Blogs vs. Mags

I try not to post too much, or think too much, about blogging itself. Art is too full of navel gazing exercises already, but it's human nature to be self-absorbed. ArtForum and its ilk are the usual targets of online derision of "old media." The same distraction afflicts the design community it seems. Check out this great comment thread over at the AIGA blog in response to the posting "Blogs vs. Mags" by Steven Heller, the art director of the The New York Times Book Review. Heller is defending print, but has this to say about blogging's growth:

"Despite a few insufferable rants, blog content is now often as sophisticated and informative as any design magazine, sometimes even more entertaining. Blogs have also proven that, unlike newsgroups, the writing is not entirely unedited and can be quite complex. For that matter, not all print periodicals, despite extended lead times and editing staff, are always well edited."

The post and discussion are specific to the reading and writing habits of the design community but the art world is not so different in terms of its left-leaning, bloated sense of self-importance.