Words, Pictures, Award-Winning Magazines

I've been very much enjoying the National Magazines Awards Foundation's blog coverage of this year's nominees, especially in the visual categories. It's great to get a look at these categories before awards night.

Their latest post covers the nominees for Single Service Article Package. Also covered: Digital Magazine of the Year, Magazine Covers, Art Direction for an Entire Issue and Best New Visual Creator, with more soon to come, I'm sure! Images above are from the finalists for Words and Pictures.

1. "A Happy Makeshift Vision” – Cottage Life
2. "What’s the Story, Morning Glory?" – enRoute
3. "Signs of Literary Life in Vancouver" – Geist
4. "Japan: Special Report" – Maclean’s
5. "Toronto’s Waterfront Is…" – The Grid
6. "Going Mobile" – Toronto Life
7. "Portraits of the War" – The Walrus

Overheard in Publishing: The Return of the Controversial Cover

"It's part of the waking up the brand. We're in the middle of a media onslaught. The question is how you cut through."
–The New York Times reports on how the controversial cover has made its return in an era of declining newsstand revenue with the goal of creating online attention for the brand as well as magazine sales.

Update: AdWeek also has a gallery up of 10 recent controversial covers, including many of the titles mentioned in the Times article.

In the Market for a New Car?

Check out this Craigslist car ad that has gone viral.

Overheard in Publishing: Killing the App

"Today, most owners of mobile devices read news and features on publishers' websites, which have often been coded to detect and adapt themselves to smaller screens; or, if they do use apps, the apps are glorified RSS readers such as Amazon Kindle, Google Reader, Flipboard, and the apps of newspapers like the Guardian, which grab editorial from the publishers' sites. A recent Nielsen study reported that while 33 percent of tablet and smart-phone users had downloaded news apps in the previous 30 days, just 19 percent of users had paid for any of them. The paid, expensively developed publishers' app, with its extravagantly produced digital replica, is dead."
–This from Technology Review editor Jason Pontin in a piece entitled, "Why Publishers Don't Like Apps." It's a candid, thought-provoking and insightful article on his magazine's experience with apps and why they have decided to "kill" those apps and move to an HTML5 website. Very much worth a read.

(via Tech.pinions)

Magazines that Glow in the Dark

Little White Lies, a film magazine from the UK, has impressed us before. This time, they really stand out, even in the dark.

Issue 34 (March/April 2011) features a glow in the dark cover, inspired by their feature story on the film Attack the Block.

Little White Lies hasn't been the only magazine to do this. In 2008, Vice Magazine released their own version of a glow-in-the-dark cover; however, what was revealed in the dark was an ad for BMW.

Hyperink: Blogs to Ebooks

Although the service Hyperink doesn't mention magazines, this new service might be of interest to anyone concerned with online content.

What they do: in short, hand your blog over to the Hyperink people and they'll select your best or most cohesive blog posts, edit them and transform them into an e-book—which they'll also market for you.

Could you turn a good blog into a magazine? It has happened before. Whether or not such a transition could be made into a custom business, Hyperink presents a few new ideas to monetize otherwise-free online content.

Roundup: More Conference News

It's only been a week since we last covered upcoming industry conferences, but there's been yet more news since then!

Tickets are now on sale for the Western Magazine Awards (visit their site to purchase), and registration has opened for the 10th annual Magazines West conference. Both events are happening June 15 in Vancouver. The Early Bird deadline for Magazines West registrations is June 4.

Les Grands Prix des Magazines du Québec recently announced the nominees for the 2012 awards, and have opened one category up for public votes: vote for your favourite in the Best Cover category here! Voting closes today.

The Canadian Online Publishing Awards (COPAs) have announced their call for entries. The Awards will take place October 22 in Toronto. Entry deadline is June 22, and the Early Bird deadline for registrations is June 1.