Bunch of fives

It seems five, not three, is the magic number, for independent illustration magazines in any case. We’ve had reams of publications hit the Design Week mail sack over the last few weeks, and of our favourites, three stand out – Nobrow, Popshot and Ammo – each on their fifth issue.

Hot off the back of graphic art fair Pick Me Up at London’s Somerset House last month, independent publisher Nobrow has launched the fifth issue of its magazine entitled A Few of My Favourite Things. The magazine features work by Bjorn Rune Lie, Ben Newman, Paul Blow and Meg Hunt, with a cover by Micah Lidberg.

Some of the illustrators take the theme quite literally: Andrew Rae has drawn a spread full of hamburgers, skeleton-munching dogs, and a golden lion tamarin atop a giant brain – now one of my favourite things too.

The print quality of the whole magazine is stunning – not that we’d expect anything less from Nobrow – and its controlled palette of reds, yellows, golds and blues, instead of limiting the designers, only makes their individual talent all the more apparent.

Popshot has dedicated its fifth issue to the theme of childhood. The magazine couples illustration and poetry for a publication as rich in its content as its aesthetic. This issue features interviews with Peepshow Collective and Mr Bingo, as well as some beautiful work from Middle Boop, Esra Roise and Costanze Moll.

Small but punchy Ammo magazine features work from Jessica Fortner’s My Woodland My Nightmare series and an interview with Sarah Dennis, who similarly looks at the interplay between myth, childhood and the natural world.