Keeping my print past on the GRID

Very, very long term readers of this blog – those who have been tolerating my words for nearly a decade – might remember that I was once more print-centric than I am now. For the best part of a year in the 2003 to 2004 period, I edited a magazine called GRID. It was designed to sit at the intersection of property development, architecture and construction, and it was my pride and joy.

It had a stunning design by Balwant Ahira:

It’s the print project that I was most proud of, which I devoted every ounce of my skill as a journalist to – and it was killed off by an incoming publisher, whose approach to profit growth involved slashing investment and costs. It was strangled before it had the chance to get going. At the time I was deeply upset, and really quite bitter. Nearly 10 years on, I see how it shaped the rest of my future. My dreams of being a print editor died with GRID, and I began to focus on my blog, blogging and the digital future. Within 18 months of the death of GRID, my transition into being a professional digital journalism expert began.

Why am I bringing this up now? Well, I finally got around to having one set of issues bound up into a beautiful hardback book at Wyvery Bindery.

I collected it last Monday on my way to City University, and I couldn’t be more happy with it. I’m not sure how much else survives of the magazine. RBI no longer has any copies kicking around – they were all disposed of years ago. I believe some – but not all – of the content is on estatesgazette.com, but I no longer have access to the paid part to check. Apart from a box in my garage, this might be all that remains of the magazine.

This bound volume makes it slightly more likely that the work we did makes it into the future, somehow. And it certainly gives me something to enjoy on those days when I get nostalgic for print: