Dot Dot Dot is a magazine of visual culture produced end edited by graphic designers Stuart Bailey

Stuart Bailey

Stuart Bailey is a graphic designer and co-editor of Dot Dot Dot with David Reinfurt . He has lived and worked in Amsterdam and is now based in New York....

 and Peter Bilak

Peter Bilak

Peter Biľak Slovakian graphic and typeface designer, based in The Hague , The Netherlands. He is the head of the type foundry Typotheque. In 2003, he designed a series of the standard post stamps for the Dutch Royal mail...

. Since Dot Dot Dot 7, each issue of the magazine has been widely available as a paperback book. The magazines/books are also distributed by Princeton Architectural Press

Princeton Architectural Press

Princeton Architectural Press is a leading publisher of architecture and design books, with over 500 titles on its backlist. It was founded in 1981 by Kevin Lippert in Princeton, NJ and moved to New York City in 1985. Since 1996, Princeton Architectural Press has been distributed in the...

.

Content

According to Dot Dot Dot's own website, "Since its conception in 2000 DDD has immatured into a jocuserious fanzine-journal-orphanage based on true stories deeply concerned with art-design-music-language-literature-architecture and uptight optipessimistic stoppy/revelatory ghostwriting by friendly spirits mapping b-sides and out-takes pushing for a resolution in bleak midwinter through late summer with local and general aesthetics wound on an ever tightening coil." http://www.dot-dot-dot.us/

Given the magazine's exceptional (and exceptionally self-aware) looseness, the focus of each issue is hard to discern. In browsing the magazine a few topics emerge. For example, essays in Dot Dot Dot 5 include "The Beatles/Stones Dialectic" and an essay on Bill Drummond

Bill Drummond

William Ernest Drummond is a Scottish artist, musician, writer and record producer. He was the co-founder of late 1980s avant-garde pop group The KLF and its 1990s media-manipulating successor, the K Foundation, with which he burned a million pounds in 1994...

. Dot Dot Dot 6 has essays on field guides, Tibor Kalman

Tibor Kalman

Tibor Kalman was an influential American graphic designer of Hungarian origin, well-known for his work as editor-in-chief of Colors magazine....

 and the book covers of Fred Troller. Dot Dot Dot 7 has material on the typography of the 1968 Olympics, Brian Eno

Brian Eno

Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...

 and handwritting found on currency. The eighth Dot Dot Dot includes contents on the Black American Express Card, Wire

Wire (band)

Wire are an English rock band, formed in London in October 1976 by Colin Newman , Graham Lewis , Bruce Gilbert , and Robert Gotobed...

 album art and "Towards a Representation of the English Breakfast as a Modular System." Dot Dot Dot 9 includes essays on the logos of film studios, the album art of Stereolab

Stereolab

Stereolab are an alternative music band formed in 1990 in London, England. The band originally comprised songwriting team Tim Gane and Lætitia Sadier , both of whom remained at the helm across many lineup changes...

, the art of Tyija magazine and the art of Edward Wadsworth

Edward Wadsworth

Edward Alexander Wadsworth was an English artist, most famous for his close association with Vorticism. He painted, often in tempera, coastal views, abstracts, portraits and still-life...

. The essays of Dot Dot Dot 11 discuss Saul Bass

Saul Bass

Saul Bass was a Jewish-American graphic designer and filmmaker, best known for his design of motion picture title sequences....

, Samuel Beckett

Samuel Beckett

Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...

, John Peel

John Peel

John Robert Parker Ravenscroft, OBE , known professionally as John Peel, was an English disc jockey, radio presenter, record producer and journalist. He was the longest-serving of the original BBC Radio 1 DJs, broadcasting regularly from 1967 until his death in 2004...

, Wyndham Lewis

Wyndham Lewis

Percy Wyndham Lewis was an English painter and author . He was a co-founder of the Vorticist movement in art, and edited the literary magazine of the Vorticists, BLAST...

 and Mark E. Smith

Mark E. Smith

Mark Edward Smith is the lead singer, lyricist, frontman, and only constant member of the English post-punk band The Fall.-Early life:...

. Essays in Dot Dot Dot 12 touch on Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin

Dr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...

, the band Black Flag

Black Flag (band)

Black Flag was an American punk rock band formed in 1976 in Hermosa Beach, California. The band was established by Greg Ginn, the guitarist, primary songwriter and sole continuous member through multiple personnel changes in the band...

and the word "Kafkaesque."

External links

• Dot Dot Dot website
• Dot Dot Dot back issues