Buck – one for the new, creative, lad

Buck first issue

Buck is a lad’s mag with a difference – a world away from the Loaded/FHM/Nuts/Zoo clones and with an individuality that sets it apart from the likes of GQ/Esquire.

The first issue (December cover date), intrigued me with the blazer badge showing a coat of arms. I live opposite alms houses built by the Worshipful Company of Salters, ‘one of twelve Great Livery Companies of the City of London’. The Salters go back to 1394 (these days they’re all chemists) and their arms consists of a knight’s helment with an armoured arm on top holding a salt cellar.

Blazer badge

Buck’s model sports a blazer badge with an armoured arm holding a branch topped with a crown (the badge is credited to Polo Ralph Lauren). The magazine, or rather editor Steve Doyle, does have a motto and coat of arms:

Doyle coat of arms

‘Fortitudine Vincit’ – ‘He conquers through fortitude,’ according to my schoolboy Latin.

Doyle – who has put his own money up to fund the launch – will need all the Fortitudine he can muster. Such titles cannot live by UK sales alone, so getting good overseas distribution will be vital.

Perhaps Len Deighton could back Buck with a few bob.

Men’s magazines A-Z

Revelling in the gloom

Private Frazer launched himself into the blogging world last year to revel in the ‘doomed’ of the magazine world. Frazer was inspired by Dad’s Army and for those who enjoy a good international revel, there’s a US equivalent Magazine Death Pool – perhaps taking its name from the Clint Eastwood film – with its Museum of Dead Magazines.

Death Pool also prompts me to give a warning to people who print web addresses – don’t leave  off the www. because it’s sometimes vital. Try these two addresses to see what I mean:

http://www.magazinedeathpool.com/

http://magazinedeathpool.com/

In both cases, you can leave off the http:// in modern browsers.

Poster protests against digital retouching

Adbusting at Fubiz

Protestors have been bringing attention to the digital retouching of models by plastering posters with massive printouts of menus from Photoshop. See Fubiz - it’s in French but the photos say it all.

Beware the numbers

Reuters is quoting an FT report about US investigators who are chasing money that might have been used to fund the activities of governments that Washington has put under sanctions.

But applying common sense seems to make the reporting, the US statement or the original evidence suspect.

The US fears that some of the money might have been used to buy tungsten:

“There was an order for 30,000 metric tonnes of tungsten that would take care of every refrigerator in the Middle East and then some,” Morgenthau told the paper on Sunday.

“It was not being purchased, we think, for domestic consumption . . . Tungsten was not used for making refrigerators but for long-range missiles,” he told the paper. “That is our supposition.”

But hold on – 30,000 tonnes. How much is that? Well, first of all, it would cost $600 million according to Wikipedia’s estimate of the cost of the metal. And it’s about a third of annual world production. Next, a Trident nuclear missile with a 4000 mile range weighs about 33 tonnes. So you could make about 1000 of them out of solid tengsten with this order! Given that a fraction of the weight is tungsten (say 5%), that’s enough for 20,000 missiles. If these countries are clever enough to fool US banks into lending the money, how could they be foolish enough to put in such a massive order?

Could this be another WMD dossier fiasco?

Could Wintour be in Vogue for Obama?

Wintour profiled by Time in 2004

The rumour mill is circulating around Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of American Vogue amid cutbacks at publisher Conde Nast. Could she be on the way out, with sales falling? Has she lost touch with younger readers and their fetish for buying shoes and handbags? Could she join Barck Obama’s team? The Guardian has a round-up of the latest.

Time profile from 2004

Make your own magazine cover – part 2

Mylene's cover

Visitors to Magforum often shoot off to the likes of Mypic.com, which has recently relaunched, to make their own magazine covers by uploading pictures into a cover template. Now, Kris Sieb has alerted me to www.magcover.com, which offers a choice of 75 cover types – and you can add your own cover lines. Have fun – and learn some secrets of magazine cover design!

A better digital future

As newspapers and magazines panic at the sight of recession and their inability to come up with ways to make their cash-devouring websites make money, Monocle (Tyler Brûlé; issue 19) hits the nail on the head:

The problem with print … is that media groups were too quick to invest in magazine websites that weren’t backed by proper business plans; too hasty to trim production costs on their core print products (you downgrade a consumer’s favourite product and you expect them to pay more while you give them less?); and have been slow to realise that print products, in fact, need to be enhanced and reconfigured to compete with their digital siblings and same-sector competitors.

Couldn’t have said it better.

Monocle has also launched a radio programme on Monocle.com sponsored by Blackberry.

History of digital magazines