57. MAGAZINE SPOTLIGHT: THE GREEN

Magazine Spotlight #04
The Green Soccer Journal www.thegreensoccerjournal.com

When issue number one arrived back in late 2010, I was so excited – a well-done magazine that addressed lifestyle and design in the context of football, or soccer as they have chosen to call. Recognising the diversity of football fans (which you must remember is without a shadow of a doubt the biggest sport in the country) and that we are not all pub-philic, beer-loving, foul-mouthed hooligans, the magazine presents a modern, mature outlook on the hot sport for a design-conscious audience (and indeed created by design-conscious, well, designers). So it was my perfect magazine and I felt that I represented the perfect readership.

I've purchased the first four issues, each of which highlights a theme to explore and includes valuable, journalistic interviews with some of the biggest names in football and accompanied by beautifully shot photography of unique perspectives away from the matchday furore. And it's very interesting to read, perhaps another good example of nailing an appropriately niche subject and doing it attractively.

However, it's not all good, because the writing and language was rather average, yet the price continued to go up from an initial £4 for Issue One to £8 for Issue Four, before doubling the latter for its current 'revamped' issue Number Five. And that's a bit too much for me and I've refused to purchase it. My intrigue is still very much there, I still want to pick up a copy and spend time with it, but I just think the price hike is too high, and certainly given the quality of what it's been thus far (which I reiterate wasn't at all bad, but fair at 5 or 6 pounds). They claim the magazine has taken a new, progressed direction with higher quality printing and denser issues, but I remain unconvinced. A £16 publication can't make grammatical errors in its own About passage, come on now. (I've underlined the childish error.)

The Green Soccer Journal is a biannual magazine that takes an innovative, cultured and intelligent approach to the worlds most popular sport. The publication includes an eclectic mix of football culture and is built on a passion for the game, something which is shared by all of our contributors.

Displayed in a creative, visually stimulating format, we have worked with some of our favourite photographers, and writers to create a title that offers an alternative view on all things football.

I don't disagree with its cultured and intelligent approach (not sure what innovation it's describing) but the second paragraph is frankly boring, just telling us it's superficially pretty – something I firmly believe, whilst of course important, should fruit naturally from its content and aims rather than an independent consideration point.

To summarise, it's a good magazine and one I would have (and have had) no qualms with, had it not called for higher scrutiny with its new price point, for which I do not think it sufficiently delivers. Shame.

50. INJOY JOURNAL

Having decided to adopt the idea of producing a publication tailored for people who love what they do, I wanted to quickly visualise something tangible and achievable. The title of ENJOY developed into INJOY to emphasise the rich state of happiness that passion can provide, being in a world of joy. It's a working title but I quite like it at the minute, ticking all requirements for the vision of my potential product, with an easily adoptable aesthetic, directly encapsulates the rationale and the optimum degree of wordplay. It's usually not very good to be so positive of my own work, I am aware, so let's not get too carried away.

I want INJOY Journal to showcase the joy and reward for people from engaging with their interests, to explore the methodology and reasons behind the interests and to present the existence of one common emotion shared and experienced in all walks of life and all forms of activity. The aim is to advertise the benefits of more positive, proactive, attentive attitudes toward what we seemingly 'love to do', and to portray a perhaps romantic allure for better enjoyment for everyone concerned. From professionals who love their jobs to enthusiasts who live and breathe their hobbies, members of fan clubs and appreciation societies, subject experts and critics, the opportunity for contribution is rather broad. And that should be good for me as a researcher and good for the readership as variety.

Still brewing, but I feel like I'm onto something. For the time being, I reckon I can accumulate some small, individual case studies of research and explore the gathering of information, with Design Research material possibly becoming quite important. Below is an example for a shop owner who runs a local delicatessen.

48. MAGAZINE SPOTLIGHT: CAFFEINE

Magazine Spotlight #03

Caffeine www.caffeinemag.com

Available to pick up for free, Caffeine is the coffee lover's magazine, distributed to selected coffee shops around the country to serve as the 'stockists'. Of course it makes sense in terms of hitting the right readership and that is indeed how I found out about it. I've managed to collect issues 1 to 3 so far, with the current edition still eluding me.

Whilst short in relative terms of page count (probably aligning itself to the Stylist or Sport market) the content is presented with an air of expertise, finding the right, attractive quantity (and quality) of specificity. The publication includes journalistic articles, photography, reviews, essays and surveys to tell the Caffeine story and, really, provides everything you'd expect a 'coffee lover's magazine' to provide. Its advertising is smart and direct too, relevant for us the readers, spanning the likes of organic beans, espresso machines and coffee houses, all more helpful than irritating.

The magazine is a good example of narrowing into one specific subject and exploring the area in depth, with the challenge to present the specialist findings in a manner that is both appealing and amusing for all. Oh, and from spilling the beans to ground rules, I for one don't get bored of the cafe wordplay at all.

42. MAGAZINE SPOTLIGHT: MONOCLE

Magazine Spotlight #02
Monocle www.monocle.com

"Keeping an eye on the world" since 2007, Monocle was launched by the man behind Wallpaper magazine, Tyler Brûlé. It's the one title I am a paid subscriber for, accepting their package of 10 issues + 2 papers + 1 tote bag + full online archive access + event invitations for an annual fee of £90. That price is actually more than what the cost of buying individual copies at the newsstand would be – a challenge to the standard pricing model where in-advance batch subscriptions tend to be better value. This is explained in the confidence placed on their services, a subscription being more than just a sales contract but as an act of buying into the brand. And Monocle's branding is one of the most complete around.

In partnership with sister design studio Winkreative, Monocle has rapidly achieved an iconic status of design and presence. The magazine aims to pioneer the ever-changing print and journalism industries, priding themselves with dense, in-depth and carefully selected content covering what they have identified as today's most relevant topics in affairs, business, culture and design (following a beautifully effective logic of ABCD). Significantly rooted across all parts of the world with offices, correspondents and sources, the work is assured to be genuine and unique, and certainly doesn't lack in quantity either as issue after issue they deliver seemingly larger, book-ish documents that I've currently collected the past 23 of.

Monocle has from the beginning laid out its version of aspirations and represents a high quality lifestyle in collaboration with their readership, and in recent years the company has expanded and ventured into radio broadcasting, physical shops and cafés to supplement the paper product and emphasise their values. Each outlet offers a different, yet equally asset of the brand and has proven to be a fine example of changing the relationship with its followers and the expectations for what a magazine title provides. At the very least, it's a successful challenge on what the relatively static print culture had been in the past couple of decades. Now, six years down the line, the format remains unchanged in its aesthetic design, which clearly reflects said aspirations and framework, using a sure template filled with beautiful first-hand photography and a masterful combination of Plantin and Helvetica.

It's a publication I constantly have much to take and learn from, in all aspects of its venture and one that has no doubt inspired my joy for the revival of print media.

41. DESIGN RESEARCH WORKSHOP PART ONE

A good workshop under our belt today, setting us up for Legwork over the coming fortnight. Revisiting my initial exploration of music, I wanted to find out how people enjoy it. My hypothesis is that it's often (if not always) a secondary priority, whereby it is an activity conducted whilst doing something else. Which is a shame quite frankly, but I'd like to see if my assumption is correct.

The A5 'survey' that I have devised asks participants to take just 4 photographs, one for each caption which I have provided, with the aim to see how music happens for different people. The captions are as follows:

1. Here I am doing an activity I always do with music on.
2. Here I am only listening to music.
3. This is where music takes me (emotive state, scenery, location, etc.)
4. This represents 'music' to me.

My guess for a reasonably common response is the Caption 1 to be studying, ironing or something like that and Caption 3 to be a particular place or view. Captions 2 and 4, I imagine, are more difficult to respond to and it will be particularly interesting to see what participants choose. Also, given that this research tool can be conducted with anybody who listens to music at all, the various types of participant will also be interesting to explore.

40. NOTES FROM THE MODERN MAGAZINE CONFERENCE

>> http://magculture.com/blog/?p=19333

Key reference link from the conference I introduced last week.

15. CURRENT AFFAIRS WORKSHOP

Looking through newspaper articles to find related topics to our projects, I liked it. From the off, I was able to raise some key questions that may become important starting points. With the subject of appreciation most fresh in my mind, critic reviews were interesting to read and any news on culture was also worthy of attention. The very idea of people paying more attention to the things they consume – be it music, film, books or anything – suggests a better understanding of the subject in question and greater appreciation, leading then to more opinion and reaction, more questions and discussion, more enthusiasm and passion. The final part of this chain is increased enjoyment. And what's not to enjoy about enjoying more? That's the crux of my hypothesis.

Perhaps this craving for people to pay closer attention and show higher appreciation simply comes down to the fact that I personally just want to have interesting conversations about something I am interested in myself. "I like listening to this artist and I want to talk about it with someone who also likes it and has an opinion.""I like football and I have lots to say about that game the other day and want to converse with somebody who also watched it, has things to say about and is happy to listen to my views too." To that extent, we should all be 'critics' really, certainly about subjects we are interested in. The review in the culture section of The Observer on JAY Z's recent concert (page 3/4 of my work above) actually doesn't include anything special to distinguish it from the views of any other fan who may have attended the show; I could have written that in terms of background knowledge, language fluency and insightful opinion. And just to make clear this isn't an attack on critics but a positive argument for more general people to form valid thoughts and reflection.

Straying to a different issue slightly, it does make me wonder who that JAY Z article was intended for. I would struggle to accept that JAY Z fans would have awoken that morning and rushed to the corner shop to purchase the paper and read the review, no matter how hardcore a fan he or she is. And equally, the regular reader of the paper would likely not be such a fan of JAY Z to care strongly about what this writer had to say. In fact if anything, this would likely be the only thing he/she reads about JAY Z and thus could very possibly form an inaccurate and invalid opinion of the artist. That's a worry for me too. And now, sticking with the subject of 'fans', what makes somebody a worthy fan? The news that the BBC are investing in more coverage of the arts (page 2/4) should be cause for excitement for fans, as I know I do my utmost to expose myself to everything I possibly can for whatever/whomever I am a fan of, and increased coverage increases my access to it – great news. But how many people really make sure to tune into every TV and radio appearance, interview and performance for people they are so-called fans of. I'd be pessimistic about the results of that survey.

And yet there is a big big contrast to all this. The back pages – sport.

I wouldn't hesitate to acknowledge that sport fans are indeed fans. They (we) tend to have extremely good knowledge around our sport and it's very common to have well-informed and interesting conversations with sport fans. Every kick of the ball receives full attention in a football game, and subsequently some sort of critique from everyone in the room. If we can't watch a particular game, it's almost a guarantee that we will be watching the highlights later that day, eager to catch every moment and participate in every debate almost religiously – and that's how it should be. We should feel so interested that our emotions get heated and that we are strict with ourselves to take in as much as there is that is accessible. And our lives are better because of it, I really believe that.

Design's overarching aim is to improve our lives, to make things better. If we're not doing everything we can to enjoy ourselves ourselves, then there must be a role for the designer to step in and change that. That's a fucking big task. I hope I've not just outlined my brief... But it was a workshop that has no doubt developed my thinking further so that's good.

12. INITIAL REACTION

We gave our first presentations today on our interests and possible avenues of exploration and direction. Rather than expressing my joy for print and video, I chose instead to talk about joy itself and we tend not to appreciate as much as we could. Allow me to expand.

I wrote in Entry 2 about the idea of a 'Listening Club', whereby we enjoy music for music and give it our full attention to give ourselves a fair opportunity to listen to it and understand it, and to subsequently form a valid opinion of it. I have a hypothesis to say that by doing this, we can reach higher levels of enjoyment and indeed appreciation. Appreciate in order to appreciate, you could say. So anyway, I spoke for 2 minutes questioning the reasons behind our apparent lack of fair treatment towards music (or indeed anything else, really) and the possible incentives behind choosing to do so, choosing to give more time and effort into enjoying it.

The feedback wasn't negative – that's always reassuring. There's definitely a suggestion of this 'appreciation' that I talk about holding a more critical eye towards the subject, which of course raises further questions of whether we're all critics (or whether we all have the right to be) and whether we need to concern ourselves with it. For many, such subjects are a mere form of entertainment or pastime (in its most derogatory sense) that don't necessitate our valuable time, saved only for 'experts'. Perhaps it's something of a niche, like how actual existing appreciation societies tend to be. Relatively small collectives of people who converse about pretty much anything to relatively unique depths and enthusiasm. Reading Clubs may just be the commonest example of all. That's certainly a research area to delve into.