An Argument For Analogue

03/06/2022

The Sunday Read: Issue 349 published in August 6, 1981, featuring Rickie Lee Jones, Regan-era air politics, a report from “the sleaziest block in America” (Times Square), and many wacky, wacky ads.

10/24/2021

I am confident that anyone who’s tacked a concerted “meh” onto their opinion f print magazines has never laid their eyes upon legacy heavyweights like this. Rolling Stone issue 662 from January 23, 1993.

Sure you’ve seen Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas on the big screen, but has HST ever infiltrated your brainwaves in his original form?

Wild. I bought this and a few other gems from an antique store in Saanichton, BC, Canada for $15. It’s shelf price at publication was $2.50.

01/28/2021

CHIPS 🥔 WITH 🥔 ATTITUDE! Can you even imagine a literary genre that gives a root vegetable the cover AND centrefold, accompanied by compelling and well researched writing? Me neither. I found this 1999 edition of ℱℴℴ𝒹 ℐ𝓁𝓁𝓊𝓈𝓉𝓇𝒶𝓉ℯ𝒹 while out thrifting last weekend, along with a few other treasures I’ll share in the near future.

Also, when I picture “chips with attitude” I see a potato wearing sunglasses and a leather jacket, arms crossed and leaning against a graffiti-covered wall, unkempt wirey tubers growing in every which direction. How about you?

01/14/2021

“A Feminist Response to Pop Culture” and juicy as heck, intriguing, diverse, and wonderfully curated print publication. Bitch Media magazine takes a thematic approach to each issue, with stories and art all centring around different narrative and artistic interpretations around a topic, this one from late 2019 being “Glamour.”

I was drawn to this particular issue for a number of reasons, mainly because, as EIC Evette Dionne notes in her opening letter, “...glamour is an elitist concept built on the exclusion of people who aren’t thin, white, wealthy, or famous.” And then every one of the issue’s 90 pages proceeds to exhibit people, images, ideas, and words that ooze glamour while annihilating that very definition.

The democratization of print is a powerful thing. Think about Glamour, the corporately run fashion magazine, and the images and topics covered there. Now consider the images and topics in this Glamour issue. Bravo, Bi***es. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Also, sound on. Those flipping pages will forever give me goosebumps.

01/05/2021

“There was something about the production of a magazine that really appealed to me. It felt every bit as good as making a film. And it was quicker and dirtier. Instead of it taking one year to make a documentary and running around the world carrying heavy equipment everywhere... Putting out a magazine every 3 months felt like a real lark.” -Adbusters Founder.

Creative freedom and control is a common motivator amongst indie magazine producers. One way to explain this strength of print is by use of the Tetrad of Media Effects, a tool created by Canadian media scholar Marshall McLuhan that can be used to evaluate patterns and effects of any medium—money, cell phones, zippers, magazines—on culture and society.

In the context of an indie magazine publishing model that includes print and digital components, we see corporate control obsolesced. We see creativity enhanced due to the democratization of print via desktop publishing and the increased access to tools and vessels as those technologies have evolved.

What do you think the print magazine retrieves and flips?

I will revisit this tool and its often polarizing yet prophetic creator often here. 🤓

#🤓

12/29/2020

One of my favourites and a testament to the endurance of print publications over time. Discorder, "That [Insert Inside Joke Catch Phrase Here] Magazine from CiTR 101.9 FM" is based on campus at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC, and launched as the program guide companion for CiTR radio in February, 1983 (see the first ever cover image below!).

Since then, the 32-page, mostly volunteer-run magazine remains mostly hyper-local in its editorial focus and while the vision, aesthetic, and direction shifts with different editors and art directors at the helm, the magazine remains unwaveringly committed to change. Current Editor-In-Chief, Tasha Hefford, poignantly notes it's, "a snapshot of Vancouver at a particular time, and it wouldn’t be any fun if it was regulated."

Since its inception, the editorial focus has been largely on music—primarily emerging artists and underground scenes in Vancouver—but in recent years has expanded to include more diversity in new media, arts, literature, culture, and more. The visual aesthetic continues to evolve, as well. The photos below are a small sample of its 37-year lifespan, and how printing technology has shaped, guided, and also been a vessel for creative expansion and expression over the years.

Discorder has been an important platform for freedom of expression for contributors; it's a safe and nurturing environment for emerging writers, editors, and designers to take risks and find their voice—a common trait of indie mags. It's also been known for breaking new talent and launch careers of artists, like Grimes, White Lung, Miranda July, The Pack AD, Sleater-Kinney, and countless more.

I held the reigns from February 2012 to September 2013 (see the Nü Sensae and 30th Anniversary covers below, a few of my faves from my time). I was in the final semester of my college writing diploma when I started and it was one of the most exciting days of my life when I received word I was hired. Every single one of those months was filled with intense anxiety and immense elation, all driven by the highs and lows of producing a piece of permanent print every month. Indeed, a snapshot of a moment in Vancouver.

Check out some back issues here: https://www.citr.ca/discorder/issues/
On Facebook here: CITR 101.9FM & Discorder Magazine
And get your paws on the printed piece: https://www.citr.ca/discorder/subscribe/

12/24/2020

Sound on sound on sound onnnnnn 📄📃

The phenomenological appeal—PRINT FOR PLEASURE—is one huge reason publishers publish and readers read print magazines. Even in the face of economic and technological upheaval and shift, this medium is not just surviving, but thriving.

The phenomenology explains why I merrily spend $15 to hold this in my hands and think, “Yessssssssssssssss” as these pages flip flip flip mellifluously over my fingertips, crinkling, corners curling as it ages.

And research shows the appeal is cross generational. Millennials, Gen Xers, and octogenarians alike all read and enjoy magazines, and do so for the qualities they have not afforded by digital media.

If you’re still looking for a way to treat yourself of someone else as we near a big weird end of a long effed year, consider a magazine subscription! It’s literally a gift that keeps on giving and there’s something for e v e r y b o d y. Everybody! For example, Vancouver based arts and culture SAD Mag to Rolling Stone (yes it’s still around and actually pretty great) to “Afghans!”

I’m serious, I was at Michael’s last week and there was a magazine called Afghans! at the checkout. The cover model was an old timey wooden rocking chair with this beautiful crocheted number draped across the back. How niche is that!?

Merry everything, everyone. 🤓

12/21/2020

Introducing, An Argument for Analogue: The page! What's it all about? Here's a quick background of how the project began and what this part of it is for, because the irony of a page about analogue is not lost upon me. 📚

This project started as a thesis I wrote for fulfillment of my Master of Arts in Professional Communications. 🎓 Also, because I loOooOove print mags, have helmed one, and am on the path to starting my own.

The title says it all. How can an indie magazine structure its digital framework to increase print viability? Through my own experience, it's clear that . Even as culture shifts increasingly digital and some print empires crumble, a niche corner of print appears to be surviving AND thriving: indie magazines.

The project probed a metric heck ton of information. This included academic papers on material culture, Canadian media scholars and , the laws of media tetrad, media hybridization, and—because it was an applied study taking place in the real world, intending to be useful to me and actual publishers of actual magazines—interviews with eight people who ran an indie mag in some capacity, like editors-in-chief, designers, founders, etc.

The results were FASCINATING and the product is a framework and set of best practices that can be used by anyone looking to revamp their existing print mag, launch a new one, or extend their print version effectively into the digital realm, like social media, podcasts, and websites, and vice-versa.

So! Because nobody reeeally wants to digest information like this in the form a 80 pages of text, this page is essentially the hybridization of my thesis, where the Recommendations and Conclusions are used to repackage all the research and results into an engaging and digestible form of social media!

Because as you can see by the preview here, it's not very exciting in its original form. And what good is information if not made interesting to absorb?

I hope you enjoy. Long live print! 🤓

12/21/2020