Moving Model Books: Vikings

 
This is the best paper automaton I have made to date!

This kit is actually a book with some simple text about vikings and a central section with pre-cut model pieces. The last few pages show how to assemble the model. It was straightforward to put together, but the final effect is very dramatic.

Process photos after the cut.

Street art

West Central Street.

Stack: October

This was much better than I thought it was going to be!

October's Stack delivery was Dirty Furniture, a magazine that will run for just six issues, each one focusing on a different piece of furniture. Previous issues were about the couch and the table, this issue was about the toilet, and future issues will be based on the closet, the telephone and the bed.

When I opened up my Stack envelope to reveal a magazine about toilets I was pretty sceptical that it was going to be a good read, but it turned out to be a great one, using toilets as the starting point for a wide range of articles. An analysis of the appeal of scatological humour, an article about gender neutral bathrooms and a history of Japanese high-tech toilets sit alongside interviews with an engineer who builds sewers, an archaeologist who specialises in faeces and a dairy farmer who uses his cows' dung to provide both bio-gas fuel and building materials. It was smart, funny and interesting. I was genuinely surprised by how much I enjoyed it.

Would I buy it again? No, but only because I think there's a limit to my interest in furniture design. I would recommend it to all designers. I love the concept of a magazine with a planned end-date and can definitely understand the desire to have the complete set.

The Zoo of Tranquility: The Horse

I have just realised that I have been spelling the title of this book incorrectly all this time. It is "The Zoo of Tranquillity", not "The Zoo of Tranquility"!

The Horse has been the best automaton so far - both in terms of making it and its success, although the horse's galloping motion was definitely better before the riders were added. The sticks holding them in place go through the mechanism that transfers movement to the horse's legs and appear to be preventing it from moving as easily as it was prior to adding them.

The whole process of building it was made a lot more enjoyable by the purchase of this hole punch for making all the holes for the sticks. Part of the reason the last one worked so badly was that the holes I cut were too small so nothing pivoted properly. This hole punch solved that problem completely and I loved using it. Process photos after the cut.

Stack: September

This month's Stack is Ladybeard, (this one, not this one), a feminist magazine with themed issues. This issue is focused on the mind.

To be honest, I held off on starting this for a while. It's a massive magazine and the very first article, 'Losing My Mind', is a series of short personal reflections about mental breakdowns. The thought of ploughing through page after page of other people's mental health problems seemed like more a challenge than I wanted right now. In the end I did overcome my trepidation and sit down with it, and I was glad I did. It wasn't heavy-going at all – the articles are relatively short, (I could have done with some of them being longer), and wildly varied. There is some serious content, (institutional racism in mental health treatment, eating disorders, the use of psychiatry for political ends), but there's plenty of cheerful oddities mixed in as well, (art, transhumanism, twins, the history of emotions, LSD). The writing's good, the design is great, the content is interesting. It's just a shame it weighs so much – it was a nightmare to carry around for a week!

Would I buy it again? Maybe? It seems to be priced at £6.50, which is shockingly low considering how big and beautiful it is. I guess it would probably all depend on the theme.

Stack: August

(I skipped July! I'll write something for it when I have more time.)

Judging by this cover design, what would you say this magazine is about? Boats? Travel? Exploration? You're wrong. It's about coffee. It's a surprisingly thick magazine about coffee.

August's Stack is Drift, each issue of which focuses on a different city and the coffee culture there. This issue is set in Stockholm. I made fun of this magazine when I first opened it up. It's so thick and the idea that this weighty tome was just about coffee in Stockholm seemed ridiculous to me. But then I started reading it and it was really fun.

Part of it is just that I love hearing about other people's niche interests. But part of it is that this magazine uses coffee as a starting point to talk about a place. There are interviews with baristas, cafe owners and coffee roasters, but there are also articles delving into topics such as the recent influx of refugees into Sweden, Swedish design, parental leave and the generational divide. Coffee acts as the connection between all of this, a common thread that the writers continually returns to. It's weird and interesting and not something I'd ever buy myself – everything I want from Stack deliveries.

Would I buy it again? I am not enough of a coffee connoisseur to buy this again, but I'm glad I had the chance to read it!

Stack: June

June's Stack delivery isn't a magazine; it's Amuseum! Hilarious.

I am slightly at a loss as to how to describe this one, (this is starting to feel like a running theme with this year's selection), but I suppose that a museum isn't a bad comparison. It's a selection of essays and articles that are based around objects: lightbulbs; IKEA bags; Vitsœ furniture; Kibbo Kift totems. It's energetic and odd – bouncing from one subject to the next without anything to connect them. The letter from Stack that accompanied it described it as "ideal toilet reading", which is very accurate. You can drop in and out easily, the writing is very accessible, and you'll probably learn something along the way.

Somehow I feel like I'm damning it with faint praise though. While I liked it, I did not love it, and I think the main problem was that it felt very lightweight after last month's New Philosopher. Had it arrived after January's delivery of The Lifted Brow I might have enjoyed it a lot more.

Would I buy it again? Maybe? Not as a regular thing, but maybe if there was an issue with something particularly interesting in?

Stack: May

I loved this month's delivery! It was a magazine called New Philosopher, which is released quarterly with each issue focused on a different topic. This issue is about education, but previous issues have included health, travel, technology, fame and work to name just a few. There's no overarching thesis to an issue – just different writers exploring the topic, interspersed with quotes and excerpts from the works of famous philosophers and theorists.

If I had to make a complaint it would be that the writing is fairly shallow; two or three pages just don't provide enough space to really dig deeply into a topic. I don't really think that's the aim of New Philosopher though. It feels more like it's offering food for thought, not making any pronouncements on its subjects. Overall it was such a fun, accessible read and it left me wanting more!

Would I buy it again? Yes!

Stack: April

April's Stack delivery was a bit of a struggle for me. The magazing was PYLOT, which is "a bi-annual, all-analogue, fashion and photography magazine". This statement actualy comes from their website though, the magazine itself doesn't really tell you what it's about. When asked what I was reading my description was "a fashion magazine for people who want you to know that they're too cool for fashion", a description that I stand by.

The mixture of fashion, art and photography is interesting – it includes interviews with cosmetics company founder Bobbi Brown and photographer Arthur Tress – and it has a policy of not digitally retouching models. Still, it all comes across as very considered and manufactured rather than conveying any real enthusiasm for its subject matter. Also all of the clothes are hideous, but I don't really read high-end fashion magazines so maybe that's normal.

Would I buy it again? No. It's not smart enough to be interesting and the clothes aren't pretty enough for someone with no interest in fashion.

Dragon on Cloud, aka Crushing Disappointment

While clearing out the office my boss found this:

It's a kit to make a wooden dragon automaton! Awesome! I took it home intending to make it over the weekend, rather optimistically perhaps, considering that the instructions are only in Chinese.

Except that 18 of the 64 pieces are missing. (The kit was open when my boss found it.)

I'm going to double-check the office tomorrow, but I'm not very confident that I'll find anything further. I had a quick look online and the only seller I could find that stocked this kit was based in Taiwan and charged a lot for international shipping. I have found out that a paper version of this kit was produced as well, although this seems to be sold out. How disappointing!

Stack: March

This is more like it! After a weak start Stack has now delivered The Gourmand, which was excellent

Stack held its first award ceremony in December and they actually awarded The Gourmand "Magazing of the Year" so it comes well-recommended! It's a gorgeous item – really hefty with great colour photography and thick, glossy paper. According to The Gourmand's website it's printed by specialist art book printers and I can believe it.

And the contents are fun. The articles cover all sorts of topics related, even if only tangentially, to food. Amongst other things there's a history of Weight Watchers, jewellery inspired by fruit and vegetables, an article about Alexandre Dumas's cookbook and an interview with a DJ-turned-sake brewer. At the end of the magazine are recipes related to the articles, so you can read about Vincent Price's dinner parties and then flick to the back for his recipe for stuffed frankfurters. The quality of the writing does let it down in a couple of places, (the Weight Watchers article is a particularly great example of why you souldn't use five-dollar word when a fifty-cent word will do), but overall this was so much fun to read. 

Would I buy it again? Yes, I think I might. It's expensive – £12 an issue – but it's such a high-quality product that I don't really begrudge the price tag.

Stack: February

February's Stack delivery was a double-whammy: Print Isn't Dead and Posterzine, both from People of Print and both about artist Anthony Burrill!
 

It would be fairer to say that Burrill is more of a starting point for this issue of Print Isn't Dead. This magazine is intended as a tribute to printing and this issue has a big focus on letterpress printing, which Burrill is known for. It starts off with Burrill writing short pieces about printers he's worked with and artists he admires, and then moves on to recommendations from those people. It's a good way to explore the subject.

It's also beautifully designed. Whereas The Lifted Brow felt overwhelming every time I opened it up, Print Isn't Dead was clean. I always knew where I was supposed to be looking on the page. The text was clear and the images had room to breathe. It was easy to dip in and out of and I really enjoyed reading it.

Posterzine is, as I suppose its name suggests, a poster-magazine. It's an A1 sheet of paper and it can be unfolded to show a poster on one side. The other side has text that is read in order as you unfold it. It's a pretty neat idea and the issue that I have is a lovely object. It's printed with just two colours, blue and pink, and is a quick, fun read. It apparently costs £5.99 though, which is pretty steep if you're not going to display it as a poster.

Would I buy it again? Maybe the magazine. I liked it, but it's also £10. I could buy a whole book for that!

Stack: January

New year, new Stack subscription!

January opened with The Lifted Brow, "a quarterly attack journal from Australia and the world". Looking back through my 2014 Stack entries, I can't find any magazines that I really disliked. There were quite a few about subjects I had no interest in, and a couple that were mediocre, but nothing I really had any trouble reading. The Lifted Brow has now changed that! I found it both boring and pretentious, and spent the last three weeks carrying it around, opening it, reading one page, and then abandoning it in irritation.

Its focus seems to be contemporary art and it features a mixture of essays, photographs, art, comics and poetry. I can't really say much beyond that though. I actually feel like I can't review this magazine as I read so little of it. I can say that it is the first magazine I've received through Stack that I've seen someone else reading though! My fellow commuter seemed engrossed in it so I can confidently say it appeals to someone.

Would I buy it again? No. This is one I never want to see again.

The Zoo of Tranquility: The Lawnmowers

This one was a huge disappointment, which I will only take half the blame for! Part of the problem is that the instructions for the models in this book are very complicated and need much more space; the instructions for this model could easily take up twice as many pages. They would also benefit from more diagrams so you can see how things are supposed to fit together. On this model, I made several mistakes fitting the base together as the three layers that form the base are never shown together. The whole thing was completely maddening to build.

Sadly, my execution of the instructions was also a bit lacking. There are numerous holes in the car washing figures that act as pivot points. (The model uses 18 sticks, each one tinier than the last, as pivots.) I should have made all of these holes before I cut the pieces out! Then I could have widened them without worrying about damaging the pieces. As it is, all of the holes are too small and the figures don't really move. I also cut the lawnmowers' legs too short, so they don't catch properly on the ridged surface inside the base. (Although the instructions suggested that it would be a problem if the legs were too long so I focused on avoiding that, not understanding that too long would have been fixable!)

With all of that out of the way, here is a very underwhelming video:

Process photos after the cut. The instructions had just eight steps so that's what the photos reflect!