I recently picked up a magazine called Tokion. It's based in NYC and covers art, fashion, music, and film - a sexed up Time Out. It was started by two expats living in Japan a litle over ten years ago. Initially the mag was based in Japan, then in Japan and the USA and the Japanese version was sold off in 2005 with the US edition sold off the following year. Since January of this year Nylon Holdings bought out Tokion - I can't say for sure if the Nylon feel of Tokion is a recent thing since I'd never seen it before the March 09 issue, but the mag has a bit of a dirty street Nylon stylisation about it.
Aspects of Tokion's design are very contrived - the section headings are very annoying on the eye and drove me crazy after a while. While the content of the artist interviews were interesting and well-written, again the design looked like something approaching a high-school paper and not a major design magazine. Having said that, the first fashion spread took me totally by surprise. I think it takes a lot of balls to go with such a simplistic editorial - it looks gorgeous on the page - so clean. Though again, that heading text drives me crazy.
Even better is that you can access the magazine for free on their website - in that cool reader thing where it lays out the magazine as if you're reading it on a table. Very groovy, and I expect most magazines will head in this direction eventually...
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3 comments:
Tokion is heading up a redesign I hear. I am really interested to find out where they take the magazine. Hopefully somewhere awesome. It has been such a great magazine over the years. I much prefer th old styling of Tokion and I would love to see it return to its roots. TBD.
Check shelves... the new design is out and definitely worth checking out. The fashion spreads are wall worthy. I want to wait and see how they follow up with the next issue, then I think I'll subscribe. Two issues on the stand cost about the same as the whole year subscription on their website. Maybe it's just me, but I think I'd rather have 6 than 2 for the same price.
I picked up the new issue (well, new to London anyway!) yesterday actually and it is gorgeous. The redesign looks great and the writing is excellent. A proper post is on its way, but well done to the Tokion team.
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