Seldom does a day pass that we don’t hear something about HP’s Indigo presses, and for good reason. The digital press continues to offer such promise with its short print runs, variable data capabilities, and so much more.
We hear much less about HP’s own digital publication printing business, MagCloud, and again, probably for good reason. When it began a few years ago, the magazines coming off those presses were usually anemic affairs because of production costs, and designed by people who had more passion than design panache. Yet more recently, the service has attracted an increasing number of people with some basic design skills, and in some cases more importantly: subject matter that actually benefits from being in print.
One example is UE Magazine, a 64-74 page, perfect-bound periodical dedicated to photographs and stories of urban explorers. Though the design is nothing special, it contains some pretty stunning images of places few dare (and none are allowed) to tred: abandoned mental asylums, storm drains, skyscraper roofs, even what’s left of the doomed Chernobyl nuclear plant. Print issues cost $14-$16, though anyone can page through the digital editions for free.
Though there’s no shortage of urban explorer images online, the photographs in UE are even more stunning on the printed page, and benefit from an inability to simply cycle through them quickly at the click of a mouse.
Finally, there’s the poetic nature of this whole arrangement. A magazine dedicated to trespassing in order to share a world few see being printed by a maverick press – beautiful.
