THE READ
Display Magazine
By Amy Verner
The cool new kid on the magazine scene, Display celebrates Canadian design.
Even magazines adhere to a Darwinian process of natural selection - call it survival of the most relevant. So at a time when shopping glossies begin to feel decadent, it makes sense that the message of a new magazine will have to be decidedly different.
Display launched two weeks ago and it feels about as a fresh and free-spirited as anything on the newsstands. The fact that the content is entirely Canadian adds to the argument that we need not rely on European or Japanese publications for inspiring design.
What's inside the first issue? Think elegant mash up of illustrators, bloggers, graphic designers and precocious twentysomethings.
In fact, Display founders Charlotte Falk and Jennifer Kowton are 24 and[26] respectively. Sharing the title of editor and creative director, they built the magazine while pursuing a [Masters] in architecture (Falk) and a full-time job as a graphic designer (Kowton).
Sure, they could go to a bookstore and pick up Monocole or Wallpaper or even the cool Canadian bi-monthly Azure, but Falk and Kowton wanted to galvanize little-known designers from across the country and package their work into an intellectual and sometimes irreverent representation of national cool.
The young women met in Edmonton, although Falk recently moved to Vancouver. As a result, much of the content leans toward the West. And that's a good thing. Toronto types tend to lose sight of the design and manufacturing chops in other parts of the country.
"We hope to expand our base as we go along," Falk says of both the contributors and readers.
Among the highlights of the current issue are a story about the increasing connectedness of web developers and designers, a piece about Edmonton's design community and an enigmatic photo series by Eric Duffy. The writing can ramble on occasions, but the intellectual tone (imagine a graduate student making small talk at an art gallery) is refreshing.
Display is a quarterly and, at present, it's not easy to find. The initial print run was 1,000 copies (on Forestry Stewardship Council-certified paper). With any luck, the magazine's distribution will increase and the magazine will evolve. If nothing more, support from readers will serve as a display of pride in homegrown design potential.
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