September 2007
The Archives
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On the racks
Listening to Clomid
It has been proven beyond all reasonable doubt that paper is dying medium. But in the meantime, just try to find a publishing niche that isn’t being filled by one or more glossies. Submitted in evidence: Conceive, The Magazine for Couples Who Get it On, But Can’t Bring it On Home. (Ok, that’s not really [...]
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On the racks
French Press
Being ignorant of languages other that my mother tongue (Ubbi Dubbi) I can’t wax too poetic about the delicate interplay of editorial and visual voice in L’actualité, but I can say that I was intrigued by the look and attitude of the French-Canadian news magazine. Unlike Time, Newsweek, The Economist and other newsweeklies, which have [...]
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New Launches
Faux Pas Only
09.24.07 | Permalink | 2 CommentsIf you’re one of the legion of bubbling under-the-hot-100 magazine designers (in other words, not a DD at Condé Nast, Time, Inc., or thems like that there) you may well have heard of FPO sometime in the last year or so. It’s been some time in the making but the magazine launches soon. Editor/Publisher Rob [...]
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On the racks
Uh, not so much, really
09.21.07 | Permalink | 2 CommentsMean is not new, but all of a sudden it’s everywhere—including my campus bookstore which is usually a pretty good indicator of a title’s entry into the mainstream—even if it’s the mainstream counter-culture. B&N doesn’t mess around with also-rans on a rack as small as that one. I thought from its ironically self-aware title (I [...]
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Misc.
Blunt Edge
09.19.07 | Permalink | 5 CommentsGreat magazine designs are all great in their own ways, but crummy magazines are all the same—or at least make many of the same visual mistakes as lots of other crummy magazines. Young Money, a case in point, is dropped onto campuses every Fall in staggering quantities in the hopes of inducing students to join [...]
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Off the racks
Free Press
09.17.07 | Permalink | 2 CommentsBack when Alt-weeklies still seemed like a growth industry, it wasn’t uncommon for people to try the same dump-it-in-stores-for-free-live-off-the-ad revenue business model with a product that looked more like a city magazine than a yuppified underground paper. Most had short text, dense pages and an over-sized format, which meant they didn’t pace in a very [...]
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The Stacks
When men were men
09.15.07 | Permalink | 2 CommentsI’ve just come across Norman Saunders’ online collection of pulp magazines from the 1950s and ’60s. All I have to say is that the men’s titles must be seen to be believed. Hot babes and Nazis, Nazis torturing hot babes, and hot babes who are Nazis torturing U.S. Soldiers seem to be the predominant theme[s]. [...]
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Misc.
Playing Tag
Graffiti enjoyed it’s first major group shows in the 1970s at the MCA in Chicago and MoMA in NY. In the 1980’s graffiti artists Keith Herring and tagger Jean-Michel Basquiat gained national prominence as fine artists. Street art seemed destined for recognition as—if not the conventional way to high-culture stardom—at least one way talented young [...]
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Redesigns
New Basics
09.10.07 | Permalink | 2 CommentsSomewhere around the time of Designing Magazine’s third post, the blog was damned with faint praise by a British observer who described it as well-written but U.S.-centric. This, I must admit, made me think of the old joke about a hard-drinkin’ bear (Bear walks into a tavern and orders a drink. Bartender eyes him suspiciously [...]
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On the racks
Sweet Tart
I came across the third issue of Lemon the other day, a very cool independent about the size of an LP. Part of the new wave of independents with high production values, this issue impressed me because, like it’s namesake fruit, it’s making something pretty good out a sour topic—at least to my mind. The [...]
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On the racks
Strutting
A couple of weeks ago, I posted a piece about His and Her’s, an intriguing albeit poor attempt to create a gender magazine (ala Maxim or Cosmo) for both sexes. A few days later, I left town for a Montreal vacation confident I had said everything about sexual healing in print…. Then I found Strut [...]
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New Launches
Tuned out
09.03.07 | Permalink | 2 CommentsConsidering the runaway success of Cargo magazine, it was inevitable that someone would attempt another shopping magazine for men. Antenna bravely enters the arena, positioned as the shopper for guys too hip for shoppers. This shoot-and-miss targeting may seem to represent a problem—people too cool for a magazine won’t read it—but it’s actually here where [...]
Designing Magazines
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