From guidebooks to t-shirts to type specimens: it's March Things!

Date
3 April 2018

It’s Nice That has been on a long Easter-weekend break but we’re officially back and ready to share some of the Things you sent through our letterbox over the past month. Although London was blasted by the “beast from the east,” it, luckily, didn’t put a stop to the post.

March proved to be a month of variety in both topic and output, delivering everything from guidebooks to t-shirts to type specimens. Have a look at our March roundup below!

We appreciate and love looking through the goodies that get sent to us, so send your submissions for next month’s Things to this address.

Inrussia: A Kaliningrad Guidebook

Inrussia is a platform producing “original videos and texts on contemporary culture and life” and A Kaliningrad Guidebook was its first venture into publishing. Produced in a thin book format, its red cover with silver text is strikingly minimal. The book was made in collaboration with fashion brand, Gosha Rubchinskiy and explores the city of Kaliningrad – the host city for Gosha’s first show in Russia since 2009. The guide leads you through the city’s landmarks, via a series of black and white images by Kirril Gluschenko, which were considered for the show’s venue.

Isabella Bunnell: Vajournal

Described as a “canvas on which to doodle, describe, draw and most of all think about the female experience,” Vajournal is Isabella Bunnel’s invitation to women to record anything and everything to do with being a woman. Accompanied by Isabella’s illustrations, Vajournal guides readers through a host of activities including making a list of everyone you’ve ever slept with and marking where you fall on the sexuality spectrum from “super straight” to “super gay”.

Pickles, issue 14

Founded in 2011, Pickles is an independent football magazine that focusses on the culture surrounding the game. In its 14th issue, the magazine tells the story of Alex Kiwomya who moved from Chelsea to Doncaster Rovers last summer. Shortly after, Alex was diagnosed with the rare autoimmune disorder, Guillain-Barré syndrome – a story he shares in his interview with Josh Warwick. One of the highlights of Pickles is its featured illustrations, for example, the cover of its latest issue. Created by Joren Joshua, the Dutch artist has a “knack for illustrating long-limbed characters,” the magazine describes.

Amy Ng and Weng Pixin: The Ship’d Sailed, Stories about friendship and loss

Next up is this quaint (but slightly solemn) zine, sent to us by Amy Ng and Weng Pixin. Featuring the work of seven artists, The Ship’d Sailed asks them to offer their thoughts on friendship and loss. Spread over 40-pages, the contributions tell various stories of growing apart, feeling betrayed or left behind expressed through a series of drawings and comic strips.

Patrick Desbrosses: Patrick on Desbrosses St.

Berlin-based photographer Patrick Desbrosseshttp://patrick-desbrosses.com/ sent us his latest publication Patrick on Desbrosses St, a chronological series of images taken on the streets of Chicago and New York City in the late summer of 2016. Although seemingly disparate, each image stitches together a story about the United States and its people in the lead up to Trump’s election. In one scene a builder gets on with his daily hard labour while the stars and stripes of the American flag light up in LED lights behind him; and in another, young girls dance in the street taking part in what appears to be a street party. Despite their lack of context, Patrick’s photos are introspective and altogether intriguing because of this.

That’s What She Said, edition one

That’s What She Said AKA TWSS is “a window into girlhood through the eyes of teens from all walks of life.” Through a design that incorporates handwritten messages, internet search histories and un-edited, un-filtered images, _TWSS_allows real girls to voice their opinions on a variety of topics – issue one focussing on clean eating and social media in an attempt to give young teens the tools to remove negatives from their lives.

Debora Westra: Lizards of Stromboli

Currently, a fourth-year illustration student at Academy Minerva, Groningen in The Netherlands, Debora Westra sent us her Risograph-printed zine Lizards of Stromboli. Last summer she travelled through Italy and ended up on the volcanic island of Stomboli. “During my hike up the volcano, my guide told me a story about two lizards,” she explains of the inspiration of her strange tale. Printed in four colours, the zine pits two lizards, Podaris Siculus and Podaris Raffoneae in a head-to-head Street Fighter style battle.

Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity t-shirts

Inspired by the 80s, these t-shirts are part of a larger collaboration between Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity and twelve leading illustrators. The 1980s saw the launch of the Wishing Well Appeal, the first major appeal from the charity which kick-started decades of fundraising. The charity is now celebrating these past 30 years with its campaign Then.Now.Always and series of t-shirts. As well as these designs by Dan Woodger and Anthony Burill, designs by Chrissie Abbott, Emma Fisher, Hanna Castle-Lungberg, Marta Veludo, Biff, Risotto Studio, Crispin Finn, Daisy Emerson, Thomas Hedger and Hattie Stewart are also available. All proceeds go towards helping the hundreds of children who arrive at Great Ormond Street Hospital every day.

Frostype: North and Polar type specimens

Frostype is a new foundry, based in the UK that takes its name from Colin Frost, a letterpress compositor in the 1960s. Keeping up with the constant change of type relevance, Frostype is “our take on challenging what a contemporary type foundry should be today,” it explains. Having only started at the beginning of March, the young foundry sent us two type specimens – one for North and one for Polar. Whereas North is a “dramatic and bold” family, designed without regular width, Polar is a geometric sans family with “neutral and expressive characters for dynamic contrast.”

Phaidon: Snarkitecture

Rounding up this month’s Things is this release from Phaidon. A minimal and smartly designed book, it focusses on the work of New York-based collaborative design practice, Snarkitecture. Known for its surprisingly large scale installations that reinterpret everyday materials and objects, the book is a run-through of some of the studio’s best work. From an interactive architectural installation of fencing columns to choreographed routines including table tennis balls in collaboration with Jonah Bokaer, the book also features a technical index. This section, which is printed on a matte paper in contrast to the rest of the book provides the specific dimension, materials date and client of each project, accompanied by a series of technical drawings.

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About the Author

Ruby Boddington

Ruby joined the It’s Nice That team as an editorial assistant in September 2017 after graduating from the Graphic Communication Design course at Central Saint Martins. In April 2018, she became a staff writer and in August 2019, she was made associate editor.

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