Thomas Manning

Believe it or not I do have interests outside of zines, despite the fact that my blog seems to be made up of nothing else. But this zine fair was our zine fair and so had to be talked about! It started out as a uni project to create a fanzine based around the theme 'dinosaur' or 'elements' but evolved into the best thing I've done at uni. Imagine if Argos sold zines and also happened to have 200+ balloons floating around and you get a pretty good idea of what our fair was about.

I'm going to do a flickthrough of my own zine and the others I bought just as soon as I get my video stuff sorted. But I just want to say it was a massive success and we raised a lot of money for our end of year show. Yay!

Yesterday I made a trip to West Harrow to visit the Debut fair put on by Usurp Zines. When I arrived, it felt like I had stepped off the street into someone's living room, there was defiantly a homely vibe which was weird and wonderful. I met some exciting illustrators and designers and perhaps most importantly, spend some money on some loot.

I bought a great zine from Sophia Niazi which really made me Laugh. In particular I loved the tribute poem to the headscarf.

I also met the guys from The Gym who have brilliantly branded their studio space and are producing some snazzy work. I picked up a collection of their poster which look awesome.

Fingers crossed Usurp Zines will happen again as I thought it was fab. There's also talk of a monthly zine making club which is one to look out for! I've got to pull my finger out and finish off my own zine next week... Get ready for that.

This week I had the fantastic luck of bagging a ticket to see advertising legend and founding member of BBH, Sir John Hegarty talk at The Typographic circle. While I'm reluctant to reduce the man to a collection of one-liners I wanted to share some of his wisdom.

"Get a philosophy - mine is irreverence". Alarm bells always ring when I feel like I'm taking something and simply presenting it with no opinion or point of view, having a philosophy (and I've still not developed mine) will help you to know what personal angle is and when the project allows, it should shine though.

"Most creative people have 10 years" "chasing the money is one of the surest ways to reduce this" "never chase the money, chase the opportunity"

"If you work in design, don't live in design" a piece of advice that I know is true but still struggle to abide by. The best design solves problems and there are no problems when you only look at other design solutions.

Leading on from the previous point, "Reference life! Stay constantly connected to the world. Cynicism is the death of creativity"

"Good work is 80% idea and 80% execution [pause] that's 160%...but it's how you should be working"

Kingston is full of shit. Literally. On the way into uni I often find myself scanning the pavement rather than soaking up my surroundings. Thank god that the local primary school contains kiddie crusaders that are fighting to keep our streets clean. Sadly the laminator sucked, probably due to cuts in the schools budget. Maybe that could be the subject of their next campaign.

Yesterday I had good fortune of attending the Publish and be Damned zine fair at the ICA and was completely blown away by what I saw.

Packed into a hot room at the back of the building was an oasis of independent publishing. There was a great buzz in the room as punters wondered around, rifling through peoples creations. The zines themselves covered a wide variety of topics from art & design to poetry and literature and all had their own distinct visual style. Here are just a few things I picked up on the day...

I grabbed all the issues of FUN that I could and although it's a difficult zine to describe, I will say that I quickly stopped reading it on the train home for fear of judgment over its provocative content. Both outrageous and hilarious, I totally recommend you buy these babies.

20x20 Magazine is described as "a square platform for writings, visuals and cross-bred projects" and uses gorgeous combinations of text and image. You can check it out here.

Here are a few other bits and pieces I picked up on the day. The cartoon bomb is actually a colour swatch for London-based print company Ditto Press which I thought was ingenious. And yes the little zine at the front is featuring a cheeky little piece from David Shrigley.

Being a bit of an internet junkie and a sucker for all things digital I was totally inspired by the people in that little room and shall be following the zine scene closely from now on. You might even see a little publication by me soon. Watch this space!