Is Not Magazine
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Is Not Magazine is an independently published bi-monthly magazine in the form of a 1.5m x 2m bill poster, produced in Melbourne, Australia. It was created by five young Melbourne writers and designers, who continue to edit the magazine: Mel Campbell, Stuart Geddes, Natasha Ludowyk, Penny Modra and Jeremy Wortsman. The first issue appeared on April 9, 2005.
Most of the content is by the editorial team or from young local writers, though submissions of articles, reviews, fiction or other responses to the themes for a planned issue are open to anyone. The magazine is posted at 50 sites around Melbourne on public walls and in venues including cafés, bars and laundromats. Is Not has no advertising; instead it is funded by subscription and sales of back issues, which can be purchased worldwide. It is only available in its full-size poster format.
The magazine serves as an outlet for new writing, but is also an "editorial experiment". The poster has grid references at its edges, used for the contents instead of page numbers. Submissions are accepted not only via post and email, but also via SMS or by writing on the posters themselves. Some short articles, poems and stories are deliberately printed at a size which can be read when photographed by a mobile phone camera.
Is Not exclusively uses fonts created by the European typographic design studio Underware. Issue four was repackaged in booklet format (though at full size and with no other changes to its layout) as Is Not Takeaway #1, intended as a showcase of Underware's typography.
Geddes and Wortsman won the 2006 Victorian Premier's Communications Design Prize for their work designing Is Not's first six issues.
