“If you’re going to do print, do it properly,” states Delayed Gratification’s co-founder Rob Orchard. “That means high-quality production and lovely paper stock that feels, smells, and looks good. It means investing in content and making something [readers] genuinely want.”
Orchard’s comments appear in a new book by Ruth Jamieson titled “Print is Dead. Long Live Print” that celebrates nearly 100 of the best independent magazine titles on the market today.
“There was an era when the print magazine dominated our lives, when it’s rich, glossy pages slipped through our fingers as the words and pictures met our eyes,” explains Miss Rosen in Crave. “It was an era when history was made by the medium itself, when you waited patiently for the next issue to appear on the newsstand or in your mailbox.
“But with the advent of digital technology, print journalism became a source of doubt for its speed to produce timely content had been usurped by the immediacy of the Internet,” she continues. And this, she says, was the reason why so many magazines failed over the last decade.
Fortunately, this fall has also given rise to a new type of publisher who is going against the grain. While mass market magazines seem to be making themselves more disposable, with less depth and lower quality, indies are championing print and the high artistic and production values that are worthy of the medium.
Jamieson’s book is a celebration of that model.
“Indeed, this approach to art in the age of digital reproduction has rendered many a magazine a collector’s item. ‘Print is Dead. Long Live Print’ features the best of the best, the magazines that will make you excited about the possibilities of print once again, including magazines such as mono.kultur, Wrap, SUITCASE, Cherry Bombe, Lucky Peach, Huck, Apartamento, COLORS, and Fantastic Man, among others,” Rosen continues.
“Each entry includes a company bio and statement from the founder, providing a context by which to consider each magazine as a singular vision in independent publishing today.”
Has digital changed the print industry? Undoubtedly…and much of it for the better.