- October 11, 2010 • 2:30 pm PDT
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Name: Alexis Madrigal
Project: Longshot Magazine
Years at it: Six months
New technology often gets the rap for killing old media. But Alexis Madrigal and his friends overturned this meme, harnessing the tech tools supposedly pushing print publications out of existence to produce, of all things, a glossy 60-page magazine—in 48 hours, with no capital.
“The fact that you can do something for nothing is amazing,” he says. “That straight up was not possible ten years ago.” Along with the journalists Mat Honan and Sarah Rich, he set out to conceive, create, and print an entire magazine in one weekend this past spring. They received 1,500 submissions around the apt theme “hustle,” assembled an army of volunteers, and then produced a magazine through a print-on-demand service.
“Part of the fun of this is it plays with the idea of what work actually is,” Madrigal says. “It’s a functioning publication, and on the editorial side, that’s what we all do for a living. But on the other hand, you give yourself new context for the work you do, and all of a sudden it doesn’t feel like work anymore.”
The second issue (which was put together in GOOD's Los Angeles office) was completed this August, and Madrigal hopes to continue reprising the concept. It gives truth to his optimistic take on the medium: that paper is still a relevant platform for expression, and that, combined with new tools, it’s more flexible than you think.
Art by Zela Lobb
