The Modern Magazine 2016
Tickets for ModMag16 are now completely sold out.
We’re very excited to announce that the fourth edition of our annual editorial design conference, The Modern Magazine will return to Central Saint Martins this autumn.
On Thursday 27th October, we will welcome an esteemed group of speakers from the magazine industry to celebrate the ever-developing discipline they work within. As ever, the day features an international group ranging from senior design directors, through to the founders of emerging independent titles.
Take a look at last year’s Modern Magazine here.
Here is the final line up for this years event:
Christoph Amend
Editor-in-chief, ZEIT magazine (DE)
Kirsten Algera
Editor-in-chief, MacGuffin (NL)
Gail Bichler
Design director, New York Times Magazine (US)
Seb Emina
Editor-in-chief, The Happy Reader (UK)
Paul Gorman
Journalist, currently writing ‘Legacy: The Story of The Face’ (UK)
The Ladybeard team (UK)
Penny Martin
Editor-in-chief, The Gentlewoman (UK)
Rebecca Nicholson
Editor-in-chief, VICE UK
Kai von Rabenau
Editor/publisher, mono.kultur (DE)
Tony Rushton
Ex-art director, Private Eye (UK)
Jack Self
Editor, Real Review (UK)
Terri White
Editor, Empire (UK)
Liv Siddall
MC for the day!
Editor, writer, Rough Trade magazine (UK)
Registration will be at 9am, and the day will end with drinks at 6pm.
The Modern Magazine 2016 takes place at Central Saint Martins, Granary Building, 1 Granary Square, King’s Cross, London, NC1 4AA.
We’re grateful to our partners Park Communications, We Transfer and Vitsoe.
And thanks to Commercial Type, Monotype, Type Together and The Delaunay for their support for ModMag.
Speaker biographies
Kirsten Algera, MacGuffin
Kirsten is a writer, design historian and publisher based in Amsterdam. MacGuffin is her latest project, a design & crafts magazine that she founded in 2015 with Ernst van der Hoeven. Praised in international reviews as an ‘imaginative, impeccably researched and irresistible’ biannual, the European Design Award winning magazine features extraordinary stories about the life of ordinary things.
Each edition takes an object (previously The Bed and The Window) and explores the manifold stories it generates. Like the Macguffins in Hitchcock films, these things are not the main characters, but the objects that set the story in motion. Issue three will be published just in time for ModMag, and takes The Rope as its object.
Christoph Amend, ZEITmagazin
Christoph is the editor-in-chief of ZEITmagazin, published weekly with the German newspaper ZEIT. Working closely with design director Mirko Borsche, Christoph has established a bravely creative approach to weekly publishing, bridging the worlds of mainstream and indie publishing.
He is also publisher of ZEIT’s art magazine Weltkunst, ZEITmagazine’s international issue, a bi-annual in English, was launched in 2013 and this autumn he will be launching ZEITmagazin MANN, a stand-alone men's magazine for the German market.
Gail Bichler, New York Times Magazine
Gail is the design director of The New York Times Magazine, where she led the title’s 2015 multi-platform redesign in collaboration with editor Jake Silverstein. She and her team have won multiple awards for their print design as well as their groundbreaking work in virtual reality. As such she is one of the leading editorial designers working today.
Her work has been recognized by D&AD, SPD, ADC, the American Institute for Graphic Arts (AIGA), the Type Directors Club (TDC), American Photography, and American Illustration. She has lectured internationally and served as an executive board member of SPD.
Seb Emina, The Happy Reader
Seb is editor-in-chief of The Happy Reader, ‘a bookish magazine of two halves’ created in 2014 by Penguin Classics and Fantastic Man. Its physical format and design language both take their cues from early Penguin paperbacks, and the writing promotes enjoyment of reading via a virtual book club structure.
He is also deputy editor of Fantastic Man, author of ‘The Breakfast Bible’, and a regular-ish contributor to magazines and newspapers such as The Guardian, FT and The Gentlewoman. Originally from London, Seb now lives in Belleville, Paris.
Paul Gorman, journalist
Paul is a London-based writer. He began his career in magazine journalism in 1978 and his work has appeared in many of the world’s leading publications. He is currently a contributor to GQ and Mushpit.
His latest project is a book about The Face magazine, to be published by Thames & Hudson in 2017. This will form the basis of his talk.
Paul’s previous has books include ‘The Look: Adventures In Rock & Pop Fashion’, ‘Nine Lives with Goldie’, ‘Straight with Boy George’, ‘Mr Freedom’, about the late design entrepreneur Tommy Roberts, and monographs of the artist Derek Boshier and designer Barney Bubbles. He is also working on a biography of Malcolm McLaren.
Ladybeard
Ladybeard is a feminist print magazine put together by a London-based team of seven women. They met through university and friends, and published their first issue, the Sex issue, in October 2015. It sold out in just over a month. Their next issue, the Mind Issue, is out in time for ModMag.
The team is made up of three co-editors (Kitty Drake, Madeleine Dunnigan and Sadhbh O'Sullivan), two arts editors (Tyro Heath and Hannah Abel-Hirsch) and two designers (Scarlet Evans and Bronya Meredith) who all work full-time in different industries, and work on Ladybeard in their evenings and weekends. The team will be represented at ModMag by Maddie, Sadhbh and Scarlet.
Penny Martin, The Gentlewoman
Penny is a London based writer and editor. Since 2010, she has been editor-in-chief of the biannual women's magazine The Gentlewoman. Previously, she was editor-in-chief of SHOWstudio.com and a curator at both the Women’s Library and The National Museum of Photography, Film & Television (now National Media Museum). She is a contributor to other magazines, has curated exhibitions at galleries and museums including The Photographers’ Gallery and Somerset House in London, and is on the development committee of the arts organisation Studio Voltaire. At ModMag she will be discussing the contemporary women's magazine, and how hers has responded to the challenges of the sector.
Rebecca Nicholson
Rebecca is editor-in-chief of Vice UK, where she oversees all editorial output for Vice.com as well as ten other digital channels including female channel Broadly, food-focused Munchies and tech site Motherboard. Before joining Vice in 2015, She was at The Guardian, where she worked across digital and print.
Kai von Rabenau, mono.kultur
Kai is the founder and publisher of mono.kultur magazine, an occasional magazine that interviews a single artist each issue. Subjects have included Marina Abramovic, Brian Eno, Chris Ware, Dries van Noten and David Adjaye. The 41st issue has just been published, featuring choreographer/dancer Meg Stuart.
He studied graphic design at Central St. Martins and the Royal College of Art, and has been working in Berlin as an art director and photographer since 2001.
Tony Rushton, Private Eye
Tony studied history of art at the Courtauld Institute in the early sixties, before joining the then new Private Eye magazine to sell ads. He subsequently became art director and MD of the satircial fortnightly magazine. He retired in 2012 but joins the ModMag line-up to talk about how a small sixties launch developed into the influential and successful title it is today.
Jack Self
Jack is an architect, writer, and now editor-in-chief of recent launch Real Review, which he launched via his Real Foundation a few months ago. He also cuarted the Briytish Pavilion at this year”s VEnice Architecture Biennale.
Liv Siddall, MC for the day
Liv is a London-based writer and editor of Rough Trade. She creates their monthly print magazine alongside curating and organising interviews and features for their new YouTube channel and radio station. She was previously online editor and features editor at It’s Nice That and now contributes to multiple independent publications as well as being a contributing editor of Riposte magazine. She has MC’ed the last two editions of ModMag.
All speakers listed are confirmed at time of posting, but liable to change. Tickets are non-refundable.