It’s Good That

September 1, 2010 in Clever ideas | No comments

The visual magpies at It’s Nice That have announced a forthcoming new issue, and very lovely it looks too.

As expected from previous form, it’s a mix of strangely compelling images and textual inspiration. Nice designed headlines too – a single layout with each inappropriate name scribbled out.


Pre-order before the end of the month, when the whole thing goes to print, for an exclusive James Jarvis. (Mag makers: this is a very clever way to help fund/estimate the print run.)

Can’t say nicer than that.

Time for the comeback

August 27, 2010 in Clever ideas, USA, technology | No comments

Longshot! magazine – the new name of 48 Hours (reviewed here) – is doing another all-weekender, this time at the offices of GOOD magazine in LA.

They just started, so you have a little under 24 hours to get your submissions in for the theme “comeback“.

They want fiction, non-fiction, history, interviews, poetry, cartoons, photography… they have pages to fill, basically. It also sounds like they’re open for longer pieces this time, which answers one of the criticisms I had of the first one. So why not spend your Friday night/Saturday morning making something for them? Me, I’m looking forward to following their tweets, peeking at the process on the Tumblr log, and then waking up on Monday and seeing what they did.

Submit your work here.

Eventful gatherings

August 24, 2010 in Colophon, Death of print, Trend | No comments

When we started Colophon, it was soon after the closure of CMYK, a Barcelona-based magazine event that took place in 2004 and 2005.

Other independent magazine-based events and exhibitions (distinct from mainstream industry gatherings with paid-for booths in huge conference centres) have also cropped up, including this year’s OK Festival in the Netherlands, the Magazine Library in Japan, the ever-moving Kiosk and most recently, De Zines in Madrid, which closes this Sunday.

The more the merrier, we say. Such events are wonderful opportunities to discover new magazines, meet magazine makers and forge new collaborations. As we plan more Colophon events (suggestions still welcome here), and hear rumours of more magazine-focused excuses to get drunk invaluable industry events to come, I’m delighted to offer you the catalogue from De Zines as a PDF download, thanks to co-curators Roberto Vidal and Oscar Martín.

Filled with independent magazines and thoughtful reflections on publishing outside the mainstream, it’s a lovely document, and a taste of what those of us who haven’t been able get to De Zines have missed out on. (The first pages are in Spanish, but there’s a full English translation at the back.) The exhibit is about to close, but its spirit lives on in the fantastic magsite No.Zines, which I’m told is about to get the RSS feed it lacks. Felicidades, gentlemen. Hasta la próxima.

Click here, download the catalogue, and enjoy. (9.8mb, PDF)

Ten Things #7: Moore’s Logic

August 19, 2010 in Magazine covers, Opinion, Review | 1 comment

Ten Things is a collection of magazines, thoughts and ephemera that have been sitting on my desk for a few months while I caught up with deadlines. And apologies about the quality of the photos in this entry.

Dodgem Logic is best described as the brain of Alan Moore as nailed onto a sheet of paper and buried at midnight until it’s ripe. And it’s (mostly) great.

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Nearly ready to fly

August 11, 2010 in Personal promotion, Stranded magazine | No comments

As my faithful Twitter followers already know, Stranded magazine, the only publication made entirely by people unable to take flights home due to the volcanic ash cloud of April, is a couple of short weeks away from being on sale. It’ll be available both digitally and in print, with all proceeds to the International Rescue Committee.

Sneak previews available here… and it’s looking lovely. Keep watching the skies, people.

Ten Things #6: How long will magazines last?

August 9, 2010 in Archives, Death of print, technology | 6 comments

Picture by Mike Bailey-Gates

Ten Things is a collection of magazines, thoughts and ephemera that have been sitting on my desk for a few months while I caught up with deadlines

Here’s a question that has been on my mind for a while: How long will paper last?

I don’t mean, “Will we still print magazines in 20 years time?”, I mean will today’s magazines degrade into unreadability, and if so, how fast? When we look at old newspapers, magazines and books today, many of them are yellowed, faded, and so brittle that they crumble in our hands. Is this the fate of all paper? By the time I’m 50, will my magazine collection be little more than musty and expensive confetti?

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Vogue Itoilia

August 6, 2010 in Fashion, Trend | 1 comment

Back in 2006, Steven Meisel shot a politically targeted photoshoot for Vogue Italia containing models accused of being terrorists. The following year, he sent them to war and then to rehab.

And now he’s back in the same magazine, this time getting column inches with a shoot focused around the BP oil spill. Fast Company doesn’t like it, Refinery 29 calls it “fucked up” while reaction on the fashion boards has so far been pretty positive.

Fashion as politics? Maybe. Politics as fashion? Not so sure. And that’s the problem – in the context of the September issue of a leading Italian fashion magazine, it’s about the models and the clothes first, and the setting second. Problematic to say the least.

Fast Company has a snarky slideshow featuring many of the pics here.

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