180 magazine
Digital 180
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Style art fashion art style
180 is an online magazine devoted mostly to showcasing photography, illustration and fashion artists.
Ontario, Canada
44 Inkerman St, N1H 3C5
Email: kataylor@180degreeimaging.com
- Category: Art, Fashion, Lifestyle
- Periodicity: Monthly
- Language: English
- Circulation: 200,000
- Price: Free
- Web: http://www.180mag.ca/
Founded in 2005
Established in January 2005 as a volunteer effort to showcase talent.
Exclusive Interview
180 provides a source of inspiration and community to our readers
Magazine favourite(s) from your childhood
Kim Taylor: My favourite magazines from my childhood would have to be highly visual publications like “Skin Diver” and “Sports Illustrated”. I took my first photograph when I was around 7 and have been visually oriented ever since.
Magazine favourite(s) that inspired you in your career
While I was a student from High School through University I didn't read magazines much, I do remember buying a subscription to Vanity Fair the year it re-launched for my girlfriend at the time, and I read it as much as she did.
Magazine favourite(s) now
Today I probably read 10 or 12 magazines a month, and flip through dozens more. I almost always pick up W, Interview, Zink, Surface, Digital Photo Pro, Focus, BW... a mix of fashion art and photography magazines.
What else inspires and informs you?
For inspiration I read constantly, new and old photography monographs, art criticism, historical surveys, anything that catches my eye. I sometimes think that what I really need to do for my own work is stop reading for a few months so that I can listen to my own voice.
Beside the books and magazines I am constantly looking online for criticism and work. I have about 50 blogs and websites bookmarked and check them regularly.
Proudest moment of your career in magazines. Why?
I'd have to say that the proudest moment of my career in magazines would be when my daughter finally admitted that 180 magazine was sort of cool. When a 14 year old girl says that, you can be sure you've done some good work.
Beyond that I'm also rather proud of having published another group of magazines dealing with the martial arts called EJMAS.com the Electornic Journals of Martial Arts and Sciences. This is a set of online magazines which were established in 2000 and provide one of the major sources of information on their topics on the net.
Most well-known moment.
Why is it so well known?
I have been writing for magazines, editing them, publishing them over 20 years but I don't think I've been very well-known generally. I suppose, in the small world of Japanese martial arts concerning the sword I am known for publishing “The Iaido Newsletter”. This was a photocopied monthly that went from Guelph to 20 or 30 points around the globe where it was re-photocopied and distributed worldwide. The tagline was an anti-copyright statement to “photocopy and share this newsletter”. Starting in the late '80s it pre-dated the internet business model (give it away for free and see what comes back) by quite a few years.
Most important lesson learnt, and from who/where?
Somewhere along the way in my editing career I managed to become the editor in chief of a glossy martial arts magazine just as it was expanding into the United States. Due to a lack of advertising revenue and deep pockets I also financed the printing of the last issue before it suffered a rather undeserved death. That rather expensive lesson taught me that in the world of print magazines nothing is more important than getting the advertising into the magazine and their cash into the bank. Production values, the writing, all else is secondary to selling the ads. It was shortly after that I moved to the online world where I could publish without the headaches of the print business.
Do you keep old copies of magazines? If so, what is your favourite in your collection?
I'm not very sentimental about magazines but I do have a copy of Color Photography Annual from 1956 sitting on my desk. That's the year I was born and I'm trying to decide what to do with the magazine by way of a project.
Choose three words to define your (favourite) magazine.
Clean, subtle, content-driven.
I like to see a layout that gets out of the way of the content. As little as possible should stand between the reader and the content.
Why do you work in magazines?
I often wonder why I'm working on 180 magazine. I don't actually get anything conventional out of it, certainly nothing monetary. I publish my own work each month which keeps me trying hard to stay in reach of the other artists. I get to look at work I love, and read about the artists in our stories which is a big part of my own learning process. Mainly I like providing a nice platform for artists to showcase the work that matters most to them.
With no sponsors and no advertising to speak of, 180 magazine can publish whatever we want, or more to the point, we can provide a place for established and emerging artists to show their personal work.
If currently involved in a magazine:
What is the magazine about?
Who reads it?
As a place for artists to talk about and show the work that matters most to them, 180 provides a source of inspiration and community to our readers who, I suspect, are mostly other artists. I have never done much in the way of market research and we aren't very “web 2.0” so I'm not sure who is reading, although we're averaging 600 unique viewers a day.
How do you find innovative ways to talk to your readers?
By going online with our publication from the start five years ago I think we have managed to give our readers fast and easy access to our content.
What do you like about the challenge of working in magazines?
What don't you like about the challenge of working in magazines?
At the same time, being an online magazine allows us to concentrate on the content, the artists, and the writing without the distraction of having to worry about cash flow and advertisers who want to dictate the style. All this comes at the cost of zero cash flow unfortunately, but there are other benefits and satisfactions that compensate the efforts.
In five years, what will you be working on?
While it would be nice to expand 180 and attract some advertising from companies that understand our mandate, I suspect the last five years will be the model of our next five. I don't see any major changes for 180 in the near future at least.
Having said that, print on demand magazines is something that I have been thinking about, and if I ever find myself with some extra time on my hands I may investigate that further.
E-mail interview from May 2008
Staff
Editor & Publisher: Kim Taylor...contact
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