INDEPENDENT MAGAZINES

1. Why celebrate independent magazines?
Mike Koedinger: Independent magazines are at the heart of innovation in print media. Their unusual use of freedom of expression promotes excellence in writing, editorial design and visual arts. It’s where the future trends of print media are made.
Jeremy Leslie: Independent magazines are celebrations in their own right, celebrations of the passions and obsessions of their creators. They are creatively- rather than financially-led projects and at their best represent the desire to experiment and develop the magazine form in a way the mainstream is unable to risk.
Andrew Losowsky: An explosion of independent publishing has emerged in recent years. A result of advances in desktop publishing and printing technology, coupled with a fall in the costs of producing a magazine, have led to an unprecedented emergence of independent media all over the world. This emergence of media includes many magazines that are more original, imaginative and serving their audiences better than many mainstream titles. While many people predict the end of magazines, thousands of people around the world are proving otherwise.
Secondly, creating an independent magazine can be a very lonely pursuit. It’s about time that some of the leaders in the field were recognised, and that an event allowed the people behind these magazines to meet, share ideas and cross-pollinate some of their creativity.

2. What is the difference between an independent magazine and a mainstream magazine?
MK: Mainstream media are mostly 100% marketing products, aiming to produce the highest return for investors. Independent magazines are published and produced by the owners themselves. Their motivation is a passion for quality and the expression of their own voice.

3. Where do all these independent magazines come from? Are they a new phenomenon?
MK: Today independent magazines come from all over the world although mature media markets produce more independent publications than, say, African markets. Andy Warhol’s Interview certainly was amongst the pioneers in 1969, but it was only after the influence of British i-D, The Face and Blitz in the eighties, and the revolution of DTP in the early nineties, that the “independent magazine” became a phenomenon.
JL: They are an age-old phenomenon. They are how magazines first began, an experimental new form of media inspired by individual passion. They come from people’s desire to communicate, to have a voice. Many now develop from their creators online presence.
AL: Yes and no – although the desktop publishing phenomenon is a more recent one, the energy behind these magazines is the same as that which brought us fanzines and brings us blogs – a desire to put a distinct voice out there, to be imaginative and creative, and to find an audience. And they come from anywhere and everywhere that someone has a story they want to tell, through the medium of magazines.

4. Who makes independent magazines and why?
MK: Creatives with as many different backgrounds and motivations as there are different magazines. Designers publish magazines as a showcase for their work, mainstream editors and journalists publish independent magazines in search for self-expression, illustrators publish zines to find an audience… for a few it’s a way to get on the guestlists of exclusive cocktail parties, and finally some intend to make a profit from their venture and become fulltime magazine publishers. All good reasons, don’t you think?
JL: Anyone could make a magazine, but they tend to come from people with an element of media experience/engagement: designers, writers, photographers, artists. People who want to promote their passions for a particular subject. For the individuals concerned a magazine is often first made as a trial, an experiment. And they fall in love with the process.

5. Who reads independent magazines, and why?
MK: People looking for inspiration who know where to find it.
JL: To an extent it is a closed world of magazine lovers/collectors. The Colophon crowd – us! Most titles can never hope to reach beyond this small international group of city-based creative types. Magazines have always been ideal for recording and reflecting new creative trends and now the mainstream has become an extension of the PR business the independents provide that under the radar detail.
AL: The same people who consume any other media – that is, anybody who is interested in something in particular. Independent magazine themes range from the economy to fashion, art to saving the planet. Independent magazines often provide a different, original take on the same issues that affect everyone – love, life, money, death.

6. How do independent magazines make enough money to survive?
MK: Most often, they don’t.
JL: They rarely do. That’s the conundrum. Get successful and the pressure to maintain and grow that success can suffocate the original idea as you begin to rely on distributors and their advice. Its not an issue of selling out, its an issue of being directed down the mainstream path. Few have managed to make the balance between creative idea and success work. Unless they’re very lucky, they don’t make money.
AL: Many don’t. Others aren’t profitable, but continue anyway as a hobby. And still others do make money from advertising, sales, distribution, sideline projects – the same as any big media company.

MAGAZINE INDUSTRY

7. Are magazines only ink and paper?
MK: CMYK and RGB have become friends.
JL: In the truest sense, yes magazines can only be a physical item. The language of magazines can be transferred elsewhere but I haven’t yet seen a really successful transfer. I’m sure there is a way of applying the editorial and physical language of the magazine to a digital environment and am excited about some recent developments. But I don’t know if we’ll call them magazines.
AL: No – they’re an edited collection around a theme, appearing in a series of numbered editions. That could be online, downloaded, could be a poster, could be graffitied onto a wall.

8. How much longer do print magazines have left?
MK: Maybe not as long as the human race, but longer than most of us would expect.
JL: Magazines will always exist but the magazine industry as we know it may never be quite the same again. The massive broadening of niche markets over the past decade will contract. There will be fewer publishing companies as the simple quick buck – catch a trend, sell the ads, make a mag – proves no longer viable. But high end and small-run magazines will always exist.
AL: As a medium, I’d say an indefinite amount of time. However, in ten, twenty, fifty years’ time, there will be far fewer than there are now.

9. How is the current financial crisis affecting magazines?
MK: Magazines that depended on advertising will have a difficult time, but many independent magazines are published as bi-annuals or quarterlies, and so might survive a 12-18 months crisis easier than, say, mainstream weeklies.
JL: Mainstream magazines are now suffering very badly as the advertising revenue dries up post credit crunch. Weaker titles are already struggling and the closures have begun. It is the perfect storm scenario: less ad revenue, fewer sales, internet usage soaring, paper prices rising, concerns about the environmental effect of production and recycling being unviable…
AL: Badly. Advertising is down, and as a result, many titles are closing or being put on ice. Others that were once profitable, or close to being so, aren’t any longer. Some say that this is only hurrying the inevitable move to digital; I don’t think we’ve seen the last big magazine launch yet, though.

COLOPHON

10. Who is Colophon aimed at?
MK: Creative people from around the world. Magazine professionals, students and of course magazine-loving readers.
JL: Creative people who enjoy/value the independent magazine.
AL: Everybody who is interested in creativity, imagination and an independent voice.

11. Choose five words to describe Colophon.
MK: Celebrating the independent magazine.
JL: Independent. Enthusiastic. Positive. Social. Sharing.
AL: Creative. Inspiring. Surprising. Networking. Magazines!

12. What did you learn from the first Colophon in 2007?
MK: Among many things, that for the duration of a weekend, the Colophon-crowd can party all night long and still attend about 10 hours of talks a day. Amazing.
JL: I learnt we are not alone – many other people love magazines too.
AL: That creativity breeds more creativity.

13. Why is Colophon different from other graphic design/print industry events?
MK: It’s the mix of the audience. Of course many designers attend the symposium, but you’ll also find publishers, editors, writers, photographers, illustrators, advertisers, professionals from cultural institutions, teachers, students and, last but not least, passionate readers.
JL: Its not a trade show. Exhibitors aren’t trying to sell you digital repro services. Colophon is to mainstream events what the magazines are to their mainstream – the alternative. The people behind it share a love of independent magazines and not a professional conference company. We started it because we wanted to attend it.
The event encompasses design but also covers content.
AL: Because it isn’t set in a giant anonymous hall, filled with paying stands. Because it doesn’t have sponsors leaping over each other to hand you the best freebie. Because it’s created by magazine makers, not professional exhibition organisers. Because it sets its attendees creative challenges. Because it’s all about the magazines. Because of the atmosphere and the people.

PERSONAL

14. What do you look for in a good magazine?
MK: I want it all, but first I want to be surprised. I expect very strong visuals, well-written good stories and interviews, as well as an individual, fresh concept. I like the use of carefully selected paper and of course I do appreciate high-end production, both in printing and binding.
JL: I want a magazine to surprise and engage me, to bridge the gap between familiarity and uniqueness.
AL: A unified purpose in design and content. Thoughtfulness, appreciation of the strengths and weaknesses of the medium. Something that makes me smile, something that shocks me, something that makes me think. Something that forces me to keep that issue in my cupboard, and not add it to the recycling pile. Imagination.

15. Do you have a large collection of magazines? If so, which are your favourites in your collection?
MK: I’ve loved and collected magazines since the eighties, but I’m not a huge collector. I guess I have about 3,000 magazines, including some eighties classics (i-D, The Face, Blitz, Interview, Details, Tempo, Wiener) and of course a large range of today’s best mags. Although I’m a visual person, in the end it’s the magazines that I read that I spend most time with and finally prefer – for example, the Paris-based “Magazine” from Angelo Cirimele and the German “brand eins”.
JL: I have a largish collection. Favourites include a piece of wood called Nice magazine, Econy, early issues of The Face, a copy of Brodovitch’s Portfolio magazine, early Grazia, Fantastic Man, Carls Cars, …
AL: Yes! My favourites vary depending on what’s on my mind at any one time… I love my old Nests and Flairs for their ambition, Portfolio for what it represents, Eros for what it was and what it did, and I have a tube filled with glorious IS/NOTs that will one day wallpaper my toilet.

16. Which current magazines do you enjoy?
JL: Kasino A4, OK Collections, Carl*s Cars, Wired, Fantastic Man, Monocle,
AL: All of the Colophon ten from this year and from 2007! Also, some editions of: Monocle, Wallpaper*, Creative Review, New Yorker, Portfolio, Foto8, UK Esquire, the Economist, Esopus, Fantastic Man, New York, Below the Fold, McSweeney’s, The Believer, Dumbofeather, Lemon, Russia!

17. In no more than 20 words, write what you think will be the future of magazines.
MK: Magazines will always be a source of pleasure and inspiration.
JL: Magazines will continue to be published but the focus will shift from quantity to quality.
AL: It will involve digital, print, ink, paper, hitherto uninvented devices and amazing creativity. Beyond that, I don’t want to know.

February 2009, © Colophon 2009 – International Magazine Symposium

Colophon 2009 Kick Off at Press Conference in Luxembourg with (from left to right): Mayor Paul Helminger, producer and curator Mike Koedinger, Casino Luxembourg Manager Jo Kox and Minister for Communications, Jean-Louis Schiltz. Missing on the picture: Jeremy Leslie (UK) and Andrew Losowsky (USA), the two co-curators.

Colophon is an international biennial which brings together in Luxembourg, during the weekend of March 13 to 15, 2009, a public from around the world to celebrate excellence and innovation in the independent magazine industry.
With a circuit of fifteen exhibitions spread across Luxembourg City and approximately forty hours of conferences, creative roundtables, presentations and workshops, Colophon reaches out to a number of different audiences. The symposium attracts an international crowd hailing from the four corners of the earth. For this second edition, the organisers are planning to transform the entire city for the duration of this one weekend in March. In addition to the symposium, which addresses both professionals and students, the Luxembourg general public and that of the Greater Region will be able to visit the many exhibitions, participate in the daytime workshops intended for children and attend the nightly festivities.
Initiated in 2005 by Mike Koedinger, Jeremy Leslie and Andrew Losowsky— three media professionals—, Colophon was born within the framework of “Luxembourg and the Greater Region, European Capital of Culture 2007” and in collaboration with Casino Luxembourg – Forum d’art contemporain. Its success was instant with visitors coming from 25 different countries.
Political support
“For the City of Luxembourg, its trades people and its cultural players, Colophon 2009 is set to have an important economic impact, because it will be beneficial for consumption, especially if you consider the 2,000 nights of hotel bookings which it will generate,” says Paul Helminger, Mayor of the capital and ‘patron’ to the symposium. “But beyond this economic impact, it is also the positive impact on our brand image and the promotion of the City of Luxembourg throughout the whole world which is of interest to us.” And promotion there certainly will be, because if the event’s main purpose is to celebrate the independent magazine, the magazines return the favour  with gusto with more than one hundred of them offering up an advertising campaign diffused throughout 35 countries of the world at a value of approximately 450,000 €. To this effort can be added the related reports in the international press, newspapers, blogs and digital magazine sites on the Internet.
“It’s an event that perfectly articulates Luxembourg’s ambition to continue developing its role as a centre of excellence for the associated activities of the media and ICT. Colophon is a fresh illustration of the dynamism of the sector and helps to position Luxembourg on a new and promising axis,” declares Jean-Louis Schiltz, Minister for Communications and ‘patron’, within the Government, of the symposium.
“The independent magazine is at the centre of innovation in the written press”, explains Mike Koedinger, initiator and one of the curators. “It is a place of freedom and excellence in creation; where media professionals can express themselves without constraints. It is here that they create for themselves the trends of the international market.”
Exhibition Circuit
As far as the exhibitions go, a veritable circuit is proposed which winds its way through the capital. First stop is the Luxembourg Casino – Forum of contemporary art, to pick up the Colophon programme (10 € including its map of the city and valid entry to all the venues) and to see the first major exhibition “WE MAKE MAGAZINES” which allows you to discover 110 independent magazines, from 30 countries, in interviews, in pictures, and of course, to flip through.
Next, ten cultural venues – from gallery beaumontpublic to the Chapel of the Abbey Neumünster Cultural Arts Centre while passing by the Musée d’Histoire de la Ville de Luxembourg or the kiosk of the AICA — will host the exhibitions for “TEN GUEST MAGAZINES”. From Berlin, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Paris and even from Mexico, these magazines, originating in ten different countries, will appropriate these Luxembourg cultural venues over the period of one weekend. Here one will find, among other things, Sang Bleu (subcultures and tattoos), Good (a magazine “for people who give a damn”), Kasino A4 (melancholic magazine), Volume (architectural project) or BabyBabyBaby (contemporary cultures).
Direction Mudam for “BEYOND KIOSK – MODES OF MULTIPLICATION” where Christoph Keller assembles 500 selected publications originating from his archives of 6,500 artists’ books, magazines, videos and catalogues. This itinerant and evolutionary show presents “the most relevant independent editions of contemporary art” and has been shown in twenty institutions since 2001. For its passage in Luxembourg, the installation of the publications is entrusted to Italian designer Martino Gamper.
Next, drop in at Extrabold to see the installation of Australian magazine SNEAKER FREAKER before going to the Carré Rotondes for the two “Luxembourg” exhibitions. DESIGN BACKSTAGE where the Design Luxembourg association is showing samples of work from a score of its members to demonstrate the importance of design beyond its aesthetic aspect. “Good design solves problems and adds value to products and services,” underlines president Guido Wolf. And to finish, tribute to CAFÉ CRÈME, the first international magazine published in Luxembourg. “During our ten years of existence, from 1986 to 1995, we displayed the work of approximately 150 contemporary photographers,” explains Paul di Felice and Pierre Stiwer, the founders of Café Crème.
All the exhibitions will be open throughout the weekend, but they can also be visited during the NIGHT OF THE MAGAZINE Friday March 13 when all the locations will welcome visitors until 10 PM, after which the party continues at the Carré Rotondes.
The symposium
A hyper intensive programme encompassing forty hours of presentations and discussions spread out over the three days of the symposium in two distinct spaces at the Luxembourg Casino – Forum of contemporary art.
And just like any real magazine, the symposium will be informative and diverting at the same time. Thus, it will propose many formats: panel discussions, lectures, on stage interviews-dialogues, Pecha Kucha presentations (presenting an idea in 20 images, each one has the screen for no more, and no less, than 20 seconds) or markets for photography portfolios and graphic illustration that bring together a hundred creatives.
And how, with all these magazine lovers united in one place, could they not want to launch the creation of a new magazine together? The three curators take up the challenge and invite the public to collaborate and carry out, together, a 100 page magazine over the course of the three days. To facilitate this, a “newspaper office – graphic studio” workshop will be installed at the Casino Luxembourg and, through periodic multiple briefings, the missions will be given out to interested parties. At the symposium closing, during a ceremony with the participation of Minister Jean-Louis Schiltz, the digital version of the magazine will be shown on the big screen at the Philharmonie.
To prolong the pleasure, a film cycle dedicated to media is on the programme at the Municipal Cinematheque during the month of March, and a kiosk of magazines of the world will be installed at the Luxembourg Casino in collaboration with Fellner Art Books.
In spite of the fact that the financing is not yet entirely in place, Mike Koedinger remains optimistic a few weeks before the event: “We have succeeded in gaining the confidence of the Government, of the City of Luxembourg, and of many cultural institutions and private cultural players as well as private partners. We have succeeded in getting all its actors to collaborate in making Luxembourg the place of excellence to accommodate this international event. And today we ask that Colophon be perennialised to become ‘Colophon – International Independent Magazine Biennial’ in Luxembourg.”
Colophon 2009 – International Magazine Symposium from March 13 to 15, 2009 in Luxembourg City across fifteen venues. Programme detailed and updated regularly, information and inscriptions here

At Colophon 2009, ten exhibitions will be dispatched all over the City of Luxembourg showing ten of the best and astonishing international magazines in then air now.

AICA Luxembourg

» Kasino A4 (Finland)

Place de Bruxelles, Kiosk
Opening hours : Fri., Sat. and Sun. from 10.00 a.m. to 10.00 p.m. Outdoor exhibition.

Beaumontpublic + königbloc

» Volume (Netherlands)

21A, av. Gaston Diderich
Opening hours : Fri. from 12.00 a.m. to 10.00 p.m.
Sat .14th from 12.00 a.m. to 6.00 p.m. and Sun. from 2.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m.

Centre Culturel de Rencontre Abbaye de Neumünster

» La Más Bella (Spain)

28, rue Münster
Opening hours : Fri. from 11.00 a.m. to 10.00 p.m.
Sat. and Sun. from 11.00 a.m. to 6.00 p.m.

Cinémathèque Municipale de la Ville de Luxembourg

» IdN (China)

17, place du Théâtre

Opening hours : Fri.– Sat. from 6.00 p.m. – 10.00 p.m.
Sun. from 12.00 a.m. to 10.00 p.m.
+ Special Media Movies Cycle Opening Mon. 9th March at 6.00 p.m.

Fondation de l’Architecture et de l’Ingénierie

» GOOD (USA)

1, rue de l’Aciérie
Opening hours : Fri. from 10.00 a.m. to 10.00 p.m.

Sat .14th from 10.00 a.m. to 6.00 p.m. and Sun. from 2.00 p.m. to 5.00 p.m.

Galerie Nordine Zidoun

» Sang Bleu (Switzerland)

101, rue Adolphe Fischer
Opening hours : Fri. from 10.00 a.m. to 10.00 p.m.
Sat. from 10.00 a.m. to 6.00 p.m. And Sun. from 2.00 p.m. to 5.00 p.m.

Konschthaus beim Engel

» Nuke (France)

1, rue de la Loge
Opening hours : Fri. from 10.00 a.m. to 10.00 p.m. (close between 12.00 and 13.00)
Sat. 10.00 a.m. to 6.00 p.m.(close between 12.00 and 13.00), Sun. 2.00 p.m. to 5.00 pm.

Galerie d’art Lucien Schweitzer

» Karen (UK)

24 Av., Monterey
Opening hours : Fri. from 10.00 a.m. to 10.00 p.m.

Sat. 14th from 10.00 a.m. to 6.00 pm. and Sun. 15th from 2.00 pm. to 5.00 p.m.

Musée d’Histoire de la Ville de Luxembourg, « Annexe »

» BabyBabyBaby (Mexico)

14, rue du Saint-Esprit

Opening hours : Fri. 10.00 a.m. – 10.00 p.m.

Sat. and Sun. from 10.00 a.m. – 6.00 p.m.

Nosbaum & Reding Art Contemporain

» Liebling (Germany)

4, rue Wiltheim

Opening hours : Fri. from 12.00 a.m. to 6.00 p.m.

Sat .14th from 12.00 a.m. to 6.00 p.m. and Sun. from 2.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m.

Zona de Obras is a working team specialized in developing musical and cultural activities. It has an extensive team of collaborators in the main cities of Ibero-America and Europe. It is one of the most prestigious graphic design firms in Spain in subjects related to music and Latin American culture.

Colophon is delighted to welcome Zona de Obras as a media partner of the event in 2009!

More info about Zona de Obras, click here

Help yourself and take our new Colophon’s 2009 banner for your blog at:

buzzparadise

Thanks to Vanksen for that!

More info about Vanksen

We are delighted to welcome White Fungus as a new media partner of Colophon!

White Fungus is an experimental arts magazine based in Wellington, Aotearoa, New Zealand. Produced by a collective of artists, writers and designers, White Fungus is an ongoing experiment in community media art.

As the spores have been released, its creators look forward to seeing which way the wind blows. The only thing more uncertain than its future is its past.

Read our interview.

]]> http://blog.welovecolophon.com/a-strange-chinese-mushroom/feed/ 2 http://blog.welovecolophon.com/nico-the-european-art_/ http://blog.welovecolophon.com/nico-the-european-art_/#comments Tue, 26 Aug 2008 06:20:00 +0000 admin http://blogs.mikekoedinger.com/colophon/?p=13 Nico Magazine was selected and chose two artists reflecting the young artistic scene of Luxembourg: Su-Mei Tse and Marco Godinho. For the French Presidence of the European Union and the European cultural season in France, Fabrice Bousteau – Editor in Chief of Beaux Arts Magazine- had invited the best magazines coming from Europe to take part to the exhibition L’Art en Europe at the Domaine Pommery in Reims. Nico Magazine was selected and chose two artists reflecting the young artistic scene of Luxembourg: Su-Mei Tse and Marco Godinho. Su-Mei placed a huge wind and minimalistic fan inside one of the most beautiful cave of the famous Champagne’s brand which support contemporary arts for years. Marco had set up 27 transparent flags on the magnificent garden – growing up on the edges of the city of Reims – and lead to think about the future of Europe.

More information:
Exhibition L’art en Europe, Domaine Pommery à Reims, 5 place du Général Gouraud 51100 Reims, Tel : +33 03.26.61.62.63, www.pommery.com
Ends 31st December 2008. Catalogue published at the occasion, print: August 2008.

1. 032c: A small Berlin culture title that has caused a storm in design circles with its recent ‘ugly’ redesign. Its use of system fonts and garish colours stand out in a market full of stylised modernism. www.032c.com

2. Monocle: The global business magazine reinvented as a lifestyle title, using a bookish design system that communicates ‘this is different’, while at the same time being unusually understated. www.monocle.com

3. New York: Beautiful typography and info-graphics make this recently redesigned NYC weekly a modern classic, featuring the care and attention-to-detail usually found only in a monthly. www.nymag.com

4. Fantastic Man: Unashamedly gay in outlook, this men’s fashion magazine employs a monochrome lo-fi design that looks back past ‘GQ’, ‘FHM’ and ‘Loaded’ to a time when page designs invested their subjects with a quiet dignity. www.fantasticmanmagazine.com

5. The Guardian: A daily newspaper completely re-engineered to complement its digital presence, borrowing design techniques from websites and magazines to create an era-defining model. www.guardian.co.uk

Jeremy Leslie is group creative director at John Brown Group and co-curator of Colophon.

032c

Monocle

New York

Fantastic Man

The Guardian

We Love Magazines

Designer: Jeremy Leslie
Editor: Andrew Losowsky
Publisher: Mike Koedinger
Language: English

Release: March 2007
Price: € 35,00 / $ 55,00 / £ 25,99
Format: 16,8 x 23,7 cm
Features: 392 pages, full colour, softcover
ISBN: 978-3-89955-188-4

We Love Magazines explores magazines and magazine culture with groundbreaking visuals and editorial contributions from around the world. The book features in-depth analysis of various aspects of magazine creation while, as the title reflects, celebrating with genuine pleasure a medium that continues to entertain, inform and surprise. We Love Magazines also contains the most comprehensive directory ever compiled of 1,100 international pop culture magazines and the shops in which to buy them.

In addition, readers are introduced to ten pioneering, independent magazines that have created their own chapters for the book. These are: Carl*s Cars (Norway), Coupe (Canada), Frame (The Netherlands), Omagiu (Romania), Rojo (Spain), S-magazine (Denmark), Shift! (Germany), Streets/Fruits/Tune (Japan), thisisamagazine.com (Italy) and Yummy (France)

In keeping with the independent spirit of the magazines featured in the book, We Love Magazines has been published with ten slightly different covers. All have the same title graphic and background photo but feature ten different drawings in blue foil block by Mio Matsumoto. The drawings portray ten different readers, who each represent one of the ten contributing magazines listed above.

The book We Love Magazines was created as an accompaniment to the Colophon2007 magazine symposium, which takes place in Luxembourg on March 9-11, 2007.

Dive inside the book…

by Rick Poynor, the contributing editor of PRINT.

For a medium that is regularly pronounced to be living on borrowed time, the magazine seems to be in a surprisingly perky state of health. If you took the industry’s temperature by scanning the racks in Borders, you might find it hard to credit that there is any problem at all. London branches of the store, like their American counterparts, are awash with titles catering to every conceivable interest and taste. In reality, though, while there are more titles on sale than ever, the total number of sales in the U.S.—366 million copies a year—has remained the same since 1990, so the trend for many publications is downward.

Nevertheless, as the title of a recent book put it, We Love Magazines—the “we” in this case being design people. The book accompanied the Colophon2007 symposium in Luxembourg, an event about independent magazines co-curated by Jeremy Leslie, a British magazine-design supremo at the custom publishing house John Brown. Leslie is also author of magCulture, a survey of contemporary magazines that later became a popular blog. In January, he was at it again, co-organizing a conference with the title “Magazines Are Dead: Long Live the Magazine!” (Maybe there is no revival; maybe it’s just Leslie’s tireless promotional activities that make it seem as if there must be one going on.)

I used to be an obsessive follower of what was happening in magazines, but it’s an expensive and space-consuming habit, and I eventually slowed down. I always took it for granted that the best magazines offered a combination of great writing and great visual appeal, with design as an expression of the content. Lately, the trend has been more and more toward magazines that you look at rather than read in any concerted way, and Leslie’s first magazine survey, Issues, actually began with the declaration, “I don’t read magazines.” Someone else wrote those words, but they set the tone for the whole book. For a writer, the sentiment is a complete turnoff. Apart from art and design titles, the magazines I tend to buy these days are publications devoted to commentary about books, music, film, and politics. While it’s important that they are designed for comfortable reading, they will never be featured in roundups of the latest trendy design.

So I decided to conduct a survey. My method was simple. I went to Borders and bought every youthful, creative, free-spirited, independent British magazine that caught my eye. Many of these titles occupy or extend the style-magazine territory defined by The Face (now defunct), i-D (founded in 1980 and still soldiering on), and later by Dazed & Confused and Sleazenation. Sleazenation is now also departed, and was the last title of this kind I read regularly because I liked its sharp, historical awareness of pop culture and its critical, questioning view of the corporate pressures on contemporary youth culture. In no particular order, here are the titles I took home: Flux, Blag, Fused Magazine, Product, Garageland, Wonderland, Wound, Sublime, Karen, Amelia’s Magazine, Let Them Eat Cake, Nude, Bad Idea, Meat Magazine, and Little White Lies. Most of these titles have arrived on the stands since 2000, and some are just a few issues old, although it turned out that Blag—founded by art student twins and financed these days entirely by sponsored advertorials—has been around in one form or another since 1992.

What I was hoping to find were magazines that convey a sense of necessity. They need to exist because they have something to say that no other publication expresses with the same urgency, excitement, inventiveness, completeness, or precision. They come from a deep sense of commitment, they are propelled by genuine passion, and they offer information and insights that simply aren’t available with the same vividness anywhere else. They express their moment because they participate in it, yet they also stand a little apart from it, showing self-awareness and a capacity for reflection that isn’t possible for absolute insiders. Above all, they define their own agenda.

Design is a significant factor, though it cannot be the sole criterion or even the first consideration. For a magazine to gel, it needs an editorial vision. That vision may come from a designer, if the designer is also the founder, publisher, editor, or an especially potent force in the magazine’s creation, and it may well involve visual ideas and visual expression, but there has to be subject matter—content—before there can be expression. If the content is compelling, the magazine can hold together and engage the reader—note reader—even if the design doesn’t break new ground.

Good examples of this are Nude, which offers “music, graphics, and hip lit”; Bad Idea, devoted to “modern storytelling”; and Little White Lies, a film magazine. All of these journal-like publications, with attractively small pages, have visual strengths—Little White Lies’ illustrated covers, each based on a film image, are particularly effective—but their reason for being is to explore cultural, literary, and cinematic subject matter that their editors and writers know and care about. Although Meat Magazine and Garageland, both five issues old (as is Bad Idea), have yet to show the same coherence, they put a notable emphasis on writing; it would be perverse to buy any of these titles merely to flip the pages. All of them get by, at least for now, with little, if any, advertising.

Fashion-led titles play by different rules, so here we have no choice but to flip. The 11th issue of Wonderland is clotted with ads from Marc Jacobs, Calvin Klein, Gucci, and DKNY, followed by pages of tedious, narcissistic fashion shoots. The design has a kind of informal monumentality that quickly becomes repetitive. Yet whenever I was on the verge of tossing Wonderland aside, an intriguing article would pop up about shop-window dummies, the continuing relevance of cut-and-paste collage-making, or the found photo artworks of Canadian artist Steven Shearer.

The second issue of the bizarrely titled and even fatter Wound—the name comes from a line in a Robert Frost poem—shows greater signs of wanting to have it both ways by serving the commercial fashion system while coming on like a fire-breathing, free-thinking radical. “There’s an underground renaissance around the corner,” says a designer. “There’s a lot of us out there ready for change.” If they threw out the interminable fashion spreads and kept the well-researched features about androgyny (the issue’s theme), synth punk, and the use of color in architecture, it would make an engagingly eccentric arts mag—it already reads like it’s been hijacked by art-school lecturers. As it stands, Wound goes to a lot of editorial trouble for something that’s bound to be treated as a flipbook. Let Them Eat Cake, the best-designed title in my informal survey, is much lighter on its feet, making this fresh-faced fashion newcomer one to watch, although it has a long way to go to match the editorial confidence and panache of The Face or i-D, which were always worth reading in their heyday.

Most of these magazines are small-scale, intimate ventures in which the presence and personality of the people who make them is evident. Amelia’s Magazine, a lavish, ultra-feminine, relentlessly patterned and curlicued production—reading it feels a bit like being smothered in a pile of floral cushions—is the creation of publisher–editor–art director Amelia Gregory, a one-woman, home-publishing powerhouse. Issue eight is as thick as Vogue: This one may go far. By contrast, Karen is an agreeably petite, restrained, and almost poetic meditation on everyday life and ordinary experience in words and pictures, put together by someone who may be called Karen. It’s about as close to a personal blog as a magazine could be.

Leslie argues that the future of magazines (such as it is) lies in becoming even more magazine-like and supplying distinctive, design-led experiences that you can’t get from the web: unusual paper stock, page formats, special extras, freebies. These British independent magazines, which usually depend on a symbiotic relationship with a website, certainly cater to an enduring need for tactile, smell-the-ink, hold-it-in-your-hands “thing-ness.” While none of these titles could yet be called a classic, several of them—Bad Idea, Little White Lies, Karen—do convey a sense of real necessity. They also confirm that the urge to publish a magazine, even now in the age of immediate online dissemination, comes from seeing thoughts and opinions given the tangibility and satisfying permanence of ink on paper. Adventurous ideas have always required words for their fullest expression. Magazines will surely wither without good writing.

More information about PRINT: http://www.printmag.com/design_articles/observer_not_dead_yet/tabid/360/Default.aspx

Thanks to all participants! The Magazine Lounge entitled “Printing the Fashion and Fashioning the Print” was inaugurated last Monday 2nd June at the Haus Wittgenstein in Vienna.

The event was accompanied by lectures on Magazine Culture given by Jeremy Leslie, Colophon co-founder and Executive Creative Director at John Brown Group- who made an incredible A to Z overview selection of magazines- Joachim Baldauf, Publisher of Vorn Magazine explained his carrier of editor and the relation with his work as photographer. The Spanish fashion photographer Luis Sanchis presented a choice of his best shots: Courtney Love on a beach, Leonardo di Caprio with hangover, Robbie Williams hanging in the sky of LA. The next day was the turn of Juan Montenegro, Editor in Chief and Creative Director of b-guided; Marcus Ross, European Fashion Director of VICE and Ken Miller, Editorial Director of Big Man and Editor in Chief 2002-2007 of TOKION. In Vienna, mood is about Magazine Culture during the festival!

Magazine Lounge curated by Colophon.
Haus Wittgenstein Parkgasse 18, 1030 Vienna, Austria. Ends: 8.6.2008

Exhibition-Lounge inside the sublime Haus Wittgenstein in Vienna…

…which one choosing?…

…Jeremy Leslie’s lecture on Magazine Culture

…Rush during the opening…

…the calm after the storm…

by Jeremy Leslie

Here are some pictures from the Colophon room at the 8 Festival for Fashion and Photography last week. There was lots of interest in the exhibition, which was curated by my Colophon colleague Mike Koedinger and featured a selection of independent magazines including Kasino A4, Vorn and B East. The hanging mechanisms worked well – people could flick through the magazines but not remove them.

The exhibition and accompanying talks took place at the Haus Wittgenstein, a beautifully maintained modernist villa with the tall ceilings that seem typical of Vienna. The city is one of those smaller European ones that effortlessly maintain their historical architecture while adding stunning modern buildings, the Haus Wittgenstein being an older example.

The theme of the festival was magazine culture, and I gave the opening talk, an overview of current independent magazines. To give it some structure I presented an alphabetical selection from Amelia’s Magazine to ZingMagazine. There’s a QuickTime movie of my slides below. The choices aren’t a list of my favourites, but an attempt to present a varied selection of independent titles. And yes, I did cheat for X.

Video at:
http://magculture.com/blog/?p=1901#more-1901

The Colophon 2009 – International Magazine Symposium – team has been asked to select and invite “creative magazines that influence the fashion scene”.

With the kind collaboration of B east (Estonia), Bon (Sweden), Celeste (Mexico), Code (Holland), Dik Fagazine (Poland), Editor & Art Director – The Glossy Zine (USA), encens (France), Kasino A4 (Finland), Lodown (Germany), Magazine (France), Me (USA), Nico (Luxembourg), Nuke (France), Omagiu (Romania), Rojo (Spain), Scarlet Cheek (UK), Sneaker Freaker (Australia), Stirato (Italy), This is a Magazine / This is not a Magazine (Italy), Vanidad (Spain), Varoom (UK) and View of the Times (Spain).

The third festival for fashion & photography, initiated and organized by Unit F büro für mode, will take place from 28 May to 6 June 2008. For the past eight years, Unit F has been accompanying Austrian fashion designers on their way toward greater professionalism and internationalization. What started out as a small ceremony for presenting the Austrian Fashion Awards has with time evolved into a self-confident celebration of the Austrian fashion scene.

Responsible for driving this development while providing continuous support for the domestic fashion scene are the two heads of Unit F, Ulrike Tschabitzer-Handler and Andreas Oberkanins. Thanks to their concentrated efforts Unit F has developed over the course of the past eight years into an internationally networked promotion and presentation platform. Public and private-sector enterprises interested in investing in the development of Austrian fashion have supported this network by for example sponsoring awards for Austrian fashion designers and funding their international marketing efforts.

For ten days Vienna will once again become a fashion hub where the Austrian and international fashion scene will display its stunning contemporary diversity. In various venues throughout the city, fashion shows and current collections will be presented, and exhibitions and lectures will be held on the topics of fashion photography and magazine culture, along with the traditional presentation ceremonies for the AFA – Austria Fashion Awards. In addition to the program that Unit F büro für mode has conceived and organized especially for the 8 festival for fashion & photography, Unit F’s stepped-up cooperation with various fashion and art institutions as well as Vienna’s fashion design stores, galleries and party planners will ensure that this year’s festival offers even more variety.

IMAGE CAMPAIGN

The festival’s two core themes of fashion & photography come together to form a symbiotic unit in the annual image campaign. Photography makes a congenial partner for fashion, capturing it in compelling pictures and thus creating the very image on which it thrives.

The theme of this year’s image campaign – Colours – revolves around the abundance of facets awaiting discovery on the Austrian fashion scene. Conceived by Unit F, the campaign is being realized by a creative team headed by renowned German photographer Joachim Baldauf. As last year, the key role is played by the latest outfits created by Austrian fashion designers.

The production of the image campaign for the 8 festival for fashion & photography, made possible by the support of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Labour, lends expression to t he considerable significance of the young fashion scene for the domestic economy.
FASHION AWARDS

While back in the year 2000 the presentation of the Austrian Fashion Awards took place more or less as a “cellar ceremony”, the framework has become increasingly prestigious in the intervening years, while at the same time, thanks primarily to the engagement of the private sector, the range of prizes included in the AFA – Austria Fashion Awards has expanded to encompass the following:

• Fashion Award of the Federal Ministry for Education, the Arts and Culture (BMUKK)
A one-year grant for working with an international designer
Award money: 13,200 EUR (within Europe) to 18,000 EUR (outside of Europe)
• Fashion Award of the City of Vienna
Participation in an international fashion trade fair or festival
Award money: 10,000 EUR
• Die Presse Award for International PR
Puts winner in contact with an international press agency and pays agency fee
Award money: 15,000 EUR
• Kontakt. Fashion Award by Erste Bank
Award conferred by the Erste Bank on fashion designers from Central and Eastern Europe
Award money: 4,000 EUR
• Editorial Award – Award for Fashion Photography
Award for the best unpublished fashion editorial
Award money: 3,000 EUR
• so fresh. the jewellery award by Pierre Lang
Award presented by Pierre Lang for contemporary European jewellery design
Award money: 10,000 EUR

SHOWS

so fresh. the jewellery award by Pierre Lang, one of the highest-endowed and best-known jewellery awards in Europe, will be presented in 2008 for the third year to an outstanding talent in the field of contemporary jewellery design. The winning works as selected by an international expert jury will be displayed in a live show.

departure – wirtschaft, kunst und kultur gmbh, an enterprise of the City of Vienna designed to stimulate the creative industries, will present its departure fashion night for the fourth time as part of the festival for fashion & photography. On view will be the collections of fashion designers who have received support in the scope of departure’s promotion schemes.

At the Show Angewandte 2008, a fixed feature on Vienna’s culture scene for many years now, final projects by Veronique Branquinho’s fashion class at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna will be presented. The university is organizing the Show Angewandte 2008 as independent solo organizer within the framework of the 8 festival for fashion & photography.

LECTURES AND EXHIBITIONS

Public lectures have been held at the festival for three years, taking up themes of current pertinence to the fields of fashion, art, media and commerce, and opening them up for discussion.

This year, international industry insiders will analyse the topic of Magazine Culture, shedding light on this area from their respective points of view.
In 2008 the lectures will be accompanied by a magazine lounge. Under the title Printing the Fashion and Fashioning the Print – curated by the founder of Colophon – International Magazine Symposium, Mike Koedinger – the contents of the lectures and the discussion process will be carried forward in visual form.

The exhibition Fashion Is Dead – Virus Spreaders and Tightrope Walkers, organized by Shotview Photographers Management (Vienna/Berlin), presented by Kozva Rigaud and curated by Werner Hanak-Lettner, will take an exclusive look at the theme of fashion photography. Photographers represented by Shotview will present their works for the first time in a group exhibition, among them Joachim Baldauf, Luis Sanchis, Christina Kruse, Jork Weismann, Henrique Gendre, Sesse Lind and Wiebke Bosse.

In addition, a separate day during the festival will be devoted to exhibitions of fashion and art. A number of Vienna galleries and art institutions, including MOMENTUM PHOTOGRAPHIE / EDITIONEN, futuregarden/schaulager kunstbuero, Ostblick and elektro gönner, will be taking part in the festival for fashion & photography for the first time in 2008.

SHOPS

Selected Viennese fashion design stores – be a good girl, NACHBARIN, MAK DESIGN SHOP, Soup and Fish and MÜHLBAUER – will present fashion by and cooperation projects with Austrian designers.
The Guerilla Store will this year once again temporarily set up shop in a Vienna store beyond the duration of the 8 festival for fashion & photography, in cooperation with the Vienna Chamber of Commerce. Nelleke Strijkers, owner of the Amsterdam shop SPRMRKT, will select items from the collections of various labels for sale in the store.

PARTIES

The fact that fashion is today more than ever an expression of our lifestyles is demonstrated by the numerous parties that will take place during the 8 festival for fashion & photography, including the FM4 Club, VICE Party (featuring the presentation of the VICE Award), INDIE Party and NUMU Party. The Icke Micke Party on the last day of the festival will be the official closing event.

No UO designer collection

There will be no presentation at this year’s festival of the UO designer collection from UO Urban Ottakringer. The reason the traditional Viennese brewery declined the invitation to participate in the 8 festival for fashion & photography is the European Cup football championship taking place in Austria this June.

More information at:
www.8festival.at
www.unit-f.at

Colophon participates to new exhibitions. This year, Colophon – International Magazine Symposium – will participates in two separate exhibitions by inviting “creative magazines that influence the fashion scene”.

Dysfashional, 12.03–8.06.2008 in Lausanne, Switzerland, at MUDAC (Swiss Design Museum) www.mudac.ch

And to the 8th Festival for Fashion & Photography, 26.05 – 05.06.2008 in Vienna, Austria http://www.8festival.at/
Come and see us!

For who’s coming see you there!

Through parallel fashion and photography competitions, the Festival International de Mode et de Photographie à Hyères, directed by Jean-Pierre Blanc since its creation 22 years ago, gathers every year under the spotlight ten young fashion designers and ten young photographers under the patronage of an international jury.

An observatory of trends as well as an international launching pad, the Hyères festival has showcased, more than 300 first-time collections by new fashion designers from all over the world and exhibited the works of over 80 young and innovative photographers. On every edition, the festival presents at the Villa Noailles —the landmark cubist villa built in the 1920’s by Mallet-Stevens — several exhibitions that explore the permeating boundaries between art, photography and fashion.

The Festival’s public increases year after year, attracting designers, industrialists, trendwatchers, agents, buyers, textile federations, distributors, gallerists, museum directors, department stores.
The festival’s aim is to offer young talents a genuine professional opportunity by providing them with material and logistical support, as well as profitable contacts and intensive media exposure.
The general public is invited to vote after the fashion shows for an audience award.
All exhibitions are admission-free and remain open until early June.

Hyères 2008
23ème Festival International de mode et de photographie
25, 26, 27 and 28 April
Exhibitions until 1st June 2008

More info at:
http://www.villanoailles-hyeres.com

contact:
T +33 (0)4 98 08 01 98
contact@villanoailles-hyeres.com