Printout, New Women’s Magazines

This week Steve Watson and I welcomed the teams from three new women’s magazines to share their publications at Printout. It was a really exciting evening – the speakers combined passion and humour in their presentations to a sell-out crowd at the Book Club.

What came across strongly was the publishers joint wish to change things across the board, starting with a feminist approach to content but also adapting their work processes too. Despite the serious intent behind each mag, what came across strongly was the fun the teams had making their publications, confirming the tongue-in-cheek titles of their magazines. And while they were similar enough for our theme, it was notable how different the three magazines were (something Ladybeard’s Sadhbh O’Sullivan reflected on later in a Medium post. She also shares a list of other mags).

Highlights included Ladybeard’s explicit imagery, responding to the over-sexualised tease of so much contemporary imagery with cartoon vaginas, and hearing about Hotdog’s untrained use of InDesign. The key quote came from Mushpit describing the mainstream magazines that depress them while providing inspiration, ‘So many magazines would be dead now but because they’ve got a flatplan they keep on going…’

You can hear the entire evening here; the first minute or so has distorted sound but it settles down.

0:00 – Ladybeard
(Kitty Drake, Madeleine Dunnigan, Sadhbh O’Sullivan)
14:52 – Hotdog
(Molly Taylor and Megan Conery)
29:00 – Mushpit
(Char Roberts and Bertie Brandes)
42:00 – Q&A

Lead image, left to right: Kitty Drake, Madeleine Dunnigan, Bertie Brandes, Char Roberts, Sadhbh O’Sullivan, Molly Taylor and Megan Conery takes questions.

Buy Ladybeard and Hotdog from the magCulture Shop
(Mushpit is unavailable until their new issue is published in March)