Prize paper

There’s been a tide of impressive ‘zines and small-scale independent magazines arrive in the Design Week post bag over the last few weeks, equally matched by the number of ’zine-related events available outside of the office.

Professor of Graphic Design at the London College of Communication Teal Triggs (subscribers can read Anna Richardson’s interview with Triggs here) launched his book Zines earlier this month with a pop-up reading room at LCC.

Salford Zine Library has been on tour taking some of its 1 400 publications from Glasgow to Essex, with dates still to come in Manchester at the Piccadilly Self Publishing Fair, Penarth in Wales in the Ffotogallery biannual book arts fair and in Romford at the Frances Bardsley School Visual Arts Centre.

Hot off the press is issue four of Ammo magazine, a beautifully-produced illustration magazine, created this time in collaboration with Inkygoodness. This issue has a play theme and fittingly Aaron Miller has created a cover featuring marine animal finger puppets, with alternately blissed-out and crazed eyes. The issue includes work from the likes of Chris Thornley, Si Scott and Ben Steers and has a crafty outer cover stuffed with business cards and stickers.

Street artist Kid Acne’s wonderfully-titled Stabby Women fanzine tells the story of Acne’s band of paste-up female warriors who can be found peeping from the bottoms of doorways and nooks from New York and Barcelona to London’s east end. The ‘zine features a hand-pulled flourescent pink cover, introduction from the artist and pictures of the stabby woman tribe as they defend their territory across the globe.

Afterzine launched this month with a first issue dedicated to the theme of negative space. The issue features interviews with illustrator Noma Bar and graphic designer Peter Saville, who created some of the most famous album artwork of the 1970s and early 1980s for bands such as Joy Division and New Order, as well as photography from Nicholas Bentham and a section on book spine design.

The theme is roomy – and interesting – enough that the content is constantly engaging and its clean black and white and powerful photography make it a strong contender for my favourite of the three. It will be interesting to see where the magazine goes with a different theme for its second issue.