- Price:
- USD $50.00 postpaid (international air shipping included)
- Designers:
- Laboratories, Ian Lynam, Koji Terao
- Publisher:
- Seibundo Shinkosha
- Categories:
- Idea + Publications
This issue of Idea’s primary feature is a wide-ranging look at contemporary independent publishers in Japan. It includes an essay by zine historian Momo Nonaka and highlights an assortment of small publishers. Idea no. 407 also includes an excellent feature on the typographic work of top Tokyo designer Yoshihisa Shirai and a lengthy feature on the 1920s commercial art magazine The Complete Commercial Artist written and designed by Ian Lynam.
Towards a Future Bound to Print Media: Those Who Create Magazines, Fanzines, and Small Press Publications
Direction by Idea
Design by LABORATORIES（Kensaku Kato, Sae Kamata）
Photography by Satoshi Aoyagi, Shunta Inaguchi, Masato Takahatake (pp. 66-69)
Since the late 1990s, sales of paper books and magazines have been declining. In recent years, the price of printing materials has risen sharply, making print publishing even more difficult. The publishing industry has relied on a model of keeping book prices and material costs down through mass production, but this model was based on the premise that books would be widely sold. However, with the explosive spread of the Internet, smartphones, and SNS, sales of books and magazines have lost their former prosperity, and the number of magazines in particular has dropped sharply. This situation has made it difficult to maintain the traditional production and distribution system, forcing a fundamental change in the very nature of the publishing industry.
On the other hand, new initiatives by independent publishers and a movement to find value in disseminating information in “paper media” are gaining momentum. These new publications are moving away from the existing system of relying on publishing distributors and are trying to create new networks and brand value. Reevaluating the unique appeal of paper media and seeking a new position in today’s information society, independent editors are trying to carve out the future of paper media with their own perspectives and sense of mission.
This special feature focuses on magazines and little press titles from a variety of genres, including Subsequence, mahora, inch magazine, MMA fragments, MOMENT, Lumberroll, Mononome, SASHIKO BOOK, mürren, Taiwan Techo, Chasui Sosho, Notes, and Bookbinding and Editors, and through interviews with editors and designers, delves into the philosophies that drive their activities today.
In addition, Momo Nonaka shares her views on the latest trends in zines, while Michihiko Mochizuki, the organizer of the Literary Flea Market, shares his insights on the past and future of the Literary Flea Market. Tadayuki Okamura, former president of the movie theater “Stranger,” is interviewed about his thoughts on creating a space for a mini-theater and the role of in-house published media.
Mononome
[Interview] Tsunehiro Uno
What a medium-sized medium can do: Connecting
the physicality of a paper magazine to the next generation
Interviewer: IDEA Editorial Department, Compiled by: Ryoichi Fujii
Recent developments in zines and independent magazines
by Momo Nonaka
The future of literary flea markets and small presses
Text by Michihiko Mochizuki
Creating real places and magazines
Text by: Tadayuki Okamura
[Interview] Takahisa Shirai:
The location of human work, on “Typesetting and Sculpting”
Interviewer: Toshinobu Nagata, Kensaku Kato, IDEA Editorial Department Edited by: Toshinobu Nagata
Documenting the Complete Commercial Artist
by Ian Lynam, translated by Mami Yamamoto
[Series] Design Collectors’ Rooms
Part 7: Design Archive “Design Reviewed” Part 7
Willem Sandberg: His Life and Influence
Text : Matt Lamont Design: Kazuhiro Yamada + Tenkiko Takeo (nipponia) Translation: Mami Yamamoto
[Exhibition Review] Manuscripts from the Naito Collection – A Very Elegant Microcosmic
Text from the Middle Ages: Shiro Miyashita Design: Koji Terao
[Exhibition Review] 140th Anniversary of YUMEJI Exhibition: Taisho Romanticism and the New World
by Yu Tsukada Design: Koji Terao
Pick up a copy of Idea no. 407 here:
