Why fashion struggles with race
A really good piece on the colour barrier faced by fashion editorials and the catwalk – and why societally the “paint chip” theory doesn’t work

Eye gets a preview of Port
Review here when I can get my hands on it

Slate writer hates his iPad
The backlash is strong with this one

How a publisher is dealing with the OnePass/Apple subscription situation
Fascinating reading. The key for the big players seems to be “be everywhere, but hope Android on tablets gets big enough to force Apple to back down”

Marie Claire Brazil goes 3D
3D fashion apparently also featured in new mag Archetype X (about which I can find nothing at all except for descriptions of this shoot – does it even exist?)

A round up of books about zines / comic books / small magazines
Contains short summaries of a few things worth knowing about

i-jusi exhibition hits London next month
Well worth checking out their back issues at that. Speaking of which…

Mute offers complete set for 200 pounds
Intelligent mag that did some interesting design things in the late 90s (disclosure: I interviewed Cory Doctrow for them once, eight years ago)

Indiana University student magazine actually well designed
Text’s a bit ropey, but it sure is purrty

People create their own Top 10 magazines
No, don’t ask – I wouldn’t know where to begin

A fascinating-looking Chinese magazine blogger
Sadly, I suspect something is lost in the Google Translation

By now, you may have caught up with my widely-tweeted article at the Hospital Club on the “failure” of tablet magazines, aka (by me at least) “maglets”. If not, it’s here.

I don’t have much to add to the topic right now, other than to say Adam of Exact Editions tries to cheer me up by refuting my points, and that the latest move today by Apple to add subscriptions isn’t quite what the industry has been waiting for. Oh Steve, you are a tease. The reader might not care about the finer points of this, but you can bet that the publishers do.

The headline problem is the legal obligation to offer the same subscription deal on iTunes as they do anywhere else.

Two issues with this requirement. Firstly, many mainstream magazines currently have hugely complex discounted subscription contracts with numerous sources, most of whose value is based on two things: being able to deliver the subscribers’ data to advertisers – either as demographics or mailing addresses, depending on which boxes were ticked; and on automatic renewals at a higher rate than hugely discounted “new subscriber” offers.

The thought of paying Apple 30% of all of that – almost certainly far higher than the other contracts are worth – without getting any of the subscriber data out of the deal, might make a few publishing execs turn a little pale. It also forces them to be up front about the discounting that goes on, and to simplify it hugely.

Secondly, who is to say that an iPad edition is identical to one on Android? Or one on a Windows 7 phone? What happens if Time offers a year’s subscription with every Motorola phone, or National Geographic wants to do a deal with Verizon to bribe new iPhone customers? How far does the “same deal” requirement stretch? How that will be policed is going to be tricky – and maybe end up in the courts.

Possible consequences?

• Some of the industry pulls out of the iPad (Time is doing this already. As a rule, though, I’d say it’s only likely if another big player enters the tablet market and undercuts Apple significantly on price without compromising quality. Could happen);

• The industry succeeds in getting Apple to backtrack on the deal (out of Steve’s cold, dead hands – unless the above scenario plays out soon);

• The price of magazine subscriptions in the USA is standardized, and goes up noticeably to overcome the transactional losses that come from forced standardization (would create a societal shift, and probably hasten the decline of mainstream print – though that might not be a bad thing, as it would increase the perceived value of some titles, at the expense of the headline circulation figures);

• The mainstream magazine industry bets the house on the iPad, and Steve gets what Steve wants (likely for a few publishers, but not most);

• The industry sticks to an HTML 5 app standard, allowing them to sell across multiple platforms, and accepts that they make less on the Apple devices than anywhere else (probably the way it’ll go for a while – until the next thing comes along);

• Magazine subscription houses start to fade away (and about time too).

UPDATE: Google responds, and responds hard. The industry may be battling Google on syndication and advertising, but it can’t argue with this.

You know the one. So what’s it like?

One-line pitch
According to the press release, The Daily “gives readers everywhere the engaging experience of a magazine combined with the need-to-know content of a newspaper and the immediacy of the internet.”

NB Everywhere is defined at time of writing as “everywhere that people use the US iTunes store”.

Made by
A team of 100 or more apparently, including “top journalists, thought leaders and opinion makers”.

There’s certainly a breadth of experience: the Editor in Chief and Gossip Editor both came from the New York Post, the news editor from AOL via The New York Times news blog, the Sports ed from a New Jersey paper, the Opinions editor from Forbes via The Wall Street Journal, the Lifestyle/culture Ed from the New Yorker, the Tech Editor from Time magazine, and the Creative Director came from AOL Media.

The app itself has no masthead, but the top names are listed here.

Made for
Rupert Murdoch’s email to UK senior staff (none of whom can currently buy it if they don’t have a US credit card) says “audiences everywhere”. At the launch event, the editor in chief said it was a newspaper for “everyone”.

Navigation
The app opens with a short animation, a seven-note Intel-esque melody, then this loading screen. I’m not sure if they updated during the day, or there was a bug, but it reloaded today’s edition three times for me. Each time, you only get the spinning wheel, so you don’t know how long you’ll have to wait.

Once it loads (and every time it loads, regardless of if you were halfway through an article and switched briefly to another app), you see a “carousel” (aka cover flow) of the front pages of each feature. The images on the carousel are low-res jpegs that often look a bit sketchy. You get the category of the article, but that’s all – so you have to rely on the headlines to guess what each one is about. It also marks which features you have read.

There is also a table of contents, but it only lists a few select articles, and feels like an afterthought to accompany the entirely unnecessary “how to use” directions.

There are six topics – News, Gossip, Opinion, ARts&Life, Apps&Games, Sports – and they appear in that order. There’s no customization options to change the order, or to open each day with your favourite section.

The bottom line of Carousel buttons, which you tap to reveal and then slides out of view automatically after a few seconds, offers: a video short of “today’s highlights”, an audio version of the same thing that also animates the coverflow, a “fast forward” button to run through the coverflow images while pausing for a couple of seconds on each, a “skip to a random article you haven’t read yet” option, “my saved pages” (more on that below) and “settings”, which are options to customize local weather, your horoscope, breaking news alerts, and your account information. Can’t imagine why anyone would want to use the linear/static video or audio summaries – I’d expect them to be phased out within few months.

There’s also a top menu that is always visible, providing shortcuts to the front pages of each section, and a “scrubber” – when you touch it, mini versions of the pages appear, for you to tap and jump to a piece. It highlights in blue pieces you haven’t read yet, but otherwise the thumbnails are too small to be anything other than memory aids.

Longer articles are two-column in a serifed font, and most pages are image heavy except for the Opinion section. Pages are images, so you can’t copy/paste, change the type size or search for terms, and zooming has been disabled. Quote marks, by the way, alternate between straight and curly – deep inside my soul, a tiny subeditor is weeping.

There’s a sense of indecision regarding orientation – most pages can be viewed both in portrait or landscape, except in news articles where landscape is used for slideshows, and portrait for text. Even more confusingly, if you open an article that tells you to rotate for a photo slideshow, then flick through that slideshow, and finally return back to portrait, the app places you in the middle of the article, rather than back at the beginning. A bug, presumably – and not the only one in there.

There’s a similar confusion attached to the reading method. Most are on multiple pages (between one and three), with no up/down swiping to read on. Except for one article in the Apps&Games section, one in the Sports, and the table of contents containing How to Use instructions, where you are told to swipe vertically to read on. Odd.

Sometimes, exclusively branded videos are included in place of still images, and these can be full-screened without much fuss. Some are genuine exclusives, others made up of wire footage. There are a few interactive “push button to read caption” elements, very few web links, and some stories also feature Twitter feeds on topics or, in one instance, a celebrity’s own Twitter feed.

Each page (not article – so multi-page articles have different, unconnected comments pages) can be commented on in-app via text or by recording an audio comment (a neat option), or via email, Facebook or Twitter (though twice trying to login to Twitter on the app made it freeze each time). Only registered users can comment in the app itself, and it uses a “Report abuse” function to police the commentaries. No sign as yet of Daily editors engaging with the discussions.

Facebook/Twitter/emailing a page created a bit.ly link to web editions of the pages, sometimes as text, sometimes as an image. Not sure why the difference – it might be a news deadlines vs other sections issue. The one time I tried it out, though, it sent a link to the wrong page.

Crash total during review period: five, plus one freeze.

Advertising
There’s 113 pages total, and I counted 11 ads. They’re mostly video-based, loading dynamically. Fox products feature heavily, requiring the user to rotate to landscape to watch trailers, plus Verizon, Pepsi, Macy’s, a neat Land Rover interactive ad, and Virgin Atlantic (their interactive ad from Project fits neatly here). Ads are not labelled as such anywhere, which could get problematic.

What’s inside
It’s a strange mix of content, and it doesn’t really hang together as a single entity, either in its writing or its design.

Each section has its own section front page, highlighting one or more stories.

The News section – 29 pages of the 113 – is very light, similar to the kind of thing you might read in Metro – one or two correspondents, but mostly a lot of wire rewrites. The videos are embedded in the pieces, and rather than enhance the stories, they just repeat the information in each article, in a cable-newsy way. It’s very irritating. Still, at least they don’t start up automatically.

For a brave new force in journalism, its coverage is incredibly limited. Issue one’s news totals, in order of presentation:

* two main stories (Egypt and American snowstorms) with ten pages and one video, and three pages and one video devoted to them respectively
* one non-time-sensitive, non-revealing, wonkish interview with Obama’s former budget director
* two “bizarre/frivolous short stories” pages
* a completely non-news fluff story, with a New York Post-ish headline, that occupies two pages, talking about a disco in New York that admits dogs
* a page with two stories: “Arizona places high tax on medical marijuana” and a two-paragraph story on “American woman pleads guilty to conspiracy to recruit terrorists”
* a very short story with a huge 360 panorama image on a proposed one-euro tourist tax in Venice
* a page with “the number of illegal immigrants in the USA has stabilized, but is still three times larger than in 1990″ and “Anna Chapman, sexy spy, trademarks her name”
* An image of a Japanese volcano spewing smoke
* a page containing “Putin turned on by brave pinups” (including photo of Russian girl in lingerie), a very short story about how American-made products were smuggled into Iran to build missiles, and a one paragraph story that opens with the line “Pump some iron, Gramps – you’ll live longer if you do”.
* A Daily exclusive short video in what seems to be a series labelled “Americana”, about how prisoners in a Louisiana jail make children’s toys. The 2:20 film is the visual equivalent of repeating that sentence over and over. It has no narrative structure, and tries to squeeze in far too many characters. It ends up saying nothing more than its opening statement.
* Biz Digest – Copper’s up, the trader Steve Cohen lost $23m, BP reported profits, and people are using smartphones a lot.
* The Daily reports that Allstate apologized for a report that ranked road users by their star signs. And then reprints the entire study with fancy (non-interactive) infographics anyway.
* Horoscopes and location-based weather.

So, no foreign news that doesn’t involve pretty pictures, and no depth or links on a couple of fascinating stories – “American companies caught smuggling to Iran” and “American woman tries to recruit radical Islamists to kill Swedish cartoonist”. Strange, all round.

Gossip gets seven pages, and leads with the unstory that quotes unnamed sources to reveal that “Natalie Portman has been talking to her friends about her pregnancy”, followed by typical Page Six-style shorts, a photo gallery of press shots that you have no option but to swipe through in order to get to the next page, a shock story that “Palm Beach socialites have never heard of Rhianna”, and then… an apparently exclusive story about how former Haitian dictator Baby Doc Duvalier has been hiding a chic Parisian apartment, with lover in tow, from his people.

Pardon? An investigative exclusive about a former dictator who is currently in the news, dropped in at the end of the Gossip section? Its placement suggests either a stunning lack of news judgement, or more likely, that each section head is fiercely protective of their own turf, and the editor doesn’t overrule to reassign stories to where they belong. Worrying.

Opinion‘s eleven pages open with a predictable “We are the world, We are The Daily, new times demand new journalism” piece that quotes American exceptionalism as the foundation of its foreign coverage (at least they’re up front about it) and claims no other particular political leanings. The news stories are so short and superficial, I certainly couldn’t contradict that claim.

This essay is followed by a remarkably intelligent, indepth, wordy piece about the connection between Bollywood and the rise in moderate Islamism. Yeah, you heard me.

Just as you continue to reel from the shock of your brain being forced into gear again, it pulls out a tech think piece about the rise in “ephemeralization”, then a quick piece on the situation in Egypt in Numbers (again, why not in the news section?), and a History page about the greater significance behind the launch of Voyager 1 (no links to the ace Voyager2 probe Twitter feed though). I spent more time reading these than the other sections put together. It feels like it belongs in a different publication.

Arts&Life gets 14 pages, in which it tells us to choose stripes, and shows catwalk shots to prove it, includes a few pages of style-related gossip (erm.. isn’t there a Gossip section elsewhere?), gives us love and male fashion advice, includes a Straight-Up taken for some reason in Mexico, and then suddenly leaps to intelligent movie summaries, including a three-page in-depth look at hipster spoof Portlandia. Strange to see Arts have so much style/fashion – it would probably go better with the gossip section.

Apps&Games gets 11 pages, and opens with “Last Minute Travel Apps” including iTunes store links, a non-critical blurb about the game Oregon Trail on Facebook (including a trailer and “tips”), a three-page interview with the founders of Quora (but no link to it), very well-programmed Sudoku and crossword puzzles that link to the Game Center (but no indications of difficulty), a one-page “What I have on my iPad” yawn, and one-paragraph shorts under the title “System_Update”.

Sports is perhaps the most content-intense section. It gets 26 pages in this issue, in which it covers American Football, basketball and ice hockey. There’s no way to skip to your favourite sport, so you have to go through it page by page.

It understandably goes big on the Super Bowl (though it’s still four days away), with videos about the atmosphere, columnists, plenty of in-line polls, some wacky shorts, and plenty of videos. Seems disappointing that the animated plays are only videos, not interactives. There is a tappable timeline about previous Superbowls, but the information is very brief and superficial.

Articles are brief, but expertly look at different aspects of their theme. Headlines appear on a black background, caps only, and the whole thing has a ESPNish feel to it. There’s also a “learn the tricks” basketball video, and a scrolling ticker of college basketball results on one page – though it looks as though that’s not actually live updated, just a gimmicky way to display the previous day’s scores.

There’s no single “results” page in the sports section, though there is an odds page for forthcoming games at the end. At least, I think that’s what “today’s line” means.

Summary
The Daily is very strange.

Firstly, the structure, and the design, feel very much like print. It is intended to be flicked through, every page of it, and the design and typesetting are as print as you can get without digging up a zombie Gutenberg.

The only non-printness of it all is its use of video, Twitter feed boxes (more than half of which are entirely superfluous, placed there because they can, not because they should), the occasional “tap here to read the caption” feature, a local weather display telling you what’s happening outside your window RIGHT NOW, and the limited ability to comment in/share pages – but these are added layers to what is clearly essentially a print product with bells on. There is no live reporting, no updated feeds from their correspondents, no new stories throughout the day. Nothing to make it feel “live” and digital.

This first issue feels like the product of competing personalities – half of it reads like an American-style Daily Mail in its approach (not its politics though), being deliberately and stereotypically female friendly in its gossip and fashion coverage.

It covers news lightly, without much insight or investigation, often leading with an image rather than a gripping story. This matches the formula of the designed-to-be-throwaway Metro, the Daily Mail, and the New York Post – all of which have far higher female readership percentages than the average newspaper.

And then there are the Opinion and Sports sections, which are densely packed with huge amounts of content, much of it on themes that are more traditionally male oriented. Men get depth, women get fluff, except of course for the “hot Russian spies/students in their lingerie” news stories. Is this really what journalism has come to?

The content and outlook of the six different sections suggest that The Daily is aiming to be a generalist news roundup-in-very-brief, for people of both sexes who somehow don’t get to read the news elsewhere. A breakfast read, let’s say, for those who want short, fast snippets to talk about at work. Almost like cable news, in fact, except that cable news already exists, and does it better.

Is the iPad market even mature enough yet to provide enough paying users who aren’t very connected to current affairs, in order to make money? As Joshua Benton at the Nieman Lab perceptively asks, Who is it trying to reach? What problem is it trying to solve? The Kindle, perhaps, might at a push have enough of an older demographic who want short summaries to support this venture. Does the iPad? Will the iPad?

And then there’s this: on the Bizarre/Frivolous News pages, four articles are linked to under the heading “What we’re reading”. The four stories are a video on BoingBoing coherently explaining Senate filibusters, an inside story from someone who went to Thailand for breast enhancement surgery, a fascinating and damning ProPublica investigation into nationwide coroner mismanagement, a long and interesting New Yorker profile of Guillermo del Toro, and a new study that shows how traffic cameras save lives. So, smart analysis, clever infographics, indepth reporting, a detailed arts profile… you’re reading it, but even with $30m at your disposal, you’re still not writing it.

At least, not yet. This is their much-delayed launch issue. Making a daily product is not easy, especially when your deadlines are shortened by the need to convert each page to be iPad ready. No launch issue is perfect, though it surprises me that they didn’t have a zinger of an exclusive to pull out, either in interactive graphics or investigative reporting, to showcase what can be done and to get their name out there even more. Maybe they’re saving it, to pull people in again post-launch. But right now, there’s not much exclusive or even interesting anywhere in this “pioneering digital venture.”

I’m going to follow its progress, and will absolutely post a revised review if it merits it in the future, when it’s had some time to bed in. As has been widely reported, there’s a lot of money behind The Daily, and Uncles Rupert M and Steve J have put the considerable weight of their names behind it, so they definitely won’t want it to fail.

But right now, it feels like it’s trying so hard to be all things to all men and women, frothy yet serious, fashionable and sporty – without having enough of any of the above to satisfy anyone. And most damning of all – its weakest section by far is the news.

It’s been a fascinating year for magazines.

Redesigns from Creative Review (by Paul Pensom) and icon (by Ken Leung) have added new flair to two of the strongest design titles on the newsstand, while Grafik fell but will rise again very soon.

Elsewhere, Little White Lies reached five years of great covers and thematic movie coverage and then promptly changed its logo, Elle UK made some gorgeous subscriber covers and Elle Collections made me look again at the catwalk with fresh eyes, Monocle continued to defy expectations with further expansion and two newspaper-magazine hybrids for the sea and ski elite, Wallpaper* has continued to experiment boldly with form and content, and GOOD made a tiny shift in its vocabulary to turn its subscribers into “members” of their wider community, a move that others will doubtless seek to emulate.

Self-publishers were given a lift by an improved MagCloud offering, while The Newspaper Club got wider recognition and is now eyeing up an American expansion. And the whole Roger Black/design templates controversy faded away almost as quickly as it swept in.

Pop under Dasha Zhukova did some lovely things, and I’m looking forward to seeing how its former editorial director Ashley Heath will continue the bold, eclectic approach. On the geek side, Wired UK continued to differentiate itself from its American big brother with Europe-focused stories and graphic playfulness. Worth it for the Warren Ellis and Russell Davies columns alone.

So many smaller independent magazines have produced creative, exciting, groundbreaking work in print this year. The Kasino crew unveiled their new project, showing how they can still create an entertaining publication even while using all four colours. Residing several miles further west than leftfield, Dodgem Logic is silly, funny, angry, smart, and subversive in all the right ways – and highly affordable too, as is Manzine which gets better and better with every issue, reaching far beyond its early in-jokiness to become an essential and witty read for people of both sexes.

Over the past 12 months, Mono.kultur and Gym Class have exemplified how fantastic one-person operations can be, when that person has talent, a clear vision and the confidence to make what they want to read, while Put A Egg On It deservedly got enough attention to turn it into a going concern.

Apartamento‘s star continues to rise, taking over the mantle of Fantastic Man as the hip mag to be seen with first – only because FM has now all but established itself as a fixture in the alternative mainstream. It continues to innovate with features that merit its chosen adjective. Its new sister, The Gentlewoman, has yet to settle, but there’s certainly an audience for it out there.

OK Periodicals has moved forward boldly, and now runs its own events as well – bravo, say I. Independent publishing needs as many gathering points as it can get. Elsewhere, my fellow Colophon curator Mike’s Nico gets better and better, and The Gopher Illustrated is a top tip to watch in 2011. Its first issue was adventurous, entertaining, and featured stickers of all the images in colour, for you to place on the pages (or elsewhere) yourself. Its creators recently moved from Venezuela to the creative hub of Austin. I’m looking forward to seeing the results.

Elsewhere, IL, Eureka and the Suddeutsche Zeitung Magazin‘s designs this year suggest that the golden age of magazine supplements isn’t over. Freed from the pressures of the open newsstand, supplements should be brave and bold enough to drive the purchase of the newspaper. And speaking of newspapers, i has had another great year of design work. Its art director, Nick Mrozowski, is on his way back to the States – but we should certainly keep an eye on what his successor gets up to.

As for myself, this was the first year of Stack America, and I’m indebted to the makers of Meatpaper, Megawords, Pin-Up, d[x]i, Beautiful/Decay, Little White Lies, GOOD, Embrocation, Put A Egg On It, The Oxford American, PWR Paper, Bad Day, MYMAG, and Abe’s Penny for agreeing to let me share their creative work with subscribers. Choosing the right publications hasn’t been an easy decision, not because they’re hard to find, but because so much fascinating work is out there. There will be plenty more of that to come in 2011. (Subscribe now!)

I’ve also given talks in Bulgaria, Spain and the USA, written about magazines and associated industries for Eye magazine among many others, and wrote the copy for Turning Pages, a weighty tome filled with snapshots of inspiring contemporary editorial design. We also announced a bold new move for Colophon – lots of excitement around that, some of which should bear some fruit soon.

And of course I got trapped by a volcano and made Stranded, a print-on-demand magazine about the experience, created by those in the same situation. Sales continue to come through; so far, it’s raised more than $1300 for the International Rescue Committee. (Buy one now!)

I’m sure I’ve missed a bunch of great work that I really should have mentioned. Apologies if I didn’t include something you’ve worked on – please excuse it as an omission of forgetfulness, and not any kind of implied criticism. I hereby endeavour to review more titles, and faster, than I was able to this year.

There are, however three magazines that have had an outstanding 2010, and which I haven’t mentioned here. This was deliberate, because in the coming days, I’m going to announce my personal top three magazines of the year. It’s an individual selection, and entirely dependent on my mood at the moment of writing.

Though quite different in subject matter, what they have in common is an ability to make my brain expand and my fingers tingle when I turn the pages. No perspex blocks or shiny designer trophys will be handed out, only my respect and admiration.

And of course, there’s been the iPad. We’re in its early stages, but Letter to Jane, The New Yorker, Flipboard, Mag+ and my favourite mainstream magazine app of the year, The Times’ Eureka point to some fascinating new strides in publishing on their way very shortly. I haven’t written too much about iPad publications on Magtastic this year, a function of real-life preoccupations rather than a philosophical standpoint. That will change, quite significantly, early in 2011 – but not here. More on that very soon.

Recession be damned. It’s been a heck of year, and I’d like to say a big thank you to everyone who has shared their projects with me. Here’s to an even bolder, better year for contemporary storytelling in 2011. As I said in my intro to Turning Pages, this is truly The Golden Age of Print.

So what did I miss out?

(Image: an Indigo digital printing press by HP)

The last ten years or so has been a remarkable time for personal publishing. The rise of online is very well documented; however, we’ve also seen a huge reduction in the barriers to entry for self-publishing in print.

Desktop publishing software has become affordable (or even free), print-on-demand suppliers such as Lulu and MagCloud now remove much of the financial risk of short-run creations, and The Newspaper Club has made newsprint available to everyone. All you need is some design knowhow, and some words.

If you’re an adventurous designer who wants to experiment with such media, the only question is: where does the content come from? If you’re a designer who also blogs, however, then you already have access to plenty of your own content to play with.

Lineread is a terrific compilation of Michael Bojkowski’s always-excellent Linefeed blog. He’s experimented with Lulu and more recently MagCloud to republish some of his postings, taking advantage of the full-colour format to integrate the graphic stylings of his subjects in a far more magazine-y way. Each one reads as a commentary on that year’s design, and stands alone from the blog, while also promoting it. Blog comments are also occasionally integrated as well. iPad owners can read the last two editions for free via the MagCloud app, while a new issue seems to be in the works.

Elsewhere, I realized recently that I hadn’t yet told my faithful flock to get MagCulture.com/PAPER (don’t try going to that URL though – it doesn’t exist). It’s Jeremy’s fun reimagining of his fantabulous blog. That was remiss of me, because it’s a lovely piece of design, as one of course would expect.

I mislaid my copy in a recent house move, but my recollection of it is as a piece that leaves you hungry for more; it doesn’t feel as strong as Lineread a standalone piece (I sometimes felt a pang for bigger photographs to illustrate many of the articles, and also missed some of the comment discussions that had taken place on his site) – but it’s a fantastic taster of a great blog for those who don’t yet know of it, and a fond remixed souvenir for us many and avid readers.

Sidenote: as a newspaper, it will ironically probably not last as long as the more-ephemeral-feeling blogposts, a neat irony courtesy of The Newspaper Club. Beautifully printed, though. Grab one here (pics borrowed from Magculture.com.)

Non-bloggers can always find content elsewhere, without the tricky business of having to ask permission for reproduction. Found magazine began in 2001 as a zine, and has since spawned glossy mags and books, curating and reprinting entertaining, often disturbing found material – mostly letters and photographs – all discovered completely out of context.

With an unsubtle nod to its American inspiration, Swiss magazine Faund offers image-based, internet-sourced compilations from guest editors on different themes, kind of a print version of the hypnotic fffound from a parallel, and terrifying, dimension.

Or you could commission amateur photographers to make content for you. Via eBay. As long as they wear your web address.

Room Service is one of my favourite magazines of the year so far for its simplicity and dark edge. It contains (with the exception of an editor’s letter at the back) nothing but eBay listings of auctions of people who offered themselves, their babies, their bald heads, or their skin as advertising space. Each auction that Room Service won insisted on the same conditions: the self-advertisement must contain the web address of the magazine itself, and they must photograph themselves wearing it in various situations.

So perhaps Room Service is the ultimate in delegated content generation: a magazine that advertises nothing but itself, and contains only images of and by those who have been paid to advertise it. Apparently, the first issue cost about $2,000 in bidding and associated costs. Their Twitter feed suggests a second issue is in the works – at least two people have already been tattooed for it. You can read an interview with Jacco Kranenburg, the creator of this Real Life Transactions magazine, here.

The November issue of Spanish Elle is trumpeting “12 famous women without Photoshop or make up” – four of them are featured on the cover.

They promise videos to come of the Making Of – which will presumably reveal the use of heavy-duty studio flash, and, in order to get those backgrounds appearing identical, colour correction.

We’ve seen all this before, many times. I’m not the first to point this out, but a sense of perspective among all this holier-than-thou, please. You may not be able to remove pimples in camera with a swipe of a clone tool, but you can sure make them all but invisible with the right studio and camera set up, if you know what you’re doing. Photoshop and make up are not the only tools we have, they’re just the ones that we’ve made the public feel angry about.

Q: What do you get if you cross the internet and magazines?
A: Ivan Pope.

Pope is a former zinester who created the world’s first internet magazine, The World Wide Web Newsletter (later 3W Magazine), in 1993. He later went on to help launch the first consumer magazine about the web, .net, and also invented the cybercafé as part of an installation at the ICA in London.

He’s now turned his entrepreneurial zeal to creating Magazero, an online magazine store dedicated to “gathering the best, freshest, strangest, most inaccessible, juciest, loveliest independent magazines from around the world and bringing them into your life.”

Magtastic talked to him about the future of magazine selling, setting up a competitor to Stack, and the glory of the magazine ecosystem.

What made you want to set up an online magazine shop?
I’ve wanted to open a magazine shop for about fifteen years now. In the nineties, I had an internet business with an office in New York (domain names; I sort of invented that industry). I used to spend a lot of time there and one thing I loved were the magazine shops with floor to ceiling racks of every magazine you could imagine. I always thought it would be a great thing to open something similar in the UK.

I have a background in fine art and publishing, so I was always more interested in the independent and creative end of mag publishing. I never did anything about opening such a shop, but last year I realised that since Borders had closed, there was nowhere for me to go and browse the independent sector. So it just sort of happened. 

The name just came from thinking about the subject. I’m always keen on memorable names that have some relation to the business – and the domain name has to be available!
 
Why don’t mainstream shops stock independent magazines? 
It is a two-way street. The traditional newsagent distribution network is a dreadful, historic monopoly and most newsagents only stock the top sellers. There’s never going to be space for more than a few independents and I think the mags themselves have to think laterally a bit. Even Borders only stocked a smallish subset of the available mags.

Of course, some mags are brilliant at ferretting out retailers, and there are some outstanding stockists out there. But on the whole I just don’t think enough effort has been made historically to get the right mags to the right stores.

Is there still a future for a vibrant bricks-and-mortar magazine shop?
I love the idea of bricks-and-mortar magazine shops and I’ve always wanted to open one (or a few), probably with a coffee shop integrated.

I’m a fan of the mag nation shops and also of Motto and Do You Read Me?! – I’m hoping to make a world tour of magazine shops early next year as part of my research and then think deeply about it.

In the meantime, I intend to take the shop in physical form to various markets and festivals, both to sell stock and to publicise the brand. It’s a sort of halfway house to having a real store – and along the way I’ll learn about how to sell this stuff.
 
What makes your selection unique?
My aim is to create an online browsable shop that stocks as many independent magazines as I can lay my hands on.

I don’t really have any strict criteria. Although I throw the term ‘independent’ around a lot, I would not hesitate to carry magazines that are not strictly independent – and I believe that all magazines have a duty to be hugely ambitious, though this often kills them.

I believe that it is the richness and variety of the magazines that I stock that will bring success. My aim is to find magazines that are not really known or widely available, and to stock them. Then I have to bring them to the attention of potential buyers – that’s marketing. I take the view that there is a huge untapped market for magazines, and that work I undertake to bring mags to the attention of new buyers will be repaid.

I have an initial target of stocking 300 mags, which I think I’ll hit by the end of next year. It’s a slow business, but at the moment I am in the very early stages of building a system, a brand, customers, the lot. It can’t be done overnight – largely as each magazine has to be sourced separately.

That of course is a difficulty and a benefit. Each magazine that is unique to me brings me in new customers. I hope that when the shop is filled, when I hit a certain volume, I’ll be able to identify how and why people buy certain magazines, and to encourage them to buy more.

I see this as a two-way street. I’m here to bring magazines to consumers, but I’m also here to help publishers find new markets. If we can work together, much is possible. It’s hardly a secret that many wonderful independent magazines are run by people who are not that interested in marketing them – if I can help with that, it will make me happy. 

How many of each title do you keep in stock?
It’s early days, so I only keep a small amount of each magazine in stock. But I hope to increase this rapidly as I reach out to my markets. There is an interesting issue here that relates to the historic method of distribution (I started my internet entrepreneurial life as the publisher of a magazine in 1993, so I’ve seen this from both sides). I can take every magazine that, for example, Central distributes, on sale or return. And I can take more than I can sell without risk. So, of course, I will stock everything that Central distributes.

But I would rather buy direct from the publishers and pay them cash without an option for return. To do this, I need to understand what I can sell. Also, I need to be prepared to carry stock, back issues, until they find a buyer. Maybe I need to discount stock, things like that. Over time, I hope that I can build relationships with the publishers that are valuable on both sides, that allow a more logical method of distribution. That is, of course, an ambitious hope, but the internet holds out certain possibilities in this regard. 
 
Do you hope to make this your main profession?
It is a serious business proposition and I believe it has a lot of potential. I am already seeing orders from around the world, which encourages me.

I don’t expect it to make money for a while, but things are encouraging so far. I think the marketplace for magazines is certainly big enough to support the business, and the numbers are large enough so long as I can be efficient in my practices. 

What title would you love to stock that you currently don’t?
As I mentioned, I have a lot of titles that I intend to stock over the coming year. I have a fast growing database of titles, though of course some are more interesting to me than others. I’m very excited by too many magazines to mention, but among others I hope to have Teller, Post Modern Ink, Eat Me, Tickl, Incongrous Quarterly, Letter to Jane and roomservice available in doublequick time.
 
You mention on your site that you’re about to start Magazine Club subscriptions, similar to Stack. Is serendipity rather than loyalty the future of magazine buying?
I love Stack and it was one of the inspirations to actually get this thing up and running. I think I sort of thought, I wish I’d done that. Then I thought, hey, just get on with it.

I think there are many ways that need to be tried to get people consuming more mags, to get things in front of them. To me, Magazine Club will be a way of creating connections between the publishers and the consumers with a range of ideas and offers to put in front of members. I am keen to try random subscriptions of various kinds.

I think one problem magazines have with loyalty is that they often have long gaps between issues and the buyers either have to chance on them in a store or buy a subscription. So I’d like to fill in the gaps by creating regular mixed subscriptions, things like that. Serendipity is certainly a huge part of the mix – who would ever go out looking for It’s Nice That or Fire & Knives, for example? But once you’ve found one, often you yearn for more things like it. 

I also think we could do some work on defining what a magazine actually is. We think we know, but of course most people don’t have a good idea of where a quality indie mag fits in their lives. So I’d like Magazine Club to talk about how magazines fit, how they are not books and not newspapers and not websites, but somehow transcend all of those things, to create a more specific need in the buyer.

I also think it is incumbent on us to talk up the whole idea of quality magazine publishing to the press, to create stories that get the word out. The music business does this constantly, but the magazine business is sort of hidden from view to a degree. So I would like to be part of a movement that creates a new generation of buyers, and hopefully a new generation of publishers (if that is necessary, possibly not!).
 

Describe your perfect magazine.
I often buy magazines and don’t read any of them at all. My perfect magazine is a package that attracts me, something lush and arty but not too lush and not too designed. The content offers up the potential for finding out something new about the world, maybe gives me an opening, an opportunity to participate or create something of my own.

My perfect magazine is maybe a bit like a book only it’s not a book, it’s disposable but I won’t dispose of it. It would maybe contain a crosssection of the books on my bookshelf, some art, some architecture, some history, something about literature, great images. Maybe it’s unsettling or freaky, but not unpleasant.

I always thought Re/Search publications were magazines. I have some issues of Atlas magazine, which came with bits and pieces attached, I loved that mix. 

Anything you’d like to add?
It’s a great ride, I’m loving every minute of it so far! My view is this: to the publisher, editor, funders and staff of every indidvidual magazine, the survival of that mag is paramount and they pour their souls into it, which is just as it should be.

But to me, I can’t get too invested in any single magazine. To me the glory is the magazine ecosystem in total, the glorious life cycle, births and deaths of all the magazines. In total, they seem like a representation of all that is good in the world. Some will always fade away just as others will always be created. That’s what I love, the entirety of it.

Magazero currently offers a coupon worth 25% off all magazines here. UPDATE: coupon has now expired.

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)

Back in 2006, Steven Meisel shot a politically themed fashion shoot for Vogue Italia featuring models accused of being terrorists. The following year, he sent models to war and then to rehab.

Now he’s back in the pages of 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, for me – in the context of the top-selling September issue of a leading Italian fashion magazine, it’s all 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.

The story behind Time magazine’s striking front cover
They started to protect her before it hit the newsstand.

Foto8 has a great summer subscription offer
My favourite independent photojournalism mag has a neat offer on right now: buy a subscription as a gift, get one for yourself free.

A potential new direction for magazines and video
I’m not blown away by what is essentially a slow video, but I do feel that there’s something there… I just don’t know what yet.

How to successfully use Kickstarter to fund your project
Plenty of publications have been using Kickstarter to fund projects – I’ll write about that in more detail someday – but I’ve never seen as much research into it as Craig Mod has done. Essential reading for those considering crowdsourcing solutions (via Jean Snow)

In defence of Apple
Exact Editions’ Adam Hodgkin refutes some of the “Apple doesn’t allow subscriptions” stories.

Memo to prospective freelancers
Village Voice editor asks writers to grow a thicker skin (via FishbowlNY)

How to shoot a cover with an iPhone
Including some post production (via MagCulture)