magCulture Live LDN2024: report
A couple of weeks ago the magCulture team set up home at Vitsoe’s London base for magCulture Live London, a move that felt refreshingly familiar.
This was the 11th London edition of the event, the 16th in total if you add in the five New York editions. So it should be a familiar process, but the Covid years had thrown us out of our stride. It felt good to be back in step, a year after the last London edition, presenting another series of talks to a passionate, sell-out crowd of magazine lovers. And with the miserable news elsewhere—this was just two days after the US Election—it was great to have something happier to focus on, for us, the audience, and our invited speakers.
The central focus for magCulture Live is always a celebration of magazine culture, in all its creative, messy glory. We look back over the last 12 months, identify magazines, people and themes, and build the line-up person by person. This year we also added in the sub-theme ‘double page spread’, the defining physical attribute of the print magazine.
We wanted to represent the new generation of personal magazines, small but inspiring projects balancing on the edge between zine and magazine; note the arrival of an intriguing new set of brand magazines learning from the new indies; and turn our attention to fashion. Add in a few specifics—the return of a popular indie, the relaunch of a forgotten title in indie format, and a keynote talk from the most provocative editorial voice working today—and you have a line-up that promises plenty, much like a good front cover and contents page on a magazine can exude promise.
Dig into the pages, the individual talks, though, and the question arises, did the day deliver on that promise? We can set everything up, but in the end the success or otherwise of the day is in the hands of the speakers. The answer was a resounding yes, they all delivered, so it’s a pleasure to run through the nine talks and note the highlights here.
We opened with a known quantity; US designer Shira Inbar had spoken at magCulture Live New York earlier this year, delivering a beautifully crafted visual presentation about her work for A24 and MSCHF. These two New York brands both have more primary endeavours than publishing, but it’s intriguing that both find the print magazine a useful outlet to communicate with their audiences.
Shira opened with a grainy video shot from the train crossing the Williamsburg Bridge, linking Brooklyn to Manhattan. This set the tone for her talk, titled ‘And, not or—making magazines that live in between.’ Equally adept at creating print and moving image, Shira’s talk brought her work to satisfying life, with magazines shown being handled and pages flicked alongside clearer, static images.
Her work—both slides and magazines—uses everyday, vernacular design tropes. This has been a long term trend, not exclusive to NY but particularly strong there—hello Tibor Kalman—and is well-suited to the kind of one-off zines film production company A24 publish. These are single-film projects, and Shira spoke in detail about the ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ zine she designed, making it clear that the designer has a very key role in developing ideas at A24.
Working with a small editorial team, an idea is spun out of the movie; in this case taking the pivotal role of the US tax system in the ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ script, and creating a zine about that tax system. The zine sits in neat contrast to the fantasia of the film, being designed like a tax form and doubling down on the complexity the US tax regime to create a witty, infographic-heavy design packed with facts and information.
Later on in the day, an audience member asked me whether such a publication qualified as a magazine, a comment often levelled at magazines published by brands. I have no truck with that—I’ve been involved in plenty such projects and found them a thrilling departure from more traditional publishing.
Like any genre of magazine, a brand magazine can be a brilliant thing or a lazy masquerade. The A24 zines fall in the former category, using high-level editorial craft to express ideas and communicate with their audiences—Shira spoke of using magazines to connect people, an idea that recurred throughout the day. The zines are a unique and creative addition to the movies they’re built from, not a record or souvenir of the films, and are ultimately a clever endorsement of A24’s broader brand positioning. The creativity they demand provide a healthy space for editorial experimentation and innovation, as Shira demonstrated.
Next up was the first of our quickfire indie sessions, where three magazine makers share their work in quick succession. Auste Skrupskyte Cullbrand, content strategist and magCulture Flatplan alumnus, opened with a clever exposition of her magazine Playground, using a game format to talk through the decision making process behind launching a magazine, ‘when you’re neither an editor or a designer.’ This was playful—as per her magazine’s outlook—but informative, and Auste’s passion for her magazine, two issues old, shone through.
She was followed by Anna Morrissey, founder of Tummy Ache, with a talk just as passionate but in a far more emotional way. These small magazines are so reliant on their founders, it’s vital to hear directly from them, and Anna crystallised her title’s focus on emotional welfare.
Both these magazines had published only two issues, and their makers are still familiarising themselves with the highs and lows of publishing. The next magazine had also just launched its second issue, this time of a spectacular relaunch rather than a completely new magazine.
Writer turned editor Lucy Roeber is clearly relishing the experience of running the new Erotic Review. The magazine has been through several previous iterations, each reflecting very different attitudes to sex and desire. She has returned the magazine to print and repositioned it as a well-crafted piece of modern publishing, aligning itself with the indie scene and addressing the erotic from a contemporary standpoint, looking beyond the male heterosexual stance.
We were soon hearing again of the need to connect with the reader, and it was no surprise to see the magazine’s headline font—a highlight of the relaunch—used as an example of that connection. The bespoke font, designed by the magazine’s design team Studio Frith, gives a distinctly sexual vibe, yet is not literally sexual. Curves, extensions and orifices allude to the human body and its interaction with other bodies, but like all good representations of desire, tease rather than shock. The font instantly helps remove any remaining sense of seediness in the project, placing Erotic Review firmly in the now. This design positioning is further enhanced by clever commissioning of artists for the visuals.
We changed the pace next with a longer presentation from the in-house creative team behind Notebook, another brand magazine, this time from streaming platform MUBI. The hefty, perfect bound magazine appears twice year and rarely, if ever, refers to its publisher. It’s a magazine about films and the culture of film, encouraging readers to indulge in in-depth themed features that dig deep into the making and enjoyment of movies.
We heard first from Publishing director Davide Cazarro, a writer with previous indie experience as publisher of his own movie magazine, Nang. This was a very structured talk, as the magazine itself is, opening with an explanation of the magazine in the context of other film mags, its links to the earlier online Notebook project, and the bold decision by MUBI that it was to be given freedom as a magazine in its own right rather than be tied to being an in-house journal for the platform.
Notebook’s roots in film and film culture were summed up by one particular reference. A feature about films shot in New York’s Grand Central Station was headlined ‘It’s Grand… and it’s central,’ which Davide explained was a quote from the animated film Madagascar. In this way, the magazine assumes a knowledge and love of films of all types. This editorial playfulness is at the heart of Notebook, and design manager Tom Lobo Brennan followed up Davide’s contribution with insight into a design system that echoed that editorial detailing. We saw our first grid designs of the day, were shown behind the scenes at photo shots, and were left with no doubt about the degree of collaboration between edit and design the project enjoys. They ended with a reveal of the cover of their sixth issue, a child’s drawing.
Another three quickfire talks followed; first up was Nina Carter, one of the founders of climate change magazine It’s Freezing in LA! Nina is also an illustrator, and had hand drawn her title slides, in contrast to Notebook’s bold graphic slides. She showed a lovely animation by illustrator Ben Hickey of a large red heart being pushed left to right and back by a pair of people, using it as a metaphor for the Double Page Spread, a symbol of the ‘dialogue between pages that meet in the middle, things (articles, data, writing, poetry, resources, maps…) that are in conversation when they’re brought together.
She also spoke about the IFLA! team’s desire to take the hot-headed language of activism and the distant language of science, both of which people can find hard to relate to, and showed a venn diagram combining the two areas of communication with the crossover point described by an exclamation mark, representing her magazine. The same mark appeared scattered across a world map, signifying the countries IFLA! has reached.
The magazine world would be duller without fashion mags, yet we’ve never engaged strongly with the subject at magCulture. Inviting Clarke Rudick from Crosscurrent was an attempt to rectify this. He talked through the four issues to date, showing how the best work can emerge from on-set problems. He also spoke about his magazine’s graphic language, devised by art director Emily Schofield. ‘Text in fashion magazines is often seen as decorative, not really something that’s actually supposed to be read,’ he told us; instead, he and Emily devised a clear, writing style and legible graphic language that along with the bold use of white space (a design cliché, yet something often missing from today’s fashion tiles) establishes the primacy of the image, and thus a clear identity for the magazine.
The last of our smaller magazines was Fatboy Zine, a food magazine about Asian food and identity. Chris O’Leary talked thoughtfully through the origins of his magazine, in a manner that paralleled Auste earlier. A keen cook, he wanted to publish recipes in print but didn’t want to be too precious about it. He settled on a zine format, rather than a coffee table book—a zine could live happily in the kitchen, be bent back and accidentally sprayed with cooking oil.
Fatboy has quietly developed across its five issues to date, with Chris intelligently addressing challenges as they arose. Without realising it, he was following a natural route toward a bigger, better improved magazine each issue. His talk was a further reminder of the passion required to make a magazine work, and also the unique ability of a magazine to stretch and grow each issue. Chris thinks deeply about his project, questioning everything. It’ll be fascinating to see where Fatboy heads in the future.
The six small independent magazines we heard from across the day all demonstrated the passion involved in making print, and reminded us of the range of subjects available to a publisher. They also reassured everyone present that the form retains great possibilities, providing a positive worldview at odds with so much of today’s other forms of media; each was inspiring and cheering in its own way: play, therapy, desire, fashion and food. And perhaps the toughest subject, climate change, came across as the lightest thanks to Nina’s presentation skills.
Our final speaker began his publishing career firmly in the mainstream (The Guardian, Bloomberg Businessweek) before leaving it (and magazines altogether) in 2014. He returned to print in 2018 with his own indie project, Civilization, and has thrown himself into a series of magazines since, ‘I realised that the only thing I really want to do is make printed objects.’
Richard Turley thrives on chaos; he started his talk suggesting his slides were only accessible via a QR code he presented, before starting his actual slides in the form of a video that he sometimes struggled to keep up with. From student projects to the latest issue of Nuts, he spoke through his work in detail, emphasising that, ‘Everything I do is a collaboration.’
As his brilliant covers for Bloomberg Businessweek flashed by behind him—work that another designer might have talked through image by image—he ran through some of his collaborators, including design director Mark Porter at the Guardian and Josh Tyrangiel, editor of Businessweek. He also reminded us of the need for experiment, something always evident in his work.
Independent and mainstream publishing are often portrayed as distinctly different; for Turley the two are interdependent, his work on fashion magazines for brands funding his own projects like Civilization and Nuts. He admitted that he has a self-destructive edge—talking of the need to pull the rug out from under himself, something I’ve seen close up at other events we’ve done together.
Today he seems happily back on the magazine track and loving it, describing his return to print as ‘Slipping into a pair of comfy pyjamas,’ which is great news for publishing. We need people like him, willing to try things (a magazine designed purely in Word? A new zine in broadsheet newspaper format? a parody fashion magazine 400+ pages thick?).
The talk also featured his design work for NY lit magazine Heavy Traffic (above), with its use of Baskerville, ‘I wanted it to look like books from the past. I was really obsessed by the design of an old Delia Smith cookery book, but it turns out I hate Baskerville…’
Toward the end of his talk we saw his redesign of Rolling Stone, a collaboration with fellow Brit Mark Leeds, and a much more traditionally structured project (above). It’s an extraordinary relaunch, using the long visual history of the magazine as a catalyst to create something more Rolling Stone-like than ever before. Despite the sophistication of the work, Turley explained how he had enjoyed slipping in the Daily Mail’s headline font throughout its pages.
A video flicked through the magazine, echoing Shira’s talk at the start of the day, but this time with the sound of pages turning interrupting Turley’s talk. That moment was prime Turley: brilliant design work on the screen, the video destructing his words, yet together a perefct communication of his love of all aspects of the printed page.
Working across multiple formats and sizes, with different collaborators, and for clients and for himself, Turley is a one-man magazine factory. He likes to make it sound easy, but it can’t be. Not many people can link the creative and the commercial so succesfully, and he has plenty to share about what he does. It’s great to have him back in the editorial world,
‘Paper has an energy, paper carries memories, paper carries feelings… the thing I’d encourage you all to do is really think about the paper, we’re bringing an object into the world, and sometimes we don’t really consider the paper.’
That was all for magCulture Live, but the our MagMagMag pop-up shop remained at Vitsoe for another two days, with a couple of additional events.
On Friday 8th we opened the doors to wannabe publishers to attend a 90m session with the magCulture team (above). The group session shared experiences and problems in an informal conversation that I hope helped people gain confidence and helped them move on to the next stage of their projects.
Thanks to everyone involved in magCulture Live and MagMagMag: the speakers for the work and time preparing their presentations; our partners for their support; and to our audience for bringing the day to life. Special thanks to the Vitsoe London team for hosting us for the three days.