The STACK Blog
Little White Lies double bill
Monday, May 21st, 2012
The latest Little White Lies is a special split issue, with two front covers inspired by two new movies – The Raid and The Innkeepers. It’s presented as a tribute to the midnight movie double bills of grindhouse cinema, and both films sit comfortably in the tradition of movie shock and gore.
By sacrificing a back page advert they’ve created two magazines in one, with two front covers, two sets of features and two reviews sections that meet in the middle. The concept gives plenty of space for playing with ideas of doubling and inversion, and as you’d expect from White Lies it’s quite beautifully done; soft drink cans appear as recurring images on both sides of the magazine (they presumably crop up in both films) and the phrase “You’re not here to do good” is pulled out to refer to both movies.
But even more striking than the design is the issue’s display of virtuoso review writing by editor Matt Bochenski and reviews editor David Jenkins. They take a film each and launch into their reviews with the sort of eloquent, impassioned gusto that you just don’t seem to see in other film writing.
In his praise of The Raid, Bochenski concedes that, “It may not be one for film Cathoics, for those who see cinema as a silent communion with the gods. But for anyone who yearns for the participatory thrill of the movies, Evans has created an unmissable event…”
Meanwhile, in concluding his review of The Innkeepers, Jenkins classifies director Ti West’s films as, “assiduously sculpted monoliths that remind us of a time when horror cinema was more than just colliding tsunamis of screaming, pus and tits.”
They’re well-written reviews, but they’re more than that – they’re evidence of a film magazine that has something urgent to say about the state of cinema. At the time of writing the team are over in Cannes hobnobbing, drinking and watching the occasional film, and you can see what they make of it all by following their live blog.
Magazines and cake
Friday, May 18th, 2012Lots of people who couldn’t squeeze into the last Printout asked for a video of the night, and now that Tom the cameraman has finished his edit it’s ready for public consumption.
To celebrate the young life of Printout (it was our first birthday) we asked magazine luminaries to talk about their favourite dead titles. Patrick Burgoyne from Creative Review picked London Life, Liz Bennett of Oh Comely talked about Young Writer, Steven Gregor of Gym Class Magazine chose Butt and Simon Esterson of Eye went for Spy. It was great to hear their different ideas on what makes magazines special, and of course the magazine library was full of great titles from all over the world.
And there was a massive cake.
The next Printout will happen at the start of July – more details on that soon.
Phwoar – IdN does sexy design
Wednesday, May 16th, 2012
The new issue of IdN should be on shelves over here very soon, and it’s sure to be a popular one. Dedicated to the ‘visual orgasm’, it travels the world talking to design experts about the pros and cons of using sex to spice up your work.
The spread above by Mumbai’s Denzil & Siddhi is one of the tamer ones I saw – check out the online teaser mag in all its fleshy, squirty glory if you want to see more.
Day Job tease
Wednesday, May 9th, 2012
Yesterday saw the surprise arrival of Day Job Magazine – issue zero. Printed on newsprint, it’s a sneak peak of a new magazine due out next month.
Based in New York, “Day Job is a magazine for anyone who has ever had a job they’ve loved, a job they’ve hated, a life-long calling or a way to make an easy buck.”
Their lead story is a piece on The Putnam Rolling Ladder Co, a family-owned business run out of multi-million dollar real estate in New York’s Soho. Their affection for this obstinate, small-time operation running out of a neighbourhood filled with luxury designers and multinational corporations suggests that Day Job is going to be the magazine of the underdog and the everyman.
Similarly, their piece on the Brooklyn Cyclones minor-league baseball team sheds a light on the journeyman teams that occasionally feed stars into the major leagues of a sport that is itself fading in popularity compared to basketball and American football.
I’m really looking forward to seeing what they do with their first full issue. There are lots of business to business magazines about the workplace – it’s high time an independent publisher took a crack at the subject. If you feel the same you can help them by pledging on Kickstarter (and you can watch a nice video there too).
Broken Britain
Monday, May 7th, 2012
The new issue of Article is out now, and it’s the first one to carry a cover price. Previously available for free in select shops, bars and other places around the north, this issue comes in a slightly smaller package that feels more compact, more focused… more professional even.
Editors Alasdair and Ben have taken ‘Broken’ as their theme for the issue, a fact announced in striking fluorescent orange on the first spread. Article has always made strong use of single colours, but whereas the whole magazine used to be printed in black and white with specific sections picked out in a highlight, this issue is full colour throughout. They’ve even thrown in a couple of different types of paper for good measure.
Don’t think they’ve suddenly gone all slick though – type is run across the edges of pages, blocks of text over pictures become semi-illegible, and pages are filled with close-set copy, as if they can’t fit all they want to say on the page.
Anyone familiar with Article’s take on art and urbanism will know what to expect from the Broken issue. They’re still outraged at the giant hole in the middle of Bradford where developers have failed to rebuild what they knocked down; they’re exasperated at the superficial attempts to rebrand Britain’s second string towns and cities; they’re indignant at the jingoistic hypocrisy of The Sun and the Daily Mail.
It’s angry and impassioned, but this is no naive student project lost in its own disgust at ‘the man’. From the start the editorial notes that broken isn’t always bad, and instead of just ranting at modern ills it spends a good deal of time looking at what broken actually means.
My favourite story is the interview with artist Jeremy Hutchinson, whose latest project saw him emailing factories all over the world and asking them to sell him a single product with a deliberate defect, as designed by the worker who made the product. It’s a wonderful idea that raises all sorts of questions about consumer culture, the people who supply that culture, and the way we judge success and failure. The project is dealt with entirely seriously, but with the humour that its absurd aims demand.
Other stand out stories include a piece on the Wasteland Twinning project, which aims to twin pieces of wasteland around the world in the same way that European towns and cities were twinned after the war.
And an interview with Bill Drummond, following the artist’s rules for the Twenty Five Intervews #2 sculpture (from now until his death the artist will give 25 interviews, each of which will consist of four questions, none of them having been asked in previous interviews).
There’s a feeling of smart rebelliousness to it all and I love it. Article feels like it’s growing up while staying very much in touch with the urgent anger that I liked so much in the first issue I saw. I really hope this first paid issue sells well and sets them up for more to come – it feels like they’ve got plenty left to say.
Web pro, print lover
Thursday, May 3rd, 2012
The last few months have seen the launch of a couple of print magazines made by web design professionals – The Manual is made by Belfast-based Andy McMillan, while Offscreen comes from the Melbourne desk of freelance web designer Kai Brach. There are lots of differences between the titles but both are beautifully made, using a wonderful physical object to discuss the theory and practice of web design.
I wanted to understand a bit more about the thought process that leads a web designer into print, so I fired a few questions off to Kai and he replied with a set of really illuminating, insightful answers. From the willingness of big publishers to be led by tech companies, to his own use of InDesign online tutorials to piece a magazine together, he presents a useful way of thinking about the differences between print and digital.
Boat does London
Monday, April 30th, 2012
The third issue of Boat came out last week and it’s another belter. Their first issue (on Sarajevo) reproduced a short story by Dave Eggers, their second (on Detroit) included a piece written specially for them by Jeffrey Eugenides, and this issue (on London) has stepped it up again with pieces by Nick Hornby, Jon Ronson and Lee Rourke amongst others.
I can’t think of any other small independents that manage to keep on pulling in the big name literary talent, but that might have something to do with the fact that this magazine isn’t about them. This isn’t a literary magazine – it’s a magazine that literary people want to appear in.
That might be because Boat gives them space to write about their home city – a subject close to most people’s hearts. It might be because it’s run by Davey and Erin, two very nice people whose enthusiasm for their magazine is infectious. And it might be because, unlike most other editors and creative directors, Davey and Erin don’t mind running work that wasn’t created specifically for their magazine.
In other places that’s thought of as a bad thing, but here it doesn’t matter. There are no egos at Boat magazine, so if a piece of writing helps them to build their picture of a city, it goes in. Simple. (Jon Ronson’s piece had been written before but not published, but of course the majority of the magazine was commissioned for them, like this piece by D’Arcy Doran and Elizabeth Dalziel.)
Issue three builds on what went before but it also sees a bit of a departure for the magazine, because whereas before they’ve been outsiders in a strange city, this time they’re at home. Erin’s welcome letter plays on the fact that she’s not from London, but she’s by no means an outsider so the team have shifted their focus and dealt with the idea that no matter how long you’ve lived in London, you’ll never know it in its entirety.
The result is a kaleidoscope of Londons; a fantastic mishmash of people united by nothing other than the city they live in. It ranges out across the whole of the city and yet it feels very personal; it presents views and perspectives I’ve never seen in 10 years of living here, and yet it all feels pleasantly familiar.
Summing the whole thing up, I’d say that the Boat view of London is about difference – whether dealing with trainers or community activism, market stalls or views from the top deck of decommissioned bus routes (above, one of my favourite photo stories in the magazine). That difference can often be a source of conflict, but Boat contains it and presents it in its own world, and in doing so presents another totally unique view of a city.
Magazine publishing with the Guardian
Thursday, April 26th, 2012Are you thinking about starting a magazine? If so you might be interested in the Guardian’s Masterclass on the future of print and digital magazines, happening at Kings Place on Thursday 21 June.
Danny Miller, managing director of The Church of London, will be on hand to talk about the business of making money from independent publishing.
Digital media consultant Alan Rutter will be talking about tablet publishing, based on his experience working on Conde Nast’s stable of iPad magazines.
And I’ll be there too, going over some of the most interesting ways I’ve seen of flogging magazines recently.
It’s the first time the Guardian has run an event based on magazines and I’m really looking forward to it. With a bit of luck we’ll be able to offer some useful advice, and I’ve got my fingers crossed that we’ll see some brilliant new magazines in the making too.
