ModMag NY Edition
Our first ModMag NY Edition took place last week at Parsons School of Design, New York. 250 people gathered to hear a day of talks celebrating magazine creativity, with local and international speakers sharing thoughts on their projects.
The format followed that of the London ModMags we’ve organised over the last five years: a blend of indie and mainstream and new and established magazines were represented in longer and shorter talks. Together with our MagMagMag magazine shop collaboration with Vitsoe, it gave us great insight into the NY scene. The initial response has been hugely positive and we’re already excited about returning in 2019. Thank you New York!
The pictures here give an impression of the scope of the day, and we’ll be adding links to online reports here as they appear.
‘Highlights from ModMag NY ’ (The Newspaper Club)
‘Amid Financial and Digital Disruption, Print Remains a Powerful Medium for Human Emotion’ (Foliomag.com)
Lucille Tenazas, Henry Wolf Professor Of Communication Design at Parsons, welcomed everyone at the start of the day.
Jeremy Leslie introduced magCulture and the themes underlying the conference.
It’s a tradition that a student always gives the first talk at Parsons events; Talia Cotton opened with an impressive overview of her work and thoughts on the print-digital crossover.
Host Liv Siddall introduced the first session.
Apartamento’s creative director Omar Sosa spoke of the motivations and inspirations behind the biannual ‘everyday living interiors’ magazine.
Michelle Outland explained the working process behind her Gather Journal and its stunning photography, moving on to look at here recently taken new role at Condé Nast food title Bon Appetit.
Perrin Drumm explained how she persuaded AIGA to back her idea for the Eye on Design website, and introduced the new print version.
Alexander Tochilovsky from the Lubalin Center spoke about Lubalin’s work on Eros, Fact and Avant Garde, providing a strong historical context for the contemporary magazines presented on the day.
Kirsten Algera introduced her award-winning MacGuffin, very much known to magCulture readers but new to many New Yorkers.
After lunch a quickfire series of US indie magazine makers introduced their titles, establishing the strength of the local scene:
Indhira Rojas, Anxy
Christopher Isenberg, Victory Journal
Caitlin Thompson, Racquet
LinYee Yuan, Mold
A late addition to the line-up was host Liv Siddall reprising her talk from ModMag18 about the rise and fall of Rough Trade magazine.
As one magazine dies, another is born: Pentagram partner Emily Oberman gave a brief overview of her career, including time with Tibor Kalman at Colors, Art Forum and Interview, before describing the development of No Man’s Land, a new title suporting woman-only work space The Wing.
Justinien and Isabel introduced Migrant Journal and its limited six-issue existence.
Richard Turley sat down with Jeremy Leslie to discuss his return to publishing with Civilization, four years after leaving Bloomberg Businessweek. He was honest about getting bored at BBW and clearly excited by the new project, though his delivery was typically understated.
Gail Bichler, design director at The New York Times Magazine, ended the day taking the level of work even higher; as well as front cover highlights she introduced experiments with VR and new projects extending into the daily newspaper itself.
Huge thanks to all our guest speakers for putting so much into the day, to everyone at Parsons for making us feel so welcome, to AIGANY for their support.
Thanks too to our ModMag partners:
ModMag NY Edition was presented by magCulture in Collaboration with Parsons School of Design and AIGANY.
For magCulture:
Curator: Jeremy Leslie
Producer: Stephanie Hartman
Event assistant: Ewan Leslie
Keynote technician: Esa Matinvesi
Photographs by Niko Panousopoulos
With special thanks to
Lucille Tenazas, Odellia Lucius, Kate Parvenski, Emily Ross, Stacey Panousopoulos, Robert Newman, Keisha Dean, Kim Bost, Rosie Garschina, Mark Fitzpatrick and team, the AIGANY volunteers, Jamie Atherton, Sam Carballo, Steven Heller, Alison Branch, Joe Hyrkin, John Sturino, Rob Alderson, Mark Adams, Rupert Evans-Harding, Paul Barnes and Christian Schwartz, Luke Hayman, Sarah Belfort, Lesley Allan, The Ace Hotel, John L Walters, Sarah Snaith, Tommy Dobrzynski and Mike Spriggs.
ModMag London 2018 will take place on 1 November. News soon!