Wednesday, 16 May 2012

The Italian Job


Artist Arthur Buxton is nearing the end of his collating, recording and sampling work for the fourth and final print edition in the Vogue Covers series. Having finished the printed versions of British, Paris and USA Vogue Buxton is currently compiling the colour data needed to generate the last International Vogue magazine to be ‘covered’ for the edition - Italian Vogue.

After recently speaking with Arthur Buxton about the duality of the printed colour series (as artworks and information charts) the artist discussed the structure and function of colour that underpins his interest in trends.

British Vogue Covers 1981 - 2011

US Vogue Covers 1981 -2011

Within each piece the small bar charts (measuring 2.4 by 2.9 mm at 1:10 scale to the originals) show the five most prominent colours, proportionally, in an individual Vogue cover. Each column is a year starting with September and working down to October at the bottom. The columns run from 1981 on the right working across to 2011 on the left. After viewing the work one becomes increasingly a where of the differences in overall national colour palettes.

Paris Vogue Covers 1981 -2011

The most striking trend is the recent preference for paler colours, which is evident on all three charts. Seasonal trends are more subtle. The Paris edition is mostly published only ten times a year which shows up as duplicated rows in August and January. Gaps occur where covers are unavailable.
Aside from seasonality and longer term changes in colour trends, other, more quantitative data is evidenced. By looking at ‘Paris Vogue Covers 1981 - 2011’ we can see a sudden change in tones which occurs in late 1987. Colombe Pringle became the magazine's editor-in-chief in December 1987. The colours undergo a sudden change again in 1994 when Joan Juliet Buck, an American, was named Pringle's successor.

Also see Design site Fast Company  and their 'Infographic of the day' review featuring Arthur Buxton's vogue series: Seeing Fashion History, by Reading 130 Years of Vogue into Color


Tuesday, 15 May 2012

The Variant Voss

Roy Voss The Explorer, 2012

After many weeks of proofing the three colour UV print entitled Explorer by the artist Roy Voss the printed edition of seven is now finally complete. During this period the separately printed Cyan, Magenta and Yellow figure proved to be slightly more problematic than expected! In order to achieve a consistent edition of seven a further five prints of 'lesser consistency' were needed. Editioning conventions often dictate that the imperfect or technically unsound prints be disposed of or identified as such. The variant edition can be considered as a method for 'exploring' different inking options from a single image.

On a separate occasion and after discussing the 'blurred' area of the variant edition with the artist, it was decided that the five explores were to be reinstated, signed by the artist and entitled variant edition.

Collaborative print team contributors include: Roy Voss, Verity Lewis and Paul Laidler

Monday, 7 May 2012

Next Station

Carolyn Bunt, Station to Station (you drive like a demon), 2012, Pigmented Inkjet Print

Artist Carolyn Bunt has recently completed her latest petrol station print edition in the ongoing series published by CFPR Editions.

Thursday, 3 May 2012

Tulip Tests

Screen grabs from 3D Modeling program Rihno 

CFPR Editions has recently begun the testing phase for Gordon Cheung's 3D printed tulip series - with assistance from rapid prototyping specialist Dr Peter Walters. The initial development stages for the project will assess the physical rendering propertise of a pre-modeled file downloaded from the online stock catalogue Turbosquid