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Christmas #9: Preston is My Paris

I generally avoid zines here (there are so  many) but this one recently caught my eye because of its name.

Preston is My Paris is a great title, explaining its subject while providing an undertone of irony. Each issue is a 16-page paean to the Lancashire city of Preston, expressed through a loose collection of found items, archive material and the occasional poem. I love the pair of woodblock ‘P’s used for the logo, otherwise this isn’t about design but about mood.

Each cover features a glued-on Polaroid print, otherwise each issue is a black and white series of images, as these pages from issues 4 and 5 show.

Its makers, Adam and Robert, clearly love the place and have created a strong tone of voice in print and online that mixes scenes of everyday modern life with nostalgia for a previous era of the industrial revolution. I have no idea how it appears from outside the UK, but to me Preston is My Paris captures a very British mood, combining old and new and reflecting many of the confusions of modern Britain: the continued but often flawed attempts to reinvent areas no longer as prosperous a they once were and the desire to be modern while maintaining a nostalgia for the ‘good old days’.

The back page always features an old advert for a long-gone local business (below).

Preston is My Paris is distributed free locally in Preston, but the website is available to all.