Porfolio closes
Finally put out of its misery. It was an ambitious idea, hamstrung by constantly changing staff, poor cover choices and, in the end, the economy. They did some good stories though, and brought an old-fashioned ‘big spend’ ethic to business reporting – perhaps one of the last to give that a go

The retail/cover price flowchart
A whizz with the Powerpoint he ain’t, but Hello! Canada’s associate publisher breaks it down simply for them that wants to know

NY Photo Festival co-curated by magazine people
Photo eds of Foto8 and New York – two magazines I enjoy – help build a festival. Speaking of controversial imagery…

Look mum, no Photoshop!
Though next time try no studio lighting, no camera filters either. Still, careless Photoshop isn’t ‘armless

Wallpaper* team goes to China to create new issue
A bit like the method that Swiss magazine soDA used to employ. But with a bigger budget

Small-run art magazine leaves magazines on park benches
Lovely subversion of distribution ethic

Highlights from AIGA exhibition on dance magazines
A great reminder of how not all interesting magazine design comes from fashion magazines

Subscribe to the Zinoteck!
Following on from Stack… it’s Netflix for magazines!

Digital magazine features live Twitter feed
Not very well designed, but it’s a signal of intent

Sticker magazine leaves its mark
Graffiti for lazy people

Avant Garde issue 1 – now on issuu
The start of seeing classic mags re-emerge from the archives. Anyone here make partworks? I would love to create a classic magazines reprint partwork… and I know there’s a market for it, if we can only sort out the copyright minefield. Partworks people, get in touch!

Magazines have long been fertile ground for artists, whether they’re cutting them up, satirising them in one way or another, reducing them to descriptions or to the size and position of their headlines/adverts.

Today’s 20×200 features a new take on Vogue and Vanity Fair (excerpted above). The artist, Lauren DiCioccio, has taken a text-heavy page from each of those august publications, and painstakingly replaced each later with an associated colour according to a code she has created.

The results, titled “Vogue JUL07:pg145 (Ripeness is All)” and “Vanity Fair MAY08-pg269 (and, incredibly, looking not a day older)” are really rather lovely, and far more colourful than their rather staid layout might deserve. As ever with 20×200, 200 small prints are available @ $20, 500 @ $50 and 20 giant size prints @ $200.

If you wanted to, of course, you could decode the articles from the colours (presumably their titles will give you a starting point). Something for a rainy day, right there.

Information, design, interaction, interpretation, magazines. I think that’s every one of my buttons pressed, except cake.

Not strictly mag-related, but I thought you should know: my first fiction book is now in stores in the USA and Canada, with the UK and Europe to follow from June. And I’m incredibly pleased with it.

The Doorbells of Florence is, I’m told by this week’s reviewer, “a beautiful little hardcover” with stories that are “sweet and mysterious” and a bit like Amelie.

As you might expect, it’s also rather lovingly designed by the talented Andrew Schapiro, featuring Joel Holland‘s gorgeous hand lettering.

You can read more about its unique design here, and then get yourself a copy here if you’re in the US, and pre-order here for the UK.

And if that hasn’t already moistened your appetite centres, it even has its own website.

Tell your travel-happy granny and your Italy-loving friends, tell your friends, neighbours and design-junkie roommate. Buy one for your dad for his birthday, or just because. And, of course, get one for yourself. You’ll love it, I promise.

Book tours are also occurring, including in a few unexpected places. Let’s just say that if you’re in Washington DC in a few weeks’ time, you might want to hang around a few decent hardware stores…

Thanks for listening. Your scheduled programming will return shortly…

Today a new magazine arrived in my mailbox: Mine, the bespoke magazine from Time Inc.

I talked about this before, but now I have a copy, it bears a return visit.

The magazine arrives with a bellyband advertising the new Lexus 2010 RX, the sole advertiser of this venture. On the front is the tagline “My magazine > My way” and a strangely blurred photo of the spines of the 8 magazine options, 5 of which make up your magazine.

First report is that it is very thin – 36 pages in all, though it is of course an experimental free sample. The format is the same height and a tiny bit wider than Time (so quite a bit smaller than Real Simple, if memory serves).

Each magazine gets six pages, including a single page blank opener – which amounts to two or three articles, the opening one being a double spread.

The designs show no obvious signs of being overly squeezed to fit the format; however, there is a colour border (a slightly muddy brown) around each piece, presumably to give both consistency to the mag and more flexibility to the trim, while allowing folios (which don’t carry page numbers, only the name of the magazine excerpted from) to be consistent as well. Unfortunately, it’s not an inspiring frame for the pieces, and some of the larger images suffer from their proximity to this rather dull border.

Where Mine really works is in the variety of articles and subjects that it offers. What other magazine has a guide to changing a tyre, to playing golf like Tiger, an interview with a prominent Tibetan leader, eight healthy juices and a piece about soccer? Actually, now I think about it, it could just be a decent issue of GQ, without the fashion shoots. But you get the idea. If I’d had InStyle in the mix, it might have been a bit more varied – although I’m fairly sure I actually asked for that, see below.

The colours and printing quality are surprisingly good for print-on-demand, though the blacks on some of the type look to the naked eye as if they might have spread a tiny bit. They seem just that bit too bold, especially when one of the Time articles is put next to the real Time magazine.

These are quibbles. Where the whole thing falls down, however, is in its inevitable lack of consistency in voice; it’s as if a magazine had only section editors, and no overall editor. This means it does read more like browsing online, jumping from site to site, but this is the worst of lessons to learn from the internet. Consistency of vision and image in a single object is one of print’s strongest reasons to exist; like this, it’s more like a portable, non-electronic internet with all the best bits missing.

It’s also very odd to see Time‘s logo without its iconic red border – which leads me to another problem with Mine: the articles all feel quite anonymous. By picking random excerpts, you don’t get a strong enough image of each brand involved, so if the aim is to pick up more subscribers via this sample, it doesn’t real work as well as it should.

A brief word about the print-on-demand car ads. They’re cute, as they include my name and mentions of my hometown in their copy. Sadly, it mostly comes across as being like a rock star giving a random shout out to where they happen to be playing today – a bit too “insert name here” and not enough bespoke usefulness. It’s always good to see an attempt at innovation using POD, but more work – and thought – is needed if the effort will actually be worthwhile. How about great drives near my house? Or even the details of my closest Lexus dealer?

Finally, I’m not entirely sure I actually received what I asked for (I didn’t get an email with my choices confirmed on anywhere, and there was no login procedure, but I’m 90% certain I didn’t ask for Time). A moot point for now, but a slightly irritating one, if true.

Overall, this is an experiment, a kind of a sampler that I got to compile (well, kind of) and having received the first edition, I have to confess that I actually rather like it despite all its flaws. It’s a bit like The Week but with the original designs intact, and therefore a much more satisfying read. I’ve actually spent a fair amount of time enjoying the articles, and being glad of the lack of ads in between.

The technology to do this has existed for a while. In fact, I’d say that the most remarkable thing about Mine is that it’s Time Inc doing it, and not, say, a digital publisher teaming up with MagCloud (which will probably come when advertising returns from its hibernation holes).

I really hope they’ll push the possibilities of POD a little further in issue two, and try to make it more of a multi-branded piece, which would make a lot more sense. If they don’t, I can’t promise to be as forgiving when I review Mine issue two. Which, if they don’t call Mine Too, is getting a black mark for starters.

Update: Oh good. I thought I was going a bit crazy there for a moment.

Dear Andrew,
Thank you for subscribing to mine magazine. We want to let you know that a computer error may have affected the first issue you received this week. It’s possible that this issue did not contain the combination of magazine content you selected. Please know that the problem has been resolved, and that each of your subsequent issues will reflect the exact content you originally requested.

Wayne Powers
President, Time Inc. Media Group

The doyenne of Dutch magazine shops Athenaeum, located on the Spui in Amsterdam, currently has a rather lovely window display featuring pages from We Make Magazines. Dank u wel!

Rather a lot to catch up on…

Wired UK launches today
The general view seems to be “better than expected, but good luck in this climate”. My friend and erstwhile colleague Hammersley puts it in his own inimitable style: “You might not like it, and that’s fine with us, but you will have to admit that it’s good. In any case, we’re not producing a mediocre magazine for the general reader. We’re making something great specifically for the Wired audience. As David Simon once said, ‘fuck the average viewer.’” (Disclaimer: I have a small piece in issue two). Speaking of tech…

Magazine to feature RFID chip
In fact, a Ztamp, to place on your Mir:ror. It’s from the makers of the rather cute “it’ll read your email while you’re sleeping” Nabaztag. I’d expect Spektacle to watch this intently, as it’s the kind of thing they’d do. What’s also interesting is the mag itself – I have the current issue of Amusement next to me now, that I’ve been meaning to review on here for yonks. It’s rather good. Speaking of video game magazines…

Edge celebrates 200th issue with 200 covers
All polywrapped in a bag with an image of issue one on it. See all the covers full size here

Little White Lies tries digital
Now non-UK viewers can enjoy its graphic monothemed loveliness

Conde Nast switches to digital flowers
Because physical objects are no longer symbolically important at CN Towers. Wait a minute, what’s the date on that piece again? While we’re on the subject…

As good an excuse as any to visit Sans Seriffe
There’s no Fool like an old Fool

The Folio 40 is unveiled
Worthwhile reading featuring movers, shakers, innovators and a blogger. Maybe next year

How Esquire tore strips off its cover stars
Compare with this month’s Flaunt (click here) who had a far lower-tech solution. That’s a real rip they’ve put in – each issue’s is slightly different, a rather brilliant way to both save money and still keep up their reputation for distinctive covers. I wonder if they perforated it slightly at the factory, or just had a line of rippers? And what did they do with all the bottom halves?

A new men’s “style bible” just launched
The preview pics look to me rather like the revived Man About Town with all the words cut out

Colophon interview with KasinoA4
“I bet our magazine would look a lot different if we were based in Miami”. Also reveals previously unnoticed nod to 1970s Playboy. Speaking of whom…

KasinoA4 releases wearable magazine rack
Is it just me, or is this “KasinoA4 X Designer” actually a subtle Monocle pisstake?

Last week’s Economist cover – explained
It made much more sense in the original. They’ve also started to release their magazine audibly – will Economist Radio follow?

Editor blames plagiarism on staff shortages
And thinking shortages

Why our books are the future of fashion photography
Which is nice. Goes on a bit though

And finally… some more Colophon links…

We love you too, Slanted
Patrick’s snaps
The official photographer
Stylink reports (kind of)
Stereo loves Karen