The Mario Blog

11.21.2013—10am    Post #1812
Print’s twists and turns: a new magazine is born, a print edition closes

TAKEAWAY: Icon, a fashion magazine for the contemporary man, has been a success in Italy. Now El Pais, of Spain, publishes a Spanish edition; meanwhile, The Onion cancels its print edition.

TAKEAWAY: Icon, a fashion magazine for the contemporary man, has been a success in Italy. Now El Pais, of Spain, publishes a Spanish edition; meanwhile, The Onion cancels its print edition.

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Icon is the new magazine of Spain’s El Pais

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Here is cover of the Italian Icon

Wonderful to see the newly arrived magazine for men from Spain’s El Pais. It is called Icon, and it is all about the contemporary man, how he works, dresses, parties, falls in love and carries on with his life. Also, art, design, and culture will be an integral part of the magazine’s contents.

The surprises are at two levels. First, we all read the sad economic forecasts coming from Spain, where unemployment among the young is about 56%. Second, here is a Spanish newspaper creating a new print publication. Two reasons to celebrate.

Icon Magazine’s ambition is to target young men.

Originally created in Italy in 2011, Icon will be distributed free with El Pais 10 times a year. Icon is the result of a collaboration between Mondadori International Business and Promotora General de Revistas y Ediciones EL PAÍS. In addition, single copies of Icon will be available at press kiosks.

In its Spanish version, Icon will continue the successful Italian formula: the life and times of the contemporary man and icons that represent it, through the eyes of leading photographers and internationally recognized journalists.

The printed edition will be enhanced digitally to incorporate photo galleries and videos of the subjects in each issue.

Watch the video introducing the new Icon

Meanwhile, at The Onion….

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Take a good look at this front page of The Onion: soon there will be no print product, only digital

The satiric publication, The Onion, is halting its print version in Chicago and its two other remaining markets with its Dec. 12 issue.

Closings of print editions is always sad, but, as the president of Onion, Inc., Mike McAvoy, was quoted: “It’s sad to see a print edition no longer exist, but it’s important to see the Onion succeed.”

The consolation for those of us old enough to remember when closings REALLY meant closings of publications that we would not see again, is that they now live digitally, as will revered The Onion.

Expansion is also in the horizon for The Onion, via television, as it has contracted with Amazon.com Inc.‘s production studios this year to create a TV series called the Onion News Empire.

Nowadays, we are witnesses to what I refer to as “partial death” for a variety of publications that cease to exist in print, but live digitally forever.

Richard Branson writes about newspapers

Don’t miss this piece titled The closest I came to buying a newspaper, written by Virgin CEO, Richard Branson, with a rather enthusiastic voice (while praising the new design of London’s The Independent, which he says he likes, because “having always put a great deal of emphasis on design – and just relaunched our own website – we recognize great style when we see it!”).

Read more about Icon here:

http://gcia.co/1aIm33b

http://www.publicitas.com/en/global/media-news-events/news-detail/?no_cache=1&newsid=105507&rss=true#.Uo3kVZGe2Kw

In Spanish

http://sociedad.elpais.com/sociedad/2013/07/18/actualidad/1374161930_385406.html

About The Onion

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20131108/NEWS06/131109836/onion-quits-print#

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