Gym Class Magazine

Congratulations

Belated congratulations to Delayed Gratification for winning the inaugural Printout! Audience Award last month. Well deserved.

Ballsie

Stylist magazine walked away with Editor and Art Director of the Year gongs at this year’s BSME Awards.

I love this week’s cover/cover story. Gotta love a women’s magazine with balls.

And… relax

Words fail me. Can’t tell you how happy I am that the E lines up with the B and the middle of the M lines up with the K ascender. Sweet relief (but well up for more insanity next week).

Simple, functioning layouts

British Esquire creative director David McKendrick discussing the Haynes Owner’s Workshop Manuals:

“They were the first books to make me appreciate graphic design, albeit unconsciously. I liked the cover layout, the bold use of different colours for each car. Back when I was a kid I was too young to understand it was graphic design—I didn’t know what about it I appreciated—but looking back I realise the books appealed to my sense of order, to my love of simple, functioning layouts. The covers were so strong, too. They used a working formula for every vehicle, and the classic cut-away graphics were amazing.”

This early influence is present in David’s work at Esquire around the time he won PPA Designer of the Year. Simple, functioning layouts… I’m a fan too.

The New York Times Magazine editor Hugo Lindgren reads the October 1965 issue of US Esquire and concludes: “Esquire in the Sixties rocked. It wasn’t just the covers.”

Hugo writes: “The first thing that jumped out at me about the issue is the supremely confident tone. In those days, it is abundantly and enviably clear, magazine writers didn’t have to worry about readers with iPhones in their pockets. They commanded center stage in the culture, and they flaunted it. They never rush to make their points. They’re… certain of your attention.” 

Sweet.

Read Hugo’s full review here.

Typographic wet dream

OMG. This is a typographic wet dream. Hot.

In related news… so want a copy of Slanted Magazin #20.

Fit

Okay, so while I’m in the mood for mainstream…

Men’s Health covers are, for the most part, pretty dull… Déjà vu-doo, anyone?

But I’m loving the photography and restrained cover lines on the US edition’s December 2012 cover. (I wonder if this is the subscriber cover?)

Booty pop

British Elle’s got a knack for cracking Kylie covers. The magazine’s June 2010 subscriber cover (above, bottom) is one of my all-time favourites.

But check out the January 2013 newsstand cover (above, top). Sure, the styling is amazablades (as I’d expect from British Elle), but the pose/composition is all up in my grill… what’s going on here?

A couple of questions for Tyler Brûlé

Monocle magazine’s The Stack is a highlight of my weekend. Tyler Brule is magazine Marmite, for sure. But whatever your opinion of him, there’s no denying his love for magazines––both mainstream and independent––and his willingness to support and promote innovative magazine makers.

Each week Tyler chats in-studio with different magazine makers and commentators. There’s usually also a pre-recorded interview with an industry insider, retailer or magazine event organiser.

It’s aural gold for “freaks of paper” like me.

As a regular listener of The Stack, I have a few questions for Tyler I hope one day an in-studio guest will ask.

Question one:

Each week an independent magazine maker will comment on how useful the internet (and social media) is in helping to build a community around their magazine. Monocle is not on Twitter, and you’ve been anti it from the get-go. How come? And is your opinion of Twitter––and social media generally––changing?

Question two:

This week’s episode (#13) includes an interesting pre-recorded conversation between Monocle’s editor and creative director about Coverjunkie’s top five magazine covers of 2012. I’m a magazine groupie and was able to recall each cover discussed.

Creative director Richard Spencer Powell goes on to talk about a couple of his favourite Monocle covers from the last 12 months.

I have purchased every copy of Monocle. I’m a fan. But I had to refer back to my collection to see which two covers Richard was talking about.

Talk me through Monocle’s cover strategy. What makes a great Monocle cover, and how important is surprising the reader to you?

Men’s magazines

Great words from the super-ace Bret Easton Ellis on men’s magazines and American Psycho:

“American Psycho came out of a place of severe alienation and loneliness and self–loathing. I was pursuing a life–­–you could call it the Gentlemen’s Quarterly way of living––that I knew was bullshit, and yet I couldn’t seem to help it. American Psycho is a book about becoming the man you feel you have to be, the man who is cool, slick, handsome, effortlessly moving through the world, modeling suits in Esquire, having babes on his arm. It’s about lifestyle being sold as life, a lifestyle that never seemed to include passion, creativity, curiosity, romance, pain. Everything meaningful wiped away in favor of surfaces, in favor of looking good, having money, having six-pack abs, dating the hottest porn star, going to the hottest clubs.”

––Bret Easton Ellis, The Paris Review, Spring 2012 (available in print and iPhone/iPad)