Five excellent videos of magazines being made

by Steve Watson in May 2014

Earlier this week I saw the video by Ernest of their first issue being printed, and it reminded me how completely ingenious and weirdly clunky the whole printing process is.

Compared to the friction-free brilliance of opening a file on a retina screen it seems ridiculously old fashioned to have to roll sheets of paper over different colours, then make them hot, then cool them down, then cut them up, then glue them together… all the time moving them from one bit of a big noisy shed to another.

In fact the same could be said for the whole process of making magazines – it’s such a labour-intensive, stressful thing to do, and yet also one of the best things, as the following five videos attest. There are tons of these videos out there; if you’ve got a favourite I missed, let me know – I’d love to see it!

Uppercase
Recommended by the Ernest team themselves, this one scores the print process to a nice bit of jaunty music. Watch those sheets fly!

UPPERCASE issue 16 on press! from uppercasemag on Vimeo.

Little White Lies
The grandfather of amazing magazine videos, this first effort by Little White Lies was followed by many brilliant others (check the On the Road or Lawless videos for example) but for my money it remains the best.

Think Quarterly
Made by the Little White Lies team soon after their Black Swan success, this video shows the incredibly intricate process that went into making the People issue of Think Quarterly for Google. Probably one of the best bits of customer publishing, ever.

Boat
A one-off magazine made by Boat for the Derry / Londonderry Capital of Culture last year, this video packs flatplans, editorial changes, We Transfer and editorial changes into two and a half minutes. What more could you ask for?

The Making of Boat Magazine – Special Edition from Boat Studio on Vimeo.

Sweet Spoon
Made by the students at London College of Communication, this video for baking magazine Sweet Spoon shows the full process. I love the intricacy of gluing the covers on and trimming – great to see the automated process meeting an almost handmade level of detail.