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Time Out banned

It seems the Chinese government don’t want visitors to next months Beijing Olympics to have too much of a good time – they’ve just banned publication of the local edition of Time Out. The only official comment so far comes from the Press and Publications Administration, ‘if there is such a magazine, it wasn’t approved by us in the first place.’

There are quite a few theories why the magazine has been banned. Was it done to clear the way for a government-sponsored listings title? Because the issue is an environmental special guest-edited by local celebrity Zhou Xun? Or is it just part of a wider pre-Olympics clampdown?

Read the issue online here (thanks Simon).

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Mute Magazine Graphic Design

I highlighted Mute Magazine Graphic Design here before it was published back in April and have been meaning to take a closer look at it here since.

Read full story

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UK Wired

Once-ground-breaking US technology title Wired had a UK edition back in the nineties, backed by The Guardian, but it didn’t last long. Next year the magazine is going to try it’s luck over here again, with current owners Condé Nast now staffing up for a Spring launch.

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Talking of The Atlantic…

I mentioned The Atlantic in my post below about Radar; there’s a great in-depth piece about the magazine and the way they’re planning for the future on the Folio site. It’s rare to get such an in-depth and insightful piece about the business mechanisms of a magazine.

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Intelligent Life

I’ve never been a fan of the design of the Economist’s lifestyle title Intelligent Life, but I do like this recent front cover. Can’t explain quite why, but the blue tinting, silver foil logo and transparent ‘Zaha’ headline together make something very different to most front covers. It breaks the rules of cover design but stands out well on the newsstand.

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thisisamagazine retrospective

Andy and Karen, the people behind thisisamagazine, have just launched a retrospective blog of their work over the last eight years, including material from both online and print versions of thisisamagazine as well as their commercial studio. It’s the least blog-like blog I’ve ever seen, but was created in WordPress (as used by magCulture) and has the usual features. It just doesn’t look like any other blog, as befits thisisamagazine.

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Radar re-design

New York-based Radar has been re-designed by Pentagram’s Luke Hayman. The magazine has been through closures and re-launches since it was launched by Maer Roshan in 2003 but seems to have built an audience for it’s mix of fashion, celebrity, politics and culture.

Read full story

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Simple is best

Boicozine plays tribute to Self Service magazine’s ‘100 Things’ series of lists. A favourite of mine too, this feature consisted of a visual list of a hundred things the editors liked. That was it; a simple set of otherwise unrelated pictures, numbered 1-100 and accompanied by minimal captions. Sometimes it’s the simple ideas like this that work best, no big complicated idea, just well-chosen content presented without fuss. The feature has been dropped from the magazine now but if you find an old issue of Self Service take a look.

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New fashion digest

A new title launches later this summer aiming to reproduce the best material from the world’s fashion magazines. People from Grazia, US Vogue and She are behind the launch, Distill, along with fashion historian Colin McDowell. Details here (scroll to second story).

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Interview with Wired creative director

Wired magazine has been looking great recently, thanks to their recently joined creative director Scott Dadich. I’ll be looking more closely at his designs here soon but meanwhile here’s an interview with him about photography (thanks Ian).

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