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Although newspapers have no trouble producing a physical object containing news almost every single day of the year, magazines have a tougher time, some are weekly, but most are monthly and take weeks to produce.

As an interesting experiment, some writers, designers and artists got together to see what could be produced in a mere 48 hours. The result is pretty impressive with a ton of interesting articles and some great design and art.

Not sure the team has the stamina to produce a magazine every two days and if the idea is sustainable on many levels, but it's certainly an interesting experiment that explodes conventional norms.

The 60 page issue can be previewed and purchased on MagCloud. 

Posted by Ed Cotton Traditional magazine art directors seem to love the iPad because it respects the classic rules of the grid and pagination.

When we see examples of future concepts for tablets, most of the time they reference the physical magazine and just build interactivity around it. This is because the tablet is a "lean-back" device, something you read and look at on the couch, rather than "the lean-forward" experience of the computer.

Smart Design has tried their hand at imagining a future magazine concept on a tablet and have some good suggestions, based on solid research with magazine subscribers that gets translated into ideas around browsing, deeper diving and productivity. Their thoughts on the integration between mobile and magazines are especially good.

Smart Design magazine UX concept from Smart Design on Vimeo.

However, Smart's concept take a bit of a "rear view mirror" approach by exploring consumers current experiences to project into the future. In 24 months time we might be looking back at this concepts and finding them surprisingly dated. It's likely publishers and developers will come a long way in that time and create new experiences that don't mirror current magazine or online consumption, but are radically new ways to consume media.


Posted by Ed Cotton While Apple's iPad has been the subject of a lot of attention ranging, from ridicule and mixed reviews. The spin suggested the iPad would usher in a new era for those in the publishing business by creating another medium for consumers to experience print.

However, the promise suggested by Apple's demos and a number of flashy publisher initiatives is that this new experience is going to be better than a web site, and more satisfying than reading a newspaper or a magazine.

The dream being sold is how our magazines are going to be turned into immersive multimedia experiences (see the Sports Illustrated demo below) where the user takes a joyride through a stream of beautifully designed content and can dig deeper on topics and experience multimedia to their hearts content. While all these seems technically feasible, the big question is who are the publishers who can afford to develop this content on a daily, weekly or even a monthly basis?



It's easy to imagine a scenario where excitement drives the creation of great first iPad editions that succeed in seducing new subscribers into magazine franchises at significant premiums to current subscription rates. However this will not be sustainable because the economics won't map out and the result will be falling quality standards and subscriber discontent. 

The other way of looking at this is through the application lens, where new entrants will come into the publishing space from a completely different direction.These new entrants might find better and more interesting ways of serving up content than the publishing incumbents.

It's likely magazines will never be able to afford to realize the "Sports Ilustrated" dream and instead be forced to fight it out in the App Store with hundreds of thousands of competitors.

The future for traditional publications on tablets has to be more "application like", than "issue like".

I hate to burst anyone's bubble, but I don't believe we are going to get the sizzle of the Sports Ilustrated demo, it's much more likely we will be looking at something like the latest GQ iPhone application.



Posted by Ed Cotton Great work from BERG (a UK design consultancy) that investigates the potential future for magazines. I like the way they acknowledge an understanding of the two forms of "reading"; one that's more visual and the other that's true reading.
 

Mag+ from Bonnier on Vimeo.

Posted by Ed Cotton Interesting to see The Atlantic write such a flattering article about The Economist and the current state of the newsweekly business. The discussion revolves around the recent changes and re-designs at Time and Newsweek, who are both hoping to drag their publications to new found success in an otherwise dying print market.
The Economist is the one shining ray of light that everyone now wants to emulate, but The Atlantic does not believe this is possible because The Economist possess one thing these other titles lack.

"The secret to The Economist’s success is not its brilliance, or its hauteur, or its typeface. The writing in Time and Newsweek may be every bit as smart, as assured, as the writing in The Economist. But neither one feels like the only magazine you need to read. You may like the new Time and Newsweek. But you must—or at least, brilliant marketing has convinced you that you must—subscribe to The Economist. "

In the end, it's all about the brand.


Posted by Ed Cotton esquire and e-ink (37.890976310542925 , -122.53274917602539) Esquire is celebrating its 75th birthday this month and it has a tremendous issue to celebrate the feat. Of course, it wouldn't be complete without some "widget' that gets everyone talking, so they have an e-ink cover.

It's basically a flashing display powered by masses of batteries that highlights some of the cover features. Net- it gives you and idea of what this technology might be like in the future.



The problem here is that we've all been so seduced by the technologically flashy and new that we've forgotten the consequences of what this all takes.

In fact, the magazine features an article that proudly proclaims that number of transportation steps it took to get the cover to market.