Adbusters review

Founded by Bill Schmalz and Kalle Lasn in Vancouver, Canada, Adbusters is a magazine, website, blog and a movement running since 1989 as the Adbusters Media Foundation. As said by themselves they are ‘a global network of artists, activists, writers, pranksters, students, educators and entrepreneurs who want to advance the new social activist movement of the information age.’ Over the years Adbusters has been featured within television, radio, magazines, newspapers and been accepted by Friends of the Earth and Green peace.

Adbusters comes in the format of website, which includes articles from the magazine and additional information, a blog with a variety of daily thoughts and views within the worlds happenings and there main source of communication of there magazine.

From reading articles on web, magazine and blog the readership of the various publications from adbusters could be either young or old, male or female and generally associated with anticonsumerists and “people concerned of the erosion of our physical and cultural environments by commercial forces”.

What we can get from the publications of Adbusters is that they have a genuine passion for all aspects of culture and life, which is portrayed with a formal tone throughout and this we found made us want to read on and explore further. This is backed up with their many articles, which range from envirornmental issues, political issues, religious beliefs and creative subjects. We found this extremely interesting as it contains a historical relevance of today’s society and can be seen as a ‘journal of the mental environment’. One article of which was published in Adbusters magazine, 29 July 2008 issue 79, we feel is relevant for today’s society and western youth culture. This contains thoughts and analysis on the counter culture of “hipsterdom” which is a merge of all previous counterculture after punk and hip-hop. Douglas Haddow gives an interesting, witty and detailed insight into this counter culture of the hipsters, of which surrounds us all in society today of ‘shameless clichés of a class of individuals that seek to escape their own wealth and privilege by immersing themselves in the aesthetic of the working class.’

The general feeling and design of the Adbusters publications is suited well to its purpose and perception, which creates a unique style to fit along side the anti-consumerist and anti-corporation views. They have done this by creating a new look to each magazine cover and layout with every issue and different logo in each website header once loading.

This resource of cultural and creative, both written and visual, examination would most defiantly be a useful for any creative, designer or open minded individual as it informs about the society we live in so that you can take from it an insight of multiple cultures which can help us shape ourselves.

Form more information - www.adbusters.org

Review by Joe Smith and Tom Hill.