Metazine

Nottingham is proving to be a surprise hotspot for magazine-lovers; it’s the home of Alex Smith’s Ideas on Paper magazine shop and the base for his and Matthew Gill’s Raw Print evenings. This speaker series has proved really popular – I spoke at one of the evenings last year and was impressed by the crowd that turned out to hear me and Mike from Boneshaker.

Matt’s done a great job encouraging speakers to visit from London and elsewhere, and rather than let the events fade away he’s just published a unique record of the first year of Raw Print. The six events of 2015 have been compiled into a beautifully produced risograph-printed publication, published last week.

Each Raw Print features two speakers, and all 12 participants from the year are represented by images from the evening of their visit. These are all printed in blue, providing a strong visual record of the events first year.

Just recording the events wasn’t enough for Matt though; he followed each up with a visit to the speaker to photograph them in their office/studio and interview them about their work. The smaller pink pages (above) carry this content; turn over the pink pages and you reveal the interview text (below).

It makes for a really lovely rythmn and pace through the piece; it’s highly visual with bursts of writing. The risograph printing and hand-bound production make Metazine a very tactile, pleasing object – check the brass pins holding it together.

Metazine is one of those special little projects, a unique record of print lovers celebrated, appropriately, in print. It’s not a complete overview of the indie publishing scene, but does offers valuable insight from some of those involved.

The featured speakers are:
Sanj Sahota, The Quarterly
Eli Ankutze, Joshua’s MagazineMiranda West, Do Books
Rachel & Jody, Another Escape
Lindsay & Clare, Ballad Of
Timba Smits, Little White Lies
Alec Dudson, Intern
Steve Watson, Stack
Emma & Luke, The Recorder
Simon Lyle, Hot Rum Cow
Mike White, Boneshaker
Jeremy Leslie, magCulture

That’s Matt there, signing off at the end of the issue.

We’ll soon have copies of Metazine available in the magCulture shop.