Indie Mags I love ️❤
Way back in Jan 2019, I bought a print magazine in the Copenhagen airport and ever since, I’ve fallen head over heels in love with the world of indie mags! There’s such a wide variety of publishers curating such diverse content as well in the scene.
Here is a small list of some of my favourite indie mags and what makes them amazing!
I got the Glasgow issue of the Fare mag and it’s not just another travel mag! Fare explores the heart of a city through its people, institutions & its recipes. Each issue covers one city in depth and the result is a portrait of a city more thoughtful and nuanced than any other travel mag I’ve read. Fare lets the local inhabitants of the city talk to you and give you a tour of their city. Its published bi-annually and they’ve covered Lima, Kampala, Kyoto, Antwerp, Tbilisi, Seoul, Charleston, Helsinki and Istanbul.
Btw, the name comes from a quote by Donald Trump about the ‘hoax’ of climate change.
I got to read the Issue 2 of IFLA! and it had very insightful write-ups about planetary feedback loops, the politics of climate change, about the use of tungsten lighting in theatres across Europe, the use of palm oil in the fashion & beauty industry and a dozen other interesting pieces. They also have a blog & a podcast that you can explore. Here’s a sneak peak into IFLA! Issue 2 from Stack magazines.
Gal-dem is created by women & non-binary people of colour that dig deep into their many experiences. The Un/Rest Issue I could get hold of has write-ups about how laziness is a radical act by Lola Olufemi, to illustrations of night time routines by Farnaz Zare, to a mother leaving her family in Bangladesh in search of greener pastures by Faima Bakar, to understanding the politics of memes by Daniella Adeluwoye and many many more! Gal-dem is an ode to the endless creativity of women and non-binary people of colour who continue to break down the barriers in media with their ideas and creativity. Gal-dem has online columns on various topics on their website along with a podcast Growing up with Gal-dem!
Here’s Gal-dem introducing their first book “I Will Not Be Erased”
Weapons of Reason was one of my first few indie mags and definitely my favourite mainly because of the visual style of the mag with bold and bright illustrations explaining complex problems like war, power, inequality, population, environment, society & technology. Weapons of Reason is published by Humans After All, a design agency based out of the UK. If you cannot get your hands on the print edition, you can explore all their magazines online here free to read on Medium!
Here’s Humans After All talking about their latest print edition:
Emergence mag is mostly online with an annual print edition and they share stories that have the potential to shift ways of thinking and being in our relationship to the living world. Exploring the connections between culture, ecology, and spirituality, this mag does not shy away from experimenting with really innovative ways of presenting content in various forms. Be it in the form of Practices like Listening to the Language of Birds by David Haskell or Befriending a Tree by Chelsea Steinauer-Scudder, to Features like Language Keepers exploring the stories of indigenous language in California. I can rave about Emergence mag for the next five paragraphs at the least. But I’ll let you explore it yourself!
Here’s a feature of their print edition by European Design Awards:
