COP: ETHICAL CONSIDERATION

During this module I interviewed a human participant to aid points within my written work. During the interview and made clear to my participant that the interview was a part of my dissertation and the information I gained from him would be used in this process. I agreed that after the project I would also show him how I've used the information for curiosity purposes. He stated that there was no problem at all with me using the information gained.

COP: PROJECT STATEMENT

I have responded to my written work with a practical piece that reflects several of the points and theories discussed within the essay. The main ones that are exercised within the practical are the discussions highlighting sustainability and target audience. This has been done by creating a new print platform that will exist alongside an online magazine and placing it in a location where their audience would be found. This would uncover new readers for the magazine who may not know about their current online existence. The magazine has also been designed to be just as eco-friendly as their website is, having no negative impact on the planet and also being incredibly cheap to print.

In the essay, I have explored the life and death of Mute magazine and more specifically the design of its first issue. They designed their first issue in retaliation against the digital era whilst including digital elements within the physical design. I used this idea and their grid system within my design and combined it with my chosen magazines online UX to create something that appealed my audience. I also spoke about Der Greif magazine in my written element and how they only revealed certain parts of their content online and expected their audience to purchase the physical magazine to reveal the entire thing. I included this idea within my practical as well, cropping images down to an illegible size and linking QR codes to them to reveal the entire content. This links back to my main question of the cross-platform coexistence.

I managed to incorporate a heavy sustainable element within my editorial, similar to the work of the magazine It’s Freezing in LA, which I have spoken about in my essay. I have also explored how magazines are approaching sustainability within their brands to keep up with the times and applied this to my publication, making it 100% recyclable. This has been done via consideration into paper stock, ink used and binding method. Doing this has allowed my print magazine to exist sustainably alongside its eco-friendly online platform, meaning that when the magazine mass produces its print it can continue to have no negative impact on the earth just like its already existing online platform.

COP: ESSAY

Do print and digital magazine publishing platforms need to coexist to be able to survive?

Introduction

In this essay, I will be discussing the current state of printed magazine publishing and the impact the digital era has had on these print platforms. It will explore how platforms for publishing magazines have been utilised to exist within the magazine industry and how the two platforms are supporting each other to be able to coincide.

It is known that we currently live in a digital era where our whole lives depend on our digital devices.

“The advancements of our technological devices that convey information have endeavoured to bring the firehose closer and closer to us; from the non-portable PC, to the semi-portable laptop, to the nearly-omnipresent smartphone, to the emerging omnipresent wearable. Now we’re continuously drowning in information. The average global consumer spends 82 hours per week consuming information.” (Doug. C, 2018)

Whilst this has taken affect, a lot of independent magazine publishers are retaliating to this digital steamroller. This essay will be discussing how publishers of independent magazines are evolving some of the more obvious design decisions within their editorial and also some of the more detailed and considered ones, in a battle increase readership. I will be looking at the growth and decline of Mute magazine over the years including how its physical design adapted throughout the ages until it finally converted to digital. I will also be studying some more avant-garde approaches to the development of magazines such as, the advancement of what a genre represents within a magazine and how they utilise their digital platform to engage with their specific audiences. How a magazines measure of success can affect how they use their print and digital platforms and how these platforms perform in unison to achieve their goals. I will finally be analysing how modern magazines are combating sustainability within their brands to continue publishing in an age where the earth comes first.

Main Text

To begin my essay, I will briefly discuss the successful relaunch of The Face magazine due to their excellent relationship between their print and digital existence in the midst of their relaunch. The Face magazine is an example of a cross-platform magazine that has utilized every resource available to achieve succession. The Face magazine is a music, fashion, political and social UK magazine that began life in the mid 80’s and upon the peak of the digital era, closed its print in 2004. 15 years later following an Instagram focused campaign at the beginning of 2019 and a shiny new website to follow, the team behind the relaunch soon dropped the first issue of what is now a quarterly print edition. This was certainly an epic relaunch, not to be confused with a rebrand.

“We tried to keep the feeling of that epic magazine we knew … but we worked on something that is suited to 2020, a magazine which doesn’t feel like nothing has changed in the last 20 years, something which is more contemporary and works as a basis for future experiments.” (McLauglin. A, 2019)

 Understanding their audience and figuring out what these ‘future experiments’ have given the magazine a strong understanding of what content to produce and how to distribute it. They exist with a similar input of work across both of their platforms, pushing the design through both print and digital. They aim to experiment with grid systems each issue to involve their audience more and create something entirely unique each release. In an interview with The New York Times, senior editor of the magazine Stuart Brumfitt stated

“One thing we’re doing with the website is doing a lot of audio on there,” Mr. Brumfitt said. “A lot of people are now just sending voice notes to each other, not bothering to text. Texting is totally passé. And obviously with the rise of podcasts, we were, like, audio is the new text.” (Porter. C, 2019)

After their relaunch and online campaign, the magazine has sold out of stockists worldwide proving a very successful relaunch thanks to their birth into the online world. 

Something that a handful of print publishers have been attempting in the last decade, which almost seems like a retaliation against the digital era, is developing certain aspects of a publication to almost reinvent its purpose. This has been done in several smart ways, for instance using new materials and changing the shape and form of the publication to create a somewhat more personal experience between the reader and the print. The meat and potatoes of a magazine is content - words and images. Once these things have been collated, it is up to the designer to produce something that’ll help the reader travel throughout the pages. Simple things like contents and page numbers are used to aid this. “Magazines have been exploring the boundaries of these simple functions by showcasing multiple stories on one page, pulling quotes and expanding them to break visual uniformity. Need to keep the reader engaged with the story.” (Leslie. J, 2013, pg.114) Using uniform layouts and grid systems is important to make sure the content is as legible as possible and in a magazine it’s the designer’s job to do this whilst making it look attractive, an idea almost alien to other digital formats. This idea of developing the physicality of a magazine to make it more appealing and perform things that digital cannot has given some print magazines the chance to stand alone. An example of this is Cut magazine. Cut - Leute machen Kleider (‘People Make Clothes’) magazine is a DIY fashion magazine that for the last ten years has published in print without any aid from digital aid whatsoever. To this day, they have no social media presence or website whatsoever. They released their first issue in 2009, having their name travel through blogs and turning up to stockists around Berlin and surrounding cities, promoting themselves in a very analogue manner. This magazine has been a great success since their first print run “Even without the power of marketing and advertising, the first print run sold very quickly, and the reprint soon to follow suit. The magazine was lauded in the media and won a plethora of design awards.” (Moser. H, 2003, pg.52) The reason Cut magazine has allowed themselves to succeed in this way is due to the concept of the magazine being reflected in its distribution and execution. This is a ‘DIY’ magazine and entire aura reflects that attitude. It has proven in a very unique way that in some cases, print publishing is not dead if you acquire a whole idea and reflect that within every single aspect of the project. Over the years, Cut magazine’s older issues have become collectible items, gaining value over time. This has worked towards their favour, adding value to the magazine’s brand. This idea can also relate to Colors magazine, a magazine about ‘the rest of the world’ funded by clothing company Benetton. They released a final issue a few years ago but since then the value of all eighty-seven issues has increased, transforming a lot of them into rare collectors items. This has allowed them to reincarnate and continue their life in a new form. Although this has worked for this magazine in particular its not to say it’ll work for everyone. Having a strong relationship between a magazines online and print platforms may be a more effective way for most magazines to work through, occasionally sharing content but utilising each platforms skills in the making could go a long way. “Adequate photograph look stunning; but it also lacks the inherent subtlety of print that clarifies visual hierarchies on the page” (Leslie. J, 2013, pg.216) 

An example of a magazine that has exercised its life across these two platforms is the magazine titled Mute, founded in 1994 by Simon Worthington and Pauline van Mourik Broekman. They attempted to design a magazine on such a format unlike any other glossy mag out there of the time that would retaliate against quickly developing digital world and challenge other editorial formats that existed.

“Mute began life as a pink newsprint broadsheet, printed on the same presses that produced the Financial Times. In a Guardian article (‘Sound Bytes’, 29 September 1997) Andy Beckett noted that Worthington and van Mourik Broekman took along ‘a stuck-together A4 thing’ to the paper’s printworks, and asked the FT to run off Mute as part of the machinery’s nightly warm-up run.” (Shaughnessy. A, 2008, pg.11)

Using this incredibly cheap method of printing allowed them to mass produce the magazine on such a large scale however this was not the reason they did so. This grabbed the attention of its competitors who were all pushing forward with their editorial design in a cyber-futuristic style. It was not just the layout and format they mimicked in their process, the typeface for Mute magazine was entirely inspired by 18th century editorial also. The logo and header for the magazine at the time was fully inspired by the header of a digital site at the time, giving a subtle nod to the its digital competitor. This approach had never been initiated before but worked amazingly, as it is known to be quite difficult to publish a unique magazine when there are so many out there already with incredibly similar design. 

As the digital revolution developed, so did the magazine. In 1997, Mute magazine hired a graphic designer called Damian Jaques who began experimenting on a new A4 format for the magazine. After much experimentation it was printed on a tabloid format, introducing new layouts and relationship between images and text, using illustrations for more decorative uses instead of literal ones. Along with this, their typeface and logo was redesigned too, this time with influence from digital design.

“Defiantly, it incorporated an adjusted ‘litterman’ graphic which the (or distributed?) litter (or the newspaper) and was, like ‘Mute’ itself, already in use of the majority of electronic audio devices. Mute sought to piggyback on the fact this is a global sign, but not owned, thus avoiding the brand-affirmative effect of comparable revisions using copyright corporated logos.” (Shaughnessy. A, 2008, pg.27) 

In 2006, Mute magazine introduced an online platform and made this their main source of publishing. It then also began releasing their print edition less often and quarterly. “Mute has embraced the evolving culture of Open Publishing and finally made the web its home. Mute content is now made freely available as soon as it is published and users can post to the site in numerous newly created areas.” (Broeckmann. A, 2006, pg.36) They continue to fund this site via a donations system, offering its readers a pay-as-you-feel option to accompany their reading. After further crowd funding to support their print, the physical magazine ended up releasing its final issue in 2016. From what was seen initially as a positive thing, it’s online platform in fact became the death of it. Since then it has become a free online magazine entirely contradicting the reason it became a magazine in the beginning. Their failure was due to “market homogenisation, the internet's impact on sales, and post-Crunch funding cuts.” (Mute, 2012) This has shown that in a very long-winded way, their target audience made the decision to how they wanted to receive Mute magazine’s content. It has proven that a magazine should understand its target audience and where they’ll want to find their content, in this case it was via a digital format. 

In opposition to this is an example of a magazine that has managed to utilise both their online and print platforms in a really unique way to fit their target audience’s needs. That is Der Greif Magazine. Der Greif is a contemporary photography magazine documenting artists work from around the world. Der Greif’s twelfth issue deals with the topic of censorship online and more specifically, social media. They requested artists from around the world to submit photography that they deemed "too violent, too political, too explicit" to be published on social media. Once they had all of their content, they advertised the magazine through their social media platforms of which carry a large following, but censored certain parts of the imagery making them safe to publish that content online. (See image No.1) This has made the content for the magazine entirely exclusive to their print format whilst teasing a part of it online. They have played on the fact that a lot of their audience will become aware of their magazine through Instagram and Facebook and are using this to promote the magazine but in doing so they’re forcing their audience to purchase the physical copy to be able to reveal the whole content. Having the content printed creates more of an experience with the magazine when the readers have it in their hands. “as a physical object that its readers can hold and keep, these online photographs are then put in a place that will remain as an experience, creating a lasting impact for as long its paper doesn’t get wet or crumpled.” (Angelos. A, 2019) This is something that Der Greif understands about their audience, that they’ll value the printed photography and want to hold on to it instead of seeing a snapshot online. This experience is called the halo effect. “The "halo effect" means that a person takes a positive thought or feeling associated with one thing and applies it, appropriately or inappropriately, to something related.” (Dontigney, 2014) In this case, the positive thought is applied to the relationship between the reader and the photography, which is only fully accessible in print, creating this want for the physical magazine whilst being teased online with only half the content. Der Greif have understood their audience and applied these theories to their magazine to achieve the succession through their latest issue.

It is not merely physical aspects however that are being developed within the birth of the digital era.

“The exploration of what a magazine can be isn’t limited to the overt debunking of physical formats and conceptual experimentation. A new body of independently published magazines has appeared that reinterprets traditional genres of magazine publishing, questioning the medium while appearing in more traditional physical form.” (Leslie. J, 2013, pg.52)

Now this isn’t to say that magazines are reinterpreting their genres to solely compete with the content you can find on digital options, it is also a reflection of cultural change in the twenty first century. For instance, important topics like the gender issue have had massive impacts on what defines certain magazines and their genre for instance, fashion magazines, car magazines and so on. In doing so they also manage to compete with their digital competitor simultaneously. For example, Frankie and Oh Comedy have shifted away from classic high fashion front covers that normally feature high quality modelled photography and instead opted to use more feminine based illustrations displaying warm hues and abstract shapes. In doing so, they’ve aimed and achieved a more realistic concept of current day womanhood.  

Another fine example of this is Carl’s Cars magazine. This magazine is subtitled ‘a magazine about people’ challenged the idea of the general fast car mag, which would normally base itself upon statistics and style. Carl’s Cars respects car design in its light hearted and abstract manner with quirky layouts and humorous photography. This magazine is anti-car mag, rather than anti-car. Their readers claim you’re "more likely to have sex on the bonnet than look under it" after reading and that it “claims to be the first magazine to blend car culture with music, fashion, film and design.” (Bennet. O, 2003) 

Finally, food magazine Put A Egg on it, approaches its topic from another angle, exploring the social aspect of food and dining in comparison to an A to B recipe manual. It celebrates the mutual gratification of eating together and sharing memories of good times. It does this by using the work of poets, writers and personal essays to illustrate the food and dining experiences had within the magazine. It also features a special themed recipe section per issue. A small extract from the magazine summarises it quite well.

“You wake up late and make more coffee, sweep the remnants of last night into the hallway and wave at George on his way to the bathroom. There’s a little leftover food from dinner. You rummage further into the fridge: rice in a takeout container, a handful of stir fried green beans, sriracha and soy sauce. You get that going on the big skillet hot plate by the desk and the finishing touch is a perfect fried egg on top.” (Fry. F, 2019)

I believe that good food is a universal language that we can all appreciate, and this magazine does this perfectly with its positive tone of voice combined with unique personal tales. 

David Lane, editorial director of The Gourmand, believes that designing these specific genres has begun to uncover new readers. “ ‘Niche, needn’t meant ‘irrelevant’, especially if your idea genuinely taps an uncared-for market.” (Lewis, A. 2016, pg.14) The Gourmand is a contemporary food and culture magazine. These previously ‘uncared-for markets’ are possibly the answer designing a successful magazine. These magazines that have introduced a new contemporary way of reading and understanding topics which I believe is a great way to grant readership to new audiences who have spent their lives being an alien to this type of information. The target audiences for these topics will have a digital connection to these magazines also, this is something the directors of these magazines have tailored their content towards. For instance, Put a Egg on it use their online platform as a shop and source of contact for their audience, meaning all their content is only available via print. Frankie publish shorter and more concise stories on their digital platform to ‘Quench your Frankie thirst in between issues’. This allows readers all around the world to access their content a lot more easily due to their mantra aiming to be more inclusive of all women whilst leaving the longer winded and flexible stories in their print. This means these women around the planet can access their content with ease. These magazines have carefully crafted their print and digital publishing platforms to work in such a way that’ll satisfy their target audiences the most. 

These points above all relate to target audience in some sense and all in different ways. This has proven that depending on your target audience, the decision to go print or digital or how the two platforms exist together within your magazine will have a massive effect. Mute magazine’s target audience is obviously a very specific group of people. They’re journals are focused on such topics as biopolitics, urban regeneration and cyberculture. This may explain why they moved away from print as their target audience may not be interested in the art of the printed matter at all. On an opposing side to this, the magazines listed previously whom develop their unique genres to a more indie audience have more reason to work through print. To conclude this theory, Alec Dudson explains how transforming his print magazine to a digital platform was done in reflection of his target audience. “He believed that the information he was publishing was meant to aid as many creatives as physically possible, it shouldn't be exclusive to whomever purchases the print editorial.” (Dudson. A, 2019) This is due to the idea that print is thriving through these audiences of indie readers. Print culture can be found in a lot of places where publications, magazines and books can be shared with other designers or people interested in that topic, for instance book fairs and independent book shops.

I have touched upon elements of how a digital and print publishing platform have been utilised depending on the target audience and how our beloved indie magazines are evolving throughout the digital age. In this section I will be focusing more strongly on the relationship between these digital and print platforms and how they measure success within each decision. I will be studying how certain magazine’s measure their success through their platforms and find out what for what benefit they want to exist. 

In the last ten years, digital platforms for publishing have increased majorly. Several online magazines began their life on blog pages and once they had realised the potential they possessed, they converted to a fully-fledged digital platform. Some believe this is the perfect process to enter the print world within publishing in the twenty first century. They believe that building an online readership is important to create before releasing any print editions. Rosa Park of Cereal Magazine believes “If you’re a printed magazine, having an online presence in essential. At the very least, it’s a quick reference point for readers, and it could also be an important partner to the magazine in terms of content.” (Lewis, A. 2016, pg.13) This proves the point being made but this process of being a digital platform first then converting to print is not the only way these two formats are working collaboratively. Using an online site to publish more concise stories/interviews and other forms of content is also a viable decision in this world whilst keeping larger and more refined topics on the print format. This would develop more of a body for the print and options for content to explore. In conversation with Eye On Design magazine, creative director, Meg Miller, expressed both of these theories about digital and print publishing coexisting as one.

“They explained how for years prior to this moment they were solely an online platform for three consecutive years, publishing similar articles and stories as today. Once they finally obtained enough funding to go print they took the opportunity.” and also “They expressed how their print format would allow them to be more flexible with their topics and stories, targeting a specific design discipline each issue which they believed to be unachievable via digital.” (Miller. M, 2019)

Launching a print edition seems to have aided their success in gaining more readers across both platforms around the world. They aim to share great design work and the issues that come with the role, to help upcoming designers’ diffuse problems they’re having within the creative industry. Going print has aided them in publishing those longer and more complete stories to their audience, accomplishing their goal in publishing their most unique content. 

Although this technique seemed to have work with Eye On Design magazine, other magazines such as Intern mag have carried out their editorial life the other way around. Creative director of Intern magazine, Alec Dudson expresses how Intern began its life solely on a print only format.

“He explained how the magazine initiated through Kickstarter back in 2013 and due to the time and place, print publishing was on the rise and Intern magazine took off as a major success. It had a small website but nothing substantial, its main funding went straight into the print editions and getting into stockists. It gained lots of US press in its first week and advertising on social media” (Dudson. A, 2019)

After several years of successful print, the magazine converted to a fully digital platform in 2017. This decision was made to create a more inclusive platform for the magazines target audience. Intern is a magazine that aims to inform the next generation of creatives on the creative industry and how to survive it. Only allowing their content to be viewed by a select few readers who choose to purchase the magazine is not inclusive of their whole audience. Pushing their editorial onto a free online platform has now aloud as many of their potential readers as possible to engage with the content and benefit from what Intern magazine has to offer. This idea of using an online platform to push the magazine further towards its goal could be affected by the magazines measure of success. Intern’s measure of success is to benefit as many people as possible. Transferring to an online platform has allowed them to do so. “everyone measures success differently, weather that be magazines sales, total profit, changing the world, affecting people's lives or simply publishing work for others to enjoy.” (Dudson. A, 2019) In conclusion, Intern magazine would not have earned its rightful success without its birth in print and its further succession through its website. 

When discussing these magazines and the more in-depth theories to support the decisions they make regarding target audience and measures of success, it has been shown that both digital and print platforms can be utilised to support each other in their goals. In opposition to this point, several magazines have executed their practice in editorial in some more abstract ways, experimenting with the boundaries of digital and print publishing. Online publishing platform e-fulx, publishes and archives content regarding contemporary art and culture internationally. They use a very well-designed website to distribute their content which is relevant to their worldwide target audience. In 2009 they released a ‘print on demand’ service within their editorial. This allowed them to have printed content around the world for the cost of absolutely nothing. Art institutions around the world would be granted access to unique files with stories that wouldn’t exist on their digital platform. They idea was that each institution would generate e-flux’s printed media on a different format be it A5 zine, poster, tabloid, leaflet etc. The reason they did this was to allow them to publish longer articles due to the theory that people only like to read short stories on digital and are more likely to pay more attention to print. “the printed page serves as an important commitment to a certain temporal conclusiveness. It may not be how content moves, but it is how content asserts that it exists, even if only temporarily.” (e-flux, 2009) Yes, that content only exists in that time and place however, they had the chance to be more flexible with what their readers were engaging with, creating more thorough readers and complete pieces. Having this in mind, Steven Watson creative director of Stack magazine believes that

“virtually all print magazines need to have something online. Unless it's really fundamental to the idea of what print magazine is, I don't think that all online platforms need a print. It's pretty quiet land and that's neat. So, what they're doing is due to speed and the accessibility, so I think that's a pretty one-sided relationship to be honest.” (Watson. S, 2019, See Appendices .1)

This shows that perhaps some digital magazines are wasting their time with creating a regular print edition whilst having a negative impact on the earth at the same time. 

One magazine that exercises a 100% sustainable approach to their brand is It’s Freezing in LA! IFLA! is a magazine about climate change, informing its readers worldwide about the crisis we are currently putting our world into. They exercise their beliefs in sustainability throughout their content but also throughout every aspect of their physical magazine design. Designer of the magazine, Matthew Lewis, describes how he is mindful throughout the whole design process, putting the environment first.

“The choice of materials can obviously have a massive impact on the sustainability of a project, but it’s not the only way to affect how environmentally friendly an outcome is – decisions can (and should) be made much earlier on in the process.” (It’s Nice That, 2019)

He goes on to talk about how they print on a format just under B5, saving a few millimetres of paper for other issues to be printed on and that he limits himself to two mock up copies before the final print to reduce on paper stock waste. The stock us obviously recycled and the ink eco-friendly. “Simple materials used to create a beautiful resource,” (It’s Nice That, 2019) Upon the succession of this well considered print, they tie in excellent digital design containing the same content as their print publication. This is made accessible through their well-designed site. They encourage you to buy a digital copy of the magazine for half the price, generating a favourable deal on that platform containing exactly the same content, images and illustrations as the print. This has been done due to their activist approach to their design to encourage its readers to be more eco-friendly. They believe that their digital platform is better for the environment therefore continuing their readers should be encouraged to access this platform over the print.

These points stated relate to the theory of sustainability within the print industry. Having a print on demand service allows businesses to print the exact number of products required without any waste whatsoever. During a pre-order phase, this allows a business to gauge the exact amount of orders placed and items to send in comparison to printing a certain amount then releasing them for sale, only selling a portion of them. This allows a full 100% profit as well as reducing waste, having no products left over. Designing a magazine with sustainability at the forefront of its composition is a great example of how a lot of magazines in the future could work. Then, tying a cheaper alternative via digital would also encourage readers to be more aware of their actions in print without totally disregarding the use of the printed magazine. Having said that, a lot of companies these days will include the label of being ‘sustainable’ to fit in with other brands “I think because you just want a headline "yeah we went green" that people sort of reach for that but there's obviously a lot of complexity behind that.” (Watson. S, 2019, See Appendices .1) This can cause confusion to what being ‘sustainable’ within in a brand actually means and can cloud people’s judgement. 

Conclusion

In conclusion to this essay, utilising an online and print platform to support a magazine is usually most beneficial within the succession of a magazine, after that magazine has discovered how its target audience will want to consume their content. Understanding their audience is key to figuring out how to output their content across social media, websites and within print. How the content will be displayed, and the visual language used to present this will be considered once the target audience is understood, be it young creatives in university or biology PHD graduates. Another thing these two platforms are doing to achieve their elevation is understanding their measure of success and once this is done, they can figure out a way they to distribute their content excellently to benefit themselves or their audience in their chosen way. Finally, magazines have been exploring ways they can continue publishing within our world of environmentally conscious brands. Finding ways to continue printing sustainability is becoming incredibly popular and beneficial for the world. This is something that is an ever-growing issue which is slowly having the blame pushed onto digital platforms as well as print. Considering all of these points and applying them to a magazines design and content is fundamental to it’s succession across these platforms as they perform in unison.