Food blogs turned into print
GRAM magazine is a monthly compilation of how a city experiences all things food and drink. It does away with traditional magazine formulas, offering instead a snapshot of articles, opinions and reviews, published online by local food bloggers.
Whenever I visit Melbourne it never ceases to amaze me how blown away I get by all the creativity and inspiration I come across. Part of it might be because it's so new and different to what I see day-to-day and take for granted in Sydney but I'm sure there's a cultural edge, acceptance and openness that makes it so inspiring for me as well. I came across the GRAM magazine this week which publishes food blog articles in print form while also providing links to the relevant articles via their user friendly website. Being a graphic designer that specialises in print I can appreciate the printed form of the magazine even though all the information was originally available online as a blog. I think this is the next exciting era of food blog publishing which makes it more accessible to a wider audience in the community than just accessing and reading articles online. Here's a few spreads below but check out the website for all the articles so far published. I hope a Sydney version is in the pipeline unless there's already one which I don't know about.
How it all works
6 comments:
Yayy for this! Really wanted to come and have drinks with you and Thanh the other night too!
Where do i go to get a copy in print?
Hey Simon, great to meet you firstly. Secondly, the print version does help reach another lot of audience that may not always read blog. I think it's a great idea and of course I'm chuffed that I've been featured. Looking forward to meeting you again in future.
There was much discussion on the blogs about Gram, with some[1][2] reacting strongly in the negative and with good reason. Hopefully they have sorted out the initial concerns that Melbourne bloggers had around this initiative I haven't read any follow ups since Januaryish.
I would be interested to hear from any of the featured bloggers (such as Thanh) if they noticed a traffic bump from the publication. I am still skeptical myself on whether this sort of thing can work or whether it is evidence of the momentum that print still has in peoples minds, advertisers in particular.
[1] http://sarah-cooks.blogspot.com/2011/01/gram-magazine-and-dodgy-content-lifting.html
[2] http://www.tomatom.com/2011/01/gram-content-bloggers/
I remember a lot of criticism being levelled at this magazine for doing this, especially by food bloggers.
Will be interesting to see whether their concerns were justified.
hi msihua, hopefully next time when i'm in melbourne.
hi clare, i'm not too sure but if you contact them i'm sure they'll let you know. a friend of mine found it somewhere. might have been in a cafe perhaps.
hi thanh, hope to catch up again soon when in melbourne or if you visit sydney. will show you our small bars.
hi relishment, i think it's a great idea. can't imagine why it would be seen in a negative light. they should of course get permission to use any content in the first place so that would be my only concern. there's lots of enewspapers being created these days which captures info and provides links to blogs. so i guess it's the same principle but in printed form. although those enewspapers aren't asking for permission but it does provides links to content that already exists online.
hi buggles and squeak, it would be interesting to know if their hit rates increased but i assume a lot of the people reading the magazines might be just happy to read it in the print form rather than online.
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