Paul Pensom

Paul Pensom came in today to give a lecture on his work and experiences within different magazines and agencies.

To begin with he was basically into music and magazines as they are "never complete and always transient", which i totally agree with and find pretty inspiring for a fairly obvious observation.  He spoke about the responsibility and power you have when you work on these projects.  You can make such a massive point because of the nature of the magazine- you have a chance on the front cover to put across what you want with little or no interruption.  He brought up the 1966 infamous issue of esquire:

It's a quote from a soldier in Vietnam.  Even though it is so short, you get so much from it.  It makes me feel shocked; compassionate; angry; upset.  I think you've got it right for sure when emotion comes into the situation, if you're able to make someone feel something then you've already got them engaged, and thus, you've got them- you've done your job at selling the magazine.  

Pensoms' career began in impressive and innovative areas.  One of his first placements after his degree was with 'I.D' magazine, which at that point (around 1996) had a fairly provoking yet innocent nature about it, before high- end fashion ads drowned its pages.  

He also worked on the music fanzine: 'FACT magazine'.

'Creative Review' is another one on Pensoms' extensive list.  He's been working with them from 2007- present and has been involved in numerous aspects of re-design.  He redesigned the magazines title to the 'C.R' initial encased in the square format which he "didn't like personally, but it was easily recognisable because of its' simplicity and allows itself to be manipulated".  

However they felt that after this it looked too isolated, like it wouldn't make sense to those who didn't know what it was.  -And they didn't want that.  It had to be open to anyone, the tone had to be that of "a peer, and not a boss telling you what to think is good or not".  So, Pensom came up with a re- design.

The cover is supposed to symbolise a 'New dawn", which I think in context of the redesigning works really well.  It is simple and effective.