London Town

UPDATE. LondonTown.
Well!, I went up to London on the 22nd February to buy some magazines for Research. I visited Magma http://www.magmabooks.com/content/bookshop/cats.asp?c=MAG which is a magazine store in Covent Garden. 
I only bought one magazine from this store, as I was overwhelmed with choices and really couldn't decide what to buy. I came out with a new magazine (the first issue) called Elephant, £12.99 ouch,  it is edited by the owner of the store Mark Valli (which I only just found out), and I must admit, was first drawn to it because of the cover.

Elephant £12.99, Issue No.1

'CR As the owner of Magma, you better than anyone know it's a pretty tough time for magazines right now, so why launch a new one?
MV Yes, times are difficult. Sales of books, expensive showcase books in particular, have been hit by the credit crunch. Yet from where I’m standing (and that’s often behind a shop counter) the magazine market looks more alive than ever. The drop in advertising revenues is hurting a lot of people, I know, but again, maybe that will encourage some renewal. Hopefully some of the fat old magazine clichés will die out and some fresh new ideas will emerge. In fact, if I curse the credit crunch on a daily basis (every evening when I get the sales figures from our shops), I cannot help but think it’s a healthy and necessary process. At the same time, it’s very scary…' - http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2009/september/a-magazine-called-elephant
This magazine is not a fashion magazine but is looking more at the art-world, but as I flicked through the pages I loved the layout. It is clean and simple yet precise...
The contents page- I love how the numbering is done with the information underneath. It draws your eye in. It's fresh, new and young.

Again with the three images below, I enjoy the layout, the writing is not how you would usually see it set out in the magazine, I like the contrast against the large and the small writing, as well as the contrast between the black font and white spacing. There is a playfulness with the fonts, and is not what I have seen in any other magazine.

I feel I may want to use some of these font ideas within my own magazine, as I feel it is young and can attract a young audience and keep their attention whilst reading, as it is clear and not too busy.


After visiting this magazine store, I went to Camden Market/Town as I knew I would be able to find some other magazine samples around, which I did. Eventually. On the way back to the underground station after busy and hectic wonderings, I thought I would pop into a regular corner store to get a snack, where I saw an array of magazine. One being Tank magazine, I had heard of it before but never bought it or seen it, but I was attracted to this magazine as it was ring bound, and was oversized, A3 maybe? I thought it was awesome none the less, so decided to purchase.

£6, The Blond Issue, Volume 6, Issue 2.

I could not find any images online for the inside of the magazine, but I like the way the pages were laid out, similar to the Elephant magazine there was lots of white spacing, which and a certain sophistication and elegance to the magazine, this contrasted with whole pages of photographs or illustrations,

Dazed & Confused £3.95, Volume 2, Issue 83.

I purchased the most recent copy of Dazed & Confused, and loved the layout of these pages in particular (image on the right above) Starting at page 126 in the magazine. I liked the large photograph mixed in with hand writing scribbled font at the bottom under the image, it gave it a diary feel, private and some-what 'old-school' and authentic. 

I also purchased POP magazine and Wonderland magazine which I will write up about at a later date.