Hasta La Ideas

Our interview with the founder of one of the world’s first iPad-only magazines

In the digital revolution’s wake, popular stances have it that only publications developed specifically for these new mediums are truly relevant. Post, one I recently spent time checking out, uses sound, video and interactive technology to cover the usual milieu of topics. We recently sat down with Post’s creator Xerxes Cook to find out more about how they made the entertaining application, available for download from iTunes for $3.

Why iPad and why now?

We felt the iPad has created another medium for experiencing information, one that sees us act beyond the traditional parameters of magazine editors, and also in some way as television programmers, film producers and computer game developers. It is an exciting time to be in publishing.

We consider the first issue of Post, called “Matter,” to be issue zero—a proposition for what can be done within this new medium. It is very much an experiment, one which we imagine will be continually evolving.

How long did it take to create Post?

It took us around four months, and it is a process far removed from print publishing or the blog-based format of most websites. Some of our features—especially in the next issue—take as much programming as other apps in their entirety, so we have now learned the order in which we need to produce and program the different elements of the magazine.

Was all of the content produced with the iPad in mind?

Other than the video art triptych by Sema Bekirovic, all of the elements were produced in-house. We were constantly exploring the different ways in which we could execute and communicate with the iPad in mind. If something could be replicated in a print magazine, we scrapped the idea and started from scratch. This also had an effect on Currents, a front of book section that can display videos from performances that have happened, yet had only been reported as previews or reviews in the press.

We also had to consider sound—how does a magazine have a soundtrack? Where shall this sound be placed? We wanted the sounds featured within the magazine to enhance the content of the magazine and create a “gesamtkunstwerk” of sorts, in which nothing falls out of the register of a total aesthetic experience. So, seeing as the first issue takes the shift from the physical state to the digital, an exploration of the tangibility of matter, our sounds came from the Large Hadron Collider at Cern. They are the sounds of particles colliding at the speed of light—these sounds were created by collating the information from these collisions and feeding them into an algorithm to create individual sound “objects” which we then rearranged to create a soundtrack that runs throughout the entire magazine.

Will subsequent issues be separate apps or releases within the one now available?

Yes, and our next issue, Post “Gravity” is an outer-space theme special that marks the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s space walk. Post “Gravity” explores the many ways in which humanity has sought to transcend the invisible forces that bind us to the earth, and we are collaborating with the International Space Station on many of our features. For our cover shoot, we wanted to create a fashion spread in which a single tap brings up a 3D wire-frame of the model’s body, which you can then rearrange and distort before flipping back to real video. To do this we had to crack the Xbox Connect software and write computer code of the fly, during the shoot itself. We are previewing this cover story during Paris fashion week at both Colette and the opening of La Gaite, the multimedia AV museum that opens then.

Can you comment on initial downloads and session times as they relate to typical magazine consumption?

We hope to reach 10,000 downloads before we release the next issue and we are nearly there. It would take an hour to experience all the features within it, which is probably the average amount of time someone spends with a magazine other than “The New Yorker.”

However, we do accept that it is a very data-heavy application. At the moment we are experimenting with various ways of streaming content, creating almost two versions of the magazine, one that can be viewed both off-line and online without compromising the audience’s experience.

A free quarterly newspaper on contemporary art

In a world of diminishing print publications and—even more rare—free ones, The Art Street Journal is an inspiring example of how it can still be done. The latest issue, Volume II: Issue IV, features Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara and at 36 pages is its biggest edition yet since launching in August 2009. Other highlights include a pull-out poster by Slinkachu, a visit to Simon Haas’ studio and a review of John Baldessari’s recent show at the Met.

Helmed by editor Elisa Carmichael, who runs the Carmichael Gallery in Los Angeles with her husband Seth, the full-color newsprint magazine’s most recent number boasts a distribution base of 30,000 copies spread among individual subscribers, museums, galleries, cafes and boutiques in 150 countries.

While some of the artists featured are indeed part of their gallery’s roster, the Journal extends its scope to include artists the founders believe its target audience of art collectors should pay more attention to or consider investing in—some of whom are artists the Carmichaels personally admire.
Each issue’s table of contents lists art show reviews sent in by volunteer writers, plus Q&As with artists, but interestingly the spotlight isn’t just on them. Galleries, auctions and art fairs make up the publication’s coverage too. In its regular section Backstage, The Art Street Journal makes a concerted effort to cover those, as well to provide a more rounded overview of the street and contemporary art world.

Sign up for a free subscription to the quarterly magazine here.

A new quarterly magazine pairing storytelling with unscripted interior design

With the creation of their new quarterly shelter and lifestyle publication Anthology, editor Anh-Minh Le and creative director Meg Mateo Ilasco have introduced a beautifully-assembled magazine that juxtaposes eye-catching photographic coverage of home décor, travel, design, entertaining, and culture with compelling narratives on these subjects.

Anh-Minh, veteran contributor to publications like The San Francisco Chronicle and ReadyMade magazine, and Meg, author of several home design books and creator of the Modern Economy sample sale, came together to produce this print publication with the idea of putting together a magazine that’s not about perfection or providing a model of the ideal home. Rather, says Meg, “We’re about authenticity and real living—we ask our stylists not to bring too many props and encourage them to use what the owners have. We won’t show you a paint-by-numbers round up of products to steal the look of another home.”

“Most importantly,” Meg told us, “we’re about good stories—if there isn’t a good one to share, it doesn’t make the cut.” Anh-Minh chimed in, “Maybe it’s because we’re both writers, but we love the backstory and learning how someone or something became who or what they are today—whether it’s a piece of furniture, a home’s interior, or an individual in the design community.” Additionally, there was no trepidation about the print medium. It was a no-brainer, the two say, to match the thoughtful content to what these days is an unexpected format; the title and focus of the first issue, aptly enough, is “The Slow Life.”

With features such as the home of Jen Mankins, owner of Brooklyn clothing store Bird, an interview with Design*Sponge founder Grace Bonney, contributions by photographer Thayer Allyson Gowdy, and a trip to Park City, the inaugural issue of Anthology is not to be missed. Order your subscription here.

A new publication richly documents one of Milan’s most progressive young galleries

Keeping with the family business, Nicolò Cardi and his partners chose to develop a museum-like approach to his Galleria Cardi by supporting artists in the creation of new projects and collaborating with innovative international museums and cultural institutions. An extension of the contemporary art space and the brainchild of Cardi, Cardi Black Box catalogs the young gallery’s successes.

The hugely dense book takes a look at exhibitions, special projects and conversations with the artists. With accurate descriptions of each initiative, details and images of every single work of art ever displayed, as well as its signature type and graphic design, there’s plenty to pore over in this first edition.

Some of the most compelling works are the intense still-life photographs of Shirana Shahbazi, the hyper-detailed paintings of Scott Short (which copies by hand the details of photocopies), the portraits of mafia killings by Sicilian photojournalist Letizia Battaglia and the obsessive and colorful graphics of Thomas Bayrle.

Printed by Tar Siz Publishing (known for their art-enthused publication Tar Magazine), Cardi Black Box Vol. 1 was designed and produced entirely by the gallery staff.

The book hits museums and concept shops 18 October 2010, and currently pre-sells from Colette. See more images from Cardi Black Box Vol. 1 in the gallery below.

So what did you do this weekend? Anything productive? Anything creative? Whatever satisfying thing you achieved, whether it was mowing the lawn, painting a wall or baking some bread, it’s hard to beat the sheer audaciousness of the bright young media things in San Francisco who turned a magazine around in 48 hours, resulting in the inspired 48 Hour Magazine.

Yup, just in case you haven’t heard, i.e. if you’re not on Twitter, the concept of a working weekend was taken to new levels over the past few days by the 48 Hour Magazine team, who came up with what they described as “a raucous experiment in using new tools to erase media’s old limits.” Which is to say that they decided to push all previously understood publishing boundaries and attempted to “write, photograph, illustrate, design, edit, and ship a magazine in two days.”

The great news is their experiment worked! In fact it more than worked, it was an outrageous success, and I say that without having even seen the magazine yet. But if you’ve been following the progress of 48 Hour Magazine, you will know that the energy, enthusiasm and community bonding the idea provoked in writers, photographers and illustrators around the world was awe-inspiring.

For all those creatives who’ve been understandably down on traditional media and the publishing world of late, this was the loudest wake up call of their lives. In the 10 days before kick off, over 6,000 people signed up to take part the 48 Hour Magazine experiment and during the production time the editorial team received 1,502 submissions. That’s a lot of people crafting and creating for this unpredictable and unprecedented concept of a 48 hour magazine.

The energy, experienced variously through their Twitter, Ustream and Blog was infectious and I, along with the other 1,501 crazy kids who submitted, was swept up in the creative possibilities of what new media technologies can produce.

48 Hour Magazine’s greatest triumph is that it motivated thousands of people to create something original, without knowing whether or not it would be used, just for the pure unbridled sense of joy, fun and pumping adrenalin that comes from being under a tight deadline and in the race.

The audacious 48 Hour Magazine editors Heather Champ, Dylan Fareed, Mat Honan, Alexis Madrigal, Derek Powazek, Sarah Rich, Joe Brown plus thousands of contributors made it happen. This informative interview with Gizmodo reveals the staff’s process in designing Issue Zero, aptly themed Hustle.

48 Hour Magazine is available from MagCloud. All the contributors and info about the magazine are available on the blog.

Production photos by Heather Champ