Astronaut Magazine
Astronaut is a new indie digital magazine. It champions young filmmakers and other creatives. We’re impressed, and jumped at the chance to chat with co-founder Anne Prinz.
You’d originally planned on printing Astronaut, including a DVD with each copy. How long were you working on issue one, and when did you change the plan and instead make an iPad-only publication?
We had been working for two or three months in our spare time on the printed publication. We had half of it done when we decided to make a digital-only magazine. We changed plans because of high printing costs and how time consuming it is selling advertising pages… it would have been a full-time job for another person. An iPad is the perfect medium for Astronaut, with its focus on video content. The iPad made some of the difficulties of self-publishing disappear, at least for a small team like ours.
When you decided on the iPad, did you know how to go about producing an app? How did you pull it together?
Micka [Astronaut’s other co-founder] works for a company developing navigation-based services for mobile devices, so making an app was not a completely new path. But a magazine is quite different to other applications, as the habits of reading print magazines and books have to be considered and included in the concept.
I’m a graphic designer, so creating a digital magazine was kind of new and very thought-provoking. You not only think portrait and landscape, the iPad also gives you the opportunity to design an alterable, multilayer layout. We wanted the magazine to have this special iPad-feeling and wanted to find a balance between both worlds… a classy print look, but also make reasonable use of some application features. We were lucky to find a young company of app developers who were eager to pull the magazine together with us and to transfer our suggestion of a print magazine into a digital one.
How many people worked on the first issue… and how often do you intend to publish?
The main team consists of two people. A lot of old and new friends helped out, like the photographer Alexander Schneider, who is a character in one of the main stories in the first issue. While working on the film about his everyday life as a freelance photographer, we became close friends and he is now part of the Astronaut team and will be working on the second issue with us.
Throughout the whole production there were about ten people working on the first issue… graphic designers, writers, filmmakers, photographers and copy editors. Herr Müller, an illustrator, also contributed a lot to the magazine.
The intention is to publish Astronaut on a quarterly basis. We will probably need a bit more time for the next issue.
Did you check out any other iPad magazine apps before putting the issue together? Are there any other apps you especially like, or find inspirational?
Of course we checked out a lot of magazine apps to understand what other publications are doing right or what can be improved. We quickly saw that we wanted navigation similar to a print magazine, to leaf through the magazine from the cover to the last page… from left to right. Letter to Jane and V Magazine were inspirational to us.
When putting a magazine together it is important to stop looking at other magazines at some point of the production. It is more important to stick to your concept, and make it clear and user friendly.
How do you think the big, mainstream publishers are performing on the iPad?
Mainstream publishers have been keen to incorporate every possible feature the iPad can offer… a lot of good content has suffered as a result. The New York Times app is still one of my favourites. It looks minimalistic and it’s easy to use, but it’s the exception.
Is making Astronaut available on other tablet devises a priority for you?
Not at the moment. Of course we were thinking about it, but decided to wait until one of them comes out on top. The android tablets have different screen sizes and resolutions and even different buttons to navigate. If we would develop Astronaut for each one of them we would never get finished and it would be too expensive. But who knows which solutions will come along with HTML 5… this could be a way to make the magazine accessible for all tablet users.
Astronaut blurs the line between magazine, website and television programme… and does so with great success. How do you see tablet magazines developing in the next few years?
For independent magazines the tablet solution is a good alternative to traditional printing. For those with videos or other multi-media content, tablets are the perfect medium. The good thing about the native application is you will have everything directly available even when you are offline. Digital magazines will not replace print magazines, both have distinctive features which allow them to coexist. Hopefully there will be a lot of self-published digital magazines in the future. They are often very unique in their approach to storytelling and their visual appearance.
By Steven Gregor
Fiasco
Multiple covers for Fiasco magazine’s 12th issue. Yaay! The two above are our favs.
Letter to Jane
Letter to Jane is one of the best examples of digital publishing, says Vanity Fair digital design editor Hamish Robertson. We agree.
LOVE
Love this LOVE cover. (Image lifted from Nas Capas.)
Linefeed Reading List – June 2011
Excusez-moi, it’s the latest ace Linefeed Reading List. Re-sult!
Collect
Check this out, we chat with Collect magazine’s editor and publisher Josh Fanning.
How did Collect come about?
Collect came about through frustration… frustration with all the talk about print being dead and the wholesale adoption of technology and technological ideology that, really, isn’t all that focused on creating a better reality for us human-types. Collect’s co-founder and creative director, Adam Johnson, and I are big fans of people. People pretty much make our day: from the cup of coffee we enjoy; through to the pair of jeans that will see us through several winters; or the book we would never have known about. People make up our lives and we want to celebrate that in Collect.
Collect champions the local. What’s going on in Adelaide at the moment?
Adelaide is small and it’s not comfortable with that. The majority (read: mainstream) in our home-city are overly concerned with comparison… but there’s an active minority getting on with the business of, well, business. Small business is seeing a renaissance worldwide and here in Adelaide there are some brilliant examples. For example, take the little denim shop on Ebenezer Place. Owner/operator Andy Watson has a long heritage in the retail sector and since setting up his shop – RHD – he has secured the rights to sell not only great quality clothes but some really exclusive stuff, like Samurai Jeans. He’s had great success with his store but beyond that he’s had a terrific positive affect on his community.
Is Collect a full-time gig? Or do you guys also hold down regular jobs?
There’s nothing regular about my jobs. I’m all over the place. Editor of Collect is probably my favourite, though. Adam is the director of a boutique advertising agency in Adelaide that punches well above its weight. However, Collect is definitely a full-time gig… it’s just that we put it together on London hours rather than Adelaide hours.
What’s Collect’s editorial and design ethos?
Simple and honest. We design and edit the magazine to be read – first and foremost. Keeping the columns and typeface classic, mean that people can easily navigate the publication. We’re not reinventing the wheel. In fact, if I were to be honest we’re a little bit excited by analogue and are obsessed with the 35mm photography of Jared Brown.
Who is the Collect reader?
He and she are small-time. They’re not big wigs in the glass towers driving a Porsche or Ferrari. They might ride a bike or catch the train to work. Heck, they probably work for themselves; either in a little loft above the retail strip in the trendy part of town or at ground level in a quiet neighbourhood that’s frequented by even more of our readers. Our readers don’t have squillions of dollars but they do have enough cash so as to avoid the big box discount stores and McDonalds. They spend more money on delicious food, local produce and good jeans than wealthy people though. It’s important for them that they buy something that isn’t going to go out of fashion in six months. They love good design and would rather spend more money on something that might become collectable rather than disposable.
How many people work at Collect (or regularly contribute)?
A good bunch. About 20 or so and rock star columnists from time-to-time.
How can would-be readers outside of Adelaide get their hands on a copy?
Via our newly installed shop.
Handy. Thanks for chatting with us.
By Steven Gregor
The New York Times Magazine
Another winner from The New York Times Magazine.
Letter to Jane
Letter to Jane on the iPhone. Genius. 0.59p well spent, peeps.
Indie Kylie
The New York Times Magazine
Epic NYT Magazine cover by photographer Sebastião Salgado. Brit newspaper mags, take note please. (Image lifted from Nas Capas.)
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