Gem is a magazine about vintage fashion, relics from the past, and the nature of collecting. Gem looks at personal collections and the souvenirs and objects with which we surround ourselves. Gem magazine caters to the desire for nostalgic objects while maintaining its status as a contemporary magazine through up-to date writing, imagery and design.
Gem seeks to encapsulate the idea of nostalgia through its form. The design uses faded Polaroid photography and collages made with old photographs (including a found class photograph, found slides from the 1960’s, and a set of old postcards purchased at a flea market.) All of the content comes from real vintage collections. The design also makes use of layering and combinations of disparate elements to reflect the form of a physical collection.
An encyclopedia of kitsch as defined in an alternate understanding by Milan Kundera.
For Kundera, kitsch is essentially about the categorical agreement with being – about whether or not we can accept life as we see it around us. It could manifest itself as a parade, a cross, an image of mankind united, a political cause to the left or right, kitsch embraces cliché as a defense against the weight of human reality. Kundera understands kitsch to be a categorizing phenomenon, the means through which complex human experience is distilled down to simple, sentimental motifs and ideas. Kitsch categorizes the world for us, and Kitsch Encyclopedia categorizes this form of kitsch.The project is self-directed and content-driven. With excerpts from Simulations by Jean Baudrillard, Mythologies by Roland Barthes and The UnbearableLightness of Being by Milan Kundera.
