Mapping things out.

It’s no secret: Web journalism is all about the visuals. Whether it’s a photograph, a video or just a silly graphic, we humans don’t seem to like the read-and-interpret approach too much these days. We prefer our information packaged up tightly into the perfect visual.

Thus is born: the map as a journalistic tool. These maps are hardly restricted to the geographic, but are constructed in a way that departs some statistical information in a way that is intended to be simply grasped and easily understood.

Specimen A:

This map is quite simple. Red states voted for John McCain in 2008. Blue states voted for Barak Obama. However, there’s a fatal flaw to this illustration: in looking at this map it appears that John McCain won the election, when in fact, Obama won by a significant margin. This map doesn’t account for population distribution (like the fact that New York is home to almost 20 million, while Montana, almost triple in size, only has a population of roughly 1 million)

So the mapmakers get a little crafty. Bringing us Specimen B:

Here, states are stretched and squashed in an attempt to make their size proportional to their population (while still making a minimal effort to keep the basic U.S. shape in tact. Blue is now, the visible majority.

I would argue that these two variations of the election map are quite informative. They make their point simply, in an easy-to-grasp way. I think they could be made even more so with the addition of a few features:  Say if you held your mouse over the state it would reveal some further facts like the actual population as well as race, gender and income distribution. And even perhaps how many counties voted red vs. blue.

However, I don’t think incorporating these more detailed variables into the map itself is very effective, take Specimen C, for example, which is a cartogram of votes by county with different shades of red, blue and purple representing varying percentages of votes:

To me, interpreting a map of this nature is simply not intuitive. I think a more effective route to expressing more complex statistic would be spelling them out in a box to the side or that pops up with a click on any individual state. I would argue that only the most simple concepts should be represented in the actual physical map.

In other news: I can’t wait for this patriotic tie-dye pattern to hit the runway. I think it’s going to be huge for Spring 2011.

New Brahmin

One Boston-based source of new media that I’ve had my eye on is New Brahmin a style blog started by local stylist and journalist Liana Peterson documenting trends and news stories of the fashion world at large with a particular focus on the style savvies of Boston.

I don’t know how many times I’ve found myself hankering for some better blog coverage of the Bostonian world of fashion– it seems literally every great style blog is out of New York, or simply an an account of personal style. But this one looks like it actually might meet popular demand, after working out a kink or two.

So while this blog certainly has a ways to go, I’d like to talk with some of the founders about what inspired them to fill this void, what struggles they’ve faced and how they are using Twitter, photo, video, and any other forms of multimedia to document fashion from the Bostonian perspective, at last.

some Tweet deals

I live for days like today– that first warm burst of spring.  And it even seemed to come a little early this year. Finally, a chance to go tight-less, coat-less and boot-less, breaking out whimsical florals, sandals and sundresses. So, like most, I thought what better day to hit Newbury and its surrounding cobble-y streets to scout out some deals on springtime wears. [Or heavily marked-down winter leftovers].

I decided to document my deal-hunting trek with my brand spankin’ new Twitter account. Though I’m not generally one for texting as I walk [mostly due to severe clumsiness] I found that tweeting to my account on my Blackberry with short updates was really pretty simple.

My first stop was the Tannery on Boylston– not the giant new one, but the smaller store further toward the Common– my roomate was on a quest for rainboots and we’d heard they had some great sales. Sure enough, they did:  50% off a large selection of colorful wellies brought most price tags down to an affordable $35.

Stepping outside from the Tannery I noticed an adorable old man selling bouquets of flowers for just $2 a pop. Generally this sort of character tends to blend in to the landscape, but the sea of glistening petals on such a bright and beautiful day seemed just fantastic and quite deserving of a tiny tweet.

Onto Newbury we stopped in Victoria’s Secret, offering a steal with seven panties for $25. Then H&M, whose men’s and women’s blazers were all marked $15 off. Breezing through the Prudential Center Ann Taylor even offered some great discounts. [And while the name does make me itch of mom-ness, some of their sundresses are really quite darling.]

Our last stop was LF on Newbury for probably the best sale of all– it’s the only mark-down they have all year and is basically a cleanse to rid the store of any lingering garments from previous seasons; preparing for incoming spring looks. The entire place [minus a small part in the back where spring has already began to move in] is 60% off or over. Making what is usually rather overpriced spot, really quite affordable.

Though I didn’t find any must-haves today it was probably best– I should really pinch more pennies. But I think that my deal tweets might provide aide to other shoppers around the city. [well, if I had any followers, that is…]

Tweet Tweet

I always thought Twitter was pretty lame. First, it sounds like the name of a pastel plastic children’s toy. Second, what can you really say in 140 characters?? Well, just this once I’ve decided to give technological innovation a chance. Not to say I’m any kind of aspiring Twitter Monster, tweeting to the world my thoughts on breakfast lunch and dinner. In fact, I haven’t even technically tweeted anything of my own just yet. But amassing a list of folks to follow was one of the most informative things I’ve done recently in the realm of social media. And I’ve already been able to gather a significant sense of what’s going on in art and fashion simply through a feed of short tweets.

The first twitterers I went after to follow were in association with blogs [mostly those art and fashion related, listed on my Blogroll] that I already follow, like style.com, WWD, Lost at E Minor, Tavi Gevinson from Style Rookie and Good

Then, I looked up some of my favorite thrifting spots: The Garment District, Poor Little Rich Girl and Dame Vintage– sure enough, they too have Twitter accounts that update followers on the latest treasures coming into their shops.

Finally, I’d heard the New York Times had a few great style-related blogs, so when I stopped to check them out I found that they’ve compiled an accompanying list of some of the best fashion reporters, stylists and bloggers on Twitter. Twitter users can simply follow the entire list, providing easy access to some of the best fashion tweeting around. Some accounts from the list that I particularly like are The Moment: When Style Meets Culture, Joe Zee, the Creative Director for Elle Magazine and The Thread.

What I’ve found is most essential in creative a useful Twitter account is strategic linking. If there are no links in a post, there’s really no purpose, unless you really care about the individual’s thoughts in particular. But a great link can bring the Twitter post into a larger world of social media.

Some interesting things I’ve stumbled upon through strategic linking in today’s Twitter endeavors alone:

Lost at E Minor tweeted about this adorable blog called A Tiny Art Director, where Bill Zeman draws and blogs bizarre creatures straight from his daughter’s brain. GOOD tweeted that urban beekeeping is now legal in New York City. And Poor Little Rich Girl has a fresh selection of ’40s pumps in size 7 and 8.

Keeping informed on all fronts isn’t so hard after all.

Going global.

Finally– some online journalism pioneers who seem to be truly succeeding. And even, quite possibly, making some money.

Meet Global Post, a group of web journalists who got started just over a year ago in Boston’s North End. With 70 correspondents in 50 countries they work to provide a comprehensive, multi-demensional look into the world at large and currently report readers in over 223 different countries.

Their philosophy, according to Charles Sennott, the executive editor and veteran Boston Globe reporter: “You have to be there– great journalism is about being on the ground.”

And that is precisely how the site works– with only 15 employees in Boston, the vast majority of Global Post’s content comes from reporters across the world, who tell the news as they see it.

The site is divided roughly into regions of the world– Europe, Asia, Americas, Africa, and the Middle East– you can select the area of interest or even a specific country to read stories from that region. However, for those who aren’t seeking out one thing in particular, the front page provides a skillfully selected cross-section, teasing a couple different stories from varying regions, without cramming too much onto the page.

Perhaps what I find the most appealing about the site though, is the way it seems truly global. I generally gather my worldly news from US-centric sites like nytimes.com or boston.com where global news is provided, but from an obviously American perspective. Perhaps the stories aren’t blatantly biased, but the sources cited are American, they’re told with American interests in mind and are most likely written from a reporter sitting at a computer in America. With Global Post stories however, I truly feel I am getting a realistic cross section of world news. By utilizing reporters who write about the region that is their home, who utilize global resources and global opinions, the site is able to paint a much more accurate image of a worldly trend or event.

True to the nature of online journalism, Global Post stories are told through a variety of mediums: there are video stories, photo stories and written stories that capitalize on the visual nature of the internet. However, I would like to see more stories told with all three of these components working together, as in Life, Death and the Taliban where Sennott and photographer Seamus Murphy piece together a truly multi-dimensional story of Taliban history in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Video stories like One Family, One Street provides a human element to the story of the Taliban, while traditional, written pieces like Funding the Afghan Taliban go further into the intricacies of the issue. This approach provides different angles to a story with so many facets, allowing their readership to become informed on an issue at a broader level than usual.

What I found most refreshing about Sennott’s philosophy, was his insistence on developing a specialty. So often we are told to be good at everything. To carry every skill in hand. But to me that seems a little dishonest and ultimately, a little stupid– like forcing yourself to abandon or ignore a real passion in order to get good at all the rest. Rather, this is Sennott’s advice to aspiring journalists:

Global Post allows the exploration and development that specialty through their Study Abroad segment which allows students across the world to report on interesting stories they are witnessing in their abroad environment.  I plan to study abroad before I graduate, and would definitely be interested in such an outlet as a way to report on interesting cultural trends and art– perhaps an unheard-of-in-America food trend for a written story, a local underground music scene for video, or an undiscovered artistic talent for a picture slideshow– in an effort to share the underground culture of my temporary home with the world at large.

Ultimately, at Global Post, it’s about showing the world as it really is, from the eyes of someone that’s right there in the middle of it. And isn’t that what journalism is fundamentally supposed to be?

Covering the walls with the world.

I first encountered the magnificence while running down Philadelphia’s South Street to the Whole Foods that was closing. It was spring break and I was visiting a friend. And there it was– just one wall at first– facing the sidewalk where tires and glass and broken china and bottles melded into beautifully imperfect cohesion. It was as if someone had poured a thousand vats of Elmer’s glue into a giant pile of discarded junk and spread it out like chunky cookie dough onto the wall. I stopped, looked up, and there was more. That mishmash of stuck together junk and jewels seemed to continue into eternity. And following South Street I saw that giant mosaics peppered walls and storefronts all the way down. Some artist had plastered his life’s masterpiece across every surface.

His name is Isaiah Zagar, and within over 50,000 square feet of mosaics known as Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens, he has pasted together the pieces of his life.

The next day I went back. Bathed in sunlight the place glistened like candy. I’m pretty sure if there’s a heaven, this is what it looks like. Crafted from the discarded items of the living into something that itself also lives:  an apartment space and garden turned into a breathtaking masterpiece.

A human made this– that was the most absurd part. For me at least. To read words in the walls like “Julia & Isaiah decided to get remarried,” and to imagine Isaiah placing together the words after that life-changing moment. Or to see a plastic toy shoved into a cranny and to picture where he picked it up.

While wondering through one of the inside rooms I meandered up a stairway I suppose wasn’t meant for me. And there he was. All bearded and insane. Mosaicing away with hammers and paint.

“WE’RE ACTUALLY JUST LITTLE ELVES WHO TOOK SOME PILLS TO MAKE US BIGGER!” he shouted before I realized what was happening.

He only talked to me on camera for an instant but was one of the most fantastic humans I’ve ever encountered. A man dedicating his life to changing the landscape by instilling it with beauty. And what a novel idea it is.

Somewhere over the rainbow.

Jaws dropped at the Marc Jacobs Fall/Winter 2010 show last Monday, and not for the usual reasons. There were no bold neons. No screaming prints. Not even a particularly eccentric hairstyle.

A classic look from Jacobs' Fall/Winter 2010 Collection

For the first time in his life, Jacobs delivered a collection that was delightfully subdued.

There were simple suits in muted tones, below the knee hemlines in classic shapes, even sweet little ankle socks peeking from underneath vintage-inspired t-strap sandals. When all set to the soft whispering of Somewhere Over the Rainbow, also, appropriately, the collection’s name, everything looked just so, well, sweet. Like delicate, pink faced girls, quietly sipping tea.

My go-to guru Tavi, [who was, of course, front row] said rather eloquently:

The models resembled the tiny graceful figurines that spin in an opened jewelry box, or the human sums of numerous collages crafted by young dreamers out of magazine clippings and backyard finds. There was a clear air of foggy nostalgia that drifted throughout the room, clinging to coattails in shades of pale yellow and grey.

But what would provoke Mr. Jacobs, king of the bold print and eccentric shape, to create something so traditional?

According to Style.com after the show Jacobs said:

It’s refreshing to see something that isn’t trying so hard to be new. There’s so much striving for newness now that newness feels less new.

And I think that quite accurately captures this collection’s essence– where so many are trying to create the wackiest most out-there looks, perhaps true innovation is reworking the styles and silhouettes of ages past. And when coming from a designer so traditionally non-traditional, the classic look certainly makes a new kind of statement. It’s a modern twist on age-old Americana. How ’bout an A-line skirt with that apple pie?

Photo (cc) by Kukumaku and republished here under a Creative Commons license. Some rights reserved.

Who are you Gaga??

Yesterday I came to a startling realization: Lady Gaga was not always an alien princess, nor a futuristic queen, nor that enchanting product that just might materialize if you mixed some Lisa Frank trapper keepers with a pair of Alexander McQueen platforms in a giant vat of glitter. Once, she was a mere mortal– an everyday brunette. With acrylic nails. Who just so happened to stumble onto the set of MTV’s Boiling Points circa 2005.

No wacko clothes. No husky philosophical banter. Gag me, Gaga.

Don’t call me a pedophile…

But I have a new obsession, and she’s 13.

Meet Tavi Gevinson, the pint-sized mastermind behind Style Rookie, a hilariously well-written fashion blog, chock full of quirky style insight, photos and commentary by fashion visionary Tavi herself– who just so happens to be in eighth grade.

But what’s seriously mind-blowing about this chick, is that you don’t just say “Wow that’s great…for a 14-year-old.”

I stumbled upon the blog, fell in love, read voraciously thinking whoa who is this human? I thought she had to be some famed fashion personality that I’d failed to previously encounter, and I actually thought she might be elderly, judging by the silver hair she had donned in those most recent posts. Then, as is my tradition with any new blog, I clicked all the way back to the first entry [it’s so fascinating to see where these things start] and there I discover: SHE’S 12!

Her first blog post reads:

Lately I’ve been really interested in fashion, and I like to make binders and slideshows of “high-fashion” modeling and designs. I’d like to know of neat websites and magazines, so comments are welcome. I plan on posting pictures in the future, but for now, I’m just getting started. Yours truly, Tavi

Binders?! That’s fantastic! And while that first entry reeks of middle school naiveté, the two years of blog posts that follow are smart, entertaining, and just plain charming.

And apparently the fashion world is just as enraptured as I.

Just two years after launching the blog, she’s been written about in Paris Vogue, Teen Vogue and countless other publications. She took a week off of school for NY Fashion Week, she’s reviewing Spring 2010 collections for Harper’s Bazaar, and getting paid to blog for thepop.com where they even asked her to come up with their Christmas Blog. She chose to write on the furthest thing from fashion: Darfur. And oh dear god, she can write:

I’ve kind of become used to what I say being referred to as a “younger point of view,” and to be frank, it’s a little tiring. Here, I would like to use it to my advantage. I am younger, but I am not writing this as a representative of the next generation or today’s youth or whatever, because I seriously don’t know much about my generation other than the Internet, pathetic as that sounds. Another common response I get in reference to my blog is, “Wow! When I was thirteen I was getting drunk and ditching class!” I don’t want to start caring about these things just when I’m older and done getting into trouble. I am genuinely frightened of what’s going to happen here. I am writing this as someone who has yet to experience many things, witness many things, and become many things. I could tell you my life story (other than that it would be kind of boring), but this is not about me. Or you, or you and me and then them over on the other side of the pond. This is about us as an entire world.

Simply Google her name and you’ll stumble upon a startling array of Tavi love from fashion icons across the globe accompanied by documentation of the company she now keeps: John Galliano, Rei Kawakubo, Yohji Yamamoto. Not to mention everyday notables like Gwen Stefani and Chloe Sevigny.

Oh, and she’s also the muse for the Rodarte for Target collection. When Rodarte’s Kate and Laura Mulleavy saw her blog, they e-mailed her immediately [right after mailing her a pair of hand-knitted tights] asking for her help on the line.

According to the Fash Pack, this is what the sisters had to say of  Tavi:

“She is a mix between J.D. Salinger, Dorothy Parker, and Cindy Sherman. Our favorite combination! Her way of interacting with the world comes from a sensitivity and madness that belongs to poets and bank robbers.”

Watch her interview with the design duo and other involved in the Rodarte for Target collection:

How on earth is she so darn savvy?

Photo (cc) by Danie Dutche and republished here under a Creative Commons license. Some rights reserved.

Long Live McQueen.

The fashion world has lost a rare gem. A designer who’s work was rarely clothing, but art. Each piece futuristic, yet primitive; architectural yet somehow ethereal.

A look from McQueen's Spring/Summer 2010 collection, Plato's Atlantis

Alexander McQueen was found dead in his apartment after allegedly killing himself on Feb. 11 at just 40 years old.

And the ricochet of that loss is still being felt throughout the fashion world, particularly at NY fashion week which launched the day of his death.

One of my favorite fashion bloggers Tavi, of Style Rookie pinned McQueen down in a zigzagging way that I find most fitting:

He consistently delivered collections of extravagant creativity, the type of stuff where you just look at it and try to absorb it and you can’t believe a person made this. Being lucky enough to glimpse into such an artist’s vision, and knowing that you can’t even imagine everything that was put into making it, and suddenly feeling so happy and joyful about humanity, and life, because, Jesus, a person made this..is incredibly uplifting. Very rarely are we blessed with a talent so strong and unparalleled and a passion so pure and driven.

And turning the pages retrospectively through each of McQueen’s awe-inspiring collections, one really does wonder:  How is it possible that a mere mortal made these out-of-this-universe garments [if you can even call them that] and put them together in such a mind-blowing and innovative fashion?

In his world, McQueen was the ‘bad boy,’ the ‘oddity,’ the ‘conceptualist,’ always thinking up unthought of absurdities. But his title hardly ended at fashion designer. McQueen was a director, a visionary and, at the core, a show stopper.

He once put on a show where models, painted as demented clowns, perched atop carousel horses in a way that was innocent, yet also sinister. The show concluded with raunchy, clown girl pole dancing. McQueen was quoted afterwards in the UK Times saying: “I wanted to show the sinister child of childhood as well as the fun … We show children clowns as if they’re funny, they’re not.”

But that show was nothing out of the ordinary for McQueen, famous for dragging the fashionable elite to the most out of the way places, McQueen never put on a show that would slip anyone’s mind. In 1997 women stomped half-naked through a foot of water wearing wooden face cages and futuristic wigs. In 2005 models in girlish Edwardian couture were directed by radio signal across a giant chess board. Then there was the Fall 2009 collection, where twisted, giant-lipped gals marched around a mountain of rubble wearing chunky houndstooth with garbage can lids and umbrellas as headpieces.

In his most recent, and last original collection, Plato’s Atlantis for Spring/Summer 2010, McQueen was inspired by Darwinian theory and created garments that documented the evolution of species and his predicted ecological meltdown. Swirling cameras on the catwalk streamed the show live online.

For McQueen, absurdity was reality. He never left an idea undone. Every epiphany of his mind was executed on stage. He was a force of fashion and innovation that cannot and will not be replicated. One that will be unquestionably be remembered. For how could one ever forget?

Photo (cc) by The Smart Stylist and republished here under a Creative Commons license.Some rights reserved.