“The online world has created a culture of creation among ordinary people. Meanwhile, magazines are still partying like it’s 1899. Writers write, readers read, and never the twain shall meet. Simply put, this can’t last. Magazines need to open their doors to their readers. Instead of thinking of writers and readers as two separate communities, magazines need to realize that they really only have one community: the people who give a shit about their magazine.”
Pre-computer ASCII art
“Modern Mechanix is collecting, among other things, examples of pre-computer ASCII art, found in old issues of popular science magazines. So far, he has found articles on the typewriter art of mill worker Rosaire Belanger in the June 1939 issue of Popular Science (featuring an awesome picture of George Washington)…”
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Eight-and-a-Half by Eleven
“8 1/2 x 11 inches. I’ve been avoiding this format all my life. At my first job in New York, we used European-sized stationery. It caused no end of complications, but my (European-born) boss was dedicated to it. ‘Don’t you see?’ he asked. ‘It’s so much more elegant.’ And logical, too: the ISO system is modular, all based on consistent ratios, the square root of two, the Golden Section. Our 8 1/2 x 11 size is based on…well, what, exactly?”
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Letterfu: Letter-writing without envelopes, cutting or glue
“I started letter-folding a few months ago, while letter-folding had caught the imagination of the members of the social bookmarking site del.icio.us. A popular link was to the large repository of folding letter designs at ghh.com. It was from this website that I learnt the florentine fold and instantly fell in love with it, and it is the florentine fold that the designs on this website are based on.”
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The Good Old Boy of Time Inc.
“John Huey sits atop Time and Fortune and 149 other magazines, ready to have some fun. Only now the good old days of big media are history.”
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paper notes in a digital world
“Paper notes in a digital world? Absolutely. I still believe in pens, pencils, notebooks, journals, daily planners, letter writing, thank-you cards, and all things that celebrate a life that respects the placing of words on paper.”
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Dangling Listicles
“That great bane of contemporary media, the Listicle, made another appearance last week. This time, it was in answer to that nagging question: what were the 40 greatest magazine covers of the last 40 years.”
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ASME’s TOP 40 MAGAZINE COVERS OF THE PAST 40 YEARS
“The 40 greatest magazine covers of the last 40 years were unveiled today at the American Magazine Conference… Rolling Stone’s January 22, 1981 cover of John Lennon and Yoko Ono was named the top magazine cover to appear since 1965, while Vanity Fair’s cover featuring a naked, pregnant Demi Moore (August 1991), ranked as the # 2 cover.” (More info)
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Make your own magazine cover
“Be a superstar! Prove to your friends how famous you really are! Currently cranking out 17 covers/hour. Just finished cover 506. You can use this page 5 times in a 10 minute period.”
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Tips for improving your handwriting
“People who inevitably have trouble with handwriting and calligraphy write with their fingers. They ‘draw’ the letters. A finger-writer puts the full weight of his/her hand on the paper, his fingers form the letters, and he picks his hand up repeatedly to move it across the paper as he writes.”
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