July 2019
Our quickfire selection of magazines received during the past month finds plenty of themed travel, a celebration of botanical eroticism and a momento of the Women’s World Cup.
Kennedy #10
Athens-based Kennedy is known for its content-list covers, so it’s somewhat disconcerting to find the new issue with a full-bleed photograph on the cover, no matter how tasty the remnants of the classic Greek meal look to be. For its tenth anniversary issue, the focus is entirely on Greece, where it all began after the financial crash, and makes for another highly readable issue.
kennedy-magazine.com
Fare #05, Glasgow
This food-focused travel magazine has explored several cities across the world in previous issues, but this time the subject is much closer to home: the editors’ native Glasgow. They bring local knowledge to a global audience and leave no stone unturned in this unlikely location. A foreword by restaurant critic Marina O’Loughlin sets the record straight that there is, and always was, good food to be found in Glasgow.
faremag.com
Where is the Cool? #2
Another dose of Gallic cool from creative director Laurent LaPorte, mixing the obviously cool with other, more surprising suggestions. One moment we’re on Hydra, the Greek island where Leonard Cohen met his muse Marianne, the next we’re checking out the proto-SUV 4x4 Niva car from the seventies. Eclectic, silly and fun… and possibly more serious than it seems.
whereisthecool.blogspot.com
Bikevibe #08, Lisbon
Another travel magazine, but with cycling as its focus, if you didn’t get that from the title. Norwegian magazine Bikevibe travels to Lisbon to discover the history of this hilly city, its people and their bicycles, with vibrant photography throughout. This time, not just content with finding out what’s already going on, the team digs a little deeper into the ways cycling can change a city for the better.
bikevibe.no
Shukyu, Female Issue
This extra edition of the Japanese football magazine was completed just as the Women’s World Cup came to an end. As well as a report from one of the early WWC matches, the issue brings together a host of key women’s football figures, including Season Zine founder Felicia Pennant and Megan Rapinoe and her apparel brand. It’s a great record of this summer and the growth of the women’s game.
shukyumagazine.com
Mal #03, Plantsex
A slim edition, published in collaboration with the Serpentine Galleries, which features three essays and seven poems on botany and eroticism, including one by upcoming star Victoria Sin. Covered in a vibrant pink, the magazine is also interspersed with suggestive and floral full page illustrations by Yi Xiao Chen.
maljournal.com
Drift #8, London
A third travel magazine, this time specialising in coffee. The issue opens with a history of London’s coffee scene, from the early coffee houses to the fifties espresso bars of Soho. It’s a short hop then to a thorough overview of the hipper cafes and coffee of contemporary Shoreditch and Borough Market. To its credit the love-hate relationship many of us have with Shoreditch is not ignored, with the late Shoreditch Twat getting a reference.
driftmag.com
mono.kultur #47, Iris van Herpen
Known for its physical responses to its subject, recent issues of the little single-interview magazine have seen relatively calm representations of their subject. Great, then, to have the Dutch fashion designer known for her technical craft inspire the magazine to celebrate with a series of layered die cuts across its corners. A typically exciting experiment that celebrates print in a very deliberate fashion.
mono-kultur.com
Middle Plane #1
The hotly anticipated follow up to the experimental pilot issue of art magazine Middle Plane has dialled down the absurdity slightly. The format has changed completely: larger pages, and much, much oranger. The typographic style remains the same inside, as does their no holds barred attitude to contemporary art and penchant for repetition.
middleplane.com
Record #6
This hugely popular music magazine continues to portray the lives and living spaces of international DJs and musicians. The shelves of vinyl, turntables and men in hoodies are familiar from issue to issue but the magazine has a dedicated and obsessive audience that rely on it for a level of detailed interview unavailable elsewhere (FTR there are a few women in hoodies too). A highlight this issue is an overview of DJ t-shirts.
record-magazine.com