Pol Oxygen - another special format issue

With last years Vince Frost-designed special fold-out 'Stretch' issue, Australian design magazine Pol Oxygen created an award-winning one-off edition that was very clever but ultimately rather frustrating. The two halves opened out and it was difficult to keep the pages turning in unison to hold the content together. It was an experiment pushed to an extreme – great to see it done but ultimately irritating to the general reader. A slight compromise would have made it far more usable for the reader.

So I was pleased to see that for their recent special ‘Inspirational Issue’ art director Marcus Piper made that compromise, starting with a simple magazine format and using multiple gatefolds and complex fold-outs to add an interactive edge without compromising the whole.

This is exactly what printed magazines need to be doing today – taking advantage of print and finishing techniques.