldn’t have looked better at a different focal length.

Fuji are throwing all that dilemma crap out of the window, though, with their forthcoming X100. They’ve gone and stuck an 35mm (equivalent) lens on the front, which let …read on

, 19 January 2011

I can see David Bailey sneaking one into his bag come March: he’s probably got $1,200 lying around, and being sensible he’ll be buying one in the US to avoid the UK-taxed price of around £1,000

DP Review has a quick shufty at a prototype

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One of the most memorable scenes from 1986’s Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, you’ll remember, had Matthew Broderick’s character’s harebrained scheme for taking the miles off of cohort Cameron’s father’s Ferrari 250 GT California (actually a fiberglass-bodied, MG-based replica, sorry to burst that bubble) going, well, a tad wrong.

Now, you can own the location: the Highland Park, Illinois house. From the realtor’s website: “The Ben Rose Home—site of the famous movie ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’, cantilevered over the ravine, these two steel and glass buildings, which can never be duplicated, have incredible vistas of the surrounding woods. This is a unique …read on

, 13 January 2011

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… the last printed issue of Level was on the shelves in finer newsagents and the WH Smiths that we’d bribed.

Here’s a slideshow of that issue. Some of the ads are rough scans out of the mag, and some body text might be flowed slightly differently thanks to the Xpress-to-InDesign conversion, but it’s pretty well all there as was a decade ago.

Man, we had shitty scanners. (And even worse ad sales.)

, 22 October 2010

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Excuse my nostalgia, but if there’s one thing I miss about art directing the ol’ timey print versions of Level magazine, it’s designing the travel and style pages. They were the least document-style pages, the ones that I could really bear my white (space) teeth and do whatever the hell blew my skirt up. (You’ll understand that’s a metaphor.) It helped that I had amazing photographs to work with.

When Italian photographer Erica Fava submitted her shots last week, I wished I could lay them out for stochastically-screened, 420×265mm print. Instead, I get to present them to you as a simple online slideshow. Thanks, Erica.

, 15 July 2010

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If you’re in the Portland, Oregon area right about now you’d be amiss to miss the month-long ‘Totally Spoked’ bicycle-related-art show at Portland’s Upper Playground / Fifty 24 PDX Gallery.

Curated by Jeremy Kove of Munson Industries, the show includes works by Mike Giant, Marco Zamora, Will Barras (who I’m sure was in the print Level at some point), Tommii Lim and various others who will break my word-count limit including late-show Evan Hecox and our very own Andy Jenkins.

, 06 June 2010

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“Not My Type: An Out of Character Experiment” is a typographical exploration of 26 letters (and a few sneaky characters) by 35 talented illustrators, designers and artists, all displayed in one giant alphabet.

The work is going to be stylistically diverse, with artists ranging from Jon Burgerman, I Love Dust, Sam Pierpoint, Lewes Harriot, Dan Westwood and members of The Outcrowd. (I’ll be bringing a big wooden ‘O’.) The exhibition will be showing initially in the Created In Birmingham store, opening May 6th; all prints will be available to buy from both the store or through the Facebook group where they’ll be shown for the first time to coincide with the opening night.

, 20 April 2010

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