Design is the last bullet print media has in its revolver

Design is the last bullet print media has in its revolver. Magazine and newspaper as an affordable piece of mass art — that’s their chance at survival. Either that or perish like cassette tapes.

On second thought, I guess even cassette tapes or records can be salvaged by a few aesthetic snobs with a flair for the old and vintage. This means the medium of paper therefore has a real chance at surviving in a meaningful way (and not just as an alternative for the technologically tardy), because a lot of people still want to curl up with a tangible thing that can give you a painful paper cut. People still want to physically leaf through stuff they are reading.

My suggestion is to exploit that nostalgia. Become beautiful (hire real graphic designers, not some guy who lays stuff out), interactive (origami, anyone?), and worth having (become an attitude/intellectual status symbol). Do things web pages can’t, like being tangible and “there”. Make sure that the paper everything is printed on looks fantastic, smells nice, feels great, and screams environmentally friendly — that’s probably the only real defense against the crushing tyranny of Internet. Make it easier and more fun than searching online for good and relevant content.

On that note, a random idea for a magazine:

Custom designed magazine.

Have a large selection of articles/essays/interviews/roundtables/etc. that belong in many different sections (i.e. science, technology, design, art, humour, pop culture, literature, politics, religion, cultural reporting, etc.) and put them up online. The content is very important, but the editorial design that accompanies the content will have to be particularly varied and phenomenal. The subscribers can then go online once a month (this means the articles can’t be terribly time sensitive), choose the articles (based on excerpts and accompanying design) they want in their magazines (have them pay per article or give them a page limit). They can then add sudoku puzzles, crosswords, riddles, horoscopes, and other embellishments that are usually included in magazines. The subscribers’ requests will then be received and printed accordingly. Each magazine printed will be different and the subscriber’s name should be placed at a prominent location (“property of _______”).

Potential benefits.

Having chosen the articles they decided were relevant to them, people would be more likely to read/use every page of the magazine (something we rarely do ordinarily), which means trees will not have died in vain and little in general goes to waste – and this would also mean that the magazine will be jam-packed with content individuals want and consequently more meaningful to them personally.

Feedback?

Comments regarding this? Suggestions? Criticisms? Other benefits? Ways to improve the idea if it’s not too insane? Massive flaws I am overseeing? I am aware of the probable expensiveness of printing custom magazines, the ridiculously large workforce this project would require, and questions like “what would happen if the subscriber doesn’t have the time to choose the articles?” (maybe they should have default choices, based on pre-chosen keywords and/or previous selections – kind of like Google ads). Speak up! I’d love to hear what you all think.

On a rather unrelated note, I am incredibly excited about this endeavour!

ETA: Apparently a magazine sort of like it exists (existed)! http://www.slate.com/id/2219063/ Thanks Cooper, for letting me know. I should’ve done more research, probably.