January 2016
Our monthly round-up of recent submissions that didn’t make it onto the Journal at the time includes membership magazines, a cycling mag from Korea and a couple of Middle East publications.
Girls Like Us #7
The gender fluid magazine of ‘politics and pleasure’, a.k.a Girls Like Us, is always a favourite, and the project has really come into its own with this new ‘body’ themed issue. As noted at the recent ‘New Women Mags’ Print Out in London, there’s a strong network of publications that aim to turn the status quo on its head and reassess what a women’s mag should and could be. Inclusive magazines like Ladybeard ask whether magazines like theirs should even be called ‘women’s magazines’ at all—and Girls Like Us, for people who are ‘more or less female’, asks similar questions. This body issue looks at bodies in motion, bodies being touched, bodies as instruments, and also the idea of the singular body as well as bodies of people. As GLU also have a slight mystical side, there are also seven dreamy interviews with healers, herbalists and modern witches.
glumagazine.com
Filip #20
The latest issue of the Canadian art magazine includes essays on the mail art exchanges between East Berlin and Northeast Brazil in the 1970s, a conversation about the Montreal-based avant-garde arts magazine Parachute that ran from 1975-2007, and thoughts on contemporary art in Fogo Island.
After 10 years of vigorous art criticism, Filip now concludes with issue 20, and the editors sign of in their letter with this final, telling salute, “We, too, have struggled with how to think about our shuttering of this particular venture: By shining a light on the administrata piling up at the back door? Or by unloading the dreary burden of budgets, grants, and fundraising? By calculating the cumulative, familiar ratio of 0 dollars (paid) to X hours (worked)? No matter what the reasons behind dissolving the magazine, the truth is that Fillip, as an organization, will not disappear and will continue to publish and present activity in the spirit of its originary project and in the form of supplements, books, and events.”
fillip.ca
Library Paper #6
I proudly brought this back from New York recently only to find it’s a London-based project. It carries single-page visual contributions from various designers and studios, including Jamie Reid, Studio Y-u-k-i-k-o and Talc Magazine. There’s also an unattributed newsprint insert. It’s a simple but lovely thing.
librarypaper.co.uk
Zeit Magazin 21.01.16
The weekly double-covers of this German newspaper supplement are always a delight – so simple and effective. This one highlights a major story about people that have just moved to Berlin.
zeit.de/zeit-magazin/index
Reorient #1
It’s always exciting to discover magazines from different countries. Reorient is an online project published from Canada and covering Middle Eastern contemporary art. This first issue collects together the best of the website, and it’s the cover that is the star here, a beautiful, bright illustration by Mélodie Hojabr-Sadat that makes a visual promise that isn’t quite matched by the interior. There’s some great history and context in the magazine but the design needs some refining.
reorientmag.com
YouCanNow #5
The YCN Members’ Magazine is such a lovely item it’s a shame it isn’t more generally available. Beautifully designed and produced, it covers a broad range of creative subjects: reataurants, advertising, branding etc. Of particula rintreste to magCulturalists: a profile of Mallorca’s Atlas studio and a look at the work of Benneton’s Fabrica school, including Colors magazine.
ycn.org/intelligence/quarterly
The Carton #13
The latest edition of the Middle East food mag drops down in page size to a neat 160 x 230mm size that works well with the content. It’s a calm, relaxed read with beautiful illustration and some nice fiction inspired by Marcel Proust as well as recipes and food stories.
artandthensome.com
EyeEm Magazine #2
All black-and-white photo mag EyeEm travels the streets of Tokyo and America, as well as the Pumpori peaks of Nepal. This second volume is emphatically entitled ‘SCHWARZ’, and their philosophy is that colour photography can be distracting while black and white is more bold and gets to the heart of things quicker. The photographic content is at times striking, so what lets EyeEm down is when they print an image on a double-spread only to have the middle section of a face or body get lost in the margin. It’s a frustrating error. EyeEm are primarily an app though, and this magazine is a side project: the content is mined from their network of 15 million photographers that connect via their platform.
eyeem.com
Scouting #15
The quarterly magazine for scout leaders in the UK has been relaunched with a smart new design that does a nice job of making the organisation feel more contemporary and relevant.
scouts.org.uk/magazine
Far Ride #3
What is it with indie mags and cycling? The two seem to go hand-in-hand. This one is from South Korea, documenting cycling journeys around the world. We visit Berlin, Vienna, the Hudson River and many more places as the smart, chunky magazine records not only the scenery but the local cycling cultures and events. Probably one for the more dedicated cyclist than the interested bystander.
farridemag.com/main
The Young Ones #2
Australia-based The Young Ones profiles Australian creatives, and issue two looks specifically at designers and image-makers that have left their homeland and pursued international careers. Includes Craig & Karl, Grace Lee and Adrian Hogan.
theyoungonesmagazine.com