Magazine Brighton
What is it: A renowned independent magazine store founded by long-term (since the age of 6) print-lover Martin Skelton.
Why you’ll love it: It’s a store with just thoughtfully selected indie magazine titles. Hundreds of them. Stacked on the floors, arranged on tables, front-facing on wall-shelves. Since it opened in 2014, the choice of titles has grown three-fold, which reflects both the stores growing audience and the growing indie publishing sector.
What you need to know: After years of traveling internationally and finding this very kind of store abroad, Skelton bet it all by bringing the concept to his adopted home town of Brighton. Keep in mind the context: people were more used to WH Smith for their magazines and London as the kind of place to position such an idea.
What they offer if you can’t get to Brighton (which is all of us at the moment): The online site now aims to replicate the density of the store, with lessons learned from the first and now second lockdowns on how to make things easily browsable (maybe too easily as we deposited way too many magazines in our cart while writing this). Magazine Brighton also posts the latest arrivals to their Instagram if you need inspiration and some new discoveries. Like Oh Mag and Openhouse.
Why we think it matters: Magazines were almost (almost) made for this moment. The push against the digital, the celebration of creativity in print, and the small-batch focus, all speak to our collective longing for less digital interfacing, less homogenized products, and less corporate gain. But for us, the reason we think magazines matter as much as they do, particularly now, is that they bring other voices into our homes and different stories into our lives. They are all about engagement.
When our worlds shrink to just four walls and that same world insists that we pay attention to its diversity, magazines hold space for lives lived differently, experiences outside of our comfort zones, and ideas previously unconsidered. This is particularly crucial when you realize that there is no algorithm in this bookstore, or within the pages themselves, shifting what you get to see. There is no dominant narrative. There is no ‘them’ and ‘us’ in curating these titles. Collectively this amalgamation of stories, images, and design, lends something of the normal again in how we’re able to converse and interact and be with one another.
Somewhere like Magazine Brighton is putting you back in control again of the content you get to consume and giving you an entry to connect with the world no matter what state it's in.
In their own words: “Al, my son-in-law, described our shop as ‘Like vinyl, but print’ and it’s a great phrase. Without trying to sound like one of those old intelligence tests, indy magazines are to conventional magazines as vinyl is to digital, artisan bread is to Wonderloaf, microbreweries are to the big brewers, farm-made cheese is to factory-made cheese, and so on. There’s nothing wrong with any of those things in their place but I think there’s enough people out there who want a balance as well.’ – Skelton talking to Mag Culture
Something to read: For a guide that’s all about getting to ok, we’d recommend these wellbeing focused magazines: Rising Issue – 01 // Mental Health Matters; What Do People Do? – Issue 2; Anxiety Empire – Issue 1, Positive Wellbeing — A Zine for Mums, Seed, and perennial favorite Flow.
