The Thousands

There are some things about paper that the digital revolution will never conquer: Paper hats, that musty old book smell, drawing juvenile things on celebrities and politicians you don’t like, the list goes on. This week a mini-festival called Cut.Slice.Fold, run by the Paper Convention Collective, celebrates paper. Brendan McKnight edits desktop, one of Australia’s most respected design mags, and this Thursday he’ll be at Cut.Slice.Fold talking about the virtues and challenges of paper publishing and design culture. Because I work for a web publication I decided to get pointlessly interrogative about Brendan’s love of paper.

Why do you love paper so much, huh?

Well, even though I’m glued to a screen for most of my working hours, to me there’s nothing that can beat sitting down and reading through a beautiful book or magazine. I’ve tried the iPad and e-reader thing, and while there are some terrific examples of clever and well-designed digital publications, i’d still prefer a tangible, real publication any day.

Why do you think the internet won’t kill magazines like it killed CDs?

I can’t see the internet killing off a particular type of magazine anytime soon. I guess desktop is particularly lucky, because our audience love paper, they’re designers. There’s definitely room for both print and digital publications to operate, and it’s really up to publishers, editors and writers to create the content that works to both the mediums’ strengths. Traditional print publications need to keep offering something that you can’t get through digital mediums – be it content, tactility or that lovely smell of a freshly printed magazine. We also publish a digital version of desktop each month, and we have a daily updated website, which is doing great things too. They complement each other.

Do you hate trees? Tell the truth.

Way harsh! I do love a good tree. It was important that during the relaunch of the magazine (in March this year) that we paid careful attention to the physicality of the mag, ensuring that it was going to be something people treasure and collect, rather than throw away. And it seems to have worked. Our latest reader survey shows that almost 80% of our readers either collect each issue, or pass them on to a friend.

Do you derive some kind of sick pleasure from paper cuts?

Definitely. Every magazine I read, I give myself a little paper cut to remind myself that I have new knowledge. It would be great if every one did this, we would know how well read you are by the scars on your hands. No, not really. That’s not my worst idea though.

What’s Paper Expressionism? It sounds like an art movement from the ’20s I’ve pretended to know about before.

I have no idea. Is that a thing? Was that on the press release? Let’s pretend that we both know what it is.

IMAGES: Paper and people pics from the Paper Convention Collective‘s A4 Paper Festival, Before & After Science, and desktop.