NOT THE SAFE CHOICE

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Most magazines are not political. Unless, that is, you create a bilingual Arabic-English language magazine about design out of Beirut. Or another bilingual magazine about women and gender—also out of Beirut. Then, perhaps, your intentions are a bit less opaque.

Maya Moumne is a Lebanese designer by training who now divides her time between Beirut and Montréal. She is the editor and co-creator of Journal Safar and Al Hayya, two magazines that attempt to capture the breadth and diversity of what we inaccurately—monolithically—call “the Arab World.” Both magazines are also examples of tremendous design and, frankly, bravery.

The subject-matter on display here means the magazines have limited distribution in the very region they cover—which is both ironic and the exact reason the magazines exist. That both have also been noticed and fêted by magazine insiders in the West is perhaps also something worth celebrating.

Maya Moumne is a designer. Of the possibilities for a better and more inclusive future for everyone, everywhere.

[Production note: This conversation was recorded last month prior to the violence in Lebanon. We send our best wishes to the staff of Journal Safar and Al Hayya and hope they are safe. And mostly we wish for a peaceful future for all.]

©2024 The Full-Bleed Podcast is a production of Magazeum LLC. Visit magazeum.co for more information.

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 (language be damned). 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.

©2024 The Full-Bleed Podcast is a production of Magazeum LLC. Visit magazeum.co for more information.

THE LIFE OF SLICE

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What happens when a pastry chef meets a magazine editor in Brooklyn? No this isn’t the set up 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 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.

©2024 The Full-Bleed Podcast is a production of Magazeum LLC. Visit magazeum.co for more information.

CHAMPION OF A BETTER FUTURE

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Wired magazine feels like it’s been around forever. And perhaps these days any media that has been around for over 30 years qualifies as forever.

It has, certainly, been around during the entirety of the digital age. It has been witness to the birth of the internet, of social media, of cellphones, and of AI. It feels like an institution as well as an authority for a certain kind of subject. But what is that subject? Because Wired is not just a tech publication. It never was.

Katie Drummond is the editorial director of Wired, a position she has held for just over a year. This job is the closing of a circle in a sense, because her first job in media was as an intern at Wired. She has worked almost exclusively in digital media since, for a range of outfits, many of them shuttered—proof of the vagaries and the reality of media in the digital age.

At Wired, Drummond oversees a robust digital presence, including video, the print publication, as well as Wired offices in places like Italy, Mexico, and Japan. She says that Wired “champions a better future.” Meaning Wired seems like the publication of the moment in many ways, at the intersection of tech, culture, politics, and the environment.

This is our first show of the second season and we’re going to continue to speak to the people creating the magazines of the future today. Thanks for joining us.

©2024 The Full-Bleed Podcast is a production of Magazeum LLC. Visit magazeum.co for more information.

THE SLOWER THE BETTER

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Given that this is the final show of the season, it is perhaps a bit poetic that our guest today is Rob Orchard from Delayed Gratification. Not that we would plan an episode around a bad pun. Not us.

Delayed Gratification is media created to comment on, and offer a counterpoint to, the media. Rob Orchard and his team met each other, for the most part, in Dubai in the early aughts, working on Time Out Dubai. In that magical place on the Gulf they found—no surprise—lots of money and conditions amenable to journalism of all sorts.

Then Orchard returned to London … and he didn’t like what he found. He and his friends and colleagues were dismayed by the realities of the digital world, the relentless emphasis on quantity over quality, the losing battle between what they wanted to do and the evangelists of SEO and purveyors of click bait, and so they created Delayed Gratification.

Inspired by the Slow Journalism movement taking root around the world, Delayed Gratification is a quarterly publication that values contemplation and time, a curation of the important events of the past three months, along with long-form essays and colorful infographics. The result is a reminder that important information, properly curated or edited, continues to be enlightening, informative, entertaining—and extremely important.

Delayed Gratification is an indie in the truest sense of the word. And probably the only media that suffers existential quandaries around their own social media. Because Rob Orchard and his team are passionate about getting things right. Not getting there first.

©2024 The Full-Bleed Podcast is a production of Magazeum LLC. Visit magazeum.co for more information.

RICHARD TURLEY CAN’T STOP, WON’T STOP

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Richard Turley is changing the idea of the magazine. Richard Turley has no idea what a magazine is in the year 2024. And in this sense, he is not so different from you or I.

Richard Turley’s magazines—and there are many—are confrontations, loaded with text, or not, sometimes, but if you ask him, he’s not sure what he’s doing. He claims to be boring. He once said, “I’m a boring, traditional, formalist thinker” and he probably is, but you have to really know your stuff to get where he’s coming from.

Where Richard Turley is coming from is England, yes. He got his start at The Guardian. He was then lured to New York to help revamp Bloomberg Businessweek and his work there made art directors everywhere ugly jealous.

The secret to Richard Turley’s work is the freedom it seems to exhibit. From form. From rules. From common sense. Sometimes even from good taste. But only if you’re stuck up. Which Richard Turley is most definitely not.

Richard Turley once claimed his design philosophy was “to do something unlikable, repellent, horrible, and ugly.” Richard Turley is punk in a way, but mainstream. He’s underground-adjacent. Which just makes him even more punk.

Richard Turley has worked at MTV and ad agencies. Richard Turley designed the logo for one of the world’s largest sports. Richard Turley now runs his own creative agency. And is the art director of Interview magazine. And co-created Civilization. And Nuts International. And Offal. And has designed a literary magazine, Heavy Traffic. And has just redesigned one of the most iconic magazines in existence. Which one? You’ll have to listen to the podcast.

But just remember this: Richard Turley is a busy man.

I, however, am not Richard Turley. Far from it.

Nobody is.

©2024 The Full-Bleed Podcast is a production of Magazeum LLC. Visit magazeum.co for more information.

IT’S COMPLICATED

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If Teen Vogue’s editorial still surprises you, it might be time to admit that this says more about you than it does about Teen Vogue. And also, perhaps, that you haven’t been paying attention.

Teen Vogue is not the first magazine aimed at “the young” of course, and it’s not the first one to address multiple issues. But…Teen Vogue is the first, perhaps, to make a certain kind of noise.

Since well before the Trump presidency, but certainly turbocharged during it, Teen Vogue has mixed tips on fashion and beauty, profiles about the latest girl groups from Korea, and the scoop on the stars of Bridgerton, with political analysis and opinion, stories about identity and social justice, and an election primmer that is maybe one of the most thorough you’ll find anywhere.

Versha Sharma has been editor since 2021 and has not only maintained all the pillars that make up Teen Vogue but enhanced them. She came to Teen Vogue from overtly political media like Talking Points Memo, NowThis, Vocativ, and MSNBC. And she says she’s landed her dream job.

Sharma and her team are unabashed and unapologetic about what they do—and know that they are serving a large community of very active young women (65% of the readership) who follow the brand on every social channel imaginable, visit the website by the millions, and attend Teen Vogue Summits—in person!—to listen to their favorite influencers, singers, entrepreneurs, actors and activists talk shop.

Sharma feels like the luckiest editor in the industry. But one thing is missing: paper.

Teen Vogue discontinued its print edition more than seven years ago. Her new dream? Convincing her bosses at Condé Nast to bring it back.

©2024 The Full-Bleed Podcast is a production of Magazeum LLC. Visit magazeum.co for more information.

THE CHERRY ON TOP

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Cherry Bombe is a full-course meal. Its founder, Kerry Diamond, created the magazine after working in titles like Women’s Wear Daily and Harper’s Bazaar, and after working for brands like Lancôme. And in the restaurant industry. She worked in restaurants at a time when everything culinary was in the ascendance in the zeitgeist.

That’s also when Diamond realized a key ingredient was missing. None of the brash rising stars at the table were women. She had also been hearing from women who found the going in that world challenging. This in an industry that is difficult for everyone to begin with. Out of this came Cherry Bombe.

Today, Cherry Bombe is a full-fledged and rising media empire. It’s a magazine, sure, but their menu also includes multiple podcasts and a series of wildly-successful events. Their community, called the “Bombe Squad,” meet each other on Zoom, at the events, and form a tightly-connected sisterhood of fans and evangelists for the brand.

Diamond makes it sound like she built all of this without a blueprint, and maybe she did. But just like the best recipes, sometimes the tastiest things are the result of the happiest accidents.

©2024 The Full-Bleed Podcast is a production of Magazeum LLC. Visit magazeum.co for more information.