August 23, 2006

Just can't get enough....

When we moved to San Francisco, we let a few of our many many magazine subscriptions go, (although I think we still subscribe to a dozen or so) in an effort to distance ourselves from our media saturated NY lifestyles. But it's a hard habit to kick! We always manage to spend way too much time in the magazine section of every bookstore we step foot in, and we've recently discovered a handful of arty magazines that we are obsessing over:

We picked up issue #6 of Esposus Magazine yesterday, and it's totally amazing. The theme of the issue is "Process", and inside are a number of reproductions of peoples' notebooks and sketchbooks, all illustrating the artistic process. It's completely captivating, and I'm super impressed with the printing, the fold out posters, the different paper stocks, the die cut tear outs- the issue is a little work of art in itself and I'm going to try to track down some back issues to see what they've done in the past.

Another magazine we have discovered is Swindle, which we bought because of the Jim Houser art on the cover (the inside covers themselves are soooo beautiful!) Turns out the creative director is Shepard Fairey. There are lots of interviews with really interesting artists, and the design is quite nice.

Finally, we are taking the time to look over our back issues of ANP Quarterly (as well as pick up new ones) and it is fantastic as well. It's interesting to me that so many artists are working on magazine projects right now, (Ed Templeton is one of the editors of ANP Quarterly) and that they are able to survive with money from private donations or through corporate backing. Only one of these magazines has any ads in it!

These are the kinds of magazines that go onto the bookshelf instead of the recycle bin after we have perused them. They are also unfortunately the kinds of magazines that tend to fold after a couple years, so please grab some issues now so we can see more of them in the future!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

okay I am now a two year subsriber to esopus partly by accident and partly on purpose. very excited to receive my first issue. never seen it before. love the new-magazine alert at smartsandcrafts!