We Make Mags

aurora is back, brighter than ever. The sun seemed to have gone down on the compact and covetable in-flight magazine that we at CMYK produced for Highland Airways, when the airline itself ceased trading this year, battered by blizzards and volcanic ash clouds. But we are delighted that aurora has risen again, this time as a customer magazine for Highlands & Islands Airports. It’s on display at the company’s 11 airports, ranging from bustling Inverness to the achingly beautiful beach airport on Barra. Look out for it and help yourself to a copy if you’re flying from any HIA airport. Our summer issue has an insider’s view of the Western Isles, an interview with songstress and DJ Cerys Matthews, a piece on superfoods that won’t break the bank and much more besides.

Killing time in Athens airport last week, I picked up a free airport magazine called 2board. I flicked through, expecting puffery for the watches, perfumes and sundry cakes on sale all around me. Instead I marvelled at superb photographs, many of Greece, many not, and at absorbing features including one on The Gypsetters, a social group who had hitherto not crossed my radar. These affluent hippies, inspired by Lord Byron, wander the globe in Pucci kaftans, whatever they may be, and keep their American Express Black Cards in crocodile wallets. Nonsense, but enjoyable nonsense, and lavishly illustrated with portraits of  Gypset icons such as Salvador Dali, Frida Kahlo and Brigitte Bardot. All this is seemingly documented in a book entitled Gypset Style, by Julia Chaplin, in case you want to know more. But 2boards real triumph is to look so good while running all its content in two languages – Greek and English. This is a devilishly difficult thing to do. I once had a friend who edited a tri-lingual industry magazine called Pumps, Pompes, Pumpen. He found it far from easy – and he didn’t have to worry about gorgeous layouts.

Four days to go till Vintage at Goodwood, and today we celebrate that event with a magazine cover from the fifties. 1951 to be precise. The year of the Festival of Britain, and the advent of a nation determined to pull itself out of austerity and war.

Picture Post was the ‘Life’ magazine of the UK. It began in 1938 and became an overnight success, selling 1.6million copies at its peak. Through a combination of superb photojournalism and  striking covers, like this one, the publication kept the British people going through the war years and out the other side. It closed in 1957.

Tomorrow – the sixties.

Vintage Goodwood – (a celebration of all that is great about British culture) begins on Friday. Brainchild of Wayne Hemingway (he of Red or Dead fame) – the festival will consist of music, fashion and all things cultural. I dearly want to go, but it is just too far to travel with the current workload we have. Continue reading ‘Vital Vintage (1940s)’

Earlier in the year, I stopped making mags for a while in order to take a holiday in New York.

All went splendidly – we stayed in a lovely place in Brooklyn, saw all the major sights and quite a few minor ones too. It was about time to come home and make some more mags when, all of a sudden, Iceland blew up. Didn’t see that one coming.

Filling our time with whatever we could find that didn’t cost money and thankful that, in spite of a raised eyebrow while we were packing, my macbook had made it into the hand luggage, we resigned ourselves to an extra week on holiday (I can almost feel your sympathy beaming through the internet…). During one afternoon of blog browsing, I noticed this call to action on Andrew Losowsky’s Magtastic Blogsplosion website.

This is an open call to designers, writers, photographers, illustrators, art directors and anyone else who is stranded by the ash cloud, and would like something to do.

If there’s one thing my ol’ ma taught me, it’s that when life gives you volcanoes, make magazines. And so we shall.

If you’re out there and interested, email me and tell me what you do. I’ll then give you an assignment to complete today/tomorrow. Depending on how long this thing lasts, we’ll work the rest of it out from there. The copyright will remain yours on anything you produce, I just ask for permission to include it in the currently-untitled ashcloud magazine (working titles include Grounded, SkyFail and Someday We’ll Fly Away.)

If you’d like to be a part of the core creative team who will put together this impromptu publication, let me know as well. The only criterion for any contributor is that, like me, you have to be stuck somewhere unintentionally.

If all goes well, the results will be published, probably via MagCloud and/or the Newspaper Club, and any proceeds sent to a charity that helps mitigate the effects of climate change on human populations. After all, we have to repent somehow.

Who’s in?

Continue reading ‘Stranded magazine’

Just spotted this rather lovely looking project via @twitsplosion – sadly we were too late to get our hands on a physical copy of the first edition but, if you want to check it out, you can buy the PDF for the modest fee of £3

What’s next magazine arrived on my desk a while ago, but I’ve been so busy reading it I forgot to put it up here. It is aimed at magaholics like myself, and produced by the lovely people at Sappi papers, who, in their wisdom, have decided to commission John Brown to publish this publication. Dream job!

Continue reading ‘Print is dead. Long live print…’

Well, the definition of comely is ‘good looking’ or ‘attractive’, and this new magazine by Adeline Media certainly ticks those boxes.

oh comely (keep your curiosity sacred) is a strange publication however. Cover lines are scribbled, layouts are minimalist, capital letters are banned and  features tend to be written in the first person by interesting folk who have had strange jobs, and plenty to say about them. The website says the magazine is about “people, their quirks and creativity”. And although it all looks beautiful, there just seems to be something missing. I flicked through the pages and most of it was pleasing to the eye, but I couldn’t help thinking the content was unsustainable and without direction. However, I do like the idea that the magazine seems to have been put together by a bunch of enthusiastic individuals, who have really given the magazine a tone of voice. They will have their followers.

A nice and varied set of typographic treatments pulled together on the Design Me Too blog (@designmetoo on twitter)

Reminds me a little of the Type Tarts project from the UKType site (our entry was Bellevue du jour, by the way!). You can buy the posters at Old Tom Foolery should you wish. I certainly do.