MAgazines

Don't try to reinvent the web

2007-12-05T04:24:00.000-08:00

Magazines can use the internet more effectively if they observe a couple of golden rules: there's no use trying to control it and don't expect giant leaps, says David Hepworth

* The Guardian,
* Monday November 19 2007

The man from the financial institution held a glossy magazine in one hand and an extremely small laptop computer in the other. He leaned across the desk. "Surely it can't be long," he said, "before somebody finds a way to put all of this on one of these. Then you can just read it all off the screen."

You have to be careful in conversations like these. It doesn't do to sound like you're denying the inevitable march of technology. You must resist the temptation to sandblast him with scorn. You stop, breathe, count and then, in as level a voice as you can summon, say: before we can understand new media we must first understand old media. The interface between hand, eye and paper at the core of the traditional magazine-reading experience is the most highly evolved means of negotiating material yet devised. Were you to take the content of that magazine and put it into any other format it would take weeks to read off the screen and, more importantly, the experience would be deeply tiresome.

You continue: of course the web is just as exciting and useful a tool to magazine publishers as it is to those selling mail-order underwear, but it's not simply another conduit down which to pour your so-called "content". The web provides you with a way to keep in daily, even hourly contact with the more committed part of your readership, but it's done using an entirely new language and playing to a different set of habits. The extent to which magazine people are actually advantaged in this new sphere is not as self-evident as people like to think.

Magazine people spend most of their time deciding what to leave out of their magazines. They are trying to fashion a balanced package to slot into a very particular context, the newsstand. The web, on the other hand, is about bottomless inventory. It's also about the users and not editors. The former group are always stranger and more diverse than the latter group ever give them credit for. The most you can do on the web is provide a place where they like to gather. You're the hosts and it's your place but you don't really make the rules. You seek to steer the behaviour but in the end this will actually be decided by the people. If you've developed a site where your staff are providing more than 5% of the material then that's not a site at all. It's advertising. And it's probably unsustainable.

If there's one thing we should all have learned over the last 10 years, it's this: all attempts to inhibit the flow of information and make it work exclusively for the benefit of an organisation, whether it's the government of China or Universal Records, are doomed. The genie is out of the bottle for good. Media owners talk wistfully of "owning" particular ideas or activities on the internet. They should stop. This is a mirage, glimpsed most often by those who spend little time on the web.

And what else have we learned about the web? It's not about grand plans. It's about nutters in bedrooms taking tiny steps. Witness Facebook, which began in 2004 as a way for one guy to keep in touch with his friends at one university. It didn't start with anyone seeking to "own the social networking space".

You begin from where you are. You have readers, you have advertisers, you have staff and you have a paper magazine. You want to engage more time of the first group, get more revenue from the second group, broaden the skill set of the third group and sell more subscriptions of the last thing. How do you do all that? You do it in lots of ways but primarily you do it by going where people already are, doing what comes naturally and respecting the lore of the web.

Starting off small

There's no point kidding yourself you're going to build your own social networking site when there are some perfectly good ones already there. Our dance magazine MixMag has a thriving MySpace page which engages with those people who use this as a permanent resource. I have spent hours at weekends stitching together little promotional films to put on YouTube in order to announce the latest Word cover mounted CD. If you tag such a thing with the names of the artists then a handful of people will find both it and the magazine who wouldn't otherwise have done so. It's not a TV campaign but it works.

Tiny steps.

Every Monday afternoon Mark Ellen and I gather with a couple of contributors in a spare room at our office to record the Word podcast, a 40-minute bull session in which we chew over a bunch of rockular topics in the most haphazard fashion. We happen to have among the team a disproportionate number of people with extensive broadcasting experience. Or just experience of talking. In the podcast medium they're free to do something that they can't do anywhere else, which is dilate on their favourite topics for an audience prepared to give them any amount of slack. It's an inch away from a complete shambles. It's also one of the most liberating things I've ever done.

Among its devoted listeners are the head of news at the BBC, the boss of EMI records, regular readers, many ex-pats, long-lost relations and a bunch of people who would never actually buy the magazine but will happily take it in this form. Then, of course, there's a Facebook group for people who listen to the podcast. This also grows ever week. Tiny steps.

But there's a price. All this kind of market gardening activity needs to be tended seven days a week. You can't turn off a community at five on Friday and say "hold that thought until Monday". You need staff who are passionate and you also need to engage hard-core readers who wish to be part of the team. It's hard, different work. It's the diametric opposite of what publishers and advertisers are tempted to do - which is, no matter how you dress it up, spam.

On the web there is an essential mis-alignment between the inclinations of all commercial organisations and the requirements of individuals. It's something in the math. As soon as a message is broad enough to be communicated to a lot of people, it's no longer of any interest to any individual in particular. All that "sign up to be kept informed of updates" business is hooey.

With very rare exceptions, email newsletters go straight into the trash, just as all those millions of "announcements" from PRs do. Advertisers may be dazzled by numbers at the moment but ultimately, as the value of a click continues to head south, even they won't be. When they realise they've been using the web for lots of the wrong reasons they'll be harder to persuade to use it for the right ones.

In the end we need the advertisers to make this new media compact work. We need them to recognise and appreciate the immediacy offered by fast-moving sites, the sense of intimacy provided by podcasts and the genuine community engendered within social networks, and to learn to work with the grain of it and not against it. Here magazine companies, with their historical undertanding of editorial environment and their experience of selling the virtues of that environment to advertisers, should be uniquely advantaged. It's time to prove it.

David Hepworth is editorial director of Development Hell Ltd mail@davidhepworth.com

Colophone2007 video

2007-05-29T02:57:00.001-07:00

The video from the colophone event

aRUDE

2007-05-29T02:14:00.000-07:00

This is basically the same idea as mine, with a slightly different approach, focusing direct on the readers.

“We want to democratize the editorial contribution in a magazine framework, where it’s open to readers to become creators,” said the Nigerian-born Mr. Udé, whose contributors include the professional dandy and partygoer Patrick McDonald, F.I.T. professor Valerie Steele and reedy Russian model Larissa Kulikova. “It’s kind of like”—you know what’s coming—“a blog in print, in a way.”
From an article in The New York Observer about aRUDE magazine.

The finished product of my MA

2007-05-22T05:44:00.000-07:00

Front cover and some of the spreads from the hand-in. Title inspired by the name of this blog. The practical part of my MA is the YOU AND ME magazine, wich is basically just starting now as I have finished my MA. If you want to look at and read the whole thesis you can download the pdf from here.

Crowdsourcing

2007-05-05T04:47:00.000-07:00

Definition from Wikipedia: Crowdsourcing is a neologism for a business model in which a company or institution takes a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsources it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call over the Internet. The work is compensated with little or no pay in most cases. However, in a few examples the labor is well-compensated. In almost every case crowdsourcing relies on amateurs or volunteers working in their spare time to create content, solve problems, or even do corporate.

The Rise of Crowdsourcing
Article from WIRED Issue 14.06 June 2006:

Claudia Menashe needed pictures of sick people. A project director at the National Health Museum in Washington, DC, Menashe was putting together a series of interactive kiosks devoted to potential pandemics like the avian flu. An exhibition designer had created a plan for the kiosk itself, but now Menashe was looking for images to accompany the text. Rather than hire a photographer to take shots of people suffering from the flu, Menashe decided to use preexisting images – stock photography, as it’s known in the publishing industry.

In October 2004, she ran across a stock photo collection by Mark Harmel, a freelance photographer living in Manhattan Beach, California. Harmel, whose wife is a doctor, specializes in images related to the health care industry. “Claudia wanted people sneezing, getting immunized, that sort of thing,” recalls Harmel, a slight, soft-spoken 52-year-old.

Read the whole article here...

We Love Magazines!

2007-05-04T01:47:00.000-07:00

Article from Japanese online design magazine PingMag. This is an interview with Jermemy Leslie author of the magculture blog He regularly contributes to the design press and is co-curator of Colophon2007.

We Love Magazines!
PingMag is a web magazine - but we certainly do love printed magazines too!

With the spread of the WWW, online magazines aka blogs have become so common and you easily get a whole magazine as PDF on the way. That might be convenient for you net addicts who don’t even find the time to order the real printed thing at Amazon anymore. However, just when we slightly started to worry about the future of print magazines, a great book called We Love Magazines which features 1,100 pop culture mags for true magazine lovers, has been published. Today PingMag asks Jeremy Leslie from John Brown who art directed the book about the future of print.

Written by Chiemi

“We Love Magazine”, edited by Andrew Losowsky and distributed worldwide by Die Gestalten Verlag in March 2007, featuring 1,100 international pop culture mags.

So Jeremy, Could you explain how this book “We Love Magazine” itself was published?

This was published as a record of a symposium about magazines called Colophon2007, which was held in Luxembourg in March. Myself, Mike Koedinger and Andrew Losowsky came up with the idea of this symposium and we also wanted to do something that remained after the event. So we came up with the idea of a book. The purpose of this symposium was to help independent publishers meet each other and exchange information. Also, we wanted to encourage everybody to help each other making magazines. In the end, we had lots of good speakers, lots of events and 2,000 people joined our symposium.

Conference at Colophon 2007. (Photo by Eric Chenal)

What kind of issues were discussed there?

Though there were lots of things that were talked about, the end of print was always in the agenda. Nearly every time there was someone saying that print will end up online. For example, David Renard, author of The Last Magazine, was the latest voice to argue that big mainstream magazines will stop printing and all the small magazines will carry on to print. I think that is quite an interesting argument. If you transfer that to the book area it will be easier to understand. You can think of two types of books: cheap ones for reading during your holidays, which might not be particularly good-looking but do their job. The other type has a hard cover and is beautifully produced, such as an art or photography book. In short, magazines, like weekly news magazines and gossip magazines will end up online. Whereas small magazines will be more sophisticated and more beautifully printed and will become more expensive.

So what do you think about that issue?

I have my own blog called MagCulture.com and I’am involved with some web magazines too. It’s very easy to write short texts on blogs and press publish. But sometimes you want to be a bit more considered by spending more time to write, rewrite and leave it for a couple of days to write again. And when you put it into print, then it is done. So there is a more serious feeling to it. But this doesn’t mean web is bad. The internet is still in a very basic stage and we’ve seen it changing a lot within the last 10 years. I’m sure it will change even more. Both has its advantages and disadvantages. But from lots of reasons, such as the environmental problem with paper wastage, there will be less print magazines in the end.

Magazines symposium Colophon 2007 in Luxembourg. (Photo by Eric Chenal)

What part have magazines in people’s lifes?

There are two key roles: if you work in any kind of creative industry you tend to take it too serious, but for most of the people magazines are mere entertainment. It is the same with television and movies. My other point of view would be that they reflect trends very well, both in terms of content and their looks. There was a time when record sleeves and CD covers were the barometers of how creativity was advanced. I think that now magazines are doing exactly that.

Spread from “We Love Magazines”, introducing Japanese fashion magazines “Street”, “Fruits” and “Tune”. From these three magazines you can tell the international fashion trends.

So what makes good print magazine?

Making magazines is a very specialized thing. Even for designers it takes a while to learn. But to make a good magazine, as a designer, you do influence and contribute to the content too. As an editor, you influence and contribute to the design as well. The key for me is that design and content are absolutely aligned and united. You can sense whether the makers of a magazine are enjoying it or not and you can see it when you leaf through the pages. That is personality!

Spread from “We Love Magazines”. This one is about Yummy magazine from France.

“Omagiu” magazine from Romania gives you both stylish design and interesting content. Also taken from “We Love Magazines”.

What is the most exciting magazine for you at the moment?

Most magazines I love are small independent titles. The first one is Kasino A4 which is a magazine from Helsinki, Finland. They have an interview with a classical musician from Finland and they also have fashion story. They don’t take it too seriously and just make a nice and enjoyable magazine. Another great magazine is Rojo from Barcelona. They never have much words but mainly artwork. A very beautiful magazine! And there’s this similar project called Draft from the UK. It is done by one guy from London. He is a museum curator and features art work he commissioned from unknown to famous artists. Besides the many beautiful images it’s an interesting magazine, too.

How about the best magazine you can think of in magazine history?

That’s a very unfair question! (laughs) But hmmm… I would say an American magazine called Speak, published in the 90s. It wasn’t following other people’s agendas such as the latest music and latest film trends. Though they covered music and literature and ran short stories, they set their own agendas with a completely unique view of the world. It was published by a guy called Dan Rolleri and designed by Martin Venezky, a very good designer. The two of them had a fantastic working relationship and made beautiful pages.

Left: Kasino A4 from Helsinki offers all different kind of contents, basically what they personally like most.
Right: Beautiful: Rojo magazine from Barcelona, published in 2001. ROJO®seis cover artwork by MWM.

Left: The cover of Issue 4 of UK’s Draft is designed by Julian Opie.
Right: America’s Speak is the best mag according to Jeremy!

Finally, what do you expect for the future of print mags?

I would like to make it easier for people to come up with an idea and simply make it and distribute it - as that is the big problem for many. Also, there are lots of magazines you can’t get at the stores. And I think magazines should stop being so scared of being different. Too many magazines have become too big and are too frightened of losing money. I look forward to them being more daring to be different.

Jeremy, it was very interesting to hear your opinion today. Thank you very much! We are also looking forward to see more exciting print magazines from all over the world. If you have your own opinion about the future of mags, please leave a comment. Tell us!

Preview of magazines

2007-05-01T08:12:00.000-07:00

I think this site has understood what people want from a site like this. http://www.tidningar.info/. You get a full preview of all the magazines they sell. I think this is a better way to sell magazines than what you use to see on magazine websites. You usually get a short preview, often like this; the cover and a selection of articles i html.

The way it is presented on this site it resembles the process you have when you go to the magazine store. You flick trough the magazines, of interest, to see if there´s something there triggering you to buy. And if you are not in buy mood, you flick trough them anyway.

If you are not going to have both a full experiences on web and on paper, I think tidningar.info has the solution.

This is what I argue and suggest in my thesis.

Colofon 2007

2007-04-30T06:19:00.000-07:00

I should have been there. Arrgh!!

Colofon 2007
In Luxembourg, magazine makers, art directors, photographers, illustrators, journalists, brand managers, students and a larger public came together for a three-day-event.

The objective is for many of the most intriguing personalities in the worldwide magazine culture to interact with interested audiences and players from a multitude of fields and to exchange ideas, experiences, and view examples of some of the best and brightest offerings.

Curators: Jeremy Leslie, Andrew Losowsky and Mike Koedinger

book
Designed by Jeremy Leslie and edited by Andrew Losowsky, the book is being specially created for the symposium. With groundbreaking visuals and contributions from around the world, it will include in- depth features about all aspects of magazine creation, a worldwide magazine directory and an international guide to distribution.

We Love Magazines

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 includes essays by international experts on not only practical topics such as the role of a cover and advertising, but also on historical subjects such as an analysis of groundbreaking moments and titles in magazine publishing. The book 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.

For more information: www.welovemags.com

Design Can Change

2007-04-25T05:46:00.000-07:00

Here´s another project about sustainable design. Design Can Change. I have added a link on the change picture in the sidebar, and a link to a pdf checklist for designers to follow the make their design process greener. I have signed the pledge and hope you will do to.

Cradle to Cradle

2007-04-25T05:34:00.000-07:00

Another interesting networking project, that I picked up trough TED:

Architect William McDonough believes that green design can prevent environmental disaster -- while also driving economic growth. He champions “cradle to cradle” design that considers the full life cycle of a product, from its creation with sustainable materials to a recycled afterlife.

Problems with embedding the video from the TED site, here´s the link to the ********VIDEO********

NEED magazine

2007-04-25T05:07:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Kelly Kinnenen held a very inspiring lecture here, at The Oslo National Academy of the Arts (KHiO), about his magazine project NEED.

We got the whole story from the first idea of wanting to use their design skills to help the ones that help others, to the stage they are at today.
It was very interesting to hear about the whole story about starting a magazine from scratch. I am not going to give you a review of the talk other than this, but here´s what they say about themselfs:

NEED magazine is an artistic hope-filled publication focusing on life changing humanitarian efforts at home and abroad.

NEED magazine reveals the remarkable stories of people involved throughout the entire humanitarian aid process: survivors, workers, funders, and heroes.

NEED magazine's dynamic visual narrative is not only compelling, but also drives awareness, involvement, personal connection, and contributions.

State Of Independents

2007-04-25T03:01:00.000-07:00

The Creative Review Blog asked Jeremy Leslie from John Brown and Magculture to pick out the most interesting magazines on show at Colophon2007, the international conference for independent magazine makers.
/////////HERE´S THE ARTICLE/////////

What is e-paper?

2007-04-24T02:54:00.001-07:00

There is a new and very interesting technology being developed right now, called e-paper or electronic paper. Actually it has been a nearly 30 year long process to develop this technology, and today we have reached the point of production for some devices with this technology. It is predicted to take over for regular paper in many eras the coming years, and probably be the dominating medium compared to regular paper. Here´s a discription about what it is, from: e-paper.org

Wikipedia link

It is a term that has been used rather loosely for a long time, but broadly speaking it is a display technology that has all the attributes of paper but can be written to and erased electronically. We can list some of these basic attributes as follows:

* High resolution (150dpi or better).
* High contrast, equal to that of print on paper (about 10:1 or better).
* Readable in any ambient light conditions
* Readable at any viewing angle
* Excellent ergonomic features, easy to hold, carry, and use.
* Light weight, at most comparable to an equal sized sheet of card.
* Robust, will withstand being dropped, hit, etc.
* Flexible, or at least bendable.
* Bistable, once a display is written it will stay displayed even when power is switched off.
* Cheap, maybe not as cheap as paper, but easily affordable by everyone.
* Reasonable large area, preferably A4 (298x212mm)

A display that meets all of these attributes can be referred to as an e-paper display suitable for use in an e-publication reader, since it is, in virtually all aspects, an electronic replacement for a sheet of paper. Indeed such display technologies are sometimes referred to as paper replacement technologies.

Flexible, bendable or rigid?
Although a lot of emphasis is placed upon e-paper being either bendable or flexible these are in many ways some of the least important attributes of e-paper. However, what is important about these attributes as opposed to a rigid glass based display like an LCD panel, is that their flexibility makes them much more robust and durable.
A rigid glass substrate LCD display will break if dropped on a hard surface, trodden on, sat upon, etc. A bendable display will probably survive most of those accidents. A bendable display panel can also be made much thinner and lighter than a rigid one since it needs no strong physical support to protect it, and so if it is bent when shoved into a briefcase it will survive.
Because it needs no rigid backing a flexible display panel is thin and light weight, and hence it is both highly portable and ergonomically much easier to use.
Our potential user surveys have indicated that the majority of users will settle for a device that is slightly bendable, rather like a thick sheet of card or a thin sheet of plywood. An acceptable format would be light enough to easily hold in one hand for long periods, rigid enough to act as a writing pad for handwritten annotations using the touch sensitive surface, and yet flexible enough to survive most forms of mistreatment.
The first generation of e-paper display that are now appearing in the marketplace all use rigid glass backplanes that are basically derived from conventional LCDs, this means that they are as rigid and breakable as an LCD. From the second generation onwards all e-paper displays will at least be bendable, these displays are entering the manufacturing phase now.
Highly flexible displays will, in our opinion, be confined to specialist niche applications where large display areas are required by small portable devices: for example a small pocket GPRS system with roll out map display. Another area where highly flexible displays will find an application is in wearable data display systems for military and other use. In the more distant future we may see a number of highly flexible e-paper displays bound together to form the electronic equivalent of a book, with display control and data storage electronics in the spine.

The importance of readability.
Although the information storage and distribution function of paper is increasingly being replaced by digital technology, paper still holds pre-eminence when it comes to reading that information. By and large most people still prefer to read from a sheet of paper than from a computer screen. Indeed the much heralded 'paperless age' of the personal computer has instead been an age where paper usage has been higher than ever.
The reason for this is that most people do not like reading from a computer screen, either an LCD display on a laptop, or a CRT screen on a desktop. There are several reasons for this, the most important are:

* Low contrast ratio and low resolution lead to eyestrain in long periods of continuous reading off a computer screen.
* The size, and weight of a computer screen means that the reader cannot easily position himself/herself at a proper viewing distance, leading to further eyestrain.
* Computer displays are light generative, or backlit, and often not viewable in a wide range of ambient light conditions or viewing angles, leading to further eyestrain.
* Lack of portability, even with a laptop, limits the times and places in which a document can be read off screen.
* The landscape format of a computer display contrasts to the portrait format of most printed paper documents, resulting in the need for page scrolling of documents that are formatted for print.

Although some people, especially younger computer users, are happy to read from screen for long periods, most users find that the above reasons limit the time that they can comfortably spend reading off screen. Indeed, the problem is sufficiently serious to be recognised by health authorities, and in the UK, the normal fee for eye tests can be waived for computer users.
This means that reading from a screen is usually confined to quick scan reading and searching for information, rather than careful in depth reading. Consequently most will opt for printing out a page that they wish to read carefully.

Why E-paper offers improved readability.
In all computer displays, including e-paper, the display is made up from a number of very small picture points, or pixels, the image on the screen being formed by the pattern in which they are turned off and on. Most conventional computer displays in use today have a resolution of between 70 and 100ppi (pixels per inch). A standard laser or ink jet printer will print using a resolution of between 300 and 600ppi.
At an average viewing distance of about 60cms a screen resolution of 100ppi gives a fairly sharp image, however, at a closer distance, such as the 30cms average viewing distance when reading a printed sheet of paper, the digitisation becomes noticeable, thus reducing both the quality of the typography and the readability of small and/or serif fonts.
This means that paper replacement displays which will be viewed at a closer distance will need to have a resolution of at least 150ppi and preferably 200ppi for a monochrome display if it is to equal the quality of standard newsprint, and 300ppi or better if it is to equal the quality of magazine and book printing. Most e-paper technologies are well able to deliver resolutions up to 300ppi and many have already been demonstrated at 150-180ppi.
The clarity of printed text also depends upon the contrast ratio between the respective reflectivity of the paper and the ink. In newsprint the contrast ratio is typically around 10:1, though in higher quality magazines and books it can be much higher. A typical LCD display, however, will only have a contrast ratio of about 5:1. In general the higher the contrast ratio of a display the easier it is to read text based information, and the aim of any text display technology should be to aim for a contrast ratio at least equal to that of printed paper. Most e-paper technologies achieve a better than 10:1 ratio, which is about the same as that of a printed newspaper.
With colour computer displays the problem is more complex since each pixel consists of a triad of different coloured pixels, one red, one blue, and one green, the combination of these three colours together with the intensity of each will determine the resultant colour of the pixel triad. The use of such pixel triads means that the overall resolution of colour displays is usually much lower than that of monochrome displays - so, since they require three times as many pixels, a 150ppi display will require 450 colour points per inch.
However, in print, a four colour combination is used: cyan, magenta, yellow and black, which gives the high contrast black that is necessary for text, whilst at the same time offering the colour triad to generate a full colour palette. Although full colour e-paper is not yet in production, it will probably follow the four colour system used in print rather than the three colour system used in computer displays if it is to have the necessary contrast for displaying good quality text.
The readability of text, in particular the contrast between ink and paper, is also very dependent upon the ambient light conditions and the viewing angle. In a conventional CRT display, which is light generative, or a LCD display which is backlit and transmissive the display is easily 'washed out' in very bright ambient light.
However, in bright light a sheet of printed paper becomes easier to read because it is being read by reflected light. In general the human eye finds it far easier to read using reflected light than any form of light generative/backlit display. Most e-paper technologies use reflective displays, and this will probably be a major factor in their popularity since this type of display will generate considerably less eye strain.
Another readability factor where e-paper technologies will have an advantage is the viewing angle. Both CRT and LCD screens need to be viewed almost straight on, look at them from an angle and in the case of a CRT one sees reflections of the room, or in the case of LCD the contrast simply disappears. A sheet of paper can, however, be viewed at virtually any angle, the same applies to most of the e-paper technologies.

Why E-paper offers improved usability.
A thin lightweight display has considerable ergonomic advantages over the conventional LCD and CRT displays available today. The projected weight of an A4 e-paper display based document reader, including battery, will be under 200gms, about the same weight as a magazine like the Economist. This means that it can be comfortably held in one hand and read in any position or location that the user wishes.
The light weight of an e-paper display based reader device, coupled with the fact that it will probably be keyboardless (relying instead on a touch screen and virtual keys) also means that like a sheet of paper it can be easily used in either landscape or portrait mode. Indeed e-paper displays have another advantage in that they can be more easily manufactured in a wide range of sizes and shapes for specialist display applications.
Another ergonomic advantage of e-paper displays is that because they are reflective and offer a high contrast they can be read in any ambient light condition that will allow a paper document to be read.
The low power consumption and bistability of an e-paper display means that they can be used for long periods without recharging or replacing batteries. Manufacturers of first generation e-paper display based readers are quoting figures of 10,000 page displays on two AA batteries, or about three months of average use.
When an e-paper display is combined with a touch screen overlay the combination offers the capability of becoming an exact electronic analog of a pad of paper and a pencil. It will be possible to draw handwritten notes or diagrams onto the display, thus allowing manual annotation of printed material, note taking etc.

5 Easy Steps to Publishing Nirvana

2007-04-24T02:52:00.001-07:00

5 Easy Steps to Publishing Nirvana
By Robert M. Sacks

Let's get down to some serious business. Does anyone in their right mind think that writing, journalism or publishing is just going to fade away and disappear? Does anyone think that there isn't going to be the need to be informed, be knowledgeable, or just know stuff? Here is news for those in doubt of their careers and the continuance of the honest profession of being a publisher/printer. People have always had the need for information and will always require news, instructions, directions and knowledge.

The only difference now from yesterday or last year or last century is how they get to know what they know. The human race has always required and worked to improve information distribution. As far back as the caveman, they processed the information of the day, and transferred those ideas and thoughts to the walls of their homes and religious places. As society progressed, we improved the process.

The first tool for storing portable information outside of the brain is called, in today's terms, a baton. It carried thoughts and stored information on an inscribed stick to be carried about by a shaman. It stored the phases of the moon and other important astrologically dependent information, such as the best time to plant seeds. Planting seeds at the proper time is a good idea if you like to eat on a regular basis. Think of the baton as the first Flash memory JumpDrive.

We have been drawing on walls, carving on rocks, inking on papyrus, and cloistering men in monasteries who repeatedly copied information ad infinitum with mistakes and all.

So have no fear about your chosen profession. The process of information distribution is not going to go away. Indeed, it is accelerating at an unprecedented rate.

What you need to consider is the true value of your information to the general public and the process by which you distribute this knowledge.

Five easy steps to publishing nirvana:

1 Who is my target audience?

2 Where is my targeted audience?

3 What is the real value of my edit (information) to that audience?

4 What is the most efficient method to reach the maximum targeted audience?

5 How do I keep my information valuable and fresh for my targeted audience?

These may seem like simple concepts on the surface, but they are not. They constitute a complex, Zen-like formula. Success is measured by the antique term called profit. And to achieve the Zen-like state of profit, you must follow the Bo-formula to publishing nirvana (in the box above). On the atomic level, it can all be distilled down to the simple equation of RV = RP or, for the laymen, real value equals real profit.

In this era of abundant information, is your edit of any real value? If so, how valuable is it? If it is valuable, to whom is it valuable? This is where the concept of niche comes into play. The value of when to plant seeds is only valuable to a select few. And to those few, only information on certain types of seeds would be of value.

In today's publishing world there are three key components: the jewels of extremely valuable edit, the readers who need and desire those gems, and the ability to get the booty into the clients' hands by the most efficient means possible. In my experience great edit trumps the other two. To paraphrase loosely, if you have the appropriately precious edit, they will come.

The last necessary element to the so-stated condition of publishing nirvana is the honest and sometimes brutal truth. This can be the hardest part of the Bo-formula. Like an alchemist of old lore, here is a Bo-exercise for you to try. Find a hand-held mirror and hold it up about 18 inches from your face. Look into the mirror and ask yourself the five questions listed to the left. Did you flinch? Did you grimace? Did you honestly know all the answers? Did you divine the truth? Only you know that for sure.

Bob Sacks is a consultant to the printing/publishing industry and president of The Precision Media Group (www.BoSacks.com). He is publisher and editor of a daily, international e-newsletter, "Heard on the Web." Sacks has held posts as director of manufacturing and distribution, senior sales manager (paper), chief of operations, pressman, cameraman and corporate janitor.

Inquiringmind™Magazine

2007-04-23T02:10:00.000-07:00

This is an online magazine that has blended the way the two mediums(paper & web) present their content. It dosn´t try to be paper on web, but still remains some of the familiarness to a magazine format. Even if I´m not completly satisfied with the solutions on this site I think this is the direction to go.

Inquiringmind™Magazine

Harper's Establishes Online Archive Going Back 157 Years; Prints Subs Include Access

2007-04-17T01:55:00.000-07:00

Intersting development. This I think will be more and more common, but it is an expensive thing to do and I think National libraries will have to take this role.

Posted by David Kaplan
http://www.paidcontent.org/

Tue 03 Apr 2007 06:29 AM Harper’s magazine, which published its first issue in June 1850, is making articles dating back 157 years available in a new online archive, Fishbowl NY reported. So far, the archive is available only to print subscribers of the monthly magazine. Those who pay subscriptions, which start at $16.97, will be able to view PDFs of articles at no extra charge. The Harper’s online database boasts thousands of interlinked topic pages from over a quarter-million page-scans. In addition to maintaining current, non-archived articles and features free on its website, Harper’s says it is looking for a solution for bloggers wishing to link to older Harper’s content.

In gathering all past issues, Harper’s relied on the Cornell University Library, which allowed the magazine use of scans from the publication’s first 49 years.
By putting its archives online, Harper’s takes a different approach than that of the New Yorker, which released its archives on eight DVDs in late 2005. Whereas Harper’s views its archives as an incentive for subscribers, the New Yorker saw a way to increase revenues directly. It’s worth noting that on the bottom of the New Yorker’s home page, under the heading “Coming Soon,” it says the site will offer most New Yorker articles since 2001 and selected pieces from before, as well as a searchable index, with abstracts, of articles since 1925.

Mr. Magazine

2007-04-17T01:53:00.000-07:00

http://mrmagazine.wordpress.com/
Samir Husnis Blog about Magazines

Niche Savvy

2007-04-17T01:33:00.001-07:00

Ink Tank
Posted by Melissa Meyer
http://wjcblog.typepad.com/ink_tank/2007/04/niche_savvy.html

A Reuters article published Wednesday, March 21st illustrated the growing trend of the niche publication, and how special interest magazines are finding their place in an Internet savvy society.

Rodale, Inc. which publishes Runner's World magazine, seems to have found their place among runners, judging by their rising circulation, according to the article written by Robert MacMillan.

In the second half of 2006, the magazine's circulation rose over five percent, despite seeing a decline in the number of newsstand sales. Since 2000, circulation has increased nearly 40 percent.

An expert in the field discussed the draw of consumers to niche publications and how increased popularity to a sport/activity brings increased sales, at least for Runner's World.

"This is pure service journalism," said Samir Husni, a magazine expert and chairman of the journalism department at the University of Mississippi. "You're a subscriber for life. Until you stop running or die, you are getting the magazine."

There were 29.2 million U.S. runners in 2005, according to the National Sporting Goods Association, up 28 percent from 2001. As novices start running, they pick up the magazine, said Mary Wittenberg, race director for the New York City Marathon.

"Runner's World is often a key initial hook," she said.

In a single issue, the magazine offers recipes, training tips, shoe advice, ads for the coolest new gadgets, and inspirational stories from real runners, both professional and non.

The rise in ad revenue, which was $66.6 million in 2006, a 250 percent jump from 2001, is in part because of all the gadgets runners in this technology based world think they need, like i-pods and heart rate monitors. Technical clothing with wicking fabric along with reflective gear round out today's runner ensemble.

Also the market for footwear has increased. In 2005, it was $5 billion compared to just $1.5 billion just a decade prior according to NPD a market research firm.

Runner's World has also begun to incorporate blogs into its online site. It offers blogs from marathoner Kristin Armstrong, and keeps "marathon diaries from professional athetes Meb Keflezighi and Deena Kastor. The site also has chats for top songs to run to and nutrition.

Rodale recently acquired Running Times, essentially its only real competitor, in February, allowing it to move beyond the recreational runner, and reach the pros, which the Times catered to. The article did not disclose its source, but said the acquisition price was less than $5 million.

Other niche publications hope to fare as well. Primedia Inc. wants to sell a division of its company, Enthusiast Media, which includes titles like Motor Trend and Hot Rod. They posted $524.8 million in revenue for 2006. They could get more than $1 billion for the sale.

An acquisition like Running Times works for Rodale because it is a narrow, focused segment of a loyal audience.

"There are niches of niches today because the interests of Americans with their leisure time is so diverse," said media banker Reed Phillips.

Runner's World is one of several magazine published by Rodale, Inc. including Men's Health, Bicycling, Best Life, and Backpacker, all of which earned 2007 National Magazine Award nominations from the American Society of Magazine Editors. Other magazines from Rodale, like Prevention and Women's Health, which are also doing remarkably well. Prevention saw a 65 percent increase in sales during the 1990s. Their ad pages also doubled according to an article by Media Central.

So what is the implication for aspiring journalists? Well, have no fear, the niche publication is here! Although newspapers have seen declining sales and readership due to increased online news, magazines are here to stay. If magazines like Runner's World continue to effectively target their readers through online chats and blogs, the industry is sure maintain its status.

According to mediabistro.com, the average pay in the local/regional magazine industry is $30,000, with only 25 percent earning less than that. Throughout the country, according to this site, magazine journalists consistently earn more than newspaper journalists, and those in the online industry earn even higher wages. Also, with the number of niche publications rising, it seems that job security in the magazine world should be a waning problem. And according to the article's stats on advertising sales, it seems like that would be a safe career bet as well.

Posted by BoSacks "Heard on the Web" at 8:45 AM

Mutual Suspicion

2007-04-17T01:23:00.000-07:00

OFF MESSAGE
Mutual Suspicion
By William Powers, National Journal
http://nationaljournal.com/powers.htm#

I was at one of my usual stopping places online, Arts & Letters Daily, when I noticed a headline mentioning Stephen Greenblatt, the Harvard professor who wrote Will in the World, a strange and wonderful biography of Shakespeare from a few years back. I'm a Greenblatt fan, so I clicked.

The link took me to The New York Review of Books and a Greenblatt essay called "Shakespeare and the Uses of Power," which opens with a high-grade anecdote about Bill Clinton and Macbeth. I was cruising along nicely when, about 10 paragraphs in, I felt an urge I always get with longer pieces on the Web -- a desperate craving for paper. I hunted around for the hard copy of the review but discovered that we'd let our subscription lapse, so I went back to the screen and printed the piece out.

A few days later, Greenblatt was on Open Source, the nationally syndicated public-radio show hosted by Christopher Lydon, to talk about the essay, and I tuned in. I've been on that show myself more than once, so maybe I'm biased, but I think Lydon is a marvel. I e-mailed him the next day to say that I'd loved the conversation, and he wrote back that there was follow-up stuff on the show's blog. I went there and read it.

Now think about the way this little media journey unfolded: from a Web-only media site, to the online version of an old paper periodical, to paper itself, to radio, and then back to the Web.

The standard view of the media today is of two separate, warring kingdoms. Bloggers and their ilk want to take down the uppity mainstream media, the "MSM" that they despise -- traditional newspapers, magazines, and such. And the MSM curse the day that the digital barbarians stormed the castle and spoiled everything.

It's a great story line. And if you reflect on it for about one second, you realize that it's not true. Old and new media have a symbiotic relationship. Without The New York Times, The Washington Post, CBS News, and the other media ancients, bloggers who cover news and politics would have nothing to talk about. Meanwhile, the mainstreamers have their own Web sites, and they adore the traffic they get from bloggers linking to them.

I've written about this dynamic before, as have others. But there's one aspect of the symbiosis that is rarely mentioned: the way it helps us consumers by serving as a two-way filter. New and old media vet one another's work, each helping us to unclutter and winnow the content from the other side. When a major print outlet shines its light on a particular Web site or podcaster, I sit up and notice. Why? Because there are millions of bloggers and podcasters out there, so the establishment media can afford to be very choosy. A blog has to clear a high bar to win that kind of attention.

Thus, when I noticed that The Wall Street Journal (hard copy) was praising an architecture blog I'd never seen called BLDGBLOG, I opened my screen and typed it right in -- it was a winner. After seeing a BusinessWeek (again, the paper version) story about a podcaster known as Grammar Girl, I told my 9-year-old about her and now we listen to her together.

Likewise, the online media don't link to just anything in the mainstream. Because many digital types are constitutionally suspicious of that world, when they praise something that appeared in print, it's noteworthy. And when they mock old-media content or call it an outrage, well, that's interesting, too. As I wrote this column, the news tab at Technorati.com was reporting that tons of bloggers were linking to a Time magazine story titled "An Administration's Epic Collapse." I don't know why -- I haven't even glanced at Time this week. Now I will.

The filters aren't foolproof, but sometimes they work in spite of themselves. The Wall Street Journal recently ran a front-page teaser for an article (subscription) about "relevant" Web sites for 2008 campaign coverage. I flipped directly to the piece and thought it was a big yawn. The Web fare that it touted sounded so dull that I didn't even go online to check it out. Happiness is knowing what to ignore.

-- William Powers is a columnist for National Journal magazine

Mr. Magazine Blogs Blu

2007-04-17T01:19:00.000-07:00

BLU Magazine
By Samir Husni
http://mrmagazine.wordpress.com/
From: BoSacks Blog

Lately we have been reading about magazines folding shop in print and claiming to stay alive on cyber space. FHM, Teen People, Shock, Info World and Elle Girl, to name a few, decided to cease the ink on paper editions and concentrate on pixels on the screen. Kimberly Toms spotted this trend and decided to do the opposite.

Rather than publishing her new magazine BLU (a magazine for single men and women) in print first and face all the problems of a new launch such as the cost of printing and production, no advertising, low sale through numbers and a lot of waste, Toms opted for the pixels on the screen.

She said that the "Magazine BLU is in digital format for the first five bimonthlies (through the December 07 edition) for brand-building and working out of the design/inclusion kinks, then monthly and in hard copy (with distribution already lined up) as of January 2008. The next issue is June/July 07 with a major launch event in Philly in July."

To say that Kimberly is having a love affair with this magazine concept will be an understatement. Kimberly told me that, "This has been the concept that would not die, no matter how much I wanted it to some days!! It has been the most difficult, yet most rewarding journey, and I look forward to every day it presents as Magazine BLU." I only wished that the passion that Kimberly has for the magazine and the magazine busniess is evident in her first issue.

A digital magazine with all the type and design that BLU offers makes it hard to read and enjoy, but I am sure that Kimberly knows that since she mentioned the ongoing work on the design kinks in the magazine. A digital magazine should not be a replica of the print magazine or an imitation of it. It does not even need the space for a UPC.

The screen viewers are not the same as the page viewers. To view the first issue of BLU magazine click here,and to see a great example of a digital magazine click here to read Felix Dennis's magazine Monkey click here.

Magazine BLU is not the first magazine to publish via the web first and turn to print next, and it will not be the last. I continue to believe that, in this day and age, if you are really going to survive and make a profit, you have to pay your dues in ink on paper. If you think the competition to establish yourself in print is tough, then you do not know how big is the competition in the virtual space out there. It is good to dream big . . . but one day you have to wake up (and smell the ink . . .)

Coming Soon to TV: Your Favorite Mags

2007-04-15T09:02:00.000-07:00

Hearst Inks Development Deal With Fox to Turn Popular Titles Into Series
By James Hibberd
http://adage.com/mediaworks/article? article_id=115994

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Fox Television Studios and Hearst Magazines are joining forces to create series for broadband and eventually network TV based on popular magazine titles. The development deal includes two initial webisode projects inspired by CosmoGirl and Popular Mechanics.

The development deal includes two initial webisode projects inspired by CosmoGirl and Popular Mechanics. The online series feature an undetermined number of two- to three-minute episodes that will launch on the magazines' websites. The companies also plan to pitch the content to web portals such as Yahoo and AOL.

The CosmoGirl project is a serialized soap, with fans contributing to the narrative by submitting suggestions for what should happen next in the story. The details of the Popular Mechanics webisodes have not yet been determined, nor has a timeline for launching either project.

50-50 split for Fox, Hearst
The deal marks the first union between Fox and Hearst, with the companies agreeing to a 50-50 split of any advertising revenue. If successful, they hope to create further content for both broadband and network TV. "This is an innovative partnership that marries Fox TV Studios' creative ideas with Hearst's successful brands and content," said Angela Shapiro-Mathes, president of Fox Television Studios.

The webisodes will be the first foray into broadband for Fox Studios, which has long been known primarily for reality and documentary content.

This week, the Fox team will seek to score two more credits when it begins shopping two projects from "American Idol" judge Simon Cowell, whom it signed to a development deal last year. The studio is keeping quiet on the details, but Ms. Shapiro-Mathes is optimistic this summer will be a watershed. "This is a nice place to be in a comparatively short period of time," she said.

Fertile Ground for Magazines

2007-04-15T08:03:00.001-07:00

By Eric Benderoff
Tribune staff reporter
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi- 0704110766apr12,0,3666288.story?coll=chi- business-hed

Publications are pulling the plug on their print editions as they cultivate rapidly growing online revenue options

Final print copies of InfoWorld, a 29-year-old weekly computer magazine, were shipped to subscribers last week.

Death was attributed to plummeting print revenues and declining readership.

"There's no guarantee anymore that when InfoWorld landed on a desk, it would be read," explained Bob Ostrow, InfoWorld's chief executive.

At the same time, the magazine's online version is thriving. Killing off print to focus on online is a growing trend in the magazine business, as evidenced by recently folded titles such as Child and FHM. The trend is especially prominent among business-to- business publications.

"Editors and salespeople will tell you that you can't create online products fast enough to satisfy readers and advertisers," said Tony Silber, editor and publisher of Folio, a magazine for the publishing industry. "Print media used to be the key revenue source, but now it's a very subordinate piece of the pie."

Chuck Richard, a vice president and analyst with Outsell Inc., a media research firm, said online revenue growth rates for magazines "are always in the double digits. Sometimes it's in the 20 to 30 percent range and certain titles are in the 40 to 50 percent range."

The only loser for business publishers? Print, where ad revenues are "flat or negative 5 percent," Richard said. InfoWorld is a case in point.

Ad pages in the print issue had fallen 18 percent in January and 14 percent in February. Meanwhile, online readership in February grew 85 percent year- over-year, Ostrow said, and the bulk of the magazine's revenues were being generated from its online publication.

So when the print version of InfoWorld was spiked, the "market termed it as a non-event," Ostrow said. "The advertisers didn't blink."

With the move, 10 print production jobs were eliminated while the company hired a few multimedia producers to bolster the magazine's online presentation.

"We stay in front of our readers with e-mailed newsletters, a daily podcast they can subscribe to and RSS feeds," Ostrow said, referring to daily updates directly to subscribers' computers.

"We think it all works together," Ostrow said.

It's not just banner ads that draw revenues. Rather, it's the opportunity for an advertiser to sponsor an event or an e-mailed newsletter, Richard said. "It's a multilayer source for revenue."

In its 2007 forecast, Outcast said revenue for professional events, like seminars, is expected to grow 6 percent; revenue for sponsored e-mails should increase by 11 percent; sponsored Webinars, or online seminars, are expected to rise 28 percent; and even white papers, or sponsored content, is expected to grow by 38 percent.

Yet at some magazines, the shift is more of a reflection of age-old publishing concerns, where titles face stiff competition. Child, one of several similar titles published by Meredith Corp., struggled as the least popular sibling among American Baby, Parents and Family Circle.

American Baby focuses on neo-natal care and a baby's first year, while Parents covers toddlers. Each reach 2 million monthly readers. Family Circle, for parents of tweens and teenagers, reaches 4 million.

"Child was geared to upscale and working two- income families," said Art Slusark, Meredith's vice president for communications. But its content overlapped American Baby and Parents and its circulation fell from more than 1 million in 2005 to roughly 825,000.

Child's last print publication is due this summer. After that, Child's content will be available only online -- or folded into some of Meredith's other magazines.

Roughly 60 positions are being eliminated in the print magazine's closing, and Meredith is taking a $3 million charge for severance costs and another $7 million charge to write off assets for Child as it transitions into a broader online portal.

Child will be reborn in July as part of a parenting portal that will include podcasts, videos, blogs and other e- products.

"We think that is where the growth is going to be," Slusark said. "Online revenues are growing at a much faster pace than print, better than 50 percent annually in some cases."

Until the portal is launched, Meredith will use Child.com to lure readers to its other publications. For instance, when visitors go to the Web site for potty training advice, the first bit of information they see is a pop-up ad for Parents magazine.

FHM, the once highflying "lad" magazine known for photos of scantily clad celebrities, is also being reborn online. Its last print edition is still on newsstands, but it is scampering to serve online its gadget-happy 18-34 male demographic.

"We thought we'd beat the other magazines to the punch," said Scott Kritz, editor in chief. "For our demo of younger men, online is the best way to reach them. We've been seeing a lot of advertising shifting online."

FHM laid off most of its print editorial staff but has expanded its online staff, he said. "I was nervous the first two weeks after we suspended the print magazine, but not anymore. It's ramping up" Kritz said.

FHM recently hired an online ad firm, Gorilla Nation, which signed several new clients in the last week. Some advertisers, including Miller Brewing Co., remained after the transition.

Still, Kritz is conflicted about the change away from print.

"The reason I got into this field is I always loved magazines," said the former computer science and journalism student. "But that's not the way people consume information these days. Online is easy, convenient. It's right in front of you.

"For better or worse, that is the way things are going."

Bosacks Speaks Out: It’s All in the Delivery

2007-04-15T08:01:00.000-07:00

As appeared in Publishing Executive Magazine

http://www.pubexec.com/story/story.bsp?sid=48494&var=story

In 25,000 years, nothing has really changed except the method of sharing content.

No matter how far back in history you go, humans have captured the moment and written it down, somewhere. Whether you look at the 25,000-year-old Ishango baton from the Congo that recorded a six-month lunar calendar, which was the first known non-cerebral memory device, now called a book … or the cave paintings of France … or the scrolls of the Library of Alexandria … or the retooled olive press of Mr. Gutenberg, you couldn’t find a more interesting and complex period of our industry, of information distribution, than now. OK, maybe Mr. Gutenberg’s era was pretty exciting too.

From the moment movable type was invented till just a few years ago our path was crystal clear and unavoidable. Gutenberg created movable type from soft metal, and an industry was born from the rapid distribution of information.

Did you know he swore his printing partners to secrecy? And upon their deaths, the contract read that the “idea and process” of movable type defaulted back to Gutenberg and his heirs. Nice try, Johannes. Too bad that he died in poverty. Imagine that—the man who invented the world’s first real mass-information distribution system dies in poverty.

An Irresistible Force

The growth of the printing press and the distribution of information was an irresistible force, whose only combatant at the time was ignorance and what seems to us now extremely limited technology.

Of course that limitation is only apparent to us as we look back with tremendous hindsight. The technology of that day was nothing less than amazing, as is our reaching out to the stars. It took a single scribe over a year to copy a single book. Did you know that it took 200 to 300 sheepskins to make a bible? And there was no “preflighting” and “spell checking” to make sure that the scribe got it right.

But Gutenberg could turn out hundreds of books in a week, each one identical to the next. So it is not hard to envision the exponential growth of … well, everything. You no longer needed old wise men to learn from. You didn’t need to be an apprentice. You could learn anything and everything from a book.

Well, we all know the story of how the first book was a bible. But do you know what the very next books were? The topics were exactly the same things that are popular today. Craft books, then scientific books, then the explosion of thought and free thinking.

The printing press reduced the cost of books, increased their availability and encouraged the spread of literacy. It helped alter the economic, scientific and ideological outlooks for the next five centuries. It must have spread something like a virus, and the net result was that it democratized knowledge. And that is no small thing. Yes, that is the business Gutenberg was in, and so are you.

From Storytellers to E-tellers

We have gone from the storytellers of the oral tradition and cave paintings to memory devices like batons and parchment scribed by hand. We have gone from the printing press to new forms of electronic communication. Each new development in the history of communication has always further democratized the delivery of information. Nothing has really changed, except the method of delivery.

So if you think about it, printing on dead trees is no longer the only way of reproducing books and magazines. The process of reading, however, has not changed an iota; it is the same as it has always been.

We are still reading exactly the same way we did 25,000 years ago—we are still mentally interpreting written symbols. We are exploring new ways to do the same things the Ishango shaman did. Capturing ideas, storing it outside of the brain, and passing it on to other humans. Nothing has changed in 25,000 years except the method of delivery. PE

Bob Sacks (aka BoSacks) is a consultant to the printing/publishing industry and president of The Precision Media Group (www.BoSacks.com). He is publisher and editor of a daily, international e-newsletter, Heard on the Web. Sacks has held posts as director of manufacturing and distribution, senior sales manager (paper), chief of operations, pressman, cameraman and corporate janitor.

The Last Magazine, reviewed

2007-04-14T08:30:00.001-07:00

Here’s my review of David Renard’s recent book ‘The Last Magazine’, published in Creative Review this week.

The book arrives as the latest in a flurry of books about magazines. Steve Taylor’s ‘100 Years of Magazine Covers’ is a sound history of that one key part of the magazine; Charlotte River’s ‘Mag-Art’ highlights a broad range of recent innovative titles. ‘The Last Magazine‘ stands apart from these in that it concentrates on the future of magazines.

Renard’s central theme is established with the opening sentence of the book. ‘Magazines, as we know them, are dying’ he states bluntly, before enlarging in some detail why this is the case. Such statements, along with the book title itself, are obviously designed to grab attention, but Renard knows his stuff – he divides his time between running Mu/Inc, the US’s largest nationwide distributor of independent magazines, and consulting for more established magazine publishers – and has assembled a strong cast of essayists to flesh out the detail of his argument.

This is how it goes: over the next twenty years mainstream magazines will cease to be distributed as printed items, as a combination of pressures pushes publishers to move to digital distribution. These pressures have been documented before, most memorably in British publisher Felix Dennis’ description of the ‘four horsemen’ converging on the magazine industry, ‘the harbingers of a long, slow, inevitable decline in the fortunes of newspapers and magazines,’ he wrote in 2004, ‘as our readers mutate into viewers; as our distribution, sales channels and margins shrink; as the environmentalists batter us with claims of social irresponsibility and as our advertisers… migrate to the electronic sea’. He was talking about the end of an era; Renard’s words are subtly different. He has moved on to talk about the next era, a time where readers expect instant information and advertisers expect an accountability similar to that they now receive from the web.

In the world of magazine publishing this is not hot news, as the selection of quotes from leading publishing figures on the opening spread makes clear. When you have senior staff from Time Inc, NewsCorp and Hachette-Filipacchi concurring with this argument it’s time to listen. But these people aren’t bemoaning their fate; they are preparing their investors for what’s next.

While the process of designing and printing magazines has been revolutionised in a single generation of digitalisation, the financial model behind the making of magazines has barely changed. The model has been successful because of continued growth. But recently this growth has stopped. As one of the contributors here, veteran publisher Bob Sacks, points out, it doesn’t seem to matter how many more magazines we produce, total sales remains the same. In the US that total has stayed constant at 366m copies a year since 1990. That’s despite 1100 new launches last year.

The big publishing houses continue to make hay while they can. In the UK this has meant a move towards the weekly, a move that not only quadruples potential income from advertising and copy sales, but also helps sate the readers desire for the latest updates.

But whether a magazine is published weekly or monthly, the current model causes massive wastage. On average, over 55% of all magazines produced don’t actually get sold, ie they get trashed or recycled. In the US that means 180m magazines a year are waste.

Meanwhile in the UK the recently launched weekly title Grazia is regarded as a huge success as it reaches for 200k sales and basks in an ongoing stream of industry awards. Yet it is years from earning enough to pay off the £16m cost of its launch. No wonder the industry is readying itself for a digital future. Dennis has launched the UK’s first online-only mass market magazine, lad mag Monkey.com, while in the US the publishers of FHM have cancelled its print edition and reinvented it as an online-only title.

But lad mags are an easy fit in today’s online world. Their design sensibility owes much to the bite-size multi-entry point world of the web, while their content increasingly resembles the online porn industry. But how do the big-selling women’s titles fit into Renards’ argument? Technologist Nick Hampshire is on hand to explain that online doesn’t mean desk-bound, providing in-depth detail on the latest developments in e-paper and portable readers. His research is impressive and convincing. The long-heralded paper-thin electronic display finally seems more than a pipe dream.

So where does that leave the humble printed magazine and we magazine-lovers? This is where Renard adds his own twist: while the mainstream will rush to embrace digital delivery, his beloved independent magazines – what I described as microzines in my book MagCulture – will continue to use print.

This is an absolutely compelling idea. Most mainstream magazines are now commodities, disposable weekly entertainment to be read and chucked. Such magazines are ideally placed for online consumption. They won’t use the helpless HTML of websites, but be updatable, digital documents subject to the design values of print magazines and presented electronically to be read then deleted.

Meanwhile the independent press, objects of absolute passion for both creators and readers alike, will continue to use print. These labours of love, rare items often produced in runs as low as 1,000, will remain dependent on a physical manifestation. As one contributor to the book, Jan Van Mol of Add!ct magazine puts it, the independent magazine is the ‘the canvas of the magazine artist’. For such magazines the tangibility of print is a key part of their very existence. They are multi-sensual experiences, designed to be held, smelled, and touched.

The majority of The Last Magazine is given up to pictures of covers and spreads from these independent magazines. Renard presents a broad and international collection ranging from the relatively high profile (Carl*s Cars, Self Service and Mark) to the more obscure (Yummy, Daniel Bantam’s Fan Club Magazine and Modern Toss). Vince Frost’s design for the book is typically simple and strong, black and white typography allowing the images to provide the colour, and the cover a striking graphic adaptation of magazines lined up on a shelf.

The magazines are loosely divided into themes such as Physicality, Content and Community. But great though it is to see these magazines together in one collection, this is where the book lets itself down. Arguing the case for these magazines as the future of print demands more than just a showcase of images. The brief introductions to the themes aren’t enough to provide real context. With proper captioning of the magazines, the book could have delivered stronger arguments for their presence and made a good book great.

The Last Magazine?

2007-04-14T08:28:00.000-07:00

Is the magazine industry facing death, mayhem, or a timely revitalization?

By Bo Sacks – March 23, 2007

There is a new book on the market called The Last Magazine, by my friend David Renard. It makes the volatile declaration that, "Magazines, as we know them, are dying." A provocative statement for sure, but the magazine business is not exactly dying. It just uses an ancient and atrophied business model, and we need a new model to breathe life into its ink-clogged corpuscles.

I think there is still great hope for the industry, and perhaps even a new golden age of publishing, but not without severe introspection and great vision. There is absolutely no hope with the status quo. As Laurence Peter once said, "Bureaucracy defends the status quo, long past the time when the quo has lost its status."

I would say that it is time for radical changes, but that is happening without my instruction. OK, that's not entirely true, because I have been tutoring the industry since what feels like Gutenberg's age, so perhaps they are just finally starting listening to me.

The newsstand business formula is completely jaundiced, and one of the most inefficient manufacturing procedures I have heard of. And, I'm pretty sure that Renard, who runs Mu/Inc, the largest distributor of independent magazines nationally, agrees. Do you know that the magazine industry on average prints 10 magazines and sells three? What do you think happens to the remaining seven magazines? Does "landfill" have a stinging and ringing statement of truth for you? That means that the print industry throws one billion dollars into the garbage every year. Does that sound like a vibrant business plan with plenty of sustainability in the 21st century? By contrast, how much do you think wasted electrons on the Web cost?

Meanwhile, postage is going nowhere but up, as demonstrated by the recent rate case. And the price of paper, I believe, is also preparing to take a protracted leap in to the sky. This price growth will come from the shutting down of less productive mills, perhaps causing a paper shortage where none existed before. The only saving grace might be the equivalent closure of magazines and newspapers to offset the decline in paper production.

Publishing and publishers need to have their most creative and visionary seers at the forefront to look over the castle wall and see what is coming.

So what does this all mean? Death, mayhem, or perhaps, a timely revitalization? The magazine industry is at the mercy of the public, facing ever more media choices. As the options continue to multiply, the task of capturing the attention of those readers will be tougher than ever. New information delivery methods, combined with the potential for complete customization, promise to shake up the playing field for the industry's established players, as well as the young entrepreneur starting out in information distribution, formally known as publishing.

There is a revolution underway, and the entire concept of what publishing is has shifted from a one-dimensional analog approach, to a three-dimensional multi-pathed methodology.

Results of this shift put publishers at mercy of the public will, a public with more choices than ever before, for its time and their money. This will no doubt include further declines in newsstand sales, as impulse readers increasingly make the Web their first stop. And why not, with the ease of access getting easier and cheaper on a daily basis? But really clever publishers will see gains in other areas if they position themselves for the future. Oh yes, did you know that Web advertising has already surpassed magazine print advertising and is on a meteoric rise, while the dead tree business is, at best, flat and striving for accountability?

Most publishers I know of recognize that we are at an historic fork in the road.

What we need is a new sustainable business model for the publishing industry. The barbarians are at the gate. Advertising is reassessing its reliance on mass media and instead seeks a one-on-one relationship with its clients. Not only seeking it, but getting it. Although not perfect, the Internet has accountability that magazine publishers can only dream of. Internet click through and pay-per-click actually account for each and every charged advertising participant. No longer do advertisers have to buy into the 10 reader per magazine pass-along mythology.

The public is in search of, and getting, personalized information in dozens of new and creative ways that didn't exist a dozen years ago: the Internet, cell phones, PDAs, blogs, e-books, and TIVO. And, the biggest industry disrupter of them all is right around the corner: e-paper. Publishing and publishers need to have their most creative and visionary seers at the forefront to look over the castle wall and see what is coming.

The next event, if, in fact, it is not already here, is what I call "me media." Publishers need to drill down to the unique needs and requests of their readership, and deliver accurate, timely, and personalized information, at any time, to any place on the globe. Nothing less will be acceptable as a successful new business model or to the reading public. In short, the emphasis of publishing magazines is going to be the business of selling specialized content, regardless of the delivery method.

Remember this and remember it well: It's never going to be the way it was. In fact, it's not going to be the way it is.

Bo Sacks' Precision Media Groupdoes private consulting and publishes "Heard on the Web: Media Intelligence," a daily e-newsletter that delivers pertinent industry news to a diverse, worldwide, publishing community of over 11,750 media industry leaders. It is the longest running e-newsletter in the world.

Turn the Page

2007-04-14T08:27:00.001-07:00

A New Book Prophesies--and Celebrates--the Death of the Newsstand Magazine

The Last Magazine
By David Renard, et al.
Universe
Edition: paperback

by Michaelangelo Matos

It's apparent right away that The Last Magazine--all 13-by-10 inches and roughly one and a half pounds of it--doesn't take its title lightly. As David Renard, who is credited as sole author on the cover and spine but isn't the only writer in here by any means, puts it in his lead essay, "Over the next few years, mass-market [magazine] titles will follow the lead of newspapers, academic journals, business-to-business magazines, and newsweeklies and move to stanch their hemorrhaging circulation and revenues by more aggressively embracing digital delivery. . . . Paper-based periodicals that do persevere in North America and Europe will do so on a much smaller scale. . . . These will be the last printed magazines." You've heard of true believers? Renard is a true disbeliever, so much so that he boldfaces that last clause.

Who can blame him? Print media as a whole has been at a loss in the face of its electronic competition. For the past decade, big-budget startups from major and minor magazine houses alike have dropped like subscription inserts, while an alarming number of print publications embraced the web both timidly and late, scrambling to start up blogs that are either misguided or wither from malnutrition within months. (Take it from a guy who barely updates his personal one.) Sure, you're always going to need something to read on the bus or the train, but increasingly, what there is to read has become less substantive, as magazines move to dumbsize content with shorter word counts, vapid listicles, bigger pictures of celebs, and increasing amounts of visual noise in the form of "entrance points" for casual readers to grasp onto--as if it weren't a rule that, editorially at least, magazines are better off cultivating an audience than chasing passers-by.

Still, The Last Magazine's prognostications are driven far more by commerce and technology than by matters of content. The most interesting of the eight essays here is British tech writer Nick Hampshire's "The E-Paper Catalyst," about the technologies that may render irrelevant definitions of--and differences between--glossy and newsprint. As technological gizmos decrease in size, e-readers (the device) and e-paper (the technology the devices use) are the next logical step--flexible, lightweight ("as thin and light as a copy of Newsweek," Hampshire writes), and sensitive to ambient light, meaning casually readable in a way that a laptop's LCD screen, lit from within and not paperlike from above, is not.

Hampshire notes that the e-reader's "combination of an electrophoretic frontplane and an organic electronic backplane . . . will be used in commercial displays from 2007 onward"--and guesses they'll be in widespread use by 2012. "In its docking stand, which is connected to your PC, the e-reader has been automatically downloaded with copies of the morning newspaper and a couple of magazines to which you subscribe. . . . [Y]ou know it will not be damaged if you drop it or sit on it, unlike your laptop PC."

Needless to say, this sounds a hair too good to be true, just like every other tech-based prediction ever--which doesn't mean it couldn't happen. Ditto Renard's proposition that what he refers to as "the stylepress"--artisan "high-end specialty titles," by big or small publishers, unbound to periodicity--will make up the bulk of the still-on-paper magazine industry in 20 years. Apparently this also means the actual style press--fashion magazines. If there's a logjam in the e-paper equation, it's that saturated color printing and oversized, glossy paper can do what an electronic screen simply can't. The fashion industry--and to a lesser degree the art industry, which doesn't sell nearly as many magazines--depends upon vivid representation; however good e-paper becomes, you can't tear out a photo from it and hang it on the wall. This must seem so obvious a truth that Renard doesn't mention it--instead, he offers a making-of essay by Rankin of U.K. style monthly Dazed and Confused that'll charm the magazine junkies (who else would pick up this book?) but doesn't offer much theoretically.

Soothsaying isn't The Last Magazine's focus so much as its excuse. As you might guess from the $45 price tag and oversize format, this is an art book, which helps explain why Steven Heller's essay, on independent magazines from Dada forward, rhapsodizes about the utterly unreadable rock mag Ray Gun--an early-'90s title, not '80s, as claimed. Heller is art director for The New York Times Book Review. No wonder he's so misty-eyed about a publication in which "page numbers were grotesquely blown up so that they were larger than the headlines and positioned in the middle of all the pages"--he must want to do the same thing every week of his life.

Still, it's disingenuous to wonder, as this book does in the preface of its "Design" chapter, "Why do magazines have to be designed for ease of use?" Here's why: Because that's the entire reason people like magazines. There's a line between sticking to your guns and being willful; magazines are a great art form because they suppose private obsessions can and should become shared knowledge, public information, common cause, by adding them to a canvas for a multiplicity of voices, however narrow their binding sensibility might seem. Great books are records of great ideas and stories, but a great magazine communicates the byways of a great community. There are many titles displayed in The Last Magazine that I greatly like--the late Zembla, a British attempt to create a literary magazine with the look and feel of a rock mag; the high-toned porn of Richardson--or am intrigued by unread, such as Yummy, a "junk food design magazine." But however stimulating this plethora is, as a group of margins without a center, it also feels a little sad.

Good Fonts, Bad Fonts, and the Rest

2007-04-06T01:36:00.001-07:00

Found this essay on http://bowfinprintworks.com/FontSpotting.html
I think it addresses some important issues around type. And I more or less agree to conclusions

I often see people ask questions in online forums about whether such-and-such is a 'good font', and hear and read lots of discussion about which fonts or typefaces are 'best'. The only way such terms make any sense to me is from a technical standpoint. If a font is missing many characters, or doesn't space properly (due to poor, or missing kerning), then that is probably a 'bad' font. Also, if a font is not an original digitzation of a typeface design, then that is a BAD (unethical) font.

However, I realize when people use those terms, they most often mean it in an artistic, or esthetic, sense. They are asking questions about taste and style. That is a much harder question to answer. It is common, and easy, to give an answer that says, essentially, that 'classic' typefaces are best. After all, they have stood the test of time, and have proven themselves useful for hundreds of years in most cases. Typefaces like Garamond, Baskerville, Bodoni and Caslon are called 'Classics' in most writing on the subject of Type. They have also helped us define our notions of what makes a typeface beautiful, whatever we mean by that. What makes them beautiful? It's not just legibility, because many typefaces can be clearly read, but would rarely be thought of as beautiful. Proportions, curves, contrast, strokes and other aspects of a type's design all contribute to what makes a typeface beautiful in our eyes -- and like other forms of beauty, it is really in the eye of the beholder.

It's interesting to me to read the words of experts from the past when they write about 'good' typefaces. It may show something about how much typefaces are like any other art form. Daniel Berkely Updike, whose book "Printing Types: Their History, Forms and Use" was considered worth re-printing almost 50 years after its last edition, said the following about type: "Horace Walpole said about people that nine-tenths of them 'were created to make you want to be with the other tenth.' This is true of types." He also says that "if we know the truth typographically we shall be freed from using many of the poor types that are offered us." His attitude seems to me to reflect a sort of snobbery that says that only a few typefaces are worthy of our use and admiration, although he does say that we should be "directed by taste and a sense of the fitness of things". To me, that is the key, because if a type fits its use then it could be considered good for that use. However, apparently in Updike's view all the good typefaces anyone would ever need were already designed when he wrote those words in 1937, because he further claims that "examples of almost every type that the world ought ever to have seen could be shown in a thin pamphlet", in contrast to the specimen catalogs that filled hundreds of pages with type samples.

In contrast to Updike's rather elitist view that only those who studied enough to learn what typographic 'truth' was could decide which types were 'good' (and implies that they've already been created in the past), Robert Bringhurst, author of "The Elements of Typographic Style" says "Typography, like other arts, preys on its own past. It can do so with the callousness of a grave robber, or with the piety of unquestioning ancestor worship." It seems to me that Updike might fall into the latter category, along with those who think the world really needs another version of Caslon, Garamond, Bodoni, or some other 'classic' typeface. We all know the 'grave robbers' who just copy from the works of others. In their best light, they might be those who revive lost works, especially if they credit their sources; in their worst form, they steal the work of others and try to claim it as their own work. Bringhurst at least allows that these are not the only two possibilities when he says that typographers (including type designers) can make use of the past "in thoughtful, enlightened and deeply creative ways." This is the opening for new type designs, that create works of art from the symbols we use for communication, so that "ancient forms are living in the new" in Bringhurst's terms.

So how are we to decide what is Good, or Best (since we love superlatives)? I think both of these authors agree on the importance of knowing the history of type, but ultimately you have to be the judge, relying on your own (hopefully informed) taste, and feelings about whether the type suits your material. I think 'Good, Better and Best', are context-dependent terms, and it's up to your judgment how well a typeface fits your particular context. One thing Daniel Updike said that I can fully agree with is that "It is a simple matter to make lists of good types -- though not as simple as it seems. It is still simpler -- and much less trouble -- lazily to accept other people's conclusions and think no more about it."

Exquisite corpse

2007-02-27T05:06:00.000-08:00

Exquisite corpse

surrealist technique:
Exquisite corpse (also known as "exquisite cadaver" or "rotating corpse") is a method by which a collection of words or images are collectively assembled, the result being known as the exquisite corpse or cadavre exquis in French. Each collaborator adds to a composition in sequence, either by following a rule (e.g. "The adjective noun adverb verb the adjective noun") or by being allowed to see the end of what the previous person contributed.

Here is an example:

The machine is using us

2007-02-22T03:57:00.001-08:00

Web 2.0 presentation

2007-02-22T03:51:00.000-08:00

Living Without The Internet

2006-10-04T05:42:00.000-07:00

Adrian Shaughnessy from Design Observer
08.03.06 |

I’ve just done what tens of thousands of Brits do every summer: I’ve spent the past two weeks holidaying in rural France. This annual British invasion of our near neighbour is, ostensibly, a search for good weather, unspoilt countryside and sophisticated cuisine. In truth, we go because we’re in thrall to the escapist and somewhat reactionary notion that life in France — and specifically rural France — is more civilised than life in our over-crowded, crime-ravaged little island. But as I sat in my isolated retreat, with the scent of lavender drifting in through the open windows, something was gnawing at me.

For the first time in three or four years, I was living without the internet, and it was unnerving to discover the degree to which I’d become net dependent.

I’d packed my laptop, but because it wasn’t plugged into the giant pulsating brain of the world wide web, it felt dead — a portal to nothing. Emails didn’t ping up. I wasn’t able to log onto the half dozen websites I visit daily (sometimes hourly). I wasn’t able to chase down facts, wasn’t able to idly waste time drifting in and out of the more arcane corners of the net. I felt disconnected: my life-support system had been turned off.

When television replaced print (the medium of individualism) to become the great mass medium of the 20th century, McLuhan’s vision of the global village looked as if it had become a permanent reality. Yet compared to the internet, television is a poor creator of communities. The notion of "water cooler television" already seems remote: a folk memory. Television has become the medium of consumption, and despite the presence of countless micro-channels catering to micro-interests, television only wants one sort of viewers: consumers.

The consequence of this is that the TV audience is voting with its feet. A recent report in The Guardian noted that “in the US, primetime viewing of broadcast networks sunk to the lowest level in ratings history: 20.8 million on average.” Here in Britain, "the telly" is shrill with the sound of channels begging us to “phone in,” “send texts,” “press the red button,” “tell us what you think.” This faux interactivity is an increasingly desperate attempt to lure us away from the internet. It’s the death rattle of an empire that sees its supremacy slipping away.

The internet is different. It allows anyone with access to a computer and a telephone line to retain a sense of personal volition. And there are enough people with computers hooked up to the web for the internet to have become an alternative — a threat even — to conventional media. How else do we explain Murdoch’s purchase of MySpace? How else do we explain television’s nervous aping of the interactivity of the internet?

Of course, just like television, the internet has also been colonized by commercialism. Yet often with surprisingly beneficial results, as the new book The Long Tail: How Endless Choice is Creating Unlimited Demand by Chris Anderson shows. And anyway, we can easily bypass the commercial hucksterism of the net and glide effortlessly toward the two great shining jewels in the internet crown: unlimited information and a sense of “personal” community: put another way, toward communities of our own making.

When I’m deprived of the internet, I’m hampered in my professional life as a designer and occasional writer, and in my personal life as an info junkie. The internet has not lessened my fondness for books — hunting down information in print media in fact remains one of life’s great joys. But it’s quicker on the internet, and you’ve got more options. Sure, you have to be wary of dud information, and data is more likely to be inaccurate on the internet than it is in book form. But you learn to check and cross-reference. You learn to be wary. It’s all part of the fun.

The idea of the internet as a source of community, however, is less easy to evaluate. Deprived of my internet connection in France, I felt doubly disconnected. I could see that I was surrounded by a community — one that was surprisingly attractive, homogeneous and resilient. But I wasn’t part of it. I was courteously admitted to it when I ate in one of the local restaurants, or when I chatted with the stallholders at the local market, but that was about it. A more gregarious person than me might have joined in the lively bar culture that thrives in even the smallest villages. But with my poor French language skills I was content to remain an outsider — an admiring observer.

Back home in London I don’t feel any great sense of community, either. I barely know my neighbours (a feature common to metropolitan dwellers), and I only experience the tug of community in my work, where I feel a tribal bond with other designers.

The “community” that I find on the internet — and which I missed so keenly in France —– is the communality of shared enthusiasms for marginalised subjects. It might be a "community" of only a few dozen people clustered around subject matter incapable of maintaining a foothold in the world of bricks and mortar. I’m talking about sites, blogs and forums created by enthusiastic individuals and groups with little or no regard for the commercial potential of their activities. I’m talking about minority subjects that, without the internet, simply will not survive. These are the sorts of subjects and connections that, if I’m deprived of them for even a couple of weeks, make me feel twitchy and disconnected. Unplugging is no longer an option.
08.03.06

2006-10-02T02:38:00.000-07:00

E-mail to Eirik Fossan:

Hei Eirik,

Ble plutselig opptatt i rommet ved siden av.

Takk for innput. Jeg tenkte jeg muligens skulle gi deg en litt mer inngående forklaring på hvilken type magasin jeg ser på og bruke litt hypertextualitet for å vise deg hvilket research grunnlag jeg har foreløpig. Jeg tenker dette kan være nyttig for min egen del for å prøve å forklare for meg selv like mye som for deg hva det er jeg er ute etter å lage.
Jeg har hovedsakelig sett på magasiner som interesserer meg innenfor kunst, design (hovedsakelig grafisk design og illustrasjon) og livstil her kommer en liten liste:

Arkitip
Lodown
Tokion
Tokion
Emigre
eye
dot dot dot
BUTT
adrenalin som ser ut som det har forsvunnet, ihvertfall fra nettet.
Refill

Dette er en ufullstendig liste og noen av de nevnte magasinene har jeg heller ikke studert så nøye.

Når det gjelder web har jeg sett litt på det som eksisterer av magasiner på nettet. Samt forum/blogger og multimedia muligheter på nettet.

I tillegg til dette kommer endel litterære magasiner som jeg bare såvidt har tittet på, men ikke har noe særlig forhold til ettersom de ikke har appellert til meg i, visuell forstand, på en slik måte at jeg noen gang har kjøpt ellr ønsket å bruke tid på det.

Derfor er ideen min om et magasin som både innholder en litterær tyngde og en sterk visuell appell. Jeg mener at vår generasjon som har fått populærkultur inn med morsmelken samtidig som vi higer etter en intellektuell kapital gjennom utdannelse og samfunns engasjement. Vi har ikke noe problem med å være både naiv og oppslukt i populærkulturelle fenomener og elementer som tegneserier, musikk, tv-programmer, sneakers, stickers, grafitti, etc og samtidig lese Bourdieu, Lyotard, Nitche, og Hamsun eller gå på "høykulturelle" eventer som filharmoniske konserter og kunstutstillinger.

Når det gjelder det endelige produktet som skal komme ut av masteroppgaven min ønsker jeg at det er papirutgaven jeg bruker mest tid på hva gjelder design. Ettersom min kjærlighet for det taktile og printtekniske står så mye sterkere enn det som skjer på skjermen. Men når det kommer til et stykke er det sannsyneligvis nettet som vinner i tid jeg bruker på de forskjellige mediene i konsum.

Siden jeg er inne på TID, og det var jo noe også du nevnte i ditt innspill, så er det en av hoved nøkkelordene i forbindelse med oppgaven min har jeg kommet frem til.
Den tiden en bruker på et papir magasin er ofte større enn det man bruker på et nett magasin, nå er jo det selfølgelig mulig det har med den formen endel nettmagasiner blir presentert i. Det har en lengre levetid i sin fysiske form, (eller hvordan skal jeg prøve å forklare denne her da). Når du først har et magasin kan du spare på det å ta det frem og se på bildene og lese artiklene mange år etterpå. Du har også noe fysisk du kan klippe i etc. Du vil gjerne bygge opp en atmosfære rundt deg selv når du skal sette deg ned å kose deg med favoritt magasinet ditt.

Jeg har i forbindelse med TID som et viktig aspekt også tenkt at dette bør videre underbygges i et papir magasin av flere årsaker. I nyhetsverdi vil alltid det raskeste mediet vinne, i dette tilfellet nettet (også i de fleste andre tilfeller). Og jeg mener da at det bør være et poeng å ikke ha noe særlig nyhetsverdi i papirmagasinet for å gi det en lengre levetid, og heller legge det som ligger innenfor et kortere tidsperspektiv i webutgaven.

Nå er jeg på vei til falle litt av i forklaringen min her. Det begynner å bli seint og hode er slitent. Hadde noen flere tanker om tid her, men de datt litt ut.

Ideen til webdelen av magasinet er å bygge opp under kvalitetene som ligger på nettet med nettopp hypertextualitet, interaktivitet(blog,forum) og multimedia.

Altså, det jeg ønsker er vel å underbygge de forskjellige mediene sine kvaliteter for å fremheve budskapet. Som må være å formidle historier og tanker som stimulerer til videre tenking, men også ren stimulans gjennom bare å være, tilbake til dette med høykultur/populærkultur naiv/intellektuell. Det blir litt som barne TV som kan sees på av barn på en måte og voksne på en annen. Altså ut ifra ens egne referanser uten å være snobbete.

Ja dette får være nok for idag. Håper du fatter litt mer om hva det er jeg tenker. Det var ihvertfall en bra øvelse for meg å prøve å forklare. Det gjenstår endel gjennom arbeidelse her. Jeg må jo også få understreke at du ikke behøver å bruke noe særlig tid på dette her, men om du har lyst til å kaste litt ball og komme noen innspill er jeg helt klart åpen og glad for det.

Jeg har ikke vært noe særlig fornøyd med den veilederen jeg har hatt her på skolen, så jdet har ikke blitt så mange veileder møter. Nå har jeg ordnet noen utenfor skolen som skal hjelpe meg og tenker jeg skal prøve å få noen møter med Hallvor Bodin som jeg tror kan være en bra person å diskutere litt med. Det er på dette tidspunktet når oppgaven begynner å materialisere seg i ord at det går ann å få innspill fra andre og diskutere ideene.

Takk så mye for din oppmerksomhet, håper jeg ikke har kjedet deg ;)

Ernst

Marshall McLuhan and the Global Village

2006-09-14T06:10:00.000-07:00

“The new electronic independence re-creates the world in the image of a global village.”

When Marshall McLuhan spoke of the global village, he clearly had the web of electronic networks that encircle the world in mind. Certainly, instant communication on a world- wide basis is transforming society. As far as the electronic media are concerned, we are increasingly dealing with a world without frontiers. The amazing technological revolution with which McLuhan was so fascinated has not stood still. The advance of the technological revolution and its impact on the global village of the future can be seen from a variety of perspectives.

Radical Traditionalists

2006-09-04T06:05:00.000-07:00

I read this article in print, an American graphic design magazine at the school library and thought it was nice to post it here on my blog.

The newest publishers from Los Angeles are transforming the very format of the art magazine—with paintbrushes, 3D glasses, and limited-edition porn-star air fresheners.

By Jami Attenberg

In Hollywood, you’re nobody unless your job description is a multi-hyphenate. A mere actor’s got nothing on an actor-writer-producer-director-swimsuit model. So it’s no surprise that Los Angeles artists use the same strategies. It’s not enough to be a painter; you must have your own brand of shoes. Being a photographer is great, but what about that T-shirt line?

In recent years, multidisciplinary L.A. artists have acquired a new job title traditionally associated with New York: magazine editor. People like Scott Andrew Snyder (art director), Brendan Fowler (musician), Ed Templeton (photographer), Aaron Rose (gallery owner), Shepard Fairey (street artist), and Dustin Beatty (teacher) have been publishing magazines that cover similar territory—a mélange of street- and urban-influenced underground art, clothing, and music—for clued-in cool kids who prize nothing so much as authenticity.

They champion musicians like Ian MacKaye, Grandmaster Flash, and Lee Ving; streetwear brands like Alife and Supreme; and graffiti artists by the squad-car loads. (The scene was codified last February in an exhibition entitled “Beautiful Losers” at the Orange County Musuem of Art.) But what these upstart editors—who remain friends, colleagues, and rivals—publish isn’t as interesting as how they present it. By transforming their products into collectible objects, they follow their interests and buff their own street cred at the same time.

Snyder, a former art director of the snowboard company Joyride, founded the Hollywood-based bimonthly Arkitip (pronounced “archetype”) in 1999 as a hand-stapled zine. Influenced in part by New York’s Visionaire, he expanded its range and goals to feature a dizzying array of hip artists—Ryan McGinness, Patrick Rocha, Eduardo Recife—who are presumably intrigued by its constant design evolution. (The page size and packaging change every year.) It’s the least designed of any of its L.A. brethren, with plenty of white space to let the work speak for itself. Snyder allows his artists considerable artistic freedom: The “installations”—six to eight pages of original art—appear without commentary and are introduced only by a brief interview.

Arkitip arrives encased in an elaborate plastic wrapper that contains small items—vinyl artist Kaws designed eight full-color trading cards for a 2001 issue; graffiti artist Todd James (REAS) created a porn-star air freshener for an issue in 2005—rendering every edition a collector’s item. Snyder, who publishes 1000 individually numbered copies of each issue, acts more as a curator than an editor. “I could never afford a Thomas Campbell painting or a Barry McGee piece,” he says. “But I could afford a $30 magazine, and in that way, it allows art fans of all economic backgrounds and ages to contribute to and be a part of the art world.”

The editors of ANP Quarterly would rather its readers disassemble each issue and tack the pages on the wall. Founded in 2005 by Fowler, Templeton, and Rose (also a contributing editor of Arkitip), the free magazine has a circulation of 20,000 and is distributed nationally in trendy boutiques, bookstores, and galleries. ANP, based in Costa Mesa, is funded by RVCA, a clothing line, but carries no advertising. (“I feel like we’re in a fortunate position,” Fowler says, “to be able to lose money.”) The first issue, a 48-page, 11"-by-17" paean to the connection between art and community, wasn’t even stapled together. “We wanted it to be a really intense object, to transcend the idea of a magazine,” Fowler says. “You can cut it up, you can hang up the pages, you can make stuff out of it. It’s like a gift.”

Each issue is packed with gifts: 16 revelatory pages on the late artist Margaret Kilgallen; 18 pages of original art from hus-band-and-wife team Chris Johanson and Jo Jackson; and 12 pages on Raymond Pettibon, offset by a four-page photo spread of the adorable attendees of the Rock & Roll Camp for Girls in Portland, Oregon. Each issue includes a “Work in Progress,” a portfolio of drawings from artists like Matt Leines and Os Gemeos that detail the evolution of a piece of art. Copies of the magazine disappear so fast that they routinely make the rounds on eBay, to the editors’ great distress. “It’s important to us that it’s not rare or exclusive at all,” Fowler says. “That’s critical. It should be accessible to anybody.”

Less a collector’s item than Arkitip or ANP Quarterly is Long Beach–based Anthem, which Dustin Beatty founded in 2002 to cover street art in Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York in the mold of British style books The Face and I-D. Early on, Beatty gave space to people like Fairey and Templeton, but he soon tired of focusing exclusively on art. “The street art and urban culture magazine market, at this point, is so saturated, so vacuous, and so unbelievably trite and boring to me, I can’t deal with it,” he says. Besides, “You can’t really make money off of an art magazine.” So Anthem turned to fashion, where Hedi Slimane, Comme des Garçons, and Jean Paul Gaultier share space with a cover story on designer-director Mike Mills in a 2005 issue. Last spring, an issue themed “This is How We Do it” analyzed the business end of creativity, publishing interviews with director Michel Gondry and comic artist Dan Clowes.

Like ANP, Anthem favors clean, minimal design, rich full-page photos, and the occasional novelty typeface. Perfect bound and glossy like an underground version of Vogue, the magazine acts as a filter for Beatty’s and co-publisher Andreas Herr’s interests, rather than as a medium to showcase their artistic instincts. “We’re merely there to convey information,” Beatty says. It’s a mission opposite that of street artist Shepard Fairey (See Books, p. 106), the proprietor of Obey Giant Art, and Roger Gastman, editor of the defunct graffiti magazine While You Were Sleeping, who founded their sumptuous quarterly Swindle in 2004.

In Swindle, Fairey and Gastman capture key cultural moments from the past and present. A 2005 issue pairs a reflection on the life of L.A. gangsta rap pioneer Eazy-E with 12 pages of militant street art in Northern Ireland. The aged visages of Billy Idol and Steve Jones grimace on a more recent issue’s hot-pink-and-yellow cover; inside, Malcom McLaren muses on the cultural influences of his life next to a charming history of Davy Rothbart’s Found magazine.

Based in downtown Los Angeles and published under the moniker The New Traditionalists, Swindle is a stunning work of editorial design. The young staff of Fairey’s Studio Number One attacks each issue with greedy enthusiasm, creating an experimental playground of type and color. Swindle’s refined street-art aesthetic plays as big a role as the subject matter, down to the headlines, which look like stencils or hand-drawn letterforms and hark back to Fairey’s own street style. And the magazine’s hardcover binding encourages readers to display it proudly on a shelf. “We want something that people will keep, like a book,” Fairey says. “We don’t want them to throw it away after the pages get dog-eared.”

Fairey straddles the line between making art and making money by including enough fashion content to attract advertisers. “There is a tremendous pressure to have fashion, because that’s what [advertisers] think will help their brand,” he says. “We try to do it with as much merit as we can. If it gets to the point where we can’t sell enough ads putting out the magazine the way we want to, with the content we want to, I don’t want to do it.”

Swindle’s peers mostly toe that line, although Anthem has the most transparent business plan of the four. Arkitip, with zero fashion content, is flush with fashion advertising, and Snyder is expanding its commercial empire, offering limited-edition prints, posters, T-shirts, and even a painfully hip bag (splatter-painted with pastel colors) on its website. Even though Arkitip functions like a printed art gallery, it’s ANP Quarterly, unfettered with ads, typical magazine trappings, or promotional salesmanship from its patron RVCA, that truly feels like a piece of art. Of course, this result is much easier to achieve with complete financial backing.

At the heart of these artist-editors’ endeavors is the desire to communicate what they think is cool. And they face the same problems as artists anywhere—be it New York or Tokyo—which may be why they see their magazines as global, not local. Beatty doesn’t regard Anthem as a Los Angeles magazine; its fashion photography is shot in New York, Paris, and London. And although Fairey acknowledges that the glut of multi-hyphenated art-television-music-film types makes Los Angeles an easier place to work, Swindle also has a global perspective. Still, these editors seem to keep their eyes on a bigger prize, whether it’s money, credibility, or media immortality. And that might make their magazines more about L.A. than they’re willing to admit.

Wikis

2006-08-14T05:13:00.000-07:00

My preliminary project for this master was about community and the power of networking. I put up a Forum where I posted all the different aspects connected to this where one of the themes I went in to was Wikis.
Wikis is an very interesting model here´s the description from Wikipedia.org, an online encyclopedia, the biggest and most known wiki.:
A wiki (IPA: [ˈwɪ.kiː] or [ˈwiː.kiː][1]) is a website that allows visitors to add, remove, and edit content.[2] A collaborative technology for organizing information on Web sites, the first wiki (WikiWikiWeb) was developed by Ward Cunningham in the mid-1990s.[3][4] Wikis allow for linking among any number of pages. This ease of interaction and operation makes a wiki an effective tool for mass collaborative authoring.[5] Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia, is one of the best known wikis.[4]

Open-source wikis (such as Wikipedia) have been criticized for their reliability: certain individuals may maliciously introduce false or misleading content.[4] Proponents rely on their community of users who can catch malicious content and correct it. Wikis in general make a basic assumption of the goodness of people.[4]

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The Whole Earth Catalog

2006-05-01T07:58:00.000-07:00

The Whole Earth Catalog was a sizeable catalog published twice a year from 1968 to 1972, and occasionally thereafter, until 1998. Its purposes were to provide education and "access to tools" in order that the reader could "find his own inspiration, shape his own environment, and share his adventure with whoever is interested." According to Apple Computer entrepreneur Steve Jobs, the Catalog was a conceptual forerunner of a Web search engine.

The Catalog's development and marketing were driven by an energetic group of founders, primarily Stewart Brand(whose family was also involved with the project). Its outsize pages measured 11x14 inches (28x36 cm). Later editions were more than an inch thick. Its earliest editions were published by the Portola Institute, headed by Richard Raymond. In 1972, the catalog won the National Book Award, the first time a catalog had ever won such an award.[citation needed]

Steward Brand

Brand's publishing efforts were suffused with an awareness of the importance of ecology (as a field of study and an influence) to the emerging human awareness and to the future of humankind.

The Catalogs disseminated many of the ideas now associated with the 1960s and 1970s, particularly those of the counterculture and environmental movements. Later editions, plus descendant publications edited by Brand, circulated many innovative ideas during the 1970s-1990s.

A page from the catalog

This information is taken from Wikipedia. Here´s the rest of it