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Lit Gloss

Three Great Magazines You Don't Already Read

By Liz Spikol

Add Comment | Comments: 0 | Posted Aug. 13, 2008

JPG

JPG is an entire magazine composed of photographs submitted by readers. Issue 17, for instance, is devoted to Street Fashion, garnering images of sparkly pink-cheeked faces from Osaka, Japan, and an old woman with Coke-bottle glasses who's smoking a cigar from Cuba. There are photo essays on the Bay Area's hyphy hip-hop scene and on being stylish in Sweden. There's also a tribute to Polariod (sniff!) and a stingray that'll steal your heart.

Experimenta

Barcelona is a sophisticated port city filled with bohemian intellectuals, crowded bars and ambitious design. Madrid is funky, urban and explosive. Bilbao had its DNA rescrambled by Frank Gehry. The Spanish magazine Experimenta embodies it all. No. 60 is a blowout featuring young designers and studios from all over the world. I want Japan's Kouichi Okamoto to make me a beautiful chandelier from white balloons, but only if I can sit beneath it in Studio Ditte's Emperor's Chair.

Hi-Fructose

Editors Attaboy and Annie Owers often get asked how they choose the art for their magazine, says Attaboy in the most recent issue. He says they just know it when they see it. Examples: Femke Hiemstra makes jewel-like paintings of crying chihuahuas and piano-playing mice on old book covers. Oksana Badrak's paintings feature waves cresting onto sofas where nervous bunnies crouch. Victor Castillo scares the shit out of you with his sausage-nosed children. It's the stuff of (beautiful) nightmares.