The 21st Century Begins Eight Years after it Started

09.11.08 // The 21st Century Begins Eight Years after it Started

As if designing a cover wasn’t complicated enough— Esquire U.S. had to go and wire up their October cover all flashy-like. How Blade Runner.

I’m in two minds about the e-ink technology. I think Chris Snyder’s blog post over at Wired nailed it when he said “The whole cover feels thick, like one of those musical greeting cards your friends really don’t want you to give them anymore. The batteries have a life of about 8 to 9 months, but as a static message there is no ability to re-use, let alone a reason to re-read.”

On the one hand, I think it’s important to embrace new technologies, and certainly to explore options for reducing paper, increasing content etc. But how much of this technology will extend to true editorial content, and how much will go toward elaborated advertising? Considering that the limited run of 100K copies cost news-stand buyers an extra 2 bucks, will we eventually end up paying more for the same content with flashier ads?

Ultimately, we’ll have to wait and see how this technology develops. Like Chris Snyder, I fail to see its benefits in its present state, or even its future updated-remotely-ever-changing-content state, particularly now that we can access web content on our iPhones. If the e-paper technology were to be employed page-for-page, wouldn’t the magazine essentially be a web-site in your hands? And what happens when the batteries run out? Blank Pages? Perhaps I’m being close-minded. I’m still a believer in print. I still believe that magazines are records of our times, who we are, who we were, and who we think we’re going to be. I’d hate for them to become a gadget. I do, however, commend Esquire. I think, for this issue at least, it’s a bold move that illustrates their curiosity. It does represent where we’re at in our digital age, and it’s a nice place to be. But as Editor David Granger points out, “This time it’s cool. This time it’s a novelty”. Until a truly new medium emerges from the e-ink technology, I’m staying CMYK.

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08.15.08 // Mixed emotions about Rolling Stone

rshole.jpgRolling Stone has announced that it’s changing it’s format, effective the end of October. It’s losing it’s over-size format as well as it’s staples, and will be printed on different paper. I’m sad to hear this icon is changing. It’ll be easier to stock, likely make more money, and perhaps even invite new readers with it’s smaller size, but for me, I’ll miss the nostalgia, as Jann Wenner willingly admits.

I remember the day I bought my very first issue, and I remember exactly who was on the cover. I spent summer holidays floating in the pool at a friends house, reading Rolling Stone, Raygun, & Spin. My walls were covered with the full-page photos from these massive publications, and I still have many of these issues today, albeit in poor condition. I don’t consider the look, feel and texture of Rolling Stone in the same way I do other magazines, because nostalgia has so much to do with it. As a reader, I’m not just handling a magazine and extracting the content, I’m remembering what it was like the first time I discovered music and life outside suburbia. With Spin having already made the switch, and Raygun sadly long gone, Rolling Stone is the last vestige of music mag culture before the digital age. It may be a necessary change, long overdue, but I’ll still shed my tear for the loss of it’s special format.

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