Good thinking

A long-standing favourite of mine, Good magazine has been branching out, and in some interesting ways.

Their new CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, formerly of Ethos water, has been using his Starbucks connections in creating The Good Sheet, a rather lovely piece of weekly infographic specialness themed on election issues, and exclusively distributed every Thursday in Starbucks across the USA.

It’s essentially a fold-out, newsprint version of the magazine’s Upfront section, where different studios (KarlssonWilker, Practise London and more) are given a topic and some stats, to grapple with. In this case, they have to make pretty on a 58cmx30cm sheet (while advertising on the second fold helps pay for the thing).

Themes so far have been Climate Change, Health Care, Immigration, Gas Prices and Education with The Economy to follow tomorrow, and two more TBA in the following two weeks before the election.

Typically for Good, the carbon emissions in making the thing have been offset, it’s all printed on mostly postconsumer waste paper, and it’s been released on an Attribution / Not-for-profit / No derivatives Creative Commons license.

Some are more lovely than others – the immigration maze is a little confusing (and should have been printed on the left side, not the right), for instance. But Education and Health Care are rather, erm, good. You can see them all, and print them off if you have enough paper, on their website.

Good is starting to branch out in other areas too. The latest issue of the magazine has a (mostly not very successful, but hey) Business ‘edition’ on the flip side of their list-filled (not their best issue, but hey) Election special, and the recent relaunch of the website is filled with community-based webness.

They’ve stated an aim to use the magazine to reach out further, into events and other publications. They’ve also instituted a Radiohead subscription model – though as their subscription fees go to charity, you’d be a hard hearted soul to sell them short.

In other words, print, experimentation, innovation and designery goodness, all while being very aware of what they do and why – which is to make the world a better place. Good for them.