Top magazines of 2014
- Text by Steve Watson
Magazines are great. Cool little compendiums of lots of things you like. Forget what they told you, print ain’t dead, it’s just evolving in strange and innovative ways.
So here’s Steve Watson, from indie mag subscription service Stack Magazines, on his favourite magazine-y things from the past year.
Top 10 Magazine-y Things of 2014
by Steve Watson
Facing Pages
Facing Pages is a biannual independent magazine event held in Arnhem, Netherlands. I’ve never actually been to Facing Pages, which is stupid. I really wanted to go this year but I’d only just gone full-time on Stack so I was terrified about spending the money to travel over there. But I should have.
Berlin Quarterly
This is one of my favourite new magazines of the year. It’s a kind of cultural digest, telling stories from all around Europe in a really interesting, almost poetic way. For example the second issue just came out and it has a series of pieces on Ukraine – a first-person on the ground piece, a photo essay, and a piece of short fiction, all showing different facets of the country and building up a really nuanced, layered picture of the place.
Wrap Issue 10
I’ve loved the evolution of Wrap over the years, and issue 10 was far and away its strongest issue yet. Excellent work.
Reactions to the World Cup
I’m not a huge football fan, but I really enjoyed seeing the different ways that independent magazines responded to this enormous global event. I think my favourite of them all was Colors, with its amazing Panini-inspired sticker book approach.
Paper Later
I lost it a bit when Paper Later launched. Made by Newspaper Club, it’s a piece of technology that lets you take articles you see online and squirt them onto a newspaper layout. Then when you’ve got enough stories together you can print your one-of-a-kind newspaper, full of just the stuff you want to read. Genius.
Modern Poetry in Translation
Reading this on holiday – written by Tuvia Ruebner in world poetry publication Modern Poetry in Translation – was a definite high point in my magazine year.
The Magazine Diaries launch
Peter Houston from the Flipping Pages blog had a great idea in the summer of putting together a book full of people’s thoughts on magazine publishing now. The industry is going through massive change and uncertainty, and The Magazine Diaries is like a little time capsule from a troubled era.
Indiecon
A group of German magazine enthusiasts put on the first Indiecon conference in Hamburg this year, and it was indie through and through, with some heated debate and a ton of beer. They did a fantastic job and I’m really looking forward to going back next year.
The Modern Magazine Conference
Jeremy Leslie’s second Modern Magazine Conference was another high point of the year, bringing together magazine makers from Europe and the US and showcasing some the best editorial work being done at the moment.
Printout Magazines of the Year
Our last Printout of the year was a belter, dedicated to some of our favourite magazines from 2014. It was a fantastic reminder of all the excellent publishing we’ve seen this year, and shows why there’s so much to look forward to in 2015 and beyond.
Read more about independent publishing at the Stack Magazines website.
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