M is for More Magazines

Andrew’s Designers Series got off to a flying start last month when he sent out Jeremy Leslie’s very fine magazine recommendations to all Stack America subscribers. It went out to the rest of Stack at the start of this month, and the next in the Designers Series will be coming out soon.

But we’re not done with the recommendations yet. One of the main reasons for starting Stack was to help people discover new independent magazines, so we’ve used Jeremy’s picks as a starting point to find even more. We’re asking people from all the titles he named to give us their own recommendations for magazines that everyone should read.

The first few are included below, so watch out for more in the coming weeks. And we want to hear your recommendations too – drop us a line in the comments box if you’ve got a magazine we should all know about.

Manzine

Kevin Braddock, editor
Magazine?
I always look for Smoke – A London Peculiar. Classic fanzine format (though with colour pages) and full of oblique essays, memoirs and narratives about London.
Why?
Matt and Jude have a long history in indie fanzine publishing and I love the way they turned London itself into a subject of fandom. Apart from that, it’s just very funny – their Urban Interventions series was laugh-out-loud. Apart from Viz and Private Eye, very few magazines make an active attempt to make their readers laugh. Magazines on the whole are far too serious and cool for my liking.

Publication

Nick Turpin, publisher
Magazine?
8 Magazine produced in London by Jon Levy
Why?
8 Magazine serves a whole community of people who value photojournalism and great story telling, in a time when the traditional magazine outlets for that work have vanished. Jon Levy’s passion for photojournalism has produced a contemporary Picture Post, which really has no rival. The magazine is produced by Foto8 in London who also use their ‘Host Gallery’ space to show photographic exhibitions, talks and discussions. Foto8 is also very active online and in using social media, especially Twitter, to keep the community aware of world events such as the struggle of the opposition movement in Iran and the issues around the photographic coverage of the recent earthquake in Haiti. 8 Magazine might be considered a model for the publishing industry in the way that it is self published, distributed online and through subscription and uses social media to build and maintain a like-minded community of readers. This way it has succeeded in championing photojournalism where the weekend supplements and traditional news magazines have increasingly failed.

Sang Bleu

Maxime Buechi, editor
Magazine?
More than one magazine, there seems to be a kind of new “movement” going on in the magazine world. It is not structured as a coherent flux but more like certain traits certain titles seem to have in common. This “movement” would include magazines like Some/Things, Lurve and Encens. And to a certain extent Acne Paper and Grey. You find it in many blogs too. They are a real step forward from the mainstream approach of Fashion and Arts you find in usual Magazines. I totally identify with that.
Why?
Because there seems to finally be something tangibly new happening in the art and fashion world. Young people don’t all relate to the glam and gloss, celebrity and money in these fields. They have become global and democratic whether you like it or not.

Yummy

Pascal Monfort, editor-in-chief
Magazine?
Pop from the UK. It’s not new but the new art director, my friend Michael, is doing the best job. And Kilimanjaro.
Why?
They’re my “inutiles”, so they are “necessaries”.