The Purple Journal // no.11 - summer 2007

It’s 1pm, Sunday July 15, and at first glance the world within Issue 11 of The Purple Journal and the world outside the train in which it was read couldn’t be more different. Remarkably though, during the hour-long journey from Melbourne to it’s ugly step-sister Geelong, this largely euro-centric mag doesn’t create cultural despair, but rather a greater awareness of these apparently mediocre surroundings.

Over 144 pages contributors provide accounts and images from specific days between Jan 6 and May 2, creating an editorial myriad out of anything from magic carpets stolen from the Middle East, to a couple once glimpsed crossing the road. Within these articles there is a spirit of randomness, and through this randomness each page has the potential to surprise.

With so many (‘aspirational’) magazines designed to make you want things you don’t have, The Purple Journal is one of the few that make us more appreciative of some of the things that are constantly at our fingertips. And, if that happens to be the V-Line economy seat D15, then so be it.

Often you can tell a great idea because it’s so simple that you can’t believe that it isn’t happening everywhere. Launched two days ago, not-for-profit website ripple.org harnesses the power of the internet advertising [see graph below] and uses it to help the less fortunate. ripple works in two main ways.

1) You can make ripple.org your homepage and directly donate to one of four charities by clicking on one of the icons. In doing so 100% of the ad revenue is donated to charity.

2) You can search using the ripple search bar and a portion of any revenue generated by Google is given to ripple.org who then pass %100 of that on. The ripple search bar can also be added to your Internet Explorer 7, Firefox, Opensearch or Sherlock web browsers. Look at ours below! Just don’t ask what we were doing searching for ‘third wheel’.

The team at ripple want to get 100,000 ad views this month and are aiming to raise over $100,000 by the end of the year so change your homepage, your search bar and get on board. And lastly for the cynical, this isn’t a scam, we’ve met the organisers and they’re good puppy loving people so just do it now. It’s that easy.

Ripple will be hosting it’s launch party at Loop Bar, Melbourne, on May 17.

There has been a lot of discussion over at the Opulent site about Melbourne street fashion photos. The discussion mainly surrounds the site Third Best (who have received interest from Fairfax digital) and their lack of information and limited number of locations. The question of sustainability is also raised due to the many other sites out there, both locally and internationally, that seem to do a similar thing at times - us included. Obviously, people like looking at themselves, and street photography has potential to document street culture but there are only so many images you can take before you begin to need something more.

So god bless synchronicity because just as we were about to start crying, we were greeted with a link to a new site STREET PEEPER (via PSFK). What separates Street Peeper from the rest is that each image is tagged with information on what the subject is wearing, making the site searchable via style, designer and colour. Street Peeper makes beautiful people useful - now that’s progress.

‘User generated content’ is a term usually reserved for Web 2.0, however Creative Review is applying a little of the concept to its print publication. Via a post on their blog ‘E-CR’ you can ask questions as comments to both Jon and Kjell from renowned London-based design studio Non-Format. The best of these questions will then be compiled and the answers printed in the next issue.

via Die Gestalten

Above image //Untitled zine by Max Doyle

An excerpt: “Thankfully, a big project I’ve been talking about for far too long is now happening. I will be releasing music, zines, art prints etc. under the moniker The Spring Press.” Taken from Jeff Burch’s website news section [26/02/07]

The Spring Press is a small publishing company/record label run out of Sydney by Jeff Burch. At 24 Jeff has worked for Doingbird and Oyster magazines, Insight Clothing and a range of others. With his own project now up and running The Spring Press is soon to release an LP of New York’s The Magik Markers as well as a zine by photographer Max Doyle. The LP titled ‘Relax in a panic free atmosphere’ is limited run of only 250 copies internationally and will be available at Red Eye Records in Sydney and Missing Link in Melbourne. Both the LP and the zine (which is limited to 100 copies) will be out on March 23 and will also be available through The Spring Press website. There are also plans to release a zine by photographer Rene Vaile on April 1st so we recommend you stay tuned to The Spring Press during the autumn and winter as well. Magik Markers cover and image after the jump.

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