D8 are a design consultancy firm based in The Custard Factory and they’ve just launched the first edition of their D8 Magazine. You can have a browse by clicking this link or the image below.
Publications
Which stands for Tits Brains, Balls, a new thing from Ben Rackstraw, Charlie Levine, Emma Vickers and Edward Green Fingers.
This is for the Birmingham Art Zine (BAZ) launch night, 5 November at The White Swan in Digbeth, 6-9pm:
BAZ are well aware that a room full of people reading a small pink text heavy magazine – looking to see if their names are mentioned – is not really a recipe for a great night out so we’ve gone for a short opening so you can all get on down to Mark Essen’s gig at The Anchor afterwards
They’ll also be taking part in Grand Union’s artists’ publishing fair as part of The Event on 6 November 12-9pm.
There’s a whole bunch of stuff to explore on BAZ’s website, PDF’s unfortunately, so I only made it through a few. Titles like ‘Ikon sculpture tried to eat my missus‘ are pretty compelling though. The intro to ‘The Editorial‘ gives you a good flavour of the sort of thing:
It’s been another hectic year in the Birmingham ART World: the emergence of a hard-line rap and gangster culture amongst feuding art institutions; the ensuing war and bloodshed, punctuated only by games of Institutional Cricket; the rise of Northfield as the cities ‘real’ creative quarter; Berlin trying to steal our ART scene; the building of the worlds first ART themed adventure park in Ladywood; The Public being converted into the world’s largest public toilets; and the rapid spread of wild animals in Birmingham ARTISTS studios.
Fused Magazine is working with UK Trade & Investment, getting together a group of music industry types to visit this year’s South by South West Music festival, held in Austin Texas this March. Fused are also offering £500 towards expenses for the chosen promoters, Labels, Managers, etc. Last year Fused rounded up some up and coming UK bands and flew them over perform at a Fused @ SXSW event.
Why apply?
The SXSW MUSIC AND MEDIA CONFERENCE showcases hundreds of musical acts from around the globe on over eighty stages in downtown Austin. By day, conference registrants do business in the SXSW Trade Show in the Austin Convention Center and partake of a full agenda of informative, provocative panel discussions featuring hundreds of speakers of international stature.
The fund covers up to 50% of your costs. These costs can include: your event pass or ticket, travel expenses and accommodation costs. Costs will be reimbursed upon production of receipts up to a maximum of: £500.
Applications close on 20th January, to apply fill out the short application.
GZEAN is a quartely zine produced by Moseley’s Gallery of Owls. It’s been created to:
harbor all those crazy little snippets of ideas that we all have from time to time in the format of photos, drawing and collage (any 2D images)
It costs £1 (plus postage) and you can get hold of one in person or by emailing galleryofowls@gmail.com.
If you’d like to see something of yours included, there’s some info about submissions here.
Tru Life Magazine is a free, A5 publication I picked up a few weeks back when in the city centre. It’s a
new urban chic lifestyle magazine for aspirational young women
Justice Williams, the editor in chief, has her own blog over at Amariah’s World and the magazine has a Facebook page too.
Artism is an independent organisation aiming to create a book bursting with artists/graphic designers work which will be sold to raise money for the National Autistic Society charity through the use of Art
From Birmingham Clusta and Z3/Design Studio are both submitting work, possibly a few more are too. Artism are looking for sponsorship, if anyone’s interested.
Fused Magazine have just launched their revamped website, and a lovely thing it is.
For those that don’t know Fused, they produce a quarterly publication that covers fashion, music, arts, etc and so on. They also produced a rather good students’ guide to Birmingham, a responsible for the Ltd Edition affordable art market and promote local bands overseas at showcases like SXSW.
The magazine’s distributed internationally but their blog tends to throw in lots of local mentions with posts about Plus+ and Eastside Projects recently.
Here’s what the site looks like:
Made Media made it.
Way back when, I said that the London-based Volume Magazine was coming to Birmingham for it’s fourth issue and was looking for submissions.
It’s out now (thanks to Chris Keenan for pointing that out) and is really rather good. It can be read online here.
To help you in your browsing:
- the first few pages are all Aston Villa-related
- interviews with local bands (Scarlot Harlots, Sunset Cinema Club, Gemma Quarterman, 360, Hero Machine and May Day) start on p24
- Fashion starts on p40
- Creative and writing starts on p60 and features the following good people:
Frankie’s taken up the baton as far as new student rag Sanctuary is concerned. I posted about it yesterday but said I’d not seen the actual thing.
Here she is flicking through a copy and giving her thoughts:
No, nothing to do with the Digbeth music venue, Sanctuary Newspapers claim to be “the UK’s leading student newspaper network”. Monthly editions are produced by students in 12 different cities with the content tailored to their areas. A new Birmingham edition has just been launched with a website that looks thusly:
I’ve not found an actual, physical copy yet but I thought the content on the website was a bit hit and miss – head for music and film but give news (woefully sub-Onion) a miss.
What struck me is that, although it’s written by people in Birmingham there’s precious little about Birmingham. Aside from a couple of questions put to The Electric‘s Thomas Lawes and an interview with the promoter of student night ‘Naked Lunch‘ there’s not much to differentiate the paper from something that could be produced nationally.
Still, it’s early days. There’s a Facebook group here that says:
If you are interested in contributing to the next one let me know via facebook or email to Sanctuaryplaylist@live.co.uk
Presumably you need to be at Birmingham Uni but I’m not certain about that.
Brap, the Birmingham equalities charity, has racked up 10 years and is celebrating on Saturday night (20th Sept) at the Hare & Hounds in Kings Heath.
Performing on the night will be The Special Beat (featuring Neville Staple and Ranking Roger) and ex-Birmingham Poet Laureate Dreadlock Alien.
Doors are at 9pm and tickets are £15 – available on the door or through www.theticketsellers.co.uk.
Among many other things, Brap produce the Speak Out magazine and are looking for submissions for the next issue. The theme is ‘This is Bimingham’:
Outside of London, Birmingham is one of the country’s most ‘diverse’ cities. It is also a city with one of the biggest gaps between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’. We want to know what this means to you.
Whether it’s an essay, photograph, poem, or story, this is your chance to tell everyone your perspective on ‘This is Birmingham’
Submissions need to be in by 24 October.
These are a series of short films (each around the 30 second mark) produced by the Eccentric City folks to celebrate their third year. There will be 24 in total, the first four are up on the Eccentric City YouTube account and also here:
Episode 1:
Episode 2:
Episode 3:
Episode 4:
Stay tuned for more…
Russell Hall (who has a blog too) is a freelance graphic designer in Birmingham. He’s been working on Speak Out – a free magazine for an equal opportunities company called Brap.
Here’s the blurb:
Every three months Speak Out will deliver a magazine packed with articles, stories, poems, photographs and comment, and to do this we need your help. Whether you’re a poet, an artist, a writer, a photographer or someone who has something to say send us your work and ideas. It doesn’t matter if you’re aspiring or established, young or old. All that counts is that you want the opportunity to share your work with the whole of Birmingham.
To get in contact with the Speak Out team email speakout@brap.org.uk or for more information go to brap’s website at www.brap.org.uk. Submissions for the next magazine must be received on or before 24 October 2008
The first issue is due out at the start of September and will be partly distributed by Birmingham Library & Archive services. Here’s what issue 1 looks like:
Not a movement to encourage the growth of facial hair, Beardaid is some new-think from the people behind the Birmingham-based Bearded Magazine. The idea aims
to help people working in the independent music industry gain more prominent, nationwide media coverage in the UK and abroad
For the price of a pint (£2, kids) a month they’re offering:
- Free copies of Bearded delivered directly to you door (UK subscribers only)
- An exclusive, never before released record (at least 5 tracks) to download every month
- Discounted entry and discounted season tickets to Beardaid gigs
- A whole host of additional goodies, free records, free gigs, free merch, free art and whatever else we find
- Access to view back issues of Bearded electronically
There’s more info on the Beardaid site.
