Short-listed for the Design Week Awards 2007 and selected for The Creative Review Annual 2007, Varoom has already grasped the attention of the graphic design community and put illustration on the agenda of everybody who is interested in visual communication. With reviews in Grafik and Creative Review, a true international readership and increasing numbers of subscribers world-wide, Varoom issues 01 and 02 featured a stimulating line-up of interviews and profiles of leading illustrators and image-makers. Varoom issue 03 is available in specialist bookshops and retail outlets from April 2007.
"Varoom - the journal of illustration and made images. Illustration has needed a magazine like this for quite some time. It's strong both editorially and aesthetically. Adrian Shaughnessy and Non-Format are to be congratulated"
Jonathan Ellery, Browns, quoted in 'The Best Magazines of 2006', Grafik 147 (Dec '06/Jan '07)
Edited by award winning art director, writer and design consultant Adrian Shaughnessy, Varoom 03 explores international trends in illustration by taking a critical look at the new and radical manifestations of image making which are further stretching the boundaries of an art form rooted in tradition and the history of drawing. In his essay, 'The Image that Exploded', internationally respected writer and critic Lewis Blackwell explores the changing situation of illustration within visual culture over the past decade. Ultimately advocating a renewed recognition of the role illustration plays within all modes of visual production. The use of advanced 3D software by four radically different illustrators to create their own distinctive silicone wizard worlds of the future is revealed in 'Mapping the Terrain'.
Varoom regularly commissions highly regarded design critics and practitioners such as Steven Heller. In Varoom 03, the art director of the New York Times Book Review interviews Sara Fanelli, one of the leading lights of European illustration, on the myriad of mythological, literary and artistic influences shaping her dream-like images. Anna Gerber profiles illustrator David Foldvari, exploring his work through a life of displacement and inner-restlessness that propelled him on a personal quest to discover his Jewish roots. Eye founder Rick Poynor exhumes the uncanny work of early 70s powerhouse illustrator Stewart Mackinnon and explores the reasons why he turned his back on illustration in favour of filmmaking.
In each issue an emergent or established talent is invited to contribute a visual essay. In an autobiographical meditation on childhood, work, war and forbidden body parts, Robert Ryan walks in the quiet footsteps of Bawden, Ravilious and the other deities of English narrative illustration. Illustrator David Hughes reminiscences about the compelling images that have stayed with him throughout life, through his recollection of the late Harry Horne. Reviews include Mitchell Miller on the new Margaret Tait DVD, '...Selected Films 1952-1976', plus reviews of 'The Picture Book' and the 'Andy Warhol 1948-1960' exhibition of early sketches and drawings at Timothy Taylor Gallery, London.
Varoom: http://www.varoom-mag.com/