Once again, Nick Tauro Jr. comes out firing. Collateral Damage, a MagCloud product published through Viewfinder Photoworks, is a visual line in the sand for the rest of us. What are we waiting for? I just exchanged emails with Nick and said to him “If many of the pros I know did a quarter of what you do with print their careers would be far more alive than they currently are.” A lot of folks out there thumb swiping/complaining all day long. Not Nick.
Collateral Damage looks fantastic. Pulling back the packaging to reveal the blood red drama I heard myself utter “Sweet Jesus.” Big, bold, brash and so easy with the spiral bind. Oh, and before you go complaining about spiral….make one. Again, not to be a downer but so many photographers refuse to use this option for bizarre and conformist reasons. Heck, in my opinion, if you are complaining about print options these days you are just complaining because that’s easier than actually making something.
Spiral is fantastic and this publication proves it once again.
The publication references the likes of Picasso, Braque, Gris, Zimmerman and even Old Bill. Bill who? Think Kansas think shotguns. When this publication is unfolded the size alone is confrontational. Good luck holding your phone when someone hands you a copy. This thing requires undivided attention, and that my friends, is what the entire creative community is after. The imagery is collage, barrage and a mix of monotone and color. I found myself staring at spreads for extended periods just attempting to determine what exactly I was looking at, and because I’m a photographer, how it was made. Several images contain seams that are entirely captivating.
Type treatment is super tight, as always with Nick’s work. Clean, concise and revealing. A mix of typeface and density adds to the design but never distracts. Especially like the vertical text on the cover. I can’t stress enough the impact of print. The difference between someone providing an IG handle or an oversized Zine is incomparable. When someone like this arrives via the post, for a brief moment, nothing else exists. No one else exists.
Comments 2
Very ‘inspiraling’ book! Such a breath of fresh air; feels like throwing open the windows and launching a big bucket of paint at the page. Love it. Appreciate the focus on the spiral binding, in fact it’s the antithesis of a binding, it’s an unbinding, a sense of layout freedom, unconstrained and ultimately expresive.
Author
Neil, he is so good at that. Just testing trying, experimenting….