Episodios
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WELCOME TO THE GREAT OUTDOORS
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Mountain Gazette is one of those media ⊠things ⊠that only long-time fans really know about, with a long and colorful history. A kind of Village Voice of the outdoors, the first incarnation (1966) of the magazine was about mountains and for âmountain peopleââa lifestyle magazine for those who werenât interested in either coast, let alone cities, let alone New York.
Like many magazines, the Gazette succumbed to economic forces and shuttered. Twice. Until Mike Rogge, a journalist and film producer, and more important than that, an avid skier and outdoorsman, purchased the archives and the rights at a bar in Denver. The deal was drawn up on a napkin and consummated with a beer.
Mostly he bought it because it was there.
Rogge felt the media, specifically what he calls the outdoor media, was broken. Especially the advertising model. And he had grown tired of the arcane and opaque revenue streams of the digital world. So he decided to do his own thing. He rejected those models, and plowed into print.
And he went big. Literally. The result is a magazine that is a success in every sense of the word: aesthetically, editorially, and financially. Itâs a black diamond in a magazine world that often feels like a series of bunny slopes.
But Mike Rogge and Mountain Gazette have proven something: you can have your mountain and ski it too.
Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!) is a production of Magazeum & MO.D ©2021â2024
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THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
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A good editor can, theoretically, edit any magazine, regardless of genre. But in some cases, you need an outsider to make things right. To see the forest for the trees.
To that end, Janice Min has planted acres of forestsâone tree at a timeâon both coasts, where the Colorado-born editor considers herself an outsider.
âI cared about almost none of this. I donât care about celebrities or reality stars. It was my job to just think about how to interpret what they were saying and turn that passion into stories. I donât think that the editors always have to be their audience, but I also think, as an editor I was able to be removed from it and glean like, âThat pops. Thatâs the most important story.ââ
From Us Weekly, where her instincts led to a massive increase in readership that saved the floundering publicationâand likely all of Wenner Mediaâto The Hollywood Reporter, which was in a death spiral but is now, once again, a widely-respected and well-read industry bible, Min has played a major role in creating what we now call the celebrity-industrial complex, as well as the rise of what became social media and the influencer economy. Thatâs all.
Now, as cofounder of Ankler Media, Min is once again rethinking publishingâand celebrity. The company is centered around its newsletter, The Ankler, which bills itself as âthe newsletter Hollywood loves to hateâand hates to loveâ and is currently one of the top three business publications on Substack.
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This episode is made possible by our friends at Mountain Gazette, Commercial Type, and Lane Press.
Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!) is a production of Magazeum & MO.D ©2021â2024
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EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN
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Emma Rosenblum is a best selling author and is about to release a new novel. But thatâs not why sheâs here.
As the chief content officer at Bustle Digital Group, overseeing content and strategy for titles like Bustle, Elite Daily, and Nylon, she has witnessed some if not all of the massive shifts and changes in the media business. The ups and downs and highs and lows, as it were.
Emmaâs media past includes stints at New York magazine, where she began her career, Glamour, Bloomberg Businessweek, Bloomberg Pursuits, where she served as editorial director, and Elle, where she was executive editor.
Meaning sheâs a good person to talk to about the state of media today, a world where the change never stops. And she also has an insiderâs opinion about the legacy big publishers and the advantages that BDG, as a digital-first operation, might have over them.
And did we mention sheâs an author? Her first novel, Bad Summer People, was a national bestseller and her second novel, Very Bad Company, will be released in the coming weeks.
Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!) is a production of Magazeum & MO.D ©2021â2024
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DESIGN, BUILD, AND MODIFY
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In his mid-20s, Scott Dadich told his editor at Texas Monthly, Evan Smith, that he wanted his job.
A move like that is a combination of arrogance, youth, and frankly, balls. But you should also know that Dadich is an engineer. And what do engineers do? Well, according to one definition in Merriam-Webster, they âskillfully or artfully arrange for an event or situation to occur.â
Of course, you probably know Dadich as an art director and editor, but beyond the titles, heâs the kind of guy who builds things, re-engineers them, re-configures them or, more importantly, thinks differently about them.
To date, his lifeâs work has been building magazinesâmarrying words and pictures and combining his love of math and engineering with an eye towards new, unforeseen outcomes in a long career that includes stints at the aforementioned Texas Monthly, and also Wired, CondĂ© Nast Digitalâyes, weâll talk iPadsâWired (again) and then on to his own agency, Godfrey Dadich Partners, where he is trying to engineer a new approach to advertising.
As a rare creative who has helmed a magazine as an editor-in-chief and art director, Dadich has ideas about how to better create everything, from where digital and print sit in the ecosystem, to the makeup of an actual magazine, and even how teams should fit on the masthead. He has put these ideas to practice on the page, on the web, and also on the streams, in his award-winning Netflix series about the creative process Abstract: The Art of Design, which premiered in 2017.
Our conversation with Scott, a rather long one for us, starts right now.
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This episode is made possible by our friends at Mountain Gazette, Commercial Type, and Lane Press.
Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!) is a production of Magazeum & MO.D ©2021â2024
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THE EXTRAORDINARY LIFE OF THINGS
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The Bed. The Window. The Rope. The Sink. The Cabinet. The Ball. The Trousers. The Desk. The Rug. The Bottle. The Chain. The Log. The Letter.
These arenât random words thrown together, nor am I reading a list of things I need to buyâthough stop for a moment and admire the poetry and cadence of the list. No, those words are the themes of every issue of MacGuffin.
MacGuffin bills itself as a design and crafts magazine about the life of ordinary things. And in that simple descriptor, you can discover an entire world.
Founded in 2015 by Kirsten Algera and Ernst van der Hoeven, two Dutch art historians and designers, each biannual issue of MacGuffin is based around a single object, or word, and then explores that object in its entirety in quite surprising, and inspiring, ways.
MacGuffin doesnât ask much of its global audience but reading it and experiencing it, might change the way you look at the world. MacGuffin came about because Ernst and Kirsten both felt that the discourse around design had become disconnected from the concerns of most of the worldâs people.
In some ways, they have created a magazine that rejects the modern to appreciate what already exists. But donât mistake the magazine or their ambition for nostalgia: MacGuffin is a thoroughly modern project and an ambitious one: oversized, heavy and thick.
Both Ernst and Kirsten acknowledge they are creating an object about objects, a collectible. A collection. They do this with an openness to the world and a thoughtfulness that is admirable. Because the world of MacGuffin is the world all of us live in.
Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!) is a production of Magazeum & MO.D ©2021â2024
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No âVisions of Lovelinessâ
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Picture it: Itâs 1991. Youâre sitting at your desk at The New York Times, when you get a call from the office of CondĂ© Nastâs Alexander Liberman. Alex wants to meet you for lunch at La Grenouille to discuss an opportunity: Si Newhouse has decided to launch the first-ever beauty magazine, and he thinks youâre just the woman to make it happen. Youâre 31 years old. The canvas is blank. The budget is endless. Whatâs your move, Linda Wells?
For the womenâs magazine editors of today, struggling to keep the lights on by juggling Instagram, TikTok, marketing events, digital content, and whatever remains of their print product, this is a tale so far-fetched it feels like the stuff of an early aughts rom-com. But millennial editorsâ wildest ideas about the âTown Car Eraâ of magazine-making were just another day at the office for Linda Wells.
Linda led Allure for 25 years, becoming a front-row fixture at Fashion Weekâwhile also pioneering the cottage industry of backstage beauty coverageâand enlisting writers like Arthur Miller, Isabel Allende, Betty Friedan, and John Updike to write about ⊠beauty.
In 2018, she pivoted, restyling herself as a beauty entrepreneur, launching with Revlon a makeup range she called Flesh. Now sheâs back in the land of editorial, having a bunch of fun at the helm of the beauty vertical of Graydon Carterâs Air Mail, commissioning articles on everything from psychedelics to orgasm coaches.
We knew Linda Wells would be delightful, and yet she exceeded our expectations. We know youâll love her too.
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This episode, a collaboration with The Spread, is made possible by our friends at Mountain Gazette, Commercial Type, and Lane Press.
Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!) is a production of Magazeum & MO.D ©2021â2024
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STRING THEORY
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Media, and most every brand in general, talks a lot about building and nurturing a community. Tribes, even. Finding one, inserting yourself into it, and then making your message an integral part of it. And what activity creates a more loyal community, than sports? If there is the ultimate niche audience, sports is it. It goes without saying that every sport has fans. And some lend themselves to something beyond fandom; they are lifestyles.
And few magazines have built up a brand around a single sport and its audience and their lifestyle as much as Racquet.
Launched with a Kickstarter campaign in 2016 by Caitlin Thompson, Racquet is a presence at major tennis events and has inserted itself into the lifestyle of tennis fans and players alike. The path has been rocky at times, but Thompson is clear about her aim to provide a âpremium experience at a premium price,â as she told the Nieman Lab in an interview in 2017.
Like any other media, Racquet will live and die based on a business plan, and it is quite possible that Racquet magazine is just a small part of a larger creative media agency, all centered around a global community. And while she is not loath to smash some volleys in the direction of the tennis establishment, she is doing this while also trying to recenter the entire community and become its new beating heart.
Caitlin Thompson has much in common with the worldâs top tennis players: passion, drive, ambitionâand a willingness to make ⊠a racket.
Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!) is a production of Magazeum & MO.D ©2021â2024
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WHAT'S RED AND YELLOW AND ORANGE ALL OVER?
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The images are iconic. And you know who they depict. They may be the most unforgettable magazine covers to emerge from the chaos of the late 2010s. Why are they so effective? Because of the implicit understanding of whatâs being said between artist and audienceâwithout a word being spoken. Using just three basic colors, todayâs guest has created the brand identity of resistance.
Edel Rodriguez was born in Cuba, and though he left that island nation when he was quite young, arriving in the US during the Mariel boatlift, one canât help sensing an aesthetic that might be especially Cuban, or can be called, perhaps, âauthoritarian-adjacent.â Because when the US flirted withâas it will again this yearâa presidential candidate rotten with autocratic tendencies, Rodriguezâs imagery is the perfect match for the moment.
His red, yellow, and orange covers for Time, Mother Jones, and Der Spiegelâ25 in allâwere minimalist, dangerous, and dead-on-balls accurate. And he joins us today fresh off the premiere of his stunning graphic memoir, Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey.
Of his notorious subject, Rodriguez saw the famously orange skin tone as a âwarning sign,â he told Fast Company, and the simple style he employed resonated because it broke through the noise in the most effective way imaginable. Coming from Cuba, Rodriguez feels a duty to express, through his art, the potential outcomes of the choices we have madeâand might make yet again. As he told The Guardian, âI donât think most Americans realize what a coup is.â
Of course, Rodriguez is more than just this one subject. But heâd be the first one to admit that he is political, and he makes no pretense of hiding his politics. As for his fans, they tell the artist that his work helps them crystallize their own thoughts and animates their feelings in ways they struggle to express on their own. A picture is worth a thousand words, indeed.
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This episode is made possible by our friends at Mountain Gazette, Commercial Type, and Lane Press.
Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!) is a production of Magazeum & MO.D ©2021â2024
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Saveur was always a little different from the other food magazines. It was not exactly highbrow, but it did expand the definition of what a food magazine could be. If anything, it was a magazine about cultureâcentered on food, sureâbut also about places, and things, and people.
It was a magazine for foodies before the word âfoodieâ was inventedâand then became annoying. It embraced the web and digital. It attracted very smart writers and a dedicated readership (I was one of them). It branched into cookbooks (and I have some).
It was a media company centered around a defined editorial brand and mission. It was also bought and sold quite oftenâor often enough that each new owner and each new editor that came aboard tried to fix it, somehow, to make the numbers look better, perhaps, and that meant a lot of tinkering.
Of course, this was also a time when our traditional notions of media were being challenged and upended almost daily, so it didnât really come as a surprise when Saveur announced they would cease publishing their print edition in 2021.
But then, in a move that recalled the famous Remington Razor commercials of the early 80sââI was so impressed, I bought the companyââa longtime editor of Saveur, Kat Craddock, found some like-minded folk, and bought the company. And the first change she implemented was a return to print.
Itâs out right now, and it looks delicious.
Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!) is a production of Magazeum & MO.D ©2021â2024
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THE LAST EMPEROR
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It might be difficult to remember, at least for our younger listeners, how vast the Time-Life empire was. At its height, during the John Huey dynasty of the late 1990s/early 2000s, the company published over 100 magazines.
Quite a rise from its humble beginning in 1922, when Henry Luce launched Time as the countryâs first newsweekly. It was followed shortly by Fortune in 1930, Life in 1936, Sports Illustrated in 1954, and, finally, People in 1974. It was the largest and most prestigious magazine publisher in the worldâand those five titles were the bedrock.
In 2006, Huey became the sixth editor-in-chief of Time Inc., overseeing more than 3,000 journalists.
In an interview with New York magazine, Huey described Time Inc as having a âpublic trustâ and perhaps âan importance beyond profitability.â But not even a giant as powerful as Time Inc. was immune to the financial havoc brought about by the new digital age.
Huey retired in 2012, the last emperor of a vastly downsized and damaged empire. âGoogle sort of sucked all the honey out of our business,â he lamented then. In 2017, after Time was sold to its bitter rival Meredith Corporation, Huey tweeted âRIP, Time Inc. The 95-year run is over.â
Our George Gendron talked to Huey about Fortuneâs battles with Forbesâand their pet names for each other, about giving Graydon Carter and Kurt Andersen at Spy a taste of their own medicine, about not hiring Tina Brown, and about what his mother really thought he shouldâve done with his life.
Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!) is a production of Magazeum & MO.D ©2021â2024
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Jeremy Leslie is a magazine person. A lifer. He has had his hands in a diverse group of publications and media, including Time Out, The Guardian, Blitz, and many others.
Since 2006, he has led magCulture, which started out as a research project, became a well respected blog, but now includes a retail outlet in London, a consultancy, events and conferences, and really, anything magazine.
He has written books about editorial design, and magazines, and his talents are sought after by clients the world over. magCulture, however, is more than a mere destination for magazine lovers. It is a resource, and perhaps more than anything, an evangelist for all things magazine. Its existence has been a boon to indie mags the world over.
magCulture continues to produce a vast array of content on all sorts of platforms and channels, and all of them are worth your while. magCulture's battle cryâsomething they shout from the rooftopsâis a simple one, and one that we at Magazeum share: WE LOVE MAGAZINES!
Jeremy is arguably the best person to speak to about the state of the magazine today, and what the future of the magazine might be.
Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!) is a production of Magazeum & MO.D ©2021â2024
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MY EFFING CAREER
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When youâre born in a town called Media, your career path is pretty much preordained. It has to be, right?
And when you end up leading the design teams at blue-chip magazine brands at Condé Nast, Hearst, and Time Inc., the prophecy is then fully realized. (Yes, I just watched Dune). But the journey in between is not as cushy as you might imagine.
Since the age of 10, with his motherâs admonitionââyou need to have a jobââringing in his ears, designer John Korpics has found work doing all of the following: heâs bent sheetwork into duct metal, cleaned windows at factories, he was a fitness instructor, he had a paper route. He worked his way through college in food serviceâcleaning chicken, wiping counters, serving meals.
When you hear the title creative director, youâd be forgiven if your mind painted a picture. You know the typeâthe thoroughbred who studied at Parsons or SVA, apprenticed under Tibor Kalman or Roger Black, who gets included on some â30 Under 30â list. Thatâs not John Korpics. Heâs worked hard to get where heâs gotten. Korpics will tell you that. He told me that:
âI always felt like I was the Pete Rose of magazine designers. I hustle, I work hard, I crank stuff out. Occasionally I get one and I hit one out of the park, but there are people in this industry that I think are truly giants. And Iâve never quite thought of the work I did in that league, but I am always inspired by them.â
And then, one day, he was 24 and hired to art direct his first magazine. And then another. And another. And like many of us, some of his jobs havenât worked out. And when that happens, what does Korpics do? He gets himself another job. Like the time he became a Manhattan bike messenger after one particularly messy ending.
âI delivered mops to the 79th Street Boat Basin. I delivered products to Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. I delivered clothes from a studio to Vogue. I delivered a lot of lunches. And I actually really enjoyed it. Although I will say itâs not possible to make a living doing that. On my best day ever, I think I made about $90.â
It takes a special person to survive in the magazine business. Forty years in, Korpics is still at it. Heâs focused on the big picture nowâbrands, systems, pixelsâat Harvard Business Review, the 102-year-old publishing wing of the 116-year-old Harvard Business School. Yes, mom, heâs still got a job.
Letâs meet John.
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This episode is made possible by our friends at Mountain Gazette and Commercial Type
Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!) is a production of Magazeum & MO.D ©2021â2024
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Introducing our new podcast all about the future of magazines â and the magazines of the future. Check out episode 1, our interview with Vanity Fair editor-in-chief Radhika Jones.
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Radhika Jones was named editor in chief of Vanity Fair in November 2017, the fifth editor in the magazineâs storied history. Her hiring was met with some surprise, and more than a little skepticism. The Guardian called her bookish, as if thatâs an insult.
She arrived at Vanity Fair from a path that included stints at The New York Times where she was the editorial director of the book section and Time magazine where she managed the Time 100, as well as The Paris Review, Art Forum, Book Forum, and Grand Street.
Now, more than six years later, Jones sits at the center of a massive media ecosystem that encompasses digital, social, print, video, and experiential platforms. The magazine has been called the curator of American culture, and sits under the flagship of CondĂ© Nast. The good news is the numbers, including print, are not just good, theyâre up across all platforms.
We caught up with Jones after she had put Vanity Fairâs flagship Hollywood issue to bed, but before the whirlwind of events that culminates in the very famous party the magazine hosts once the Oscars are done. The Hollywood issue is out today.
Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!) is a production of Magazeum & MO.D ©2021â2024
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THE ULTIMATE HYPHENATE
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Rochelle Udell is many things.
She is all of these things: teacher, ad woman, vice president, founder, wife, creative director, mentor, chair woman, student, marketer, graduate, design director, editor-in-chief, mother, chief talent officer, executive vice president, collector, president, meditator, internet strategist, partner, art director, volunteer, deputy editorial director, artist, retiree, and baker's daughter.
As Walt Whitman would say, âShe contains multitudes.â
âAs for the titles attached to my name,â she says, âI consider them important only in as much as they help the outside world understand who I am and what I do. My fear is that they often do more to confine rather than define oneâs creative possibilities.â
The daughter of Polish and Ukrainian immigrants, Udell began her career as a teacher at Sheepshead Bay High School in Brooklyn, when a chance encounter with Milton Glaser launched her into the thick of New York magazineâs newsroom in the early 1970s where she and a group of women (including our Episode 25 guest, Gloria Steinem) created and launched the legendary Ms. magazine.
After that, Udell, an Art Directors Club Hall-of-Famer, put her talents, her hyphens, and her multitudes to work at the worldâs preeminent magazines: Harperâs Bazaar, Vogue, GQ, House & Garden, Esquire, Self, The New Yorker, and fashion brands, FIT, Chicoâs, Revlon, and Calvin Klein.
And somewhere in the middle of all that, she was a pioneer of early-days digital media as the founder of Condé Nast Digital and its beloved, OG food blog, Epicurious.
Our editor-at-large, Anne Quito, spoke with Udell about all of it.
Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!) is a production of Magazeum & MO.D ©2021â2024
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THE NEW YORK OBSERVER
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âI finally went up to Graydon and I said, âHey, you know, I know you like me. I know you wanted me to be here, but I can also do covers.ââ
âą âą âą
Thatâs todayâs guest, Mark Seliger. Heâs the same Mark Seliger who, at the moment of this exchange with Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter, had already shot over 180 covers for Rolling Stone, where he was the chief photographer from 1992-2002.
Seliger had been heavily recruited by GQ and Vanity Fair to move to CondĂ© Nast. But, as he learned, the days of being Fred Woodwardâs go-to image maker were over. Once again, he was the new guy. And he saw an opportunity to reinvent himself.
Fortunately, reinvention is Seligerâs middle name.
Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!) is a production of Magazeum & MO.D ©2021â2024
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A CRIME OF ATTITUDE
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As George Bernard Shaw once said, âEngland and America are two countries separated by the same language.â Turns out it may be more than just the language.
Early in my career it became clear the British were coming. The first wave arrived when I was an editor at New York magazine: Jon Bradshaw, Anthony Hayden-Guest, Julian Allen, Nik Cohnâall colorful characters who brought with them, as author Kurt Andersen said in Episode 2, âan ability to kick people in the shins that was lacking in the United States.â
And kick they did.
A decade later, the British trickle became a surge that appeared everywhere on the mastheads of premiere American magazines. There was Anna Wintour. And Liz Tilberis. And Harry Evans. Joanna Coles. Glenda Bailey. Andrew Sullivan. Anthea Disney. James Truman. And, of course, todayâs guest, Tina Brown.
And the invasion continues today, with the Brits taking over our newsrooms and boardrooms. Emma Tucker at The Wall Street Journal. Will Lewis at The Washington Post. Mark Thompson at CNN. Colin Myler at the New York Daily News.
But none of them made it bigger faster than Tina Brown. Si Newhouse never knew what hit him. Brown, having just turned 30, grabbed the wheel of CondĂ© Nastâs flailing 1983 relaunch of Vanity Fair and proceeded to dominate the cultural conversation for the next decade.
And then? Another massive turnaround at The New Yorker. The first multimedia partnership at Talk. Nailing digital early with The Daily Beast. Then Newsweek. And, more recently, the books, the events, and the podcast.
So Tina, what exactly is it with you Brits that makes your work so extraordinary?
âWell, I think that the plurality of the British press means that thereâs a lot more experimentation and less, sort of, stuffed-shirtery going on. The English press is far more eclectic in its attitude and its high/low aesthetic, essentially. Thereâs much less of a pompous attitude to journalism. They see it as a job. They donât see it as a sacred calling. And I think thereâs something to be said for that, you know? Because itâs a little bit more scrappy, I think, than it is here. And I think thatâs served us well, actually.â
So itâs no surprise then to learn that there were early signs of future-Tina. Here we call it âgood trouble.â Tinaâs got another name for it. As the story goes, teenage-Tina, blessed with a âtremendous skepticism of authority,â somehow managed to get herself kicked out of not one, not two, but threeâTHREE!âboarding schools. Her offenses? Nothing serious. Just what the ASME Hall-of-Famer refers to as her âcrimes of attitude.â
And you know, when you think about it, what is any great magazine but a crime of attitude?
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This episode is made possible by our friends at MOUNTAIN GAZETTE and COMMERCIAL TYPE.
Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!) is a production of Magazeum & MO.D ©2021â2024
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The Prime of Mr. Neville Brody
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âOnce you have broken down the rules, literally anything is possible.ââ
In the business of magazine design, few names resonate as profoundly as Neville Brody. And, to this day, he lives by those words.
Renowned for his groundbreaking work and commitment to pushing design boundaries at magazines like The Face, Arena, Per Lui, and others, Brody is a true auteur in the world of design. We talked to him at the launch of his spectacular new monograph, The Graphic Language of Neville Brody 3.
Nurtured on 1970s British punk music, which rejected anything that appeared self-indulgent or overwrought, Brody found the perfect launch pad at The Face, the London-based music, fashion, and culture monthly, created by editor Nick Logan in 1980.
The Face inspired an array of fellow magazine rule-breakers, including the late Tibor Kalman, David Carson, and Fabien Baron, who calls Brodyâs work âpowerful, aggressive, and simple.â
Since then, Brody's journey in graphic design has been marked by a relentless, almost unforgiving pursuit of innovation. His magazine design challenged conventional norms and redefined visual storytelling. Brodyâs design approach is characterized by a rejection of conventional grid systems and editorial hierarchies, and a willingness to break free from established design rules.
And he thinks magazines today are missing a giant opportunity:
âThatâs the beauty of print, that you canât achieve in the same way digitally. Digital is so commoditized. Weâre not expressing content anymore. Weâre just delivering it.
Neville Brody's legacy in magazine design lies in his fearless approach to challenging the status quo and his ability to capture the zeitgeist of his time. By pushing the boundaries of traditional graphic design, he not only influenced the look and feel of magazines but also inspired a generation of designers to embrace innovation, experimentation, and a spirit of creative rebellion. Brody's work continues to be celebrated for its enduring impact on the evolution of graphic design and its role in shaping the visual language of contemporary media.
Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!) is a production of Magazeum & MO.D ©2021â2024
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One Eye on the World
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âWhen life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams, this may be madness. To seek treasure where there is only trash. Too much sanity may be madness. And maddest of all, to see life as it is, not as it should be!â
â Don Quixote de la Mancha
Monocle, the brainchild of the expat Canadian magazine maker, Tyler BrĂ»lĂ©, was born in early 2007, a relatively awful year for the magazine business, not to mention the entire world. In that year alone, more than 100 print magazines foldedâor, as Wikipedia terms it, were âdis-establishedââamong them: Life (again), Premiere, Red Herring, House & Garden, Jane, Child, and Business 2.0. Months later, the global economy was hit by the Great Recession.
But Brûlé was coming out from under a rather lengthy non-compete agreement with Time Inc., after selling his previous startup, Wallpaper*, to the American media giant, and he was desperate to get back to the newsroom.
Given the times, and the stream of fading print publications, one could judge BrĂ»lĂ©âs resolve as âmadness,â as Don Quixote cried in the opening clip. Digital was all the rage, the iPad was knocking on the door, and the radiation of the frenzied dotcom meltdown was still slowly killing legacy media.
âMadnessâ? Not if you know Tyler BrĂ»lĂ©.
In his world, âlife as it should beâ is richâa morning espresso in a bustling cafe with a crisp newspaper written and edited in the romance language of your choice, sorting out weekends skiing the Alps or lounging on the Med while riding the night train to Vienna.
And then thereâs the printânot only the magazine itself, printed on âupwards of nine different paper stocks, crammed with extremely niche articles about carbon-neutral airlines in Costa Rica and sleek Afghan restaurants in Dubai,â but also special edition newspapers, coffee table books, and Monocle-approved travel guides.
(Someone forgot to tell Brûlé and his brilliant team of collaborators that print is dead).
In a media culture traditionally obsessed with scale at any cost, Monocleâs modest 100,000 circulation belies a thriving multi-media juggernaut that confidently ignores the lure of social media. âWeâre in a very fortunate position that weâre an independent publisher,â says BrĂ»lĂ©, âand we donât have the commercial pressures of a big parent. And those commercial pressures can be two-fold: One is cost savings, but the other pressures are to go and chase after every new trend.â
In fact, Brûlé thinks of Monocle as a family business.
âWe donât set out to be pioneers, but also weâre a family company, and we can choose to do things quickly if we want to.â
That same culture has manufactured the pressure to establish oneâs entrepreneurial cred. Youâre not the editor, youâre the founding editor, the founding creative director, the founding director. But when asked about how he thinks of and refers to himself, BrĂ»lĂ© answers simply:
âIf I think about âWhat do I do?â Iâm a journalist. Iâm out to be a witness. Iâm out to absorb, Iâm out to interpret, and Iâm out to communicate.
A print-centric media phenomenon, created as a family business, led by a journalist. Surprising? Not for someone whoâs been building a âlife as it should be.â
Hereâs our editor-at-large George Gendron with Tyler BrĂ»lĂ©.
Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!) is a production of Magazeum & MO.D ©2021â2024
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A Style All Her Own
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This summer, our first collaboration with The Spreadâthe Episode 21 interview with former Cosmopolitan Editor-in-Chief Joanna Colesâbecame our most-listened-to episode ever. Now Rachel Baker and Maggie Bullock are back, and this time theyâre speaking with another game-changing woman in media: Stella Bugbee, the editor of The New York Timesâ Style section.
For our new listeners, Rachel and Maggie are a pair of former Elle magazine editors and âwork wives.â In 2021, like many of you, they found themselves wishing for a great womenâs magazineâand watching the old-school womenâs mags drop like icebergs from a glacier. They decided to be the change they wanted to seeâand The Spread was born.
Now, more than two years into publishing their dream weekly on Substack, rounding up juicy gossip, big ideas, and deeply personal examinations of womenâs livesâfrom The New York Times and The Atlantic to Vogue and Elle to NplusOne and The DriftâThe Spread is a cult favorite of media mavens and the media-curious.
Rachel & Maggie call Stella Bugbee âa magazine-making unicorn,â and weâre excited to be able to share their conversation with you.
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EPISODE CREDITS:
Guest Hosts: Rachel Baker & Maggie Bullock from The Spread
Produced by Patrick Mitchell
Fully-Illustrated Transcript Available Here
Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!) is a production of Magazeum & MO.D ©2021â2024
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Todayâs guest, the celebrated photographer Albert Watson, OBE, is a man on the move.
This is not a recent development. Watsonâs professional journey began in Scotland in 1959, where he studied mathematics at night. His day job? Working for the Ministry of Defense plotting coursesâspeed, altitude, distance, payloadâfor British missiles pointed towards Cold War Russia.
Itâs the Journey, Not the Destination
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Watsonâs affinity for the mathematical gave way to his interest in the arts, when, in school, he dove head-first into ALL of them: drawing, painting, textile design, pottery, silversmithing, and graphic design.
Later, on his 21st birthday his wife bought him a small camera. He became obsessed:
âAll I know is that I clicked the shutter, and suddenly, magically, I got negatives back, that I could learn to process myself. And then, even better, I got into a dark room with a piece of white paper under an enlarger, and you put it in some chemistry, and lo and behold, up comes an image. Magicâblack magic, I called it. Amazing, insane, beautiful.â
Then came the magazines: Harperâs Bazaar, GQ, Mademoiselle, Entertainment Weekly, Details, and Vogue. ALL of the Vogues. And the ad campaigns: Prada, Chanel, Revlon, and Levis.
And yet, after all that, talk to the man about his work, any facet of his career, and the conversation invariably comes back to the printâthe math, the chemistry, the graphic design involvedâand about the journey the print takesâfrom camera to magazine, from magazine to gallery and, sometimes, from gallery to museum, as so many of his have.
Our editor-at-large George Gendron talked to Watson about all of it: day rates, social media, and his stunning apartment in TriBeCa.
Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!) is a production of Magazeum & MO.D ©2021â2024
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