Delayed Gratification #2

The second issue of Delayed Gratification is here, as those of you who are Stack subscribers will already be aware. Published by The Slow Journalism Company, the magazine boasts of being ‘Last to breaking news’, chronologically re-examining stories from the last three months. It’s a great concept, and issue one attracted plenty of interest from other media for the way it explicitly took advantage of print’s ability to reflect rather than just report.

So content-wise it’s really smart, with strong writing and clever story choices. Big events like the Arab spring sit alongside analysis of movie reviews from the period. As well as written material there’s good use of infographics and comic book treatments, but otherwise the magazine is let down by the design. The density of content is a part of the concept, but this is negatively impacted by small point sizes and packed pages (above). Busy pages are fine, there just aren’t enough lighter pages like that below to provide visual relief.

The concept is sound though, and the magazine is cleverly positioned as a project leading the way forward for news in print. Are newspaper publishers watching?