It’s been awhile since I fell in love

with a magazine, that is.

it has been a while since I have picked one up and been pleasantly surprised by the weight of it’s paper. been excited about their decision to use a matte finish. waited, anxiously for it to arrive in the mail.

this year, for christimas, bryce got me a subscription to anthology magazine. and yesterday, on valentines day, i received my first issue. it is love.

it arrived in plastic and at first i only saw the west elm ad on the back and mistook it for a catalog. i was immediately pleased with it’s thickness, coming in over 100 pages. the cover image is a paper diorama. the type face is dreamy. the covers thick, resistant and ready to sit in my book shelves for years to come. this issue is called handmade at home. mmmmmm. i devoured the first 35 pages last night and then forced myself to put it down, so i could prolong the pleasure. the stories are well written. the images are beautiful. the content is right up my alley.  and the inspiration is limitless.

my first job out of college was with a publishing company, working on business to business magazines. I didn’t see it coming, to be honest. I got a communications degree with the goal of going into radio. after three semesters as an intern, i decided radio was on it’s way out. so when I graduated I didn’t really know what to do. i was working at a restaurant. through my kickball team, i learned about the company and a job opening. i didn’t know the first thing about publishing, but i felt the need to start a career doing something. so I went for it. and I didn’t get it. so I started working for my girl liz at a salon.  six months later, they called me to interview again. this time I got it.

i stared off as a production coordinator. i layed out business to business publications, and not in a design kind of way, in a this goes on page 1, this goes on page 2, this ad goes on page 3 kind of way. the magazines I worked on belonged to the electronics, telephone, home care, school facilities and emergency communication industries. nothing I was interested in. but while I was there I learned about paper weights. and finishes. and bindings.and inserts. I starting paying attention to mast heads. it became an art to me. and while I, personally, hated working in print production due to it’s slow moving, cyclical nature and the fact that I also saw it as a doomed industry,it deepened my love for magazines. a few years into my tenure there i got out of print and moved into online, but my love for heavy paper with a matte finish never waned.

while i say that I think print is doomed, i know it will never go completely away. and i don’t want it to. since middle school i have been collecting magazines and tearing them into shreds to make collages. it was my stepping stone into creating. i am saddened that future generations that won’t just have them lurking at their fingertips as an inspiration and a medium.

oh magazines. i heart you.