While the industry predicted the demise of print media, independent magazines were busy turning it into something worth keeping.
Edward Enninful, former editor-in-chief of British Vogue, didn’t plan to launch his new media company as a magazine.
During his recent appearance on The Graham Norton Show, he admitted that he almost followed what the media industry has encouraged everyone to do for the last decade: abandon print media in favour of digital platforms.
“Initially, I thought I would set up a platform,” he said. “That’s what everybody wants. The young generation, they don’t read magazines.”
Yet the response he received from everyone he interacted with changed his mind completely: “Everywhere I went, people were saying, ‘we hope you’re doing a magazine.’”
Despite years of predictions about the death of print, magazines are being launched again to younger audiences fatigued by social media.
The assumptions made by the industry contradict what readers actually want. This revival didn’t originate from legacy publishers; however, it is the doing of independent magazines that quietly rebuilt print culture from the margins while the mainstream was busy optimising for clicks and online followers.
Since 2024, several iconic magazines such as Vice, i-D, and NYLON have made a return to the print format after going on hiatus or attempting to shift to an entirely digital presence.
Their re-entry doesn’t resemble the glossy, ad-heavy magazines of the 2000s. Instead, these publications are borrowing heavily from the values and aesthetics upheld by the indie magazine scene, of fewer issues, higher cover prices, an emphasis on craft, and intellectual cultural reporting.
The freedom and convenience of digital media have come at the cost of attention and content quality. Endless feeds and optimised algorithms have turned the online experience into a slog.
Our feeds are packed with AI-generated slop and shock-value tabloid headlines. What’s more, the internet’s unspoken rule of reaching monetisation has made the online experience feel like walking through a marketing minefield. It’s no wonder that 81% of Gen Z say they feel digital fatigue.
Online magazine content also suffers from media convergence, the collapsing of once-distinct media formats into a single, endless interface, removing the crucial context that helps readers situate what they consume within a broader framework.
Everything we read and view online blends into an ocean of hard news, work emails, social updates, online shopping, and ‘brain rot’ short-form videos, all consumed from the same screen.
As a result, readers are encouraged to skim and scroll rather than slow down to appreciate and contemplate a piece long enough to inform their worldview.
Print media, by contrast, requires time and attention. It has a beginning and an end, and is free from notifications, hyperlinks and constant updates. In the age of infinite free content, paying for high-quality content can feel like a relief.
“Ink on paper can give this really lovely experience,” explained Steve Watson, director of Stack, an independent magazine subscription service. “It’s kind of relaxing, the feeling of serendipity as you stumble on stories, which I think is harder to do digitally.”
““Ink on paper can give this really lovely experience”
Steve watson, founder of stack
Steve described how printed media is a form of ‘calm technology’, as creators have complete creative control over layout, design, and, in turn, the way that readers engage with the final product. This is in contrast to digital media, where the device’s screen can override design choices, and readers are encouraged to skim due to linear top-to-bottom text, rewarding speed over depth.
“The magazine page has evolved over 300 years of people making magazines so that my brain just goes, oh, yeah, great, this works for me,” Steve told me. “Whereas this device,” he said, holding up his iPhone, “was invented, like, 20 years ago by people going, ‘just make it faster, give people more, more, more.’”
But while print is enjoying a cultural reprise, the circulation of newspapers and mainstream magazines is undeniably declining. Most of the top UK magazines have seen a considerable fall in readers, and the total magazine sales in the UK halved since the mid-2000s. What’s surviving isn’t mass print, it’s niche independent publications.
The magazines that have risen out of the ashes are mostly independent publications, such as Violet Papers, 032c, and Real Review. These magazines don’t resemble the ones that disappeared from supermarket shelves.
They don’t pretend to be efficient or try to compete with digital publications on speed or scale. Instead, they focus on what print can do that digital just can’t get right. They insist on being authentic, intentional, tactile, and slow.
Independent magazines are passion projects for artists, designers and writers, and that intimacy is evident. Fashion and culture publication Violet Papers is one of the many new titles redefining what a fashion magazine can be.
Launched by French editor and fashion influencer Lara Violetta, each issue is built around a conceptual theme — noise, curtain calls, changes — and combines striking editorial photography with reflective, often philosophical writing.
On the other end of the spectrum sits Real Review, a biannual publication that is entirely rooted in the print format. Within its narrow pages, you will find cultural essays and articles written in the format of reviews, often featuring major writers such as modern philosopher Slavoj Žižek, legendary composer Ryuichi Sakamoto and even Pope Francis.
It is text-heavy, with no glossy photography, but it shares Violet Papers’ values of editorial conviction and a refusal to dilute its identity for mass appeal. Both publications are made with small teams and tight budgets, yet feel luxurious precisely because nothing is wasted and everything is considered.
“Independent magazines have never been made primarily to make money”
Steve Watson, founder of Stack
“I just love the feeling of a physical magazine in my hands,” one customer in an independent magazine shop told me. “I love being able to flick through the pages and fold down the corners of articles I want to come back to, it just feels chic!”
“Independent magazines have never been made primarily to make money,” Steve explained. They haven’t suffered the decline in quality that mainstream publications faced as culture turned towards the internet; from budget paper and binding, to substantial writing replaced by more ads, to an increasingly unclear sense of who the magazine was even for.
“When you’re making your own magazine, you go, right, I’m not making any compromises. This is going to be exactly as I want it to be,” Steve says. “It doesn’t matter if I don’t make money off it, because this is my soul.”
As a result, the emphasis is on forming a deep connection with the reader rather than selling loads of copies. Independent magazines are designed to be kept, reread and displayed; you won’t want to tear up your finished copy of 032c for collage.
Especially as ‘going analogue’ — the practice of slowing down and limiting screen time — is a cultural hot topic, these publications offer a tangible and collectable alternative to digital overload.
Enninful’s magazine, 72, reflects this shift. Released quarterly with a cover price of £15, three times the price of a single edition of Vogue, 72 justifies its value through long-form features, carefully produced interviews with figures such as Julia Roberts, and a heavy, glossy finish that feels nice in your hands, and even nicer displayed on your coffee table.
This approach has begun to permeate the mainstream. Vogue has announced plans to focus on fewer, more substantial print issues, with increased page counts and paper quality.
Large publications have finally acknowledged what independent publishers have long practised. Print doesn’t need to compete with the speed and accessibility of online media; it just needs to be meaningful.
Rather than killing print, independent magazines have carved their own path and, in doing so, rewritten the industry’s rules. And now, finally, the mainstream is catching up.
Featured image by Dani Port