A critical look at 25 years of i-D

25 Apr 2006 Category: Events & Exhibitions, Graphics, Worldwide

A critical look at 25 years of i-D

i-D Covers above the Cultural Center's main hall in Hong Kong

Terry Jones started i-D Magazine in 1980, following a five year stint as art director of British Vogue and freelance art director for German Vogue, Donna Magazine, and Sportswear International. Jones’ interest in Punk, Teddy, and New Romantic subcultures helped set him apart from his colleagues at the glossy fashion magazine publishing houses. This interest directly led to the formation of i-D, to boot.

by Ian Lynam

The first issue was published in 1980, and was printed in spot colors on A4 sheets and stapled in a landscape format. The choice of printing method and that the magazine was assembled in Jones’ house may have been budgetary, but all of the other risks seemed considered. Going the opposite route from traditional magazine layout was a cause of consternation to stockists interested in carrying the magazine. The format choice indicated an interest in swimming against the current of safety, be it through the fashions covered, design choices, or pure salebility.

the very fist issues of i-D

still early in the i-D days

Early layouts were a mishmash of taped-together stacks of Polaroids, typewriter range-left text roughly pasted on top of photographs, 2-color overlays, contact sheets run as make-readies, and snapshots strung together with bits of ruby lith; all bravado and d.i.y. rough-sewn cut and paste design ready for the stat camera.

i-DENTITY exhibition poster in Hong Kong

It is also these scant early issues that make up the most enticing part of i-DENTITY, an exhibition of 25 years of i-D, glossy purveyor of U.K. style and fashion to the world, at the Hong Kong International Film Festival this year. (Here is a long text and a link to the exhibition at the Chelsea Art Museum in NY a little earlier this year)

polaroids stapled and handmade touch on the very first i-D issues (unfortunately all stored in those small boxes)

The early issues and the minimal number of ephemera from the early era of i-D are all concentrated in two small display cases, while i-D’s second coming, heralded by it’s acquisition by Time Out Magazine’s Tony Elliott in 1985, is what dominates the exhibit. Iffy headshots of Kanye West, topless models, minimalist typography and dead rappers dominate the scene.

i-D-everything collages from i-D over the years

exhibition graphics

Oversized inkjet blowups on canvas highlight the finer moments of i-D’s spreads from the last twenty five years.

Overall, the photography runs the gamut from stunning to mediocre, and the design never seems to veer from Jones’ desire for the typography or layout choices to not interfere with the photography.That’s just safe. High-quality, but safe. The opposite could be said for the design of the exhibition- on the whole, it feels fairly default: free-standing walls and barriers covered head to toe with spreads and no room to breathe, a few enlarged covers hanging above the exhibition space, and a clunky video rack showing promotional loops.

i-D exhibition monitors with video loops

i-D posters lost in the big Cultural Center space…

Perhaps the biggest detractor from the exhibition is where it is housed. The exhibition has been seemingly thoughtlessly plopped down just inside the entrance to the Hong Kong Cultural Center with nothing dividing the exhibit from the flow of citizens using the building as a shortcut.

Clear across the Center, unseen from the hub of the printed area of the exhibition lies a bank of television screens playing a series of short films. Even with heavy-hitters like Olafur Eliasson, Terry Richardson, and Hussein Chalayan weighing in, the videos were fairly lackluster: uninspired 3D computer graphics, inquiries into notions of identity, surfing and the requisite performance art on video were all on display.

Apparently, specially-commissioned soundtracks were composed by James Lavelle, Pablo Psychonaut, and a few others, but you wouldn’t know it if you didn’t read the typographically challenged introductory text at the exhibit start. It all just sounded like elevator music lost amidst the scale of the Center.

I hadn’t seen this photo of Ol’ dirty Bastard and the rest of the Wu Tang Clan before and enjoyed that very much. I wish some selected shots would have been much, much bigger.

On the newsstand, i-D fails to stand out more and more each year amid it’s market peers in the “edgy takes on Vogue’s blueprint” category and sadly this exhibit is a testament to reliance upon formula.

exhibition graphics and photography

In the introductory text, it says that “i-D would set the template for that much-celebrated publishing genre - the style magazine”. Well, it certainly did and it has done a great job for many years, but it also has fallen victim to the template, too.

29 Comments

  1. Critics not dead.
    http://www.icon-magazine.co.uk/issues/033/poynor.htm

    Posted by: Here here on April 26th, 2006 at 2:45 am

  2. i agree that the location and coordination of the exhibition isnt nicely put. somehow, does it mean that the exhibition had downgraded i-D’s image overall?

    i dunno, i trust myself rather than critics of nowadays, cos simply they’re not persuasive n the critic focuses too much on his/her own culture, whether it’d be western or asian, or eastern. (refer to the link above, it’s really good) - can u really point out to me what is design in this modern era? a pencil illustration of a can of coke can already win millions of applauses and awards. ha… i’m really lost. it seems like anyone can be a designer now.

    Posted by: Gisela on April 27th, 2006 at 12:01 pm

  3. I’m a massive fan of i-D magazine, I think the world would be a duller place without it but I didn’t go to this exhibition when it was showing in London because I heard it was disappointing.

    It does seem to be a magazine that revels in it’s own hype and yet can produce some seriously dull editorials, both written and pictorial. As a fan, I like to see these as minor blips on an otherwise spotless record but i-D needs to be considered exciting to survive.

    In essence, they need to hear this kind of constructive critism… then, maybe next time, they will be able to produce a more ‘inclusive’ and therefore exciting exhibition. Thanks.

    Posted by: Michael on May 8th, 2006 at 5:40 pm

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