Out now: Gentlewoman, Postr, Port paper, England’s Burning, Jocks & Nerds, LWL
The pile of magazines in the office waiting for for a mention is teetering so it’s time to share a few recent arrivals. Starting with the fifth Gentlewoman, starring Christy Turlington on the cover (Oh Wow! indeed). Highlights include a shoot of London’s top fashion agents refueling their cars, one of the best and most natural topless shoots I’ve seen (photographer Roger Deckker working at the opposite end of the spectrum from Terry Richardson) and an interview with Martha Lane Fox. There’s tons more in the whopping 278 page issue. The Gentlewoman has proved itself – I’d really miss it if it disappeared.
The quarterly PostrMagazine is a folded A1 sheet from Belgium that reaches its eleventh issue with a look at how we use recreational and prescription drugs to deal with life.
Port distributed a free teaser newspaper in London last week. It looked great, an intelligent promotion. I wonder whether they’ll conisder publishing other formats more often? (BTW if you’ve booked a ticket for next week’s Making Magazines 2012 event this is one of the items in the goodie bag).
Unit Editions also have a new newspaper-format publication. England’s Burning tells the story of last summer’s riots using only pictograms. Conceived and designed by Stephen McCarthy, it makes a beautiful set of images and tells the basic story of the events. My only hesitation is that despite such a meaty subject there is no response to the events.
At last week’s Printout! we tried out the idea of a magazine swap. Everyone was invited to bring a magazine and find someone with a title they wanted to swap theirs for. Steve and I had no idea if it would work but it did. It worked well. In return for my copy of Kasino A4 I picked up a copy of Jocks & Nerds. I hadn’t seen this magazine before but it’s great, a collection of images, brief interviews and archive material to do with male fashion and style. Away from the hard sell of PR-led men’s publishing it presents a picture of what genuinely stylish males have worn and are wearing (and thanks to the person who swapped it. It was a busy night, forget who!).
And finally a quick nod to the latest Little White Lies cover, illustrated by Jean Julien. LWL art director Paul Willoughby shared his favourite covers at last week”s Printout! and there were many great ones. But this stood out. Deceptively simple, I love Jean’s work and he makes a really strong front cover.