POP GOES PRINT

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“Today, creativity feels like it’s being squeezed into smaller and smaller boxes. Content is designed to chase likes, rack up views, serve a clear function—a purpose….we’re here—to celebrate creativity for creativity’s sake, no strings attached. Analog isn’t dead; it’s the new rebellion.”

This manifesto is a part of a striking editorial in the first issue of Playground, a new magazine created out of Singapore by Pop Mart, the maker of the Labubu. I honestly never thought I would a) write that kind of sentence in my life...

SHE LOVES HER WORK

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The word ‘unicorn’ gets thrown around a lot these days. But in our book, Sarah Ball is the Real Deal. The editor of WSJ. Magazine is a student of old-guard, in-the-trenches, work-on-a-story-for-years magazine making, which has earned her cred among the Jim Nelsons and David Grangers of the biz.

She’s also a digital native with a flare for experimentation and a new media scrappiness. Sarah spent her career bridging those divides predominantly at Vanity Fair and GQ where she helped those titles join the digital revolution—much more stylishly...

A NEW RECIPE FOR FOOD MAGAZINES

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You may think a magazine called Famous for My Dinner Parties would be about food or entertaining—and I wouldn’t blame you if you did. You wouldn’t be wrong, but you also wouldn’t be right.

Taking its name from Robert Altman’s film, 3 Women, Famous for My Dinner Parties started as a pandemic-inspired digital project among three friends (Junshen Wu, Sandra von Mayer-Myrtenheim and Yannic Moeken) in Berlin and has evolved into a proper magazine and media brand, and along the way has won an engaged a...

THE GOOD CITIZEN

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This episode is a special one for us here at Magazeum. We even gave it its own code name: “Project Rosebud” (IYKYK). But if you only know our guest as the grandson of the man who inspired the lead character in the film classic Citizen Kane and the founder of one of the largest publishing empires in the world, you are missing out. 

Will Hearst could have done the easy thing, but he chose not to. As the current chairman of the Hearst Corporation, Will balances stewardship of a sprawling media e...

THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT

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While it’s not true that kids don’t read, it may be true that adults aren’t teaching kids to read. It’s also true that today’s children face issues that those of the past didn’t. And the pandemic—there’s that word again—impacted everyone in ways we’re still figuring out, including kids. Perhaps especially kids.

There are, amazingly, and encouragingly, many new magazines for children of all ages now. One of them is Anyway, a magazine for tweens founded by two mothers—and long-time friends—who gr...

A MODERN FORM OF WORSHIP

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Name the five photographers who, more than any others, defined the dramatic shift in the approach to magazine photography in the late eighties and early nineties. There’s Herb Ritts, Bruce Weber, Steven Meisel. Richard Avedon, of course. 

Who’s missing? I’m getting to that.

Today’s guest was discovered while still a student at ArtCenter College of Design in Los Angeles, by Andy Warhol no less, whose upstart (and budget-deficient) team at "Interview" couldn’t afford to send a crew to LA for a shoot. His fi...

WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

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Josh Jones has done a lot of things when it comes to magazines: Editor. Writer. Maker. Custom publisher. Mentor. Evangelist. All of the above. 

Has Josh helped write a book about hip hop in Mongolia? Yes. Has he sat back and watched Gordon Ramsey mash his face into a sandwich? Indeed. Has he written an instructive how to book that reminds the reader to always lift a box of magazines by bending one’s knees? Yes, again. 

For more than 20 years, Josh has been creating magazines, both f...

GUARDIAN AT THE GATEFOLD

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Today’s guest has become almost synonymous with graphic design and editorial publishing. His career began in the defiant New York “sex press” of the late 1960s, where not-actually-that-surprisingly, as a teenager he was already art-directing magazines like Screw and The New York Review of Sex. That unlikely starting point gave him a rare education in the power of design to command attention and shape meaning.

We’re talking about designer, author, editor, educator, and true legend, Steven Heller.

Heller went on to spend more than three decades at...

THE REST OF THE STORY

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Most people in the world live in what we in the west sometimes dismissively call the “rest of the world.” Depending on where you live, “the rest” probably includes parts, if not all, of Latin America, Africa, and the vast majority of Asia. Much like the tendency of Americans to call the champions of their sports leagues “world champions,” the word “world” is never what it seems.

Except when it is.

Founded as a non-profit by Sophie Schmidt in 2020, Rest of World is meant to challenge the “expectations...

IMAGINE FRIENDSGIVING AS A MAGAZINE

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The pandemic hit New York first and harder and longer than most places. And as a New Yorker, Joshua Glass was appalled by the eerily quiet and empty city that resulted. He wanted to connect with people, any people, but he wanted quality gatherings, as opposed to quantity. 

When restrictions on gatherings began to ease up, he started curating a series of dinner parties around town. And these get-togethers led to the creation of Family Style, a media brand that brought all his interests under a single, and per...

THE ROADS LESS TRAVELED

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Much of travel media comes with a kind of sheen to it. A gloss. Whether you are traveling Italy with a hungry celebrity or cruising Alaska in the pages of a magazine, the photos are big and Photoshopped, the text kind of breathless. And while Afar has plenty of both, it just feels a bit different. It is not a magazine that puts a focus on consumption but on feeling. On the experience of travel.

Julia Cosgrove has been atop Afar’s masthead from the beginning. She comes from a ma...

GOOD TROUBLE

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Troublemakers is a magazine about society’s misfits. At least from the Japanese point of view. A bilingual, English/Japanese magazine, Troublemakers came about as a way to showcase people who were different, who stayed true to themselves, or about the long road those people had taken to self-acceptance.

The founders, editor Yuto Miyamoto and art director Manami Inoue, were inspired by a notion that Japanese culture perhaps did not value those who strayed too far from the herd.

The magazine has been a success not just in Japan but...

A LIFE OF SLICE

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What happens when a pastry chef meets a magazine editor in Brooklyn? No, this isn’t the setup for a joke that perhaps three people might ever find funny. But…what do you get when a pastry chef meets a magazine editor in Brooklyn?

You get the start of a media brand and a movement and a community. In other words, you get Cake Zine.

Started as a post-pandemic stab at reconnecting with the world, Cake Zine is the result of that meet-cute. Tanya Bush, the pastry chef...

DÉPÊCHE MODE

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Viscose Journal calls itself “a journal for fashion criticism” which sounds like a simple enough—and niche enough—premise for a magazine. Founded by Jeppe Ugelvig in Copenhagen and New York in 2021, Viscose has quickly become a vital touchpoint in the fashion world. And it has evolved into something far more complicated than what it still calls itself.

In many ways, Ugelvig and his team have created a magazine that is a pure distillation of what a magazine can be. Because every issue of the publication is different—in form and shape...

THE GOING WAS VERY, VERY GOOD

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I’m a writer and the former deputy editor of Vanity Fair. Now if you know anything about me, which statistically you don't, unless—shameless plug—you read my memoir, Dilettante, about my time at Vanity Fair and the golden age of the magazine business. Which, statistically, you didn’t.

The only reason I have a career at all is because of today’s guest on Print Is Dead (Long Live Print). He hired me in the mid-nineties to be his assistant. Or as he likes to say, “rescue...

NOTED. (RELENTLESSLY)

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When a company publishes a magazine, or at least an “editorial” product, for whatever reason, it is called custom publishing. I have a long editorial background in custom. And custom has a surprisingly long history itself.

How long?

John Deere started publishing The Furrow in 1895. The Michelin Star started as a form of custom content: what better way to sell tires to monied Parisians than by enticing them to take a drive to the countryside to try a great restaurant?

Amex Publishing famously published Travel + Leisure among other...

THE SYSTEM WORKS

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When I decided to launch this podcast back in 2019, it didn’t take me long to realize that I didn’t want to do it alone. The first person I called? Today’s guest, Debra Bishop.

I’ve known Deb a little bit for a long time, but well enough to know her insight, humor, and world view would elevate every conversation we’d have. But also, and more importantly, she is without question one of the most consequential editorial designers working today. 

Deb has helped define the visual and st...

A BETTER-BUILT MAGAZINE

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When a company publishes a magazine, or at least an “editorial” product, for whatever reason, it is called custom publishing. I have a long editorial background in custom. And custom has a surprisingly long history itself.

How long?

John Deere started publishing The Furrow in 1895. The Michelin Star started as a form of custom content: what better way to sell tires to monied Parisians than by enticing them to take a drive to the countryside to try a great restaurant?

Amex Publishing famously published Travel + Leisure among...

THE PERSON BEHIND THE PERSON BEHIND THE CAMERA

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Close your eyes and picture a classic Rolling Stone cover. Dozens probably come to mind—portraits of music legends, movie stars, political icons, cultural rebels. Bruce. Bono. Madonna. 

These images are etched into our cultural memory as more than mere photographs. They’re statements.

But when we remember the cover, and maybe even the photographer, how often do we remember the person who made it all happen? The one who dreamed up the concept, found the right photographer, navigated the logistics, managed the persona...

IT’S LE MONDE’S WORLD AND WE’RE JUST LIVING IN IT

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Name a major newspaper—anywhere in the world—and you will find a magazine. Or two. Or three. The New York Times is the obvious example of this. The Times of London is another obvious example. And now more and more legacy newspapers from around the world are publishing their magazines in English.

La Repubblica in Italy publishes D. And now France’s venerable Le Monde is out with M International, a glossy biannual that distills their weekly M magazine for an English...

TWIST & SHOUT

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 Philip Burke’s portraits don’t just look like the people he paints—they actually vibrate. Just look at them. With wild color, skewed proportions, and emotional clarity, his illustrations have lit up the pages of Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, Time, and Vanity Fair, capturing cultural icons in a way that feels both chaotic and essential.

But behind that explosive style is a steady, spiritual core.

Burke begins each day by chanting. It sounds like this: “Nam Myōhō Renge Kyō. Nam Myōhō Renge Kyō. Nam Myōhō Renge Kyō.” It m...

THE NEW, NEW COFFEE GENERATION

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On today’s show we’re creating a storm in a coffee cup about everyone’s cup of joe. We’re spilling the beans about your morning brew. You’re going to hear a latte puns about your cuppa, your high-octane dirt, your jitter juice, your elixir, and by the time we’re done you will have both woken up and smelled the coffee.

Luke Adams is the editor in chief of Standart, a magazine about a bean that was first cultivated in Ethiopia in the 9th century and within a f...

THE WHISTLEBLOWER

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I was a reporter and editor in newspapers, including Chicago Today—which had no tomorrow—the Chicago Tribune, and the San Francisco Examiner. I made a shift to magazines becoming TV critic for People, where I came up with the idea for Entertainment Weekly, launching in 1990.

After a rocky launch—a story I tell in my new book, Magazine—I jumped ship for the Daily News, then TV Guide, and finally the internet at Advanced Publications. I left to teach and write books about the fall of mass media in 2006. My name is Je...

IN THE REALM OF THE SENSES

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Psychedelia has an image problem. At least that’s what editor and journalist Hillary Brenhouse realized after she saw through the haze.

Both in art and literature, psychedelia was way more than tie-dye t-shirts and magic mushrooms. Instead of letting that idea fade into the mist, she kept thinking about it. And the more she looked, the more she realized maybe she should create a magazine to address this. And so she did.

Elastic is a magazine of psychedelic art and literature. It says so righ...

WHEN EUSTACE MET FRANÇOISE

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 I first met Françoise Mouly at The New Yorker’s old Times Square offices. This was way back when artists used to deliver illustrations in person. I had stopped by to turn in a spot drawing and was introduced to Françoise, their newly-minted cover art editor.

I should have been intimidated, but I was fresh off the boat from Canada and deeply ensconced in my own bubble—hockey, baseball, Leonard Cohen—and so not yet aware of her groundbreaking work at Raw magazine.

Much time has pass...

EVERY DAY IS MOTHER’S DAY

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A monochromator is an optical device that separates light, like sunlight or the light from a lamp, into a range of individual wavelengths and then allows …

… Sorry. I failed physics the last time I took it and I would fail it again. I’m not telling you about my shortcomings for any reason, because a podcast about my shortcomings would be endless.

But I thought I’d look up the word when confronted with Monochromator magazine, which aims to “deconstruct selected films under a shared monochrome to...

A MAN AT HIS F*#KING BEST

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While several interesting themes have surfaced in this podcast, one of the more unexpected threads is this: Nearly all magazine-inclined men dream of one day working at Esquire. Some women, too.

Turns out that’s also true for today’s guest, which is a good thing because that’s exactly what David Granger did.

“But all this time I’d been thinking about Esquire, longing for Esquire. It'd been my first magazine as a man, and I'd kept a very close eye on it.”

Unless yo...

EVERY DAY IS MOTHER’S DAY

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If The Full Bleed’s second season had a theme, it just might be “We Made A New Magazine During the Pandemic.”  Listen to past episodes and you’ll see that our collective and unprecedented existential crisis ended up producing a lot of magazines.

Melissa Goldstein and Natalia Rachlin met as coworkers at the lifestyle brand Nowness in the UK. Later, with Melissa in LA and Natalia in Houston, they bonded over their new status as mothers: they had given birth a day apart. 

And they both foun...

“THAT’S WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU HAVE GRAPHIC DESIGN”

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Simon Esterson is one of the most influential figures in British magazine design shaping the field for decades with his distinctive approach to editorial work.

Unlike many designers who built their careers within major publishing houses, Esterson chose a different path, gravitating toward independent publishing where his influence could be greater and his contributions more impactful. This decision allowed him to play a key role in fostering a rich culture of design-led publications.

His early work at Blueprint, the legendary British design and arch...

A WEED GROWS IN PORTLAND

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Anja Charbonneau would be the first to admit she didn’t have a strategy in mind when she launched her dreamy celebration of all things marijuana, Broccoli magazine, back in 2016. Having worked as a freelance photographer and writer, and then as Creative Director of lifestyle favorite Kinfolk, she started Broccoli with the simple idea to explore Portland’s then burgeoning cannabis scene and its culture.

Fast forward to today: Anja Charbonneau oversees a publishing conglomerate that produces a number of magazines, books, and something called “oracle cards”—while also spearhe...

THE RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL SON

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Nearly 40 years after its launch, Spin magazine has returned to print—and at the helm, once again, is its founding editor and today’s guest, Bob Guccione Jr. 

Launched in 1985 as a scrappy, rebellious alternative to Rolling Stone, Spin became a defining voice in music journalism, championing emerging artists and underground movements that mainstream media often overlooked. 

Now, as it relaunches its print edition, Spin will attempt to find its place in a media landscape that looks completely different. But Spin’s origin story—and Guccione Jr...

THEY’RE FIXIN’ TO CHANGE YOUR MIND

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The people behind The Bitter Southerner are many things but they are not, they will remind you, actually bitter. The tongue is planted quite firmly in the cheek here. But The Bitter Southerner is, for sure, like it says on the website, “a beacon for the American South and a bellwether for the nation.” 

Sure, why not.

But what started out as an ambitious e-newsletter has evolved now into a … project. Read The Bitter Southerner and you realize how ambitious and radical their business—and message—tru...

MAKE IT BIG. NO BIGGER

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Paula Scher is not really a “magazine person.”

But if you ever needed evidence of the value of what we like to call “magazine thinking,” look no further than Pentagram, the world’s most influential design firm. The studio boasts a roster of partners whose work is rooted in magazine design: Colin Forbes, David Hillman, Kit Hinrichs, Luke Hayman, DJ Stout, Abbott Miller, Matt Willey, and, yes, today’s guest.

Paula has been a Pentagram partner since 1991. She’s an Art Director’s Club Hall of Famer—and AIGA Med...

WTF IS AFM?

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Feeld is a dating app “for the curious” and its users are an adventurous, thoughtful bunch. And Feeld is also a tech company that happens to be led by thoughtful long-term types who see the value in print as a cornerstone for their community of customers. Enter A Fucking Magazine.

Led by editors Maria Dimitrova and Haley Mlotek, AFM is a cultural magazine about sex that is also not about sex. Maybe it’s about everything. Or maybe my old lit prof in college was right and everything really is about se...

THE WINNER

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Clang! Clink! Bang! Hear that? It’s the sound of all the hardware that Jake Silverstein’s New York Times Magazine has racked up in his almost eleven years at its helm: Pulitzers and ASMEs are heavy, people!

When we were preparing to speak to Jake, we reached out to a handful of editors who have loyally worked with him for years to find out what makes him tick. They describe an incredible and notably drama-free editor who fosters an amazing vibe and a lover of both literary essay and enterprise report...

THE HEART OF ROCK ‘N’ ROLL

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There’s a saying about the Velvet Underground’s first album: it didn’t sell a lot of copies but everyone who bought it went on to form a band. Not everyone who read Creem went on to form a band, but almost everyone who ever wrote about rock music in a significant way has a connection to Creem. 

Founded in Detroit in 1969 by Barry Kramer, Creem was a finger in the eye to the more established Rolling Stone. Creem called itself “America’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll Magazine” and it...

FARM-TO-NEWSSTAND PUBLISHING

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The pandemic screwed a lot of businesses over, but it did a real number on the restaurant industry. Beset by low margins at the best of times, Covid was to the business what a neglected pot of boiling milk is to your stove top. But Max Meighen, a restaurant owner in Toronto decided to fill in his down time by … creating a magazine. Because of course he did.

And so he cooked up Serviette, a magazine about food that feels and looks and reads unlike any other food title around.

Ni...

NOT THE SAFE CHOICE

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Most magazines are not political. Unless, that is, you create a bilingual Arabic-English language magazine about design out of Beirut. Or another bilingual magazine about women and gender—also out of Beirut. Then, perhaps, your intentions are a bit less opaque.

Maya Moumne is a Lebanese designer by training who now divides her time between Beirut and Montréal. She is the editor and co-creator of Journal Safar and Al Hayya, two magazines that attempt to capture the breadth and diversity of what we inaccurately—monolithically—call “the Arab World.” Bot...

CHAMPION OF A BETTER FUTURE

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Wired magazine feels like it’s been around forever. And perhaps these days any media that has been around for over 30 years qualifies as forever.

It has, certainly, been around during the entirety of the digital age. It has been witness to the birth of the internet, of social media, of cellphones, and of AI. It feels like an institution as well as an authority for a certain kind of subject. But what is that subject? Because Wired is not just a tech publication. It never was.

Ka...

EVERYONE IS A SALESMAN

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In 1995, New York magazine declared Martha Stewart the “Definitive American Woman of Our Time.” And, as the saying goes (sort of), behind every Definitive American Woman of Our Time is another Definitive American Woman of Our Time. And that’s today’s guest, designer Gael Towey.

But let’s back up. It’s 1982, and Martha Stewart, then known as the “domestic goddess”—or some other dismissive moniker—published her first book, Entertaining. It was a blockbuster success that was soon followed by a torrent of food, decorating, and lifestyle bestsellers.

In...

THE BRAND CALLED US

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In the summer of 1995, I got an offer I couldn’t refuse. It came from my guests today, Alan Webber and Bill Taylor, the founding editors of Fast Company, widely acknowledged as one of the magazine industry’s great success stories. 

Their vision for the magazine was an exercise in thinking different. Nothing we did hewed to the conventional wisdom of magazine-making. Our founders came from politics and activism born in the ivy halls of Harvard. Our HQ was far from the center of the magazine world, in Boston’s North E...

SHE LOOKS FORWARD TO YOUR PROMPT REPLY

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Jody Quon’s desk is immaculate. There’s a lot there, but she knows exactly where everything is. It’s like an image out of Things Organized Neatly.

She rarely swears. Or loses her temper. In fact she’s one of the most temperate people in the office. Maybe the most. She’s often been referred to as a “rock.”

She remembers every shoot and how much it cost to produce. She knows who needs work and who she can ask for favors.

She’s got the...

CHIC, BUT MAKE IT NICE

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It’s a cliché because it’s true: in the fashion world, you’ve got your show ponies and you’ve got your workhorses. We mean it as a compliment when we say that Samira Nasr truly earned her place at the helm of the 156-year-old institution, Harper’s Bazaar. Don’t get us wrong; Samira is seriously glamorous—she’s the kind of woman who phrases like “effortless chic” were invented to describe. But she did not cruise to her current perch on connections and camera-readiness alone. Rather, she worked her way up, atte...

THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER

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“I was a publication designer for 20 years, making book covers at Knopf with Sonny Mehta, Carol Carson, and Chip Kidd. Later, in the early aughts, I made stories and books—and other things—at Martha Stewart Living. Then I took a brief adventure to graduate school—to learn a new trade. And finally I moved to The New York Times, where I helped create several of its legendary digital products, like NYT Cooking.

In December 2020, I bought a building on the Delaware River—and opened the Frenchtown Bookshop.

My name...

A PRETTY COMPLICATED ORGANISM

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Like many of you, I was stunned by what happened on November 5th. It’s gonna take me some time to reckon with what this all says about the values of a large portion of this country. As part of that reckoning—and for some much-needed relief—I’ve opted to spend less time with media in general for a bit. 

But on “the morning after,” I couldn’t ignore an email I got from today’s guest, New York magazine editor-in-chief David Haskell. [You can find it on our website].

WHAT MAKES STEVE BRODNER HAPPY

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When your boss tells you to track down an amusing Steve Brodner factoid to open the podcast with, and one of the first things you find is a, uh, a “dick army,” welp, that’s what you’re going to go with. 

Lest you judge me, I can explain. Brodner’s drawing of this army was inspired by a guy who was actually named Dick Armey (A-R-M-E-Y)! He was Newt Gingrich’s wingman back in the nineties. I thought to myself, the people need to know this.

However, with...

SHE’S OUR TYPE

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Everybody knows that in May 2023, a jury found Donald Trump liable for defaming and abusing E. Jean Carroll, and awarded her $5 million. And everybody also knows that in January 2024, another jury found Trump liable for defamation against her to the tune of $83.3 million. P.S., with interest, his payout will now total over $100 million. 

But not everybody remembers—because we are guppies, and because, ahem, Print is Dead, y’all—that E. Jean is a goddamn swashbucking magazine-world legend: a writer of such style, wit, and sheer ballsy joie de vivre th...

SOUL SURVIVOR

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Just about every magazine Richard Baker worked for has died. Even one called Life.

Also dead: The Washington Post Magazine, Vibe, Premiere, and Parade. Another, Saveur, also died, but has recently been resurrected. And Us Magazine? A mere shadow of its former self.

Sadly, Baker’s career narrative is not that uncommon. (That’s why you’re listening to a podcast called Print Is Dead). 

But Richard Baker is a survivor. He’s survived immigrating from Jamaica as a kid. He’s survived the sudden and premature loss of three...

SMILING THROUGH THE APOCALYPSE

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In the past few weeks, Will Welch has taken a bit of flack for letting Beyoncé promote her new whiskey label on the cover of GQ’s October issue, with an interview that one X user described as “an intimate email exchange between GQ and several layers of Beyonce’s comms team.”

Whether that kind of thing rankles you or not—and yes, we asked him about it—in the five years since Welch took over, GQ seems to be doing as well or better than everybody else in the industry. W...

WHEN ‘HOUSE’ IS NOT A HOME

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Dominique Browning jokes that after the interview for this episode, she might end up having PTSD. After more than 30 years writing and editing at some of the top magazines in the world, Browning has blocked a lot of it out.  

And after listening today, you’ll understand why.

At Esquire, where she worked early in her career, Browning says she cried nearly every day. There were men yelling and people quitting. Apartment keys being dropped off with mistresses. A flash, even, of a loaded gun in a desk...

VIVE LA CREATIVITE!

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There are many reasons for you to hate Fabien Baron (especially if you’re the jealous type).

Here are 7 of them:

• He’s French, which means, among other things, his accent is way sexier than yours.

• He’s spent an inordinate amount of time in the company of supermodels like Naomi Campbell, Christy Turlington, and Kate Moss.

• He gets all of his Calvin Klein undies for free.

• Ditto any swag from his other clients: Dior, Louis Vuitton, Burberry, or Armani.

• When he tired of j...

THE FIFTH

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You cannot overstate how much Tom Bodkin has changed the Times. In fact, you can say that there was the Times before Tom and the Times after Tom.

The Times before Tom threw as many words as possible at the page, with little regard for the reader. The Times before Tom thought tossing a couple of headshots on the page was all the visual journalism we needed. The Times before Tom held to a hierarchy where designers were the other, somehow not quite journalists.

Then there is The New Yo...

DUTCH MASTER

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Dutch-born, California-raised designer Hans Teensma began his magazine career working alongside editor Terry McDonell at Outside magazine, which Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner launched in San Francisco in 1977.

When Wenner sold Outside two years later, Teensma and McDonell headed to Denver to launch a new regional, Rocky Mountain Magazine, which would earn them the first of several ASME National Magazine Awards. On the move again, Teensma’s next stop would be New England Monthly, another launch with another notable editor, Dan Okrent. The magazine was a huge hit, financially and critically, and...

THE ART DIRECTOR’S ART DIRECTOR

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Janet Froelich is one of the most influential and groundbreaking creative directors of all time. For over two decades, she lead the creative teams at The New York Times Magazine and its sister publication, T: The New York Times Style Magazine. In this episode, Froelich recalls her own personal 9/11 story, and what is was like to be in the newsroom on that awful day, as well as how she helped create the magazine cover that inspired and informed the memorial to the Twin Towers and those who lost their lives ther...

A HANDY MAN

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Photographers are gearheads. They’re always throwing around brand names, model numbers, product specs.

So when legendary photographer Eddie Adams asked today’s guest, Dan Winters, if he knew how to handle a JD-450, it was a no-brainer. He had grown up with a JD-350. So yeah, the 450 would be no problem.

But here’s the funny thing: the JD-450 is not made by Nikon. Or Canon. Or Fuji. Or Leica. Not even his beloved Hasselblad. Nope. The JD-450 isn’t made in Tokyo, Wetzlar, or Gothenburg.

The John...

THE JAZZ OF THE NEWSROOM

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In this episode, we talk to George Gendron, the long-time editor [Inc. Magazine] and educator who created one of the first liberal arts-based entrepreneurship programs in America. We talk about his first job working under legendary editor Clay Felker in the early days of New York magazine, how a third-grade book report set him up for a life in publishing, the near-fatal car accident that changed everything, why we should look to TV for the future of magazines, and how to build an economically-sustainable life around doing the work that yo...

THE ARTIST AS ENTREPRENEUR

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Michele Outland has spent her career at some really beautiful magazines. Beautiful ... because she made them that way. Her resume includes stops at Martha Stewart’s Everyday Food, Domino, Nylon, and Bon Appétit, as well as the magazine she created and launched with her good friend, Fiorella Valdesolo: Gather Journal.

Gather, which only published 13 issues, made a powerful impact on the magazine business. In its five-year run, it won a James Beard Award for Visual Storytelling, an Art Director’s Club Award, and 20 medals from the Society...

THE GREATEST STARTUP IN THE HISTORY OF MAGAZINE STARTUPS

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We’ve always had a thing for magazine launches. They’re filled with drama and melodrama, people behaving with passion and conviction, and people ... misbehaving. Anything to get that first issue onto the stands and into the hands of readers.

Some new ventures seem to sneak in the back door. Who saw Wired or Fast Company coming?

Others are to the manner born, and from the most elite print parents. But, even with that pedigree they never gain traction, never display the scrapp...

WHAT’S BLACK AND WHITE AND RED ALL OVER?

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Roger Black is a pioneer. His art direction of iconic print brands and high-profile redesigns, his early embrace of digital publishing technology, and his typographic innovations are hallmarks of a 50-year, trailblazing career.

He’s refined his design mastery at publications ranging from Rolling Stone to Esquire to Newsweek to The New York Times Magazine. He’s written books and started companies. He’s worked for clients on every continent.

And now, at 73, Black’s focus has shifted to type. More specific...

THE SLOWER THE BETTER

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Given that this is the final show of the season, it is perhaps a bit poetic that our guest today is Rob Orchard from Delayed Gratification. Not that we would plan an episode around a bad pun. Not us. 

Delayed Gratification is media created to comment on, and offer a counterpoint to, the media. Rob Orchard and his team met each other, for the most part, in Dubai in the early aughts, working on Time Out Dubai. In that magical place on the Gulf they found—no surprise—lots of mone...

RICHARD TURLEY CAN’T STOP, WON’T STOP

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Richard Turley is changing the idea of the magazine. Richard Turley has no idea what a magazine is in the year 2024. And in this sense, he is not so different from you or I.

Richard Turley’s magazines—and there are many—are confrontations, loaded with text, or not, sometimes, but if you ask him, he’s not sure what he’s doing. He claims to be boring. He once said, “I’m a boring, traditional, formalist thinker” and he probably is, but you have to really know your st...

IT’S COMPLICATED

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If Teen Vogue’s editorial still surprises you, it might be time to admit that this says more about you than it does about Teen Vogue. And also, perhaps, that you haven’t been paying attention. 

Teen Vogue is not the first magazine aimed at “the young” of course, and it’s not the first one to address multiple issues. But…Teen Vogue is the first, perhaps, to make a certain kind of noise.

Since well before the Trump presidency, but certainly turbocharged during it, Teen Vogue has mixed tips on fas...

THE FIFTH

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I want you to stop what you’re doing for just a moment and imagine we’re back in 1998. (Those of you born since then will have to use your imagination). We’re on an ASME panel exploring the future of magazines in the digital age. 

The moderator, eager to get the discussion off to a lively start, turns to you and asks, “What magazine that we all cherish today is least likely to adapt and survive what’s coming?” 

Without hesitation you blurt out “The New Yorker!” 

The...

THE FINE ART OF MAGAZINE MAKING

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Imagine this: You’re a 42-year-old designer who’s only worked at one magazine. Ever. Then one day, unexpectedly, you’re tasked to lead the design of that magazine. Now imagine that the magazine is universally lauded as a design masterpiece. Add to that, your immediate predecessors have both been enshrined into every hall of fame across the design and media universe. 

Heard enough? Well now throw into this mix that your job is only an interim post. 

Why? Because just as your boss was le...

THE CHERRY ON TOP

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Cherry Bombe is a full-course meal. Its founder, Kerry Diamond, created the magazine after working in titles like Women’s Wear Daily and Harper’s Bazaar, and after working for brands like Lancôme. And in the restaurant industry. She worked in restaurants at a time when everything culinary was in the ascendance in the zeitgeist.

That’s also when Diamond realized a key ingredient was missing. None of the brash rising stars at the table were women. She had also been hearing from women who found the going in that w...

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

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In early April, what’s left of the magazine industry gathered at Terminal 5 to see who would win this year’s National Magazine Awards—the ASMEs. Throughout the evening, the usual suspects stepped up to accept their Alexander Calder brass elephants—the ‘Ellies’—on behalf of their teams at The Atlantic, New York, and The New York Times Magazine. 

Then came the award for General Excellence, Service and Lifestyle—a category that covers every food, fashion, and fitness magazine in the business.

And the Ellie went to… content juggerna...

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 “mountain people”—a lifestyle magazine for those who weren’t 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 outdo...

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 forests—one tree at a time—on both coasts, where the Colorado-born editor considers herself an outsider.

“I cared about almost none of this. I don’t care about celebrities or reality stars. It was my job to just think about how to interpret what they were saying and t...

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 that’s not why she’s 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.

Emma’s media past includes stints at New York magazine, where she began her career, G...

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 “skillfully or artfully arrange for an event or situation to occur.”

Of course, you probably know Dadich as an art director and editor, but beyond the titles, he’s the kind of g...

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 aren’t random words thrown together, nor am I reading a list of things I need to buy—though 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. An...

No ‘Visions of Loveliness’

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Picture it: It’s 1991. You’re sitting at your desk at The New York Times, when you get a call from the office of Condé Nast’s 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 you’re just the woman to make it happen. You’re 31 years old. The canvas is blank. The budget is endless. What’s your move, Linda Wells? 

For the women’s magazine editors of today, struggling to...

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...

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 what’s being said between artist and audience—without a word being spoken. Using just three basic colors, today’s 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, ar...

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 culture—centered on food, sure—but also about places, and things, and people.

It was a magazine for foodies before the word “foodie” was invented—and 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 co...

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 country’s 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 world—and those five titles were the bedroc...

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...

MY EFFING CAREER

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When you’re 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 mother’s admonition—“you need to have a job”—ringing in his ears, designer John Korpics has found...

Introducing our new podcast all about the future of magazines — 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 magazine’s storied history. Her hiring was met with some surprise, and more than a little skepticism. The Guardian called her bookish, as if that’s an insult. 

She arrived at Vanity Fair from a path that included stints at The New York Times where she was the editorial director...

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, “She contains multitudes.”

“As for the titles attached to my name,” she says, “I consider them important only in as much as they help the outside world understa...

THE NEW YORK OBSERVER

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“I finally went up to Graydon and I said, ‘Hey, you know, I know you like me. I know you wanted me to be here, but I can also do covers.’”

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That’s today’s guest, Mark Seliger. He’s 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 Condé Nast. But, as...

A CRIME OF ATTITUDE

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As George Bernard Shaw once said, “England and America are two countries separated by the same language.” 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 Cohn—all colorful characters who brought with them, as author Kurt Andersen said in Episode 2, “an ability to kick people in the shins that was lacking in the United States.”

And kick t...

The Prime of Mr. Neville Brody

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“Once you have broken down the rules, literally anything is possible.’”

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...

One Eye on the World

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“When 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!”

— Don Quixote de la Mancha

Monocle, the brainchild of the expat Canadian magazine maker, Tyler Brûlé, was born in early 2007, a relatively awful year for the magazine business, not to mention the...

A Style All Her Own

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This summer, our first collaboration with The Spread—the Episode 21 interview with former Cosmopolitan Editor-in-Chief Joanna Coles—became our most-listened-to episode ever. Now Rachel Baker and Maggie Bullock are back, and this time they’re speaking with another game-changing woman in media: Stella Bugbee, the editor of The New York Times’ Style section.

For our new listeners, Rachel and Maggie are a pair of former Elle magazine editors and “work wives.” In 2021, like many of you, they found themselves wishing for a great women’s magazine—and watching the old-school wom...

Today’s guest, the celebrated photographer Albert Watson, OBE, is a man on the move.

This is not a recent development. Watson’s professional journey began in Scotland in 1959, where he studied mathematics at night. His day job? Working for the Ministry of Defense plotting courses—speed, altitude, distance, payload—for British missiles pointed towards Cold War Russia.

It’s the Journey, Not the Destination

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Watson’s 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...

Designing Her Life

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It’s impossible to look at Gail Anderson’s body of work and not be reminded of the limitless potential of design.

A traditional biography might pinpoint her education at the School of Visual Arts in the early eighties as her launchpad. But Gail actually kicked off her career much earlier when, as a kid, she created and designed her very own Jackson 5 magazine.

What followed was a series of career moves that also happened to coincide with major inflection points in the history of American graphic design:

A...

The Accidental Editor-in-Chief

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Today’s guest, Terry McDonell, is the kind of editor you fear based on reputation, but would probably run through a wall for at 3am on deadline day.

As for that reputation, I’ve never worked with McDonell, but a simple Google search fills the screen with an undeviating set of impressions like these:

And indeed, his corps of collaborators includes a rogue’s gallery of literary tough guys: Jim Harrison, Edward Abbey...

An Englishman in New York

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If you can count yourself among the lucky ones who’ve met Robert Priest in person, any chance you remember what you were wearing?

Well, fear not: He does. According to his business partner, the designer Grace Lee, Priest possesses a near-photographic memory of how people present themselves. And those first impressions last a lifetime.

To hear him talk, though, it’s not at all about being judgy. Priest is just naturally consumed with all things visual. He has been since childhood. (He gets it from his mo...

A Revolution from Within

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This episode is about a girl from East Toledo, Ohio.

A girl who taught herself to read by devouring comic books, horse stories, and Louisa May Alcott. A girl who didn’t set foot in a school until she was 14.

A young woman who went to India for two years to avoid getting married—to anyone. A young woman who was described by one Esquire editor as the only writer he knew who could make sex boring.

A woman who has never, ever, worked for a payc...

It’s a Wonderful LIFE

Today’s guest, Bob Ciano, is probably best known as the designer who guided the venerable LIFE magazine into its second chapter, shifting, after five decades as a weekly, to a monthly. But in an era where editors and art directors did not enjoy the downright chummy partnerships we have now, he’s known for a lot more.

In his career, which continues to this day, Ciano has punched his time card at all of these places: The Metropolitan Opera, Redbook, Opera News, Esquire, The New York Times, LIFE, Travel & Leisur...

A Freaking National Treasure

By any measure, Anita Kunz has built a dream career.

She’s won every award, been inducted into every hall of fame, won every medal and national distinction. When her native Canada ran out of honors to bestow, the country minted a postage stamp in her honor.

Over the last 40 years, the Toronto-based illustrator has created covers for The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Time, and many (many!) others. On top of that, she’s now authored two volumes of her own work.

“She is,” as Gail Anderson, her form...

All the News that Fit

Imagine there’s no sixties.

In 1967, today’s guest was a college dropout whose Plan B was to start a rock ’n’ roll magazine. Plan A? “Kicking back, having a good time, delivering letters, and smoking dope all day” as a San Francisco postal worker. But thanks to a nudge from his mentor, Ralph Gleason, and a cash infusion from his soon-to-be-wife, Jane Schindelheim, Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner dove head first into Plan B. And the rest is magazine history.

Imagine there’s no Gonzo.

Rolling St...

The Last Celebrity Magazine Editor

Hello and welcome to a very special episode of Print Is Dead (Long Live Print!).

For our first “pod-nership,” we’ve teamed up with The Spread, the brainchild of two former Elle magazine editors and “work wives,” Rachel Baker and Maggie Bullock, who, in 2021 found themselves wishing for the perfect women’s magazine—at the exact moment when women’s magazines were irrevocably going down the tubes.

Each week, The Spread rounds up juicy stories, big ideas, and deeply personal examinations of women’s lives—from The New York Times and The A...

He’s Never Felt More Naked

Barry Blitt wants you to laugh at him, not with him. Because laughing with him means you’d have to be where he is. And, “thanks very much,” but he’d rather not. He’s happy enough just drawing for himself.

“I’m trying to make myself laugh,” he says. “That’s the point, that’s part of the process, it’s as un-self-conscious as possible.”

Blitt is a Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, and an Art Directors Club Hall of Famer. He’s been called one of the “pre-eminent American satirists.”...

When your business partner is Milton Glaser, the most celebrated designer in the world, what does that mean for you? If you’re Walter Bernard, today’s guest, you accept it as the gift it is, and then you go out and make yourself an extraordinary career. 

Here’s three things you need to know about Walter Bernard: 1) He was the founding art director of New York magazine, 2) he once produced a top-secret overhaul of Time magazine, and later became its art director, and 3), along with Glaser, he’s designed or redesigned over 100 publications around the world.

And...

A Man at His F*#king Best

We’re 18 episodes into this podcast, and while several interesting themes have surfaced, one of the more unexpected threads is this: Nearly all magazine-inclined men dream of one day working at Esquire. (Some women, too).

Turns out that’s also true for today’s guest. Which is a good thing because that’s exactly what David Granger did.

“But all this time I’d been thinking about Esquire, longing for Esquire. It'd been my first magazine as a man, and I'd kept a very close eye on it.”

For the past ten or so years, indie magazines have been booming. As digital media platforms relentlessly chase clicks and smartphones paralyze our focus, a host of fresh print publications are taking a slower and more measured approach.

Guided by the tenets of the “slow media” movement, this new breed of publishers focuses on correcting the pace of media creation and consumption in the digital age. They advocate for alternative ways of making and using media that are more intentional, longer lasting, better written and designed, more ethical—all delivered in a tactile, bespoke package.

In thi...

Back in April, 1966, Time magazine famously asked America the big question: “Is God Dead?”

Thirty years later, as Time Inc.’s Corporate Editor at Large, Dan Okrent posed an equally existential question: “Is Print Dead?” His answer: An unequivocal “yes.”

“Finished. Over. Full stop,” he declared in a 1999 lecture at the Columbia School of Journalism.

Despite that, it’d be unfair to call Okrent the Grim Reaper. (Just don’t ask what he said about Detroit in the early 2000s). A lifelong realist, Okrent simply viewed digital delivery as the most sustainable path forward for magazines...

If Marianna, Arkansas looks like the kind of place that Walker Evans would’ve photographed, that’s because it is. And it was in that cotton belt town in 1936 that William Paschal Hopkins came to be.

Born to Charles, a cotton merchant, and Martha, young Will Hopkins was on a path to follow his father into the cotton business. But thanks to the intervention of a distant aunt, a fashion illustrator in New York City, Hopkins’ parents were persuaded into shipping their creatively-inclined boy off to the celebrated Cranbrook Academy of Art in Detroit.

Hopkins became...