"Either you create the product the market expects, or you make the magazine that you believe needs to be made, for you and you only." Angelo Crimele, creator of Magazine
"We were ambitious arrogant and idealistic about the content and the way we were putting it out as a magazine" Rankin, co-creator of Dazed & Confused
It allowed me freedom with the layouts. It taught me a great deal about the subtle relationship between the designer and the 'artist'." Damian Jaques, Art director/Co-founder of Coil.
"This is a chance to enjoy their shared indulgence for large format imagery, and obsessive typography." EndemicWorld.com on Studio magazine.
"Make something you love, not something you think people need." Andy Pickering, Pilot editor.
"Mainly created with the objective of having our own space to play with." Pogo on Soko zine.
"They are not published to cater to focused demographics or marketing whims but because their publisher, editors, designers, photographers and artists are compelled to satisfy their own desires and inspire others." Steven Heller, Art director of New York Times Book Review.
From all my research, the most repeating theme seems to be the tendency of stylepress magazines to be driven by the creators desire to make something for themselves that becomes filled with their ideas and enthusiasm. The idea of filling a document with the ideas and interests of one group reminded me of the early modernist manifestos and how they reflected a lot of similar ideas to the stylepress in the way they presented their content and opposed the mainstream view. By being filled with the creators ideas and interests, the stylepress magazine becomes a kind of manifesto of the creator(s), expressing and publishing their style, philosophy, interests and ideas in one piece. I found a section in The Last Magazine where Steven Heller draws the same comparison, saying that independent magazines have always been tied to creators searching for "their own publishing nirvana". Heller uses the magazines and manifestos of futurism, dada and surrealism as the beginning of his chapter on twentieth century alternative publishing, leading up to the stylepress.
I'm really interested in stylepress magazines as an experimental space for the designer, where new ideas can be generated. The early modernist manifestos and magazines reviewed by Heller shared the experimental ideas and emphasis on personal philosophy of the stylepress, and they made a huge impact on art, design and culture. The futurist and dada type layouts sought to emphasize content in a way not previously seen, attempting to solve something they had deemed to be an issue of their time. If the experimental and inspirational qualities of the stylepress were used as a framework to experiment with ideas relating to print and online media (an issue of our time), perhaps new solutions could be generated, that may influence how other areas of design approach print and online media.
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