Stack Awards 2018: Launch of the Year shortlist
If you’re looking to get a sense of the year in independent publishing, this category at the Stack Awards might be a handy place to start. Looking for titles that made a bright start in 2018, Launch of the Year wants to award quality publishing with exciting, inventive and unique new concepts.
Indie mag veterans Die Brueder and Steven Gregor of Gym Class will join forces to judge this category, and below you’ll find a bunch of vibrant, fresh titles that include a celebration of plantains and a feminist take on horror.
A Dance Mag | Beirut
Swirling in from Beirut, A Dance Mag provides a thoughtful and philosophical perspective on the act of dancing. Laid across melting, stippled gradients, their features range from Ketamine-induced epiphanies to the empowering exercise of moving your limbs.
A Profound Waste of Time | London
Inspired by video games, APWOT corrals illustrations, first-person essays and interviews that cover a range of human experiences, from creativity to mental health. As the name suggests, it wants to challenge the stigma our culture attaches to gaming — find out more about founder Caspian Whistler’s wish to humanise video games.
Archivio | Turin
Using materials sourced from government, personal and regional archives around the world, Archivio tells interesting and forgotten stories of years gone by.
Broccoli | Portland
Weed smoking today is still largely characterised by the airheaded stoner stereotype. Yet with legalisation, users of the plant — many for medicinal ends — warrant more than one strain of representation. Through art, nature, fashion and music, Broccoli magazine is refreshing the image of cannabis culture.
Contra | London
Contra journal investigates representations of conflict in visual culture. The news is full of images showing the suffering caused by conflict, but it’s rare that we have the time to stop and ask what those images mean. Contra provides a dense and fascinating response, slowing down to tell nuanced stories that encourage the reader to think again about the images we see every day.
Eye on Design | New York
The AIGA Eye on Design blog launched in 2014, published by America’s oldest and largest design membership organisation and dedicated to telling long-form stories of design innovation. The site is full of smart and characterful design touches, and that same attention to detail has been carried into this new print venture, which comes packed with carefully considered flourishes to communicate its excitement and enthusiasm for the subject.
It’s Freezing in LA | London
IFILA! is a magazine with a fresh perspective on climate change. Too often, environmental discussion is polarised into one of two categories: the remote, technical language of science, or the hotheaded outrage of activism. This magazine finds a new ground, inviting contributors from all disciplines to give us their take on how climate change will affect – and is affecting – society.
Jezga | London
Jezga magazine searches to define a new identity for post-Soviet Latvia through the art of creative Latvians both at home and living abroad. Find out more in our conversation about immigration and identity.
Journal du Thé | London
An entire series dedicated to tea — that warm liquid inside a cup but also the acts surrounding it. It explores what is it that makes tea into this force which lets us slow down, granting serene moments in our lives.
Matter magazine | London
Matter magazine takes a beautiful, touching look at living with brain injury. Published out of Headway East, a Hackney-based charity that works with people affected by brain injury, it combines essays, art, short stories and editorials by the centre’s members, staff and volunteers.
Nataal | London
African art, music and fashion burst out of Nataal magazine, an extremely confident piece of publishing with its 300+ pages crammed with people and organisations doing interesting things across the continent and beyond.
Oof | London
Billing itself as ‘the art and football magazine’, Oof investigates the places where art and football intersect.
Perfect Strangers | San Francisco
Perfect Strangers explores the cross-cultural. From artists to entrepreneurs, grandparents to lovers, they profile people who help to connect the world, looking at how cultures and languages, habits and ideas, styles and foods, intertwine and transform.
Plantain Papers | London
Plantain Papers goes out to the fryers, eaters and appreciators of the “most peng, accessible and dynamic fruit”.
Suspira | London
There’s an assumption that horror as a genre is predominantly male, and perspectives in the field have tended to please a male audience. Suspira wants to challenge that by looking at horror films and literature through a feminist lens, and this brilliant launch issue dissects everything from tackling inner demons to the sexual representation of the monster.
