Stack Magazines

"If we can't capitalise on football being more popular than it's ever been, we probably shouldn't be in the business of making a football magazine!" Mundial is the football lifestyle magazine that was launched by Dan Sandison and Seb White as a one-off print project for the 2014 World Cup. Fast forward three years, and the co-founders tell the story of how their quarterly magazine has evolved from that first issue, and why they're aiming to make the most of next year's World Cup in Russia

"This is the survival mode for magazines – they'll never disappear because they're so beautifully made... You can't do that online." Marc Robbemond and Reny van der Kamp are two of the people who run Athenaeum Nieuwscentrum, the Amsterdam magazine shop that's an Aladdin's cave for print enthusiasts. In this episode they speak about a life spent selling independent magazines, and the boom they're seeing in indie print.

"People of Print is about everyone being part of it – we're not just some company telling you what's cool." Marcroy Smith is the founder of People of Print, the organisation that started out as a simple list of screen printers and expanded to become a publishing company, a printer, a retailer and many more things along the way. In this conversation he recounts the often accidental journey he has taken over the years, as he responded to problems he encountered and tried to find a better, fairer way to put print out into the world.

"Everything is about story, and the content defines the design." Cassius Matthias is the founder and editor of Yes & No, a bold new magazine that defies categorisation. In this conversation he tells his own story, of how recovering from serious illness set him on an unconventional path to publishing his own magazine, and how a background in filmmaking informs his original approach to telling stories in print.

"It's almost as if they don't care about the future of the magazine industry." Fraser Allen is the publisher of Hot Rum Cow, the Edinburgh-based independent magazine dedicated to booze. The tequila issue has just hit shelves, but after five years and some top industry awards, Fraser and the team are calling time on the magazine. In this episode he speaks about his frustrations with distribution and retail, the opportunities he still sees for both independent and mainstream publishers, and why now is the right time for a new challenge.

"Independent magazines are more like a culture than a market." Urs Spindler and Malte Brenneisen are the co-organisers of Indiecon, the co-editors of Gentle Rain magazine, and the co-founders of Die Brueder, the creative agency based in Hamburg and Berlin. For this final episode from Indiecon 2017, I spoke to them about the challenges faced by independent magazine makers today, and heard their thoughts as both industry commentators and individual creators.

"I would have quite liked it if we hadn't needed to publish The New European in the first place." Steve Anglesey is digital content director of The New European, the multi-award-winning newspaper that was set up in nine days as a response to Brexit. The whole project was only expected to last a few weeks, but one year on, he reflects on the newspaper's first year in print. Recorded live in front of an audience at the Indiecon festival in Hamburg in August 2017.

"The devastation of the shooting at Pulse nightclub was one of the biggest markers that shifted the intention of my work, and made me question why I was doing it." Ryan Fitzgibbon, editor-in-chief of Hello Mr, on the shock that led to the relaunch of his magazine for gay men, as well as a new publishing project that aims to empower new voices from across the LGBT community.

The Stack Awards opened for entries this week, and Kirsten Algera and Ernst van der Hoeven flew into London to join us for our launch event, which brought together some of the winners from last year. They're the creators of MacGuffin magazine, our Magazine of the Year for 2016, and I met them at their hotel the morning after the event to find out more about what it meant for them to win the award, and what they have planned for the rest of this year. This is our last episode of the podcast for the summer, but we'll be back in September with more conversations with independent magazine makers.

Davide Cazzaro is the Seoul-based publisher and editor-in-chief of Nang, the magazine of Asian cinema. He dropped in at our office when he was in London earlier this year, and gave us a look behind the scenes at the latest issue, themed around scars and death. He also spoke about the many opportunities he sees for 'micropublishing', as well as the various challenges involved in producing and distributing a small independent magazine, which will probably sound familiar to anyone who has tried it themselves...