Flying
26 February 2008. Inspired by recognition in high places.
When we first talked of doing an inflight magazine, we wanted to do things differently.
Inflight magazines don't show real people; ours would. Inflight magazines don't tell you anything new about your own city; ours would. Inflight magazines don't give you great, short fiction, set in your destination, to read on the plane; ours would. Inflight magazines don't have distinctive, non-traditional covers; ours... well you get the idea..
Another thing inflight magazines don't do is acknowledge that you're on an aeroplane. In fact they actively try to make you forget you are. Who are they kidding? Passengers don't become fools the moment they step on board, so we decided we would create a double page at the back of the mag, filled with fun things to do on the plane.
From flirting with the person next to you, to walking like a spaceman to and from the bathroom, it would be a playful regular feature of in-plane activities to make you smile. We found a great illustrator at very short notice, and worked together to create something we called 'Pasatiempos' (Pastimes, Puzzles in Spanish) or 'L&ing' (Landing, geddit?).
Regular readers will know, we then beat Spain's biggest publishing companies, plus the behemoth of inflight magazines Ink Publishing, to win the commission to create our unique inflight magazine Ling for revolutionary Spanish airline Vueling.
And today, it's our Pasatiempos page that's been nominated for an SPD award. People use the phrase "Oscars of the [industry name here] world" rather a lot. So I'll just list some of the other nominees.
GQ, Rolling Stone, New York Times, Vanity Fair, Wired, Esquire, TIME, Metropolis, National Geographic, Fast Company, Marie Claire.
The nominated graphic was this one, though it could have been any of them really. Further examples are on the illustrator, Heads on Boards' site here.
I'm sure, in years to come, such industry shouts will be passé, but for a small company like ours, to have our only magazine recognised in a big awards thingy like this one, just reminds us of one thing: we were right all along.
We just got started. Watch this (air)space.
UPDATE: You can leaf through some recent issues here. Go full screen for the proper experience.