Stack Magazines

“From weakness you make something strong...” Laurent Laporte is editor and founder of Where is the Cool?, the French magazine that presents readers with an eclectic and totally original selection of things that it has decreed are cool. In this conversation he shares his thoughts on turning weakness into strength (he’s not a journalist, which is why you won’t find long written articles in the magazine); the ongoing struggle of independent publishing; and why this thing absolutely has to be a print magazine.

"Magazines were magical to me – they transported me to somewhere else..." Marvin Scott Jarrett launched Ray Gun in 1992, working with the designer David Carson to create one of the most radical and influential magazines of the decade. After becoming disillusioned with the music industry in the late 90s (he didn't like boy bands) he went on to launch Nylon magazine in 1999, pioneering a publishing model that embraced both print and digital. He's now released a book with Rizzoli looking back at Ray Gun, showcasing some of its most famous artwork and locating it within the music, fashion and design cultures of the 90s. He was in London to promote the book at the end of May, so I caught up with him to speak about his career so far, and how he threw himself into magazine making, learning along the way.

"Satire is an interesting weapon, but it's been co-opted by the establishment." Freddie Marsh is one of the editors of The Fence, the satirical magazine that launched in London earlier this year. In this conversation Freddie explains why he and his fellow founders were inspired to produce a new satirical magazine, why it's important that politics is just one part of what they cover, and why The Fence needed to exist in print.

"You're constantly trying to break it..." Seb Emina is the editor of The Happy Reader, the literary magazine made for Penguin Books by the publishers of Fantastic Man. The 13th issue is out now, featuring Hollywood star Owen Wilson alongside Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, and Seb dropped into the Stack office to speak about the making of the magazine, and why its simple structure encourages him to play with ever more ambitious and eccentric editorial ideas.

"We have money all of a sudden!" Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff is the editor of gal-dem, the magazine made by women of colour and non-binary people of colour, which made an immediate impact when its first print issue launched in 2016. They've been working hard since then to increase their reach, for example with their takeover of The Guardian's Weekend magazine last year, and this week saw the release of their first book, I Will Not be Erased. I caught up with Charlie to speak about the rapid growth of gal-dem, including the funding they received earlier this year, which is allowing them to embark upon "gal-dem 2.0" – the ambitious next stage of their development.

"It's world peace for publishers..." Nikki Simpson is the woman behind the International Magazine Centre, a proposed hub for publishers and anyone who works with magazines. Aiming to launch in Edinburgh in 2022, Nikki wants to bring together all kinds of magazines, from the biggest corporate titles to the smallest independent outfits, helping them to build connections between one another and using strength in numbers to draw wider attention to magazines that might otherwise be overlooked. In this conversation she explains where the idea came from and how she's taking it forward, and why she wants to hear from LOTS of magazine makers.

"I want to inspire more women to have a career in type..." Amber Weaver is the author of Femme Type, an all-female publication about type design and typography. While studying graphic design at university she noticed that the type projects covered in the books she found in the library were invariably created by men, so she started her own list of great work done by women. The list continued to grow after she left university and joined People of Print, and she saw the opportunity to create the book she had longed to read. The resulting publication features more than 40 women working in the type industry, funded by a successful Kickstarter campaign that raised over £10,000 – more than double its initial target. In this conversation, Amber speaks about how she ran that campaign, and explains that with her list still growing, there are lots of opportunities for building on the book and doing more to support the community that has gathered around it.

"I want it to feel like you're having a chat with a friend." Maria Ilana Moore is editor of Dear Movies, the zine that collects personal writing about films and TV shows. Launched at the end of 2017 as a staple-bound, black-and-white publication that Maria made along with "a few of my film-y friends", it has grown into a thicker zine with a proper perfect bound spine and an international roster of collaborators. But there's no chance of it getting any bigger – Maria is clear that her unassuming piece of print should remain a hobby, and in this conversation she explains why she doesn't have any aspirations to turn a profit, and how the zine is based as much on friendship as it is on a love for the movies.

"Some countries just feel the world should not be watching..." Rachael Jolley is the editor of Index on Censorship, the 47-year-old title dedicated to promoting freedom of expression. Rachael has been in the editor's chair for the last five years, and in this conversation she speaks about the changes she has made in that time, cultivating a network of contributing editors in countries like Turkey, Mexico and China that allows the magazine to give a local perspective from places that can be difficult to report on. And she's also keen to emphasise that freedom of expression is not just a problem in faraway places, pointing to the disturbing development of journalists being killed for their work in European countries like Malta and Slovakia.

"A city is a text for us..." Natassa Pappa is the editor and creative director of Desired Landscapes, a magazine that looks deeply into cities to discover the stories and quirks that make those places unique. Small and compact, it's based on the classic pocket guide book and the plain typographic cover doesn't give any indication of the strange and whimsical stories the magazine contains within. In this episode she explains the inspirations that led to this unique magazine in disguise, as well as the technical difficulties of creating the object she wanted to make, and the challenges and opportunities that come from working in Athens these days.

"You begin by believing you can do it..." Mathieu Triay is the editor of Visions magazine, a literary science fiction title that publishes a wide range of stories; from super-short flash fiction written in collaboration with a computer author, through to a whole novel translated from French to English for the first time. Triay is a tinkerer, a creative technologist who has mixed his wide-ranging skills with his love for sci-fi to produce this unique magazine, and in this episode of the Stack podcast he explains why he decided to work in print, what made him want to become a translator, and how he paid for the whole thing by creating a typeface. Buy a copy of Visions from the Stack shop: https://www.stackmagazines.com/product/visions-issue-1/

"There is a weird, very British, eccentric attachment to hand dryers..." Wedgely Snipes (not his real name) is the editor of the South London Review of Hand Dryers. A lovely newsprint zine printed by Newspaper Club, it's simultaneously a fond parody of the London Review of Books, a silly excuse for writing about hand dryers, and a heartfelt experiment in creativity and collaboration. As you'll hear from our conversation, Wedgely genuinely loves hand dryers, but he's also obviously aware of the silliness of the whole thing, and it's this balance of commitment and self-awareness that makes the humour in the zine so infectious.

"I don't know if we ever really thought we'd finish at eight issues..." Each issue of Weapons of Reason focuses on a major global challenge, like the environment, population growth or demographic shift, and brings some sense to these big, complex, difficult subjects by zooming in on a specific part of the wider challenge. Their latest issue is dedicated to technology, and they chose the rise of artificial intelligence as the area they wanted to explore, looking at the past, present and potential future of a technology that is affecting the way we all live our lives. In this conversation the magazine's publisher, editor and art director speak about the reasons why they wanted to tackle such difficult and important subjects, how they use a simple illustrative style to communicate complex ideas, and where they are planning to take Weapons of Reason next. We delivered this issue of Weapons of Reason to Stack subscribers in March 2019, but if you're not currently part of our independent magazine club you can buy

"They defied taboos, they attacked conventions... they caught a moment in time." Ian Birch is the author of Uncovered: Revolutionary Magazine Covers, an aural history of magazine cover design from 1958 to 2016. He spent his entire career in magazine publishing, working on the launches of titles including Grazia, Red, Heat and Closer, and in this conversation he draws on his decades of experience to chart the ways in which magazines have changed over the last 60 years. Beginning with One, the magazine for gay men published in 1958, and running right up to the relaunch of Esquire earlier this year, he considers the art and conventions of cover design, as well as the shifting role of the printed magazine in wider culture.

"Design cannot make a boring magazine interesting..." Audrey Fondecave is one of the editors of Too Much, the Japanese magazine that mixes art and architecture to create a poetic understanding of the spaces we inhabit. They call the resulting hybrid 'romantic geography', and each issue is exhaustively researched, drawing upon a wide pool of expert contributors to ensure that the ambitious editorial is as authoritative and provocative as possible. In this conversation, Audrey speaks about their process for creating the magazine, why it absolutely needs to exist as a physical object, and why she doesn't want it to last forever.

"I'm not going to kill your kids at night..." Valentina Egoavil Medina is the editor and creative director of Suspira, the magazine that views horror through a female lens. The first issue focused on monsters, seeking to understand what makes something monstrous; while the second issue was devoted to fetishism, exploring female sexual power in horror and beyond. In this conversation she speaks about the ideas behind the magazine, the twin frustrations that led her to making a magazine about horror, and the stuff that really scares her. We're sold out of the second issue, but you can still pick up copies of the award-winning first issue in the Stack shop: https://www.stackmagazines.com/product/suspira-issue-1/

"There are no bosses..." New Internationalist launched in 1973 to highlight the global inequalities that emerged as countries across the global south began to make their way in a post-colonial world. In the 1980s it adopted a non-hierarchical co-operative structure, and in 2017 it issued a community share offer, giving its readers the opportunity to buy a piece of the organisation. Buoyed by the success of its sale to its readers, last year the magazine embarked on the first major redesign in its history, relaunching last summer as a bimonthly magazine with a fresh and impactful new look. In this conversation, production editor Kelsi Farrington and co-editor Yohann Koshy explain the thinking behind last year's changes, the sometimes painful process of guiding a non-hierarchical organisation through such major transformation, and why they're doubling down on their coverage of human rights, international politics and social and environmental justice.

"It's not entirely a surprise, but it's a delightful provocation..." Penny Martin is the editor of The Gentlewoman, the phenomenally successful magazine that fills its pages with fascinating women and discerning fashion, all presented with a wry smile that sets it apart from the rest of the newsstand. Renowned for its iconic covers that have featured a wide range of stars including Angela Lansbury, Beyoncé and Simone Biles, it rejects standard tools like cover lines and garish colours, instead using characterful portrait photography and subtle design touches to create an impact. In this conversation Penny speaks about the slow-burn process of choosing their cover stars, the trust they place in their collaborators, and the way she knows that they've got a cover right. ("A magazine cover works for us if I end up shrieking with laughter every time I see it.")

"It's Donald Trump and Vivienne Westwood in the same image..." Naoise O'Keeffe is editor-in-chief of Hot Potato, an "alternative newspaper" that uses fashion photography and simple one-page explainers to engage younger readers in big, difficult subjects like Brexit, gun control and the rise of Donald Trump. Printed at tabloid size by Newspaper Club, it looks at first glance like a fairly standard newsprint magazine, but O'Keeffe and her designer Maude Vervenne have introduced a little creative chaos to make sure it stands out from the crowd. For example in this episode you'll hear Naoise explain why they decided to make virtually every spread in the magazine look like a cover, and why it was important that the writers and the photographers should never meet or speak to each other.

"It's totally out of my comfort zone, but I'm 100% okay with that..." Steven Gregor is the editor and publisher of Gym Class, the magazine that has evolved over the last 10 years to become the magazine-maker's magazine. He published the last issue in 2016 as a fond farewell to print, explaining that he couldn't afford to keep on losing money on his passion project. But the start of 2019 saw the return of Gym Class, again taking magazines as its core subject matter, but with some major changes that have pushed Steven and his project on into ambitious new territory. In this episode he speaks about the excitement that brought him back to publishing, the challenge (and rewards) of handing over creative direction to somebody else, and the magpie-like approach to publishing that has helped to make this latest iteration financially viable. We delivered this magazine to Stack subscribers in January 2019, but if you weren't on the mailing list you can head over to the Stack shop to pick up a copy for yourself: https:/