Stack Magazines

"Eastern Europe deserves a means of expression." Kajet is a new journal published from Bucharest and dedicated to telling unheard stories from across the region. First-time magazine makers Petricā Mogos and Laura Naum dropped into the Stack office this week to speak about their experiences making the magazine, and to explain why we need a fresh and authentic voice of Eastern Europe.

"I think we needed this period of very beautiful and luxurious magazines to prove that print was of worth... but now we're moving on." Ruth Jamieson is the author of Print is Dead Long Live Print and Angharad Lewis is the author of So You Want to Publish a Magazine, and together they judged the Student Magazine of the Year category in this year's Stack Awards. They came over to Somerset House for the judging session this week, and after we'd picked our winner, we sat down for a wider conversation about the current state of independent magazine publishing.

"You guys don't make dog owners look crazy..." Julian Victoria and Emily Rogers are the editors of Dog, the lifestyle magazine for people who love dogs. With its ultra simple cover concept, Dog has become a familiar sight on newsstands around the world, and in this episode they reveal their motivations in making the magazine, and explain why their readers aren't quite as doggy as you might expect.

"If we can't capitalise on football being more popular than it's ever been, we probably shouldn't be in the business of making a football magazine!" Mundial is the football lifestyle magazine that was launched by Dan Sandison and Seb White as a one-off print project for the 2014 World Cup. Fast forward three years, and the co-founders tell the story of how their quarterly magazine has evolved from that first issue, and why they're aiming to make the most of next year's World Cup in Russia

"This is the survival mode for magazines – they'll never disappear because they're so beautifully made... You can't do that online." Marc Robbemond and Reny van der Kamp are two of the people who run Athenaeum Nieuwscentrum, the Amsterdam magazine shop that's an Aladdin's cave for print enthusiasts. In this episode they speak about a life spent selling independent magazines, and the boom they're seeing in indie print.

"People of Print is about everyone being part of it – we're not just some company telling you what's cool." Marcroy Smith is the founder of People of Print, the organisation that started out as a simple list of screen printers and expanded to become a publishing company, a printer, a retailer and many more things along the way. In this conversation he recounts the often accidental journey he has taken over the years, as he responded to problems he encountered and tried to find a better, fairer way to put print out into the world.

"Everything is about story, and the content defines the design." Cassius Matthias is the founder and editor of Yes & No, a bold new magazine that defies categorisation. In this conversation he tells his own story, of how recovering from serious illness set him on an unconventional path to publishing his own magazine, and how a background in filmmaking informs his original approach to telling stories in print.

"It's almost as if they don't care about the future of the magazine industry." Fraser Allen is the publisher of Hot Rum Cow, the Edinburgh-based independent magazine dedicated to booze. The tequila issue has just hit shelves, but after five years and some top industry awards, Fraser and the team are calling time on the magazine. In this episode he speaks about his frustrations with distribution and retail, the opportunities he still sees for both independent and mainstream publishers, and why now is the right time for a new challenge.

"Independent magazines are more like a culture than a market." Urs Spindler and Malte Brenneisen are the co-organisers of Indiecon, the co-editors of Gentle Rain magazine, and the co-founders of Die Brueder, the creative agency based in Hamburg and Berlin. For this final episode from Indiecon 2017, I spoke to them about the challenges faced by independent magazine makers today, and heard their thoughts as both industry commentators and individual creators.

"I would have quite liked it if we hadn't needed to publish The New European in the first place." Steve Anglesey is digital content director of The New European, the multi-award-winning newspaper that was set up in nine days as a response to Brexit. The whole project was only expected to last a few weeks, but one year on, he reflects on the newspaper's first year in print. Recorded live in front of an audience at the Indiecon festival in Hamburg in August 2017.

"The devastation of the shooting at Pulse nightclub was one of the biggest markers that shifted the intention of my work, and made me question why I was doing it." Ryan Fitzgibbon, editor-in-chief of Hello Mr, on the shock that led to the relaunch of his magazine for gay men, as well as a new publishing project that aims to empower new voices from across the LGBT community.

The Stack Awards opened for entries this week, and Kirsten Algera and Ernst van der Hoeven flew into London to join us for our launch event, which brought together some of the winners from last year. They're the creators of MacGuffin magazine, our Magazine of the Year for 2016, and I met them at their hotel the morning after the event to find out more about what it meant for them to win the award, and what they have planned for the rest of this year. This is our last episode of the podcast for the summer, but we'll be back in September with more conversations with independent magazine makers.

Davide Cazzaro is the Seoul-based publisher and editor-in-chief of Nang, the magazine of Asian cinema. He dropped in at our office when he was in London earlier this year, and gave us a look behind the scenes at the latest issue, themed around scars and death. He also spoke about the many opportunities he sees for 'micropublishing', as well as the various challenges involved in producing and distributing a small independent magazine, which will probably sound familiar to anyone who has tried it themselves...

This week I made my first ever trip to Wimbledon to speak with Caitlin Thompson and David Shaftel, publisher and editor of Racquet magazine. Recorded during their garden party, with Pimms clinking and the cheers from centre court in the background, it's probably our most quintessentially English episode so far, despite the fact that it features two Americans. Hear them speak about their mission to create a fresh and distinctive tennis brand that means something to them, and which does justice to the sport they love.

Recorded live in Amsterdam on 21 June 2017, we speak to Isabel Seiffert and Justinien Tribillon about their phenomenally successful Migrant Journal, the magazine that takes an ambitious, expansive look at the subject of migration. Thanks very much to Athenaeum Nieuwscentrum for organising the event, and to WeTransfer for the support, and listen out for Amsterdam's celebration of the new herring season beginning towards the end of our audience Q&A...

Last month we delivered Anxy magazine to our subscribers around the world, so we were very pleased to have contributing editor Kati Krause drop into the office to speak about their mission to smash stigmas around mental health. This first issue is themed around anger, and Kati speaks about why that made for a good starting point, how they approached their subject, and why anger isn't necessarily a bad thing.

This week's episode isn't ideal for listening with small children. Louis Jensen runs Illegal! magazine, which exists to empower drug addicts and encourage open conversation about the reality of drugs, addiction and criminality. I loved speaking to him about the growth of the magazine so far, but there is some swearing and of course some quite adult topics of conversation. You have been warned...

Recorded at the Byline festival of journalism, Riposte magazine editor Danielle Pender and her husband Dan Ziglam speak about creativity, balancing work with family life, and the ridiculous stress of organising live events.

We all know Little White Lies as a brilliant film magazine, but these days it's also a film podcast hosted by none other than James Richardson (TV presenter of Football Italia, World's Strongest Man, etc). I dropped in on editor David Jenkins and digital editor Adam Woodward to hear how the podcast found its way into the world, and to catch up on the print magazine, now 70 issues in and under the artistic influence of new creative director Lauren Boglio.

The last 12 months has seen a new wave of British independent magazines made by people of colour, so we brought a group of them together for a panel discussion at The Book Club in London on Tuesday 23 May. Featuring Mariel NO, assistant arts and culture editor of gal-dem; Campbell Addy, founder of Nii Journal; Rhona Ezuma, founder of Thiiird; and Jason Nicco-Annan, co-founder of Signatures.