craft: magazine preview

all thanks to awesome marie of the sampler! i was one of the lucky few who was given the opportunity to check out an advance copy of the launch issue of Craft: magazine. i didn't know what to expect since i haven't been reading much of other journals in the community recently

firstly, hats off to the designers - the design and layouts of both the print magazine and its website are really well done, very visually captivating, easy to read, but not dull boring layouts. very beautifully filled pages. very visually similar to Make magazine, since it's done by the same group of peeps, yes? reminds me of our magazine projects in college, this is not an insult, maybe they won't think it's a compliment either, but i say this because everything is very neat and very design-textbook-followed, and also, they have achieved zero typography design mistakes! which many magazines out there have... messy typography which would have made our design instructor puke blood.. tsk tsk

content-wise, it is okay average, not too bad, but nothing super fantastic, it's like deja-vous as it seems that i've read about many of the featured artists/crafters, projects, and some other articles in the other indie-supporting mags like bust and readymade. just like readymade and make mag, it has achieved the goal of steering "craft" away from the dull boring traditional crafts and craft mags, the projects featured were fascinating and fun, but most of them were more fun to read about or to look at, nothing i would want to do myself. so is it just another one of those hip-looking craft mags? i don't know. it certainly is filled with projects, but many of them feels more like artsy/techy frivolous projects than practical craft projects which i assume more people would be interested in?

but anyways, i think that as a launch issue, it's job is nicely well done, the future issues may be kick-ass for all we know. the stitch robots featured on its cover now would have made it for me to want to pick it up from the magazine shelf.