Varoom 13 goes in search of "Place" with postcards from dark places, international corporate graffiti, portraits of a murderer, aliens in suburbia and illustrators perched on trees.
In the age of Twitter and Texting, the feature Postcards From connects writers and illustrators to explore this fabulous medium, slowly becoming an historical artefact. From Fashion Swans, to Motown and Berlin, VAROOM's contributors imagine a slice of life with the humour and poignancy that is unique to the popular visual art form of the Postcard.
Global companies need a brand that is instantly recognisable wherever you are in the world. The downside is a company culture that is dull, generic and soulless, bad for consumers, bad for employees and bad for business. In Illustrating Ethos, Varoom Editor John O'Reilly talks to Malcolm Buick, Creative Director of Wolff Olins, and illustrators Jon Burgerman and Harry Malt, about how illustration is fostering a creative culture, and is visualising a sense of direction for international businesses.
Varoom's new Up Front section features some dark and disarmingly funny reflections by illustrator Paul Davis on Place. In Anatomy of a Disaster, Brian Stauffer, Bob Staake and Edel Rodriguez reveal to Ann Field how illustration helped shape public anger to the Gulf oil spill. In Home and Away Catalina Estrada, a Colombian illustrator living in Barcelona, talks about Colombian child soldiers and the impact of her native land on her current work, while Jorge Colombo describes instant iPhone sketching in Being There.
In the new regular feature Perspectives, W. John Hewitt digs deep into two almost identical images of a killer by Hogarth - a print and a painting. In his feature The Arms of Sarah Malcolm, Hewitt explores the relationship between reportage, illustration, art and money. In My Space, Peter Lyle discovers the personal space unique to contemporary illustrators, and in Inside Out, illustrator Derek Bainton explores the visual iconography of the window and goes on a personal journey of discovery via Sendak, Hopper and some old student haunts. In Five Ways to Change the World, Liz Farrelly talks to illustrators doing things you could never begin to imagine in neigbourhoods, galleries and local parks.
Giant of illustration Seymour Chwast reveals the life-changing illustration in I Wish I'd Done This, and Varoom Lab section documents recent and forthcoming events, exhibitions and books that explore ideas and themes around Place.