Coffee-culture title ‘Standart’, new Italian architecture publication ‘About’ and a preview of Indiecon

Hello and welcome to the stack. On this week's show we speak with the team behind celebrated coffee title Standard. Plus, a new Italian architecture magazine and a preview of independent publishing festival Indicone. Enjoy the show. From Idori Housing London, this is the stack, 30 minutes of print industry analysis and I am Fernando Gusto Pashic. We started the show welcoming to the studio the team behind celebrated coffee magazine Standard. The title is a celebration of coffee culture around the world and is distributed quarterly to the doorsteps of more than 11,000 readers worldwide. Issue 39 is just out and to tell me more, here is Standard's founder Michal Mokan and editor-in-chief Luke Atoms. We had a big anniversary last year so we celebrated 10 years last year so it's been quite some time and I still feel it's so bizarre that I get to say that I publish an independent print magazine about specialty coffee for a living. My family still doesn't believe that, it's crazy. But yeah, it's been 11 years now. And how do you feel before moving to look? How do you feel the magazine has evolved during this period? I mean because you're right, it's not every magazine that managed to have almost 40 issues in this current world. Some parts evolved dramatically, especially the aesthetics, the art direction, the quality of the contents largely because of leak here. But fundamentally the idea of Standard to really encapsulate the idea of a perfect cafe and help you as a reader to kind of teleport you from the comfort of your living room to this favorite coffee shop of yours. This idea, this escape from the digital noise, this fight against the algorithm, that fundamentally remained the same since they won, really. Luke, tell us about your experiences Standard because you're back here in the stack when you're now talking about a different type of so yeah, it's a pleasure, but tell us a bit more when did you get involved with the brand? Well, almost 10 years, I think, pretty soon, right from the beginning. Yeah, pretty soon after Michael founded it. I think he was, he was a slick operator from the beginning. So I think the way I learned about Standard was I was running a coffee shop in Oxford at the time, just after university. And I think Michael had sent out unsolicited copies of the first issue of the English language version of Standard to just coffee shops all over the place. And we received one and I had a flick through and thought, this is great. This is just what the industry needs. Something that there wasn't a very high quality print lifestyle magazine that was focused on, especially coffee at the time. They were trade magazines and there were magazines that were old school magazines. So I love the concept from the beginning, but my honest response, I studied literature, so I've always been a big reader. My honest response was fantastic effort for most of the writers were slow back and check nationals writing in English. And I thought this could do with a little bit of polishing maybe on the text front. So I got in touch and asked if he'd like to meet next time he was in London or around about Oxford. And he said, sure. So I met him for coffee at Caravan at King's Cross. I don't know if it's still there. Maybe it's been taken over. And he asked if I wouldn't mind proofreading the next issue, which I think was the second issue or maybe the third. So I did that as a freelancer. And after I'd submitted those deliverables, he invited me to Vienna where he and the other two stand out early team were living. And I think five minutes after he picked me up from the airport, he said, would you like to come and work for us full time as an editor? And from that point onwards, I've been doing so. That's amazing. And one thing that is quite admirable both standard as always is your business model. You have plenty of subscribers worldwide. And as Luke was saying, from the beginning, you send the magazine to some coffee shop. So you were really thinking about it. It's not just enough just to make a pretty magazine, right? Yeah. I mean, the distribution is a part of the product anyway. Well, it's certainly a part of the strategy. You have to think about that because there's a lot of ways. You've got to build a business on like with publishing an independent print magazine, but there's also a lot of ways how you can lose a lot of money very quickly with publishing an independent print magazine. We knew from the very beginning that we'd love for the magazine to be primarily reader-financed, which naturally means subscriptions. That turned out to be a great call in the times of the pandemic when all the global distributions and all these like national logistics came to a halt, but just because the readership was so spread out and we literally knew where our readers live because they were direct subscribers. Where did they live, actually, if you can give us an app? Yeah, it sits all over the place. The last time I checked the numbers, it's 103 countries. Wow. It's predominantly the US, Japan, Germany, UK, but we have readers in like military bases and the Pacific Ocean or a friend of mine told me the other day he was just off the coast of Somalia on this island. It's a super, super tiny island and there's this tiny cafe, one coffee shop. He walked in and sure there was a copy of Standart in it. We get to be in so many places. It's incredible. You have such an engaged and generally awesome audience like coffee people are. Great. I think we have a learned subscriber in the Folklands as well. Could be, yes. We've got an obscure place to see. I love that. And look, for example, Japan, you guys have a close connection to the country as well. There is a version that is standard in Japanese, right? So we've had a couple of language versions in the past or a couple more. Now we only have English and Japanese. So we have a completely Japanese issue with its own original content, its own distribution network within the country. And one of our oldest colleagues is Japanese Toshie. He's been with us for almost as long as I have, I think, eight years or so. And he really helped get Standart Japan off the ground. And thank God he did because it's been a just massive success. We have a great readership in Japan, reading in Japanese. And because we're such a small team and we've worked so closely together for so long, there's a sort of sense in which Japan plays a part in our DNA even in the international version. For instance, the. 39, right? Yeah, that was. Cover story was shot in Japan. We've got stories about Japan and almost every issue. So yeah, it's a nice connection to have. And I love the types of stories you guys cover because even, you know, I did mention that I'm not a coffee drinker. That's a bit embarrassing to admit, but I do like espresso, Martini. And I like coffee culture in general. So I wonder perhaps, Mihal, can you tell us about what type of stories do you like to cover? Because one thing that I really like about Standard as well, sure, you can make about coffee but then say, "Let's do a city guy to Paris or something like that." But you really focus on the coffee in very smart ways, I have to say. Well, thank you. I mean, the credit goes to Luke here. He is the editor-in-chief and he's in charge of commissioning all the old stories and curating the content. I guess the fundamental vision of the editorial structure is to become this perfect personification of your favorite cafe, what I mentioned earlier. So if you imagine like walking to a monocle cafe right off the street, you see the baristas, you see the people behind the machine preparing the coffee, you might see the names of the producers on the coffee bags. So you have the human elements of it. Then you see the machines themselves, so the technicalities, the grinders and all the geeky stuff. So you have that level of it. Then you obviously have the beverage itself, so the coffee that like the baristas are making, the people are drinking. Then you have the guests and the guests could be coffee fanatics, but they could be musicians, could be teachers, could be doctors, really anyone. But then you also have magazines on the shelves. You have artwork on the wall. You can listen to music inside of the cafe. So this cafe environment has all of these different layers that are stacked on top of each other. And the editorial idea of standout since the beginning was to encapsulate all of these layers in a beautiful publication and bring it to every quarter. Luke, give us a taste of you should 39. I did say something about stress on my teenage love piece, but tell us more about some of the pieces in the issue. It's one of those things I always need to refamiliarize myself with the latest issue because I'm already working on the next one. So it's kind of a little bit behind. And how often it comes out again? Fortally. Fortally. It comes out every quarter. So yes, what do we have here? Well, obviously I'm a fan of espresso martini's too and most things. Good taste. That was a story about the history of coffee cocktails written by one of our long-term contributors, Noah Berger, anthropologist, sort of sociologist working out of Paris, I think, but she does travel around. I think that's one of the ways in which we have to approach the subject of coffee is trying to use coffee more as an avenue by which to explore something else, something beyond it. Because we're almost 40 issues in. If you were just focusing on coffee, that's a very tough editorial position to put yourself in. Because there's only so much you can write about varieties and farming and the taste of coffee. So we try to. I think maybe it has to do with my background and preferences in reading generally which are mostly literary, travel writing, maybe essays. So I like to have this element of coffee lead to something that's perhaps unexpected. Again, going back to the experience of the coffee shop, the most enjoyable part of being in a coffee shop to me is not just the fantastic tasting coffee or speaking about the grinder or the latest espresso machine with the barista, although I do that too, it's part of my job. All the aroma, it's really these chance conversations that you can have with somebody who might be historian or somebody who might be an expert in ancient Greek coins and will speak to you with this passion and you get to see the world through the eyes of somebody else in a way that can expand your own consciousness or way of looking at the world. So that's what I try to do with standout by including a really diverse range of stories. The other. I was really forced into this position again because you can only write so much about coffee itself and the reason why I think standout continues to develop and sort of move forward on a nice trajectory is we really move through coffee as quickly as we can to get to the stories of the people behind the coffee if that makes sense and people are so unique and idiosyncratic and have so much experience and history to share. That's always rich, it always provides something new and if you focus on that element of coffee culture, I mean it's endless what you can cover. When you guys do that very well, an hour questionable for you, I don't want to put you in the spot but which places or cities do you think do good coffee or good coffee culture? Like if you're going to travel because of coffee where would you guys go? That's a tough one. Yeah, this could get us into trouble. Well, on a personal level, I have a very sentimental connection to Tokyo. Japan is historically not really a coffee drinker heavy country or culture but I remember spending some time in Tokyo and I remember visiting some incredible incredible cafes around the Yoyogi Park area and it just left such an incredible impression on me which later on translated into the decision to start a Japanese version of standard so Tokyo would be probably somewhere in top five for sure. Not a bad choice. I like to be a regular in places whether it's a bookshop or a cafe or a pub or bar, I like this element of sort of village life if I can find it and London is good for that given that it's a it's an enormous city but it is just a kind of amalgamation of small villages in a way. So London has had a fantastically strong coffee culture for two decades at least. I find it endlessly enriching to step into these cafes and catch up on conversations that I might have started five, ten years early with people that I've known for that long. So London is great. It's a great place to live. Outside of London, I think Prague has a lot going for it. They tend to be very progressive in terms of coffee culture. They're always on the sort of cutting edge. I'm not sure what it is about Prague but they're always pushing forward in a way that you might not expect to look at the place because it's ancient looking and it doesn't seem like the architecture and so on doesn't speak to this sort of future orientated inclination that they seem to have but Prague is a nice one too. Thank you both Michal and Luke. You can find out more about standard on standard mag dot com. And now we head to Italy for a beautiful new publication on architecture. About magazine is a rosé pink large format title dedicated to the topic. Published by Hearst magazine's Italia, the magazine is bilingual and aimed at Italian and English speakers with a love of the subject. Flip over the huge pages and you find drawings, photographs and data on projects ranging from Omas Simone Vio Bridge in Bordeaux to the Pilates Civic Center in Mexico City and the new wing of some Paulus Art Museum Maspi. A pleasure speaking with the titles Deputy Editor Julia Ricci. About was really conceived let's say as a tool for architects so it's really focused on architecture and of course it's part like the magazine itself is part of a much larger editorial system. We have the website, we have events, we have newsletters of course. And really when we started with the editor in chief of the Sandra Valenti and Gussar Spara and Dario Verranger and the larger group at Hearst Italia that helped us let's say build that we build the magazine all together coming from very different perspectives. When you talk about let's say the ambition that you see looking at the cover of about I think it's really an ambition of a large and very experienced theme of like very talented people. I was trained as an architect in Italy and in Belgium. The education of an architect is really composed of like two main parts. It's like the theoretical part, the humanistic part, the reason why of the project and then on the other side like the technical part, the artistic part and like the building as well, the process of construction. So it's really let's say about understanding architecture as something that is in the balance of these two things like how the concept and the idea behind the project, the project structures the project and all the education of an architect comes from this process of continuous like ping pong between these two parts. And so about is really simple as a structure is made of like four sections that are really simple. Every content is in alphabetical order inside of each section. So it has really a structure of something that works as a tool. So this was like the main idea of about to be a tool that is very useful and this is also related to the large format we chose. And Julia what I find interesting as well when I saw about I loved the first issue but it's published by Hearst Magazine's Italia which is quite a big publisher, commercial publisher as well. So it's quite interesting that they want to do a magazine like this very much focus on architecture. It's not perhaps one of their usual titles. What do you have to say about this? I think like the idea was to really relate to a field in a very different way. And also to a more specialized audience because like the target of about is like architects and students perhaps some lovers of architecture and people who are interested in architecture. Of course like we aim at being let's say readable in terms of like language to a larger public but it's really super focused on architecture. Like in other historical magazines related to architecture you usually find features on design, on the arts etc. And this like made us really choose a way that it's more specialized in the field which doesn't exclude in the essay section for example to let's say broaden the perspective but still we want to remain focused on this type of audience. What was the inspiration for the magazine? Because I think Italy has a great tradition of design titles from decades ago. So I wonder where you were looking perhaps when you guys thought about about first. When we conceived about the idea was really to relate to the existing media landscape. Of course like specialized media landscape. And so we looked at like we first really made an assessment on like where are we now? What is the media landscape today when it comes to architecture? So of course like there is a feeling between let's say in the architecture community of like magazines being stuck in a way in the usual formats. And I believe especially printed media and architecture hasn't changed that much since the rise of the internet. The references were really like the new independent magazines of architecture that came out in the last 10 years I would say. And then on the other side we really looked at magazines such as Eupalino, the editor was Paulo Portuguesi or Asena by Victoria Gregotti. These magazines were really like cultural project. We really chose that period in time because those magazines were really focusing on the cultural role, also the political role sometimes of these magazines. Like the understanding of architecture being part of a much larger ecosystem as they call it today. So from Eupalino by Paulo Portuguesi for example we also drew on when it comes to the format because the format of about is very very big is 26.5 centimeters by 38. And it's kind of heavy because it's like 260 pages. So it's really an object that, let's say, relates to these two polls, I would say, references. And we have to talk about the visual identity of the magazine, because in each project from the ones featured, there are a lot of graphs and kind of-- it's so in-depth, you know? And even, you know, I don't have a background in architecture, but I was reading the piece on the "Masping" "Some Paul," which is, you know, where I'm from, but it was so interesting to know how in-depth there was. I haven't seen this anywhere else, for example. So when it comes to the visual identity, the R-director Kushashvara really wanted with the editor-in-chief, Alessandro Valenti, something that could be perceived as bold. So you really see like the opening spreads of each project feature, for example, that is really, let's say, talking because you have these big names. And this idea of having big names, both in the opening spreads, and like, for example, the back cover of the magazine, that is really like for us, was really a way to represent the fact that we want to build a conversation with a community. And this is like from this concept, we build also, in a way, the editorial project of about, in the sense that how we work is like we have monographic issue on one specific theme, the first issue was on the collective. And from there, we established an editorial board that will change for every issue in the upcoming issues. And then we have a set of like, I don't know, 40, 50, 60, I lost count advisors from all over the world. So the idea for us is really to share with them the idea of the issue. And then from there, they react with what is happening in their territories, because these people come from very different places. They are architects, thinkers, curators, of course, historians in some cases. And Guillermo, being in the, you were mentioning the piece on the mass building, he's from Sao Paulo, he teaches there, architecture, and he's also a curator. So the idea with the magazine, but that stretches also to the website, is really to try to understand what is important that we want to understand about a certain territory, is like being there when you cannot be there, because of course, like, you are one and inseparable from yourself, and you can be only in one place at the time. So these advisors for us work for us as correspondence that really report from another country, another continent. So I believe that having voices that are familiar with the context is really important for, let's say, the depth you're talking about, that is really contributing to that. Another reference for us as to the graphic design, and Kushar Vada was really, let's say, intentional in this, and you can really see it on the cover. About is also looking a lot when it comes to graphic design and art direction to publications, such as encyclopedias and manuals, and this type of publications, even from the 1800s. So the typography also like the illustrations, because we work with Olga Prader, and she is very able in the cover to, and also inside of the magazine, to interpret the spirit of about and bring it to the cover. How often will you release a print issue of about? Because, yeah, as I said, it's big. There's so much content, but is it a yearly, every six months, how often? It's a Bianro magazine, and we structured it as also being like a bilingual magazine. We have English as a first language. That is because, of course, we are, let's say, proudly based in Italy, but the idea of speaking to a larger community that is local from, like, a locality that comes from various places. English was like an inevitable choice as a first language. Grazie, Julia. And for more information, go to aboutplatform.com. (upbeat music) And now we head to Hamburg. As usual here on the stack, we like to preview one of the top independent publishing festivals worldwide, Indicone. This year, the theme of the festival is, where do we go from here? Always a pleasure talking with Nina Prader, contributing curator for Indicone. Well, this is the 12th edition of Indicone, which is powered by De Bruda Cooperative for Code, Content and Design in Hamburg and in Berlin. It started out as a conference in 2014, and here we are in the 12th edition. This year's question is, where do we go from here, which is hopefully a constructive question in relation to the climate crisis, the dangers in the world at large, and also in the production of content and distribution and creation of magazines and building community and all these lovely things that are a big part of Indicone. But I love this question. You know why? Because I think for a few years, especially magazine makers, they had the question, why are we here? Do it still matter? But no, this is, yeah, we do. And now how can we actually move along? That's what I kind of understood this question, right? It shows some maturity for the industry as well. Yeah, I think it really reflects the possibility of new narratives, the possibility of new ways of being together, of thinking about constructive ways, how to create magazines, books, podcasts, scenes, you know, the whole conglomerate of ways of getting your voice out. There's so much of that at Indicone. And everybody has their own path. You know, I was looking at the program, at the lineup, I mean, credible guests. And yeah, it does ask questions. So for example, Anya from Broccoli Publishing, you know, where she was talking about, I had to kill magazine to create a new one, as well. So that's super interesting kind of themes. Yeah, there's so much interesting programming also happening on our main stage, which is I think another reason why people should come in person to Indicone, because you can also, you can check out our website and get a really lovely overview of who all will be participating, but the real interaction, exchanging, trading happens at Indicone, at Obahafn in Hamburg, drinking a nice cup of coffee or watching a good stage program or taking part in a workshop or a round table or something like this. And yeah, we have a really, really broad lineup once more, which is curated by different long time colleagues and curators for Indicone. For example, we have a panel on desire. We have a panel on the so-called Women's Magazine on ways of new economic narratives. There's something in it for everyone who wants to learn from the beginners to the experts. I wonder if you could share some numbers as well. For example, how many publishers more or less every year? Because I know it's always an expansion in Indicone, in my view. I mean, it's really amazing. This year we have 140 publishers from 30 countries coming to Indicone. We have Mean Time Magazine coming from Singapore, which is also a really beautiful publication. They put so much time into how they create their publications. And then you're not even counting the visitors who will be coming, which is something like 2,500 people. So you really don't want to miss it. What do you feel with those visitors? Are they-- well, I'm sure there are a lot of industry people. But are they the occasional print lover who perhaps is an engineer or a doctor or whatever else? And maybe just want to find out a bit more about those kind of new print in the market? It's really broad. We have people who just appreciate printed matter in all its forms. From collectors to makers, to designers, the magazine makers, independent publishers. But also just the really open public. Everyone is welcome. It's free. There's really nothing to lose. And I think printed matter is still such a vital source for information sharing, even in this digital age. And looking at 2025, how are you seeing the magazine market? Are you still excited with the new launches? And as host of the stack, I have to say, I still am. There are a lot of still first issues, which is always a very exciting thing. I mean, I think the independent publishing market is really the most exciting publishing market. I want to say because this is really where all the innovative new ideas happen, where communities come together to platform voices that you may not see in the mainstream markets that really need to be in mainstream markets, where people find new ways of kind of an economic model to even create a magazine and then maybe even create it in a digital way. So really, the sky is limitless in this space of independent publishing. And I think a lot of all school makers or publishers stand to learn a lot. from these spaces as well. And I think actually our futures depend on more intergenerational exchanges between independent publishing spaces and the sort of maybe more established or the mainstream publishing markets. Will we be able to see you on stage as well? Yes, I'm very excited. I'm hosting a panel with Colorama and Afghan punk magazine, the notion of the so-called Women's magazine. Interesting topic. Yes, sort of this question around what this title holds, but also what it can maybe activate or cover perhaps or encode. We also have such a vibrant community program every year. So if you're not just taking part in the fair activities, you can also get a trade visitors ticket, which gives you access to all sorts of round tables, workshops, even breakfast to kind of get to know people. And just there I would also maybe like to highlight Nikki Simpson from the International Magazine Center who will be giving a workshop on how to even make a magazine. So if you want to get in on it all then come and participate. Fernando at fp and monoco.com. We're back next Saturday and meanwhile you can always listen again at monoco.com or subscribe to the stack or napa podcast and Spotify. You've been listening to the stack. I'm Fernando Gustav Chico. Until next time, it's goodbye from me.