magazine or book?

I am a huge food enthusiast... love preparing, cooking and eating food.


Around my house you will find a good selection of textbooks, magazines and publications, all dedicated to food and drink. As I stumbled down my stairs this morning in search of something to get my mind going...I was confronted with many choices... magazine, book or computer. I didn't want to get lost in the web quite this early, so I decided on print.


Food magazine or food book, hmmmm...


To me it was a no brainer...food magazine. So I picked up the Food & Drink magazine from the LCBO and was immediatley taken to a smokey backyard bbq with the sounds of sizzling meat, the smell of smokey charcol and the taste of a cold, refreshing beer.

For me, the magazine contains lots of visual representations (form) of what the text (content) is trying to do. Contrary to the book, that is only texted, the magazine engages me by attacking all my senses, beginning with sight and letting me play from their.


Maybe its a matter of new school vs. old school. Either way, the book is going to be collecting a lot of dust.

genisis

"A work of art is realized when form and content are indistinguishable." Paul Rand

Paul Rand... What a fascinating guy. Very accomplished. Very impressive work.

I watched a couple videos from YouTube on Paul Rand...a couple interviews and an interview of Steve Jobs talking about Paul.

He sheds so much insight on balancing form and content with visual design. Now, samples of his work from the corporate world are simply amazing balances of form and content. Steve Jobs basically said that Paul was able to put together a "jewel" that would be recognizable and memorable enough that it would save the company hundreds of millions of dollars. If you can design a picture that satisfies the efforts of a top marketing and advertising team, then you are doing something right.

I guess the question here is, how can we take Paul's teachings and apply them to the design of an entire project? Is it possible to have a true balance of form and content through multiple images, multiple pages?

I am looking forward to reading more about Paul... more about visual design... more about its applications... more about how it relates to elearning...