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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)

Vogue Itoilia

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)

Even if what I wrote over here is true, and Ready-Media is only aiming for the lowest end of the marketplace, what about the principle of the thing? What about the potential threat to designers’ jobs from the introduction of template-based print design? What if it’s a slippery slope?

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(Image by the Clippy Image Generator)

The design-related Blogotweetspheroid has been bubbling with bile at new venture Ready-Media, a creation of Satan and his minions well-known designers/typographers Roger Black, Eduado Danilo, Sam Berlow, Robb Rice and David Berlow.

I’ve not commented until now, as I’ve been trying to get my head around the controversy. Here’s how it looks to me, and you might not like it.

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Things your iPad can’t do number 3,448: Print in human blood.

Yep, there seems to be a trend occurring with two different stories in today’s RSS feed: a Swedish (where else?) black metal band uses human blood to silkscreen its posters, and an opening page in Sachin Tendulkar’s limited edition 37kg opus is made using some of his.

It’s not the first time this has happened – KISS mixed their blood with red ink for a comic book about them in 1977. As a commenter on this cover image points out, this is probably the only comic book that could one day be used to clone the characters featured within.

Next up: probably a gimmicky ad for HBO series True Blood that I really don’t want to go near. Yuck.

Like a few other new publications in recent months, issue zero of Kill Screen (“The Maturity Issue”) was successfully funded through Kickstarter.

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