Print (magazine)


Print is an American design and culture website that began as Print, A Quarterly Journal of the Graphic Arts, in 1940, and continued publishing a physical edition through the end of 2017 as Print.
Print's current stated mission: "Print is where creative people gather to inspire and build design dialogue. Perpetually curious about everything design, we report on, curate and celebrate visual culture, the makers of that culture and the expression of graphic design in all its forms and mediums."
As a printed publication, Print was a general-interest magazine, written by cultural reporters and critics who looked at design in its social, political, and historical contexts, from newspapers and book covers to Web-based motion graphics, from corporate branding to indie-rock posters. During its run, Print won five National Magazine Awards and a number of Folio: Eddies, including Best Full Issue in its final year. Print ceased publication in 2017, with a promise to focus the brand on "a robust and thriving online community." Its publisher, F+W Media, declared bankruptcy in 2019, and a group of independent partners subsequently purchased PRINT from the company that arose out of F+W, Peak Media Properties.

Founding

The journal was founded by William Edwin Rudge to demonstrate “the far reaching importance of the graphic arts” including art prints, commercial printing, wallpaper, etc. Contents were eclectic covering typography, book making, book printing, fine prints as well as the trade journal aspects of printing candy bar wrappers.
Initially the publication included original prints such as the frontispiece for Vol 1, #1 a two color woodcut by Hans Alexander Mueller and Vol 1, #3 a black and white wood engraving by Paul Landacre.
By Volume 8 the focus of the periodical had shifted to a trade journal.

Name changes

  • Vol 1, #1 Print: A Quarterly Journal of the Graphic Arts
  • Vol 3, #2 combined with The Printing Art. An Illustrated Monthly Magazine of the Art of Printing and of the Allied Arts but continued under Print: A Quarterly Journal of the Graphic Arts

    Until

  • Vol 7, #1 Print: combining: Print, A Quarterly Journal of Graphic Arts, Vol. VII, Number 1 and The Print Collector's Quarterly, Volume XXX, Number 4.
  • Vol 7, #2 Print, The Magazine of the Graphic Arts - until
  • Vol 9, #2 Print - until
  • Vol 11, #4 Print, The Magazine of Visual Communication - until
  • Vol 12, #1 Print, America's Graphic Design Magazine at least until May/June 2005 Vol 59, #3.