The night promises to be one full of dazzling fashion and good vibrations. Student tickets are 15$, adult price is $25 and all proceeds from the event go to Calgary Habitat for Humanity.
Click here to purchase tickets. Hope to see you at the show!
*Poster illustration by Karen Klassen.
I found out a few hours ago and this news needed some time to sink in. I still can't believe that I'm posting this amazing news... UPPERCASE is one of 16 finalists in the annual Society of Publication Designers' Magazine of the Year category!!! And what a category! To be listed along with such iconic publications as The New York Times Magazine, Bon Appetit, Wired, GQ, Esquire, and Time... and well-respected award-winning art directors such as Fred Woodward, Deb Bishop, Matthew Lenning, Janet Froelich and Scott Dadich... to be included amongst these people and publications is certainly the high point in my career as a designer and more than I could have expected for a small, year-old, independent magazine from Western Canada.
Thank you to the panel of judges who took time to discover our relatively unknown magazine and decided to recognize it in such a manner.
A heartfelt thank you to editor-at-large Deidre Martin and to Jenny Tzanakos and my husband, Glen Dresser. And to our generous contributors, photographers and illustrators and other enthusiastic collaborators: thank you for sharing your talents and helping to make UPPERCASE a magazine with outstanding content and an inspiring publication to design. Thank you to our subscribers and stockists for keeping us going!
From the SPD.org website:
Magazine of the Year is the highest annual award SPD grants. It is given to the art director whose magazine demonstrates the most effective and imaginative use of design, typography, illustration and photography to promote the editorial message. The category is judged entirely by itself during the first day of judging, as the jury pores over three different issues from each entry in order to get a sense of both the highest high points and the steady consistencies the magazine the readers rely upon. Those scores, from the entire jury, created this pool of finalists for the jury to sift through again during the final round of judging on day three.
The sixteen finalists we share here are representative of this year's strong and vibrant entries in the category, showing a wide and varied range of editorial challenges and solutions. Each is now officially a Merit winner for Magazine of the Year; from these sixteen we will announce the Magazine of the Year Medal Finalists on Friday, February 12th (this Friday! check back soon!) along with all the other Print Medal Finalists (so really: check back Friday for the FULL LIST OF PRINT FINALISTS ON THE SITE).
Our heartiest congratulations to each of these magazines and their creative teams, representing the best of the field from 2009, presented here in no special order other than alphabetical because we're like that:
Blender
Creative Director: Dirk Barnett
Director of Photography: David Carthas
Bon Appétit
Design Director: Matthew Lenning
Cookie
Design Director: Kirby Rodriguez
Art Directors: Alex Grossman, Kristina DiMatteo
Director of Photography: Darrick Harris
ESPN The Magazine
Creative Director: Siung Tjia
Director of Photography: Catriona Ni Aolain
Esquire
Design Director: David Curcurito
Director of Photography: Michael Norseng
GQ
Design Director: Fred Woodward
Director of Photography: Dora Somosi
More
Creative Director: Deb Bishop
Director of Photography: Stacey Baker
New York
Design Director: Chris Dixon
Director of Photography: Jody Quon
The New York Times Magazine
Design Director: Arem Duplessis
Deputy Art Director: Gail Bichler
Director of Photography: Kathy Ryan
Real Simple
Creative Director: Janet Froelich
Design Directors: Ellene Wundrok, Cybele Grandjean
Photo Director: Casey Tierney
T, The New York Times Style Magazine
Creative Director: David Sebbah
Director of Photography: Kathy Ryan
Time
Art Director: Arthur Hochstein
Director of Photography: Kira Pollack
Uppercase
Creative Director: Janine Vangool
W
Design Director: Edward Leida
Art Director: Nathalie Kirsheh
Wired
Creative Director: Scott Dadich
Design Director: Wyatt Mitchell
Wired (Italy)
Art Director: David Moretti
Photo Editor: Francesca Morosini
Please come down to Art Central this evening for First Thursday festivities! Mike Kerr's Show of Letters was hung last night and it is looking great. (UPPERCASE will be open from 3pm - 9pm today.)
I've got one month to go before the baby is due, so I will be working from home more and more (it is getting more difficult to walk/waddle/breathe these days!) So tonight is really the best time to come see the show (and purchase some affordable, original paintings) in person. There are plenty of First Thursday festivities (plus the opening of my landlords' newest development project, Fashion Central, just a block away.)
The show will be posted in the online shop by the weekend.
Head on down to Art Central this evening from 5-9pm for First Thursday fun + Art Central's FIFTH birthday party featuring Regalia, a wearable art fashion show. Lots of other activities as well.
In UPPERCASE, we have new daytimers, journals and eclectonotes, pocket mirrors, Christmas cards by Regional Assembly of Text and plenty of great design books. Issue 3 of the the magazine is available as well. (Our subscribers get 15% off on First Thursdays!)
We've held over the Bonfire show and great work by Lisa Congdon, Blair Kelly and Mariko! are still available.
Lisa Brawn, possibly the most prolific artist I've ever met, has a new show opening this Saturday at neighbouring Axis Contemporary Art. (Check out the feature about Lisa and her woodcuts in our latest issue.)
Two new exhibitions are opening this Saturday at the Glenbow. "Real Life" features the uncannily life-like sculptures of Ron Mueck paired with video by Israeli artist Buy Ben-Ner. Ben-Ner's video Stealing Beauty (stills shown above) was shot, guerilla-style, entirely on location in IKEA show rooms in New York, Berlin and Tel Aviv. Notice the price hang tags. The second exhibition features "Haida Manga" artwork: a hybrid expression of culture and comics.
From the Glenbow: "We will be celebrating the much anticipated opening of 2 fall contemporary art exhibitions: Real Life: Ron Mueck and Guy Ben-Ner as well as the Haida Manga art of Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas. In addition you can meet Glenbow’s artists-in-residence, local filmmaker Sandi Somers who will debut her 1 minute video and kick off our video challenge and Calgary-based musician Kris Demeanor who will perform new work made in response to Ron Mueck's hyper-realistic sculptures. And to top it all off – in case you have any fascinating questions about our new 800 pound baby – curator Jonathan Shaughnessy from the National Gallery of Canada will be giving a gallery tour of the Real Life exhibition."
The launch party takes place this Saturday at 7:00 as is pay-what-you-can at the door. Please RSVP to Allison at the Glenbow (rsvp@glenbow.org) by Thursday, October 15 at noon.
Thanks to Jenny, we have pictures of the booth! Thank you Deidre and Jenny for all the long hours you're putting in - and thanks to our volunteers who will be stopping by this weekend.
Hey, Vancouver! Head on over to the One of a Kind Show this weekend. UPPERCASE has a booth and we're selling handmade Eclecto notebooks, pocket mirrors, books and issue three of UPPERCASE magazine with a special show price and subscription offer. Say "hi" to Deidre and Jenny and tell them Janine and her blog post sent you and we'll give you a special gift.
Can't make it to the show? Email Janine by Sunday morning and she'll mail back a Thanksgiving weekend coupon for 10% off purchases of $50 or more in the online shop, including magazine subscriptions! info (at) uppercasegallery (dot) ca. (You can always purchase a subscription as a gift - just fill in your recipient's name for the shipping address and your name and info for the billing address.)
Here are some of the other talented craftspeople you'll find at the show: Kari Woo (our neighbour here in Art Central, her jewellery pictured above).
Julie Sinden, handmade hats: perfect for the cold weather.
Ella Pederson, Little Red Caboose, stitched Matryoshka dolls.
Tressa Brotsky, Dress Me Up, organic soft toys
To all our Canadian readers, have a happy Thanksgiving weekend. And THANK YOU ALL for your tremendous support of the magazine and all that we do here.
I've been busy getting the UPPERCASE booth and products ready for this week's One of A Kind Show in Vancouver. Jenny and Deidre will be there, so please stop by and say hello, peruse our books, pocket mirrors, eclecto notebooks and — of course! —the magazine. The show hours are quite long and we'd love some volunteers to help out! If you live in the Vancouver area and are willing to spend a few hours, we'd love to hear from you. Please email Janine with your phone number and day that you're available. Thanks! (info AT uppercasegallery dot ca)
On Friday evening, we invited the local contributors of issue 3 down to Sandy Beach Park for a bonfire (weenies! s'mores!) and to film a little magazine movie. Thanks to all who came; it was a lovely evening. I'm working on editing the video, which will be posted here later in the week. A few more pics are over here.
It's been a BUSY day: the new show "And, The Typeface" is up, magazine designing and proofing is in progress, store tidying, new books on the shelves and Deidre's off getting some First Thursday treats. Come on by from 4-9pm!
I'll be Banff this Saturday afternoon, so if you're in the mood for making 1-inch pins in a camper trailer in the mountains (for free), then I'll see you there!
Saturday, August 8, 2009: 11am - 3pm
Banff Avenue Square
This summer the Walter Philips Gallery in Banff will work again with TRUCK Artist-Run Centre for the Banff Culture Walk event presenting an all-ages button-making studio. Make 1-inch button pins from art created with found images, drawing, dry-transfer lettering and typewriters. The workshop is led by Calgary-based designer Janine Vangool. Through her company and gallery, UPPERCASE, Janine publishes books and magazines on visual culture and makes unique handmade papergoods. Playing with Banff National Park’s international draw for outdoor recreation and leisure, the workshop will be hosted out of TRUCK’s Contemporary Art Mobile Public Exhibition Rig, aka CAMPER, a refurbished RV that brings art workshops and artists’ projects to outdoor festivals.
I'm looking forward to a quick trip to Vancouver this Thursday-Sunday. I haven't been in so many years (since before I opened UPPERCASE!) and it is at long last that I will be able to experience the magic of The Regional Assembly of Text in person. Brandy and Rebecca have graciously allowed me to host a little UPPERCASE magazine meet & greet. Please stop by this Saturday from 4-6pm for refreshments, magazines, books and a few other goodies. I'll have copies of issue 2 on hand as well.
Pen Club from UPPERCASE gallery on Vimeo.
An evening with Toronto-based illustrators Aaron Leighton and Steve Wilson who brought some Pen Club fun to Calgary.
Aaron Leighton is coming to town! You're welcome to join us this Thursday at 7:30pm at the Kensington Pub for sketching and beer.
Last week I opened The UPPERCASE Project Room, a space in Art Central's Art Loop on the lower level. It is a "mini warehouse" to store all the boxes of our publications and projects, and the other half is a space available for creative projects.
I wanted to adorn the wall of the room with some lettering, so I had some fun with these peel and stick letters I bought a few years ago from a dollar store clear-out sale. Many letters were missing, so I created the missing letterforms by cutting up numbers and extra "donor" letters.
The first activity in The Project Room was complimentary button-making last First Thursday evening. More details about renting the space and equipment will be posted in the next couple weeks (first on my to-do list is get issue 2 finished and off to print in mere days!)
Pardon the boxes in the gallery, but the Jen11 show has arrived! I'm not sure how I'll fit it all in, but that's this weekend's challenge. The Jen11 show opens next Thursday, June 4.
Here are a few shots of the gallery before First Thursday began.
The selection of sweets included cupcakes by Lindsay Racher (you can read her story in issue one, entitled "Healing through Baking"). She even made ones with tiny magazine covers! Deidre and her sister created beautiful and delicious chocolate-covered strawberries as well as pigs-in-blankets. And Glen brought us a bowl of gumballs to match the magazine's front cover and recurring graphic theme.
The new show is called "Treehouse" and so we made some simple leafy branches that emerge from the gallery wall. In addition to the artwork, we have products by My Imaginary Boyfriend, Suddenly It's Real, Small Stump, Tracey Cameron and others. {Some of the art prints from the show are available in our online shop.}
The magazine launch was a great success; thank you to everyone who came to celebrate with us and also to those who sent their congratulations. {more photos on Flickr}
My hands are shaking and my heart is fluttering.
The idea of publishing a magazine has been floating in my mind for many years, but I didn't make the decision to proceed with it until this past Christmas. Deidre and I began working on it in earnest in January. I still can't quite believe that we accomplished so much in just three months. UPPERCASE magazine is really the culmination of a dozen years of freelance graphic design experience and four years of this creative entrepreneurial adventure called UPPERCASE. All the skills I have acquired over the years have been put to use... and then some! It has been an amazing learning experience and so creatively satisfying.
Blanca Gomez provided the perfect cover image. Blanca, I am so grateful for your generosity. Thank you.
Deidre, thank you for your inexhaustable flow of ideas. And for truly putting your heart into it.
Thank you, Glen, for writing some terrific articles and for listening to me talk about the minutiae of the magazine's progression.
The shipment of magazines is on its way from Winnipeg and we expect them tomorrow. Everything's on schedule for the launch celebration this Thursday from 5pm - 9pm. In the meantime, I'm transforming the gallery space for the treehouse show, adding new subscribers (thank you!), filling our biggest Eclectonote order ever, and sending out Jen11 orders. I'm going to leave this post up for a while, to bask in the moment... and I've got a lot more work to do!
See you on Thursday!
Cover by Christy Batta
The UPPERCASE Circle is free for subscribers of the print magazine. Find out more.
UPPERCASE is a quarterly print magazine inspired by craft, design and illustration. A playful exploration of creativity, an affinity for vintage ephemera, and a love of handmade are some elements common in each issue. The magazine boasts high-quality paper and printing, a unique design aesthetic and incredible attention to detail.
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UPPERCASE publishing inc
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908 17th Avenue SW
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