For one indie magazine publisher, it all comes down to making something real.
“I don’t want to see pictures of people’s babies, or their dinner or endless drunken selfies. It’s a bit bizarre to me that we now have to validate our existences in this way. Technology was meant to free us, not distract us.”
Those words by Foxhole founder and publisher Mark Beechill sum up his thoughts on our digitally-obsessed society. They also help clarify his passion for creating this independent magazine and his effort to make something real, with lasting impact.
“There are so many gorgeous print magazines out there that are ‘keepers’, I felt the best way to keep the work in the magazine alive was to put it in print,” Beechill explains to Mel Luff in People of Print.
“There’s so much stuff out there online that it all gets lost so easily and there’s a danger that it won’t make any impact. You could argue that doing it as a digital-only magazine would be easier and cheaper but I think it’s so much more rewarding to produce a tactile, physical thing. Give me something I can hold in my hands,” Beechill continues.
What he’s created is a perfect vehicle for showcasing some truly talented people working in writing, design, photography and illustration.
“Influenced by Bukowski, a stint as a musician, the spirit of self-publishing and a new found addiction to the printed form, Mark Beechill founded the magazine in 2015,” Luff explains.
“With a by-line of ‘open to ideas’ the magazine’s philosophy is to cover all ‘creative endeavours and areas of alternative culture deserving of a wider audience’.”
That wider audience is found, for Beechill, strictly in print; don’t look for a digital edition of this one.
“I came to the conclusion at some point that whatever I was designing should be out there in the real world (for better or worse) and that there was so much great work by people that deserved more attention, so why not make a magazine that was there to promote this work? Also, by this point I was fully addicted to the printed form and wanted to make a physical object, rather than just something that existed online,” Beechill explains.
His addiction is paying off, in a beautifully printed product that we hope has a long and successful life. And in answer to the inevitable “Is print dead” query, he calmly replies: “Nah, it’s just resting.”
Well said.