WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

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Josh Jones has done a lot of things when it comes to magazines: Editor. Writer. Maker. Custom publisher. Mentor. Evangelist. All of the above.

Has Josh helped write a book about hip hop in Mongolia? Yes. Has he sat back and watched Gordon Ramsey mash his face into a sandwich? Indeed. Has he written an instructive how to book that reminds the reader to always lift a box of magazines by bending one’s knees? Yes, again.

For more than 20 years, Josh has been creating magazines, both for resolutely indie concerns and reasons, but also custom publications for the likes of The North Face, Red Bull, Interscope and Nike. And while he has no illusions about the challenges the industry faces, he’s also resolutely optimistic about a world that he loves, so much so that his “field guide to publishing an indie magazine” Just Make Your Magazine is, true to its subhead, the “fastest selling self help book.” OK, I don’t know if that’s true. It probably isn’t if I’m being honest.

But still. You speak to him and you become an optimist. And this is not just because, as he says in the book, “indie magazine making has never been more popular.”

It’s also because, and perhaps caught up in the same optimism, I suggest that it’s possible we are over the Print Panic of the mid aughts and the industry, as a whole, is now back on a sustained kind of upswing. That’s an idea we’re going to explore on the show this season. Because there has to be some things that are right in the world, damnit.

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This episode is made possible by our friends at Freeport Press.

A production of Magazeum LLC ©2021–2025

GUARDIAN AT THE GATEFOLD

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Today’s guest has become almost synonymous with graphic design and editorial publishing. His career began in the defiant New York “sex press” of the late 1960s, where not-actually-that-surprisingly, as a teenager he was already art-directing magazines like Screw and The New York Review of Sex. That unlikely starting point gave him a rare education in the power of design to command attention and shape meaning.

We’re talking about designer, author, editor, educator, and true legend, Steven Heller.

Heller went on to spend more than three decades at The New York Times, most memorably as art director of The New York Times Book Review. There, he transformed the visual life of the section, commissioning bold, original illustration and making the case—over and over again—that design is not ornamental but integral to editorial voice. Through his advocacy, he helped elevate the status of designers in publishing offices, giving visual thinkers a seat at the table alongside editors and writers.

Beyond the newsroom, Heller has been prolific almost to the point of obsession. He has written, edited, or co-authored more than two hundred books on design, creating an extraordinary record of the field’s history, ideas, and influences. And most recently, he turned that critical eye inward with his memoir, Growing Up Underground, a candid account of his early years in New York’s counterculture publishing scene.

Steve is a practitioner, a chronicler, and an advocate for design—and he’s also part of the team here at Magazeum. We are thrilled to turn the mic on him for this special conversation.

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This episode is made possible by our friends at Commercial Type and Freeport Press.

A production of Magazeum LLC ©2021–2025

THE REST OF THE STORY

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Most people in the world live in what we in the west sometimes dismissively call the “rest of the world.” Depending on where you live, “the rest” probably includes parts, if not all, of Latin America, Africa, and the vast majority of Asia. Much like the tendency of Americans to call the champions of their sports leagues “world champions,” the word “world” is never what it seems.

Except when it is.

Founded as a non-profit by Sophie Schmidt in 2020, Rest of World is meant to challenge the “expectations about whose experiences with technology matter,” as its mission states. With a global editorial team led by today’s guest Anup Kaphle, Rest of World’s emphasis on the technological transformation of the daily lives of billions of people is eye-opening, educational, entertaining, and fills in the gaps in our general understanding of how technology is used everywhere. When it won a National Magazine Award last year, one sensed that it had finally arrived to a broader audience.

The rest of the world is a big place, perhaps too big for a paper magazine. That’s why Rest of World is digital.

Those in the “west” would be better served by understanding it. Because everything and everyone is, ultimately, connected.

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This episode is made possible by our friends at Freeport Press.

A production of Magazeum LLC ©2021–2025

IMAGINE FRIENDSGIVING AS A MAGAZINE

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The pandemic hit New York first and harder and longer than most places. And as a New Yorker, Joshua Glass was appalled by the eerily quiet and empty city that resulted. He wanted to connect with people, any people, but he wanted quality gatherings, as opposed to quantity.

When restrictions on gatherings began to ease up, he started curating a series of dinner parties around town. And these get-togethers led to the creation of Family Style, a media brand that brought all his interests under a single, and perhaps singular, cultural umbrella.

The result is, finally, what the people at those highly-curated, and probably well-dressed, dinner parties talked about—and the magazine is the core of a growing brand that encompasses production, events, digital, and social.

Family Style is a magazine at the intersection of food and culture—an interesting magazine about interesting people interested in interesting things, all united by a kind of global glossy aesthetic.

So is Family Style a fashion magazine, a culture magazine, a food magazine, or an arts journal? The answer is “yes.”

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This episode is made possible by our friends at Freeport Press.

A production of Magazeum LLC ©2021–2025

THE ROADS LESS TRAVELED

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Much of travel media comes with a kind of sheen to it. A gloss. Whether you are traveling Italy with a hungry celebrity or cruising Alaska in the pages of a magazine, the photos are big and Photoshopped, the text kind of breathless. And while Afar has plenty of both, it just feels a bit different. It is not a magazine that puts a focus on consumption but on feeling. On the experience of travel.

Julia Cosgrove has been atop Afar’s masthead from the beginning. She comes from a magazine and journalism family. And despite their warnings about the industry, she joined the family business anyway because what kid listens to their parents? When the founders of Afar Media plucked her out of ReadyMade magazine and told her that no other travel magazine felt experiential to them, she understood and joined the team.

Travel media has changed a lot over the years. One has to ask what moves a media consumer more: a magazine article about a beach in Croatia or the TikToks of numerous influencers on that same beach, extolling its virtues, reaching their millions of fans?

Afar doesn’t care. Because it believes in its mission and marches on, now in its 15th year, inviting its readers to experience the world, by diving in.

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This episode is made possible by our friends at Freeport Press.

A production of Magazeum LLC ©2021–2025

GOOD TROUBLE

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Troublemakers is a magazine about society’s misfits. At least from the Japanese point of view. A bilingual, English/Japanese magazine, Troublemakers came about as a way to showcase people who were different, who stayed true to themselves, or about the long road those people had taken to self-acceptance.

The founders, editor Yuto Miyamoto and art director Manami Inoue, were inspired by a notion that Japanese culture perhaps did not value those who strayed too far from the herd.

The magazine has been a success not just in Japan but globally, and perhaps mirrors a trend we see in streaming, for example, of a general public acceptance of universal stories from different places—gengo nanté kinishee ni. Think, especially, of the success of Japanese television and movies like Shogun or Tokyo Vice or Godzilla Minus One. Of Japanese Pop and anime and food. It’s an endless list.

But Troublemakers is more than just a cultural document. It is proof of something shared, a commonality of human experience that exists everywhere. Speaking to Yuto and Manami, you sense a desire—and an invitation—to connect. With everyone. And that’s, ultimately, what Troublemakers tries to do.

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This episode is made possible by our friends at Freeport Press.

A production of Magazeum LLC ©2021–2025

A LIFE OF SLICE

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What happens when a pastry chef meets a magazine editor in Brooklyn? No, this isn’t the setup for a joke that perhaps three people might ever find funny. But…what do you get when a pastry chef meets a magazine editor in Brooklyn?

You get the start of a media brand and a movement and a community. In other words, you get Cake Zine.

Started as a post-pandemic stab at reconnecting with the world, Cake Zine is the result of that meet-cute. Tanya Bush, the pastry chef, and Aliza Abarbanel, a magazine editor, took their love of sweets and have created a magazine that is kind of like what you might get if a literary magazine developed a sweet tooth.

And threw great parties.

Not just in Brooklyn, but in LA, and London, and Paris. And that might become, who knows, not just a new sort of literary salon, but an actual salon. Or cake shop/wine bar. Or a publisher.

Tanya and Aliza have plans—perhaps too many—but for now, they are content with creating a smart and tasty magazine that blends fiction, essays, and recipes in a lovingly-blended, skillfully-layered cake.

And. They. Have. Plans.

But they are also realists and wise enough to know that you can’t rush a soufflé. Lest it collapse. Much like these tortured, yeasty metaphors.

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This episode is made possible by our friends at Freeport Press.

A production of Magazeum LLC ©2021–2025

DÉPÊCHE MODE

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Viscose Journal calls itself “a journal for fashion criticism” which sounds like a simple enough—and niche enough—premise for a magazine. Founded by Jeppe Ugelvig in Copenhagen and New York in 2021, Viscose has quickly become a vital touchpoint in the fashion world. And it has evolved into something far more complicated than what it still calls itself.

In many ways, Ugelvig and his team have created a magazine that is a pure distillation of what a magazine can be. Because every issue of the publication is different—in form and shape and style. In other words, this is a magazine without a literal template.

The first issue was called a “bagazine” and came in the form of a crocodile skin handbag. Another issue featured a garment label. And the current issue comes with a cover in the form of a cut-out of a perfume box.

The magazine feels like “an ongoing thought process,” not just with the subject of fashion but with the idea of making a magazine itself. And in this sense, it is a mirror not just to the disciplined anarchy of the fashion industry but also into the making of an independent magazine in the 21st century. And that means thinking about the brand, about events, about audience, about the future as a media hub. And that’s a lot of thinking.

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This episode is made possible by our friends at Freeport Press.

A production of Magazeum LLC ©2021–2025