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A few magCultural moments from 2007

To mark the end of a very good year for those of us interested in innovative magazines, here’s a glance back through a pair of CMYK-tinted mag-focals…

Best Contents Page
Where better to start than at the beginning? Time‘s redesign was remarkable for many things but their presentation of the Contents as a time-line was a typically clever combination of idea and information and wins them a listing here.

Most Focused Title
Many said it wouldn’t last the year. Others (including me) thought the heavily structured page design needed more variation . Yet nine issues later Monocle has stuck to its guns – same editorial stance, same design. You might not always agree with them but you have to admire their focus. Plus they had their website/print strategy sorted from the start – very smart in both senses of the word.

Best Nightwear Shoot
Carl*s Cars ‘Cars in Their Pyjamas‘ set. Love your subject but don’t take it too seriously, folks!

Best Use of Foil Block
Foil Block was everywhere in independent publishing this year, but S-Magazine‘s carefully positioned circle of gold  silver on their latest front cover runs away with this award.

Most Copied
What happens when your magazine becomes the default answer to the ‘What’s the most interesting magazine out there at present’ question? Jop van Bennekom’s men’s fashion title Fantastic Man – the anti-GQ – found out this year – people lift your graphic style wholesale. The challenge now is to move it ahead of the pack again.

Most Absurd Design
The design of The Economist is about function rather than form, and that function is delivering a huge volume of words on a weekly basis. It does its job well, but despite a loyal, affluent and international readership, it isn’t the right environment for those global luxury brands that desire exactly that readership. Time for a brand-extending bi-annual lifestyle title: say hello to Intelligent Life. Looking like an eighties customer magazine, Intelligent Life was everything its parent The Economist isn’t: overblown, over-designed, out of date. And that name…

Slowest Start
It took the best part of a year to come together but the Editorial Design Organisation managed to squeeze in its first event just in time to be included here. Now with over a hundred paid-up members, look out for more in 2008.

The Magazine London Needs But Doesn’t Have
New York has New York. Why can’t London have a well-designed, intelligent, weekly news magazine too? (So London was NOT the answer).

Best Feedback Loop
First the Guardian print a series of free wildlife posters; Wil Freeborn cuts out all the animals and creates a collage of them; he posts the piece on his blog; many links later, the Guardian reprint the collage on their Eyewitness centre spread; story gets covered online. Etc.

Most Willful project
The redesign of 032c, an easy win for its success at baiting all-comers (‘Dear God in heaven: at long last, is nothing sacred…‘) while increasing sales.

Best Independent Magazine Symposium
Colophon2007. Another shoe-in, and not just because I’m one of the founders and it remains the only competitor in this category. It wasn’t perfect but it started something. Watch out for the second edition, Colophon2009.

Best Use of Yellow
Grazia‘s signature colour spread across the world. Originating in Italy, there are now local editions in the UK, Greece, Portugal, Russia, the Netherlands and Bulgaria.

Most Typically Finnish
Too many dark nights drinking Salmiakki Koskenkorva brought us Kasino A4‘s monochrome cocktail of deep thought and throwaway humour.