Most of us think of beauty as ephemeral. What is truly gorgeous is partly so because it’s fleeting. Others follow the Keatsian logic that “a thing of beauty is a joy forever,” but in the print publication business, it’s hard to utter the word “forever” sincerely. Magazines are, by definition, timely and often disposable. This is one of the many ways in which the new quarterly in town, A MAGAZINE, is pushing to be different.
“We’ve approached A MAGAZINE as a coffee-table item. We design the spine of each issue with a specific color so they stack beautifully when together. We really want these to be collectors’ pieces,” says founder and editor-at-large Dani Bald-Bruni.
The goal seems a little pie in the sky until you actually get your hands on an issue. Printed on substantial-feeling paper and filled with page after page of sumptuous layouts and photography, A MAGAZINE feels like something you want to hang onto.
“We dedicate a large chunk of the interior pages to beautiful photography,” Bald-Bruni says. “Almost all of our ‘Inspri’ photos could be beautiful prints.”
The publication is vibrant, each page calling you to linger. Organized around a single, one-word theme and color (spring was “light” and peach), the design is clean and modern without feeling stark.
The person behind the aesthetic, creative director Lacey Murray, said it’s an intentional departure from the standard Vegas visuals aimed at tourists.
Bald-Bruni says the mission “isn’t just about what’s trending, but about supporting local businesses, collaborating with like-minded locals and really creating a space for people to come together and root one another on.”
In this way, A MAGAZINE is more than pretty pictures. Focusing on real estate, design and lifestyle, each issue brings readers inside local home renovations and listings (many not yet on the market) as well as offering elegant life hacks, step-by-steps for entertaining, profiles of local business and features on nearby travel.
“There are tons of real estate magazines, tons of design magazines and tons of lifestyle magazines,” Bald-Bruni said, “but very few people have been able to bring all three together under one cover.”
Bald-Bruni describes the magazine’s origins as she points out where future covers will hang in its sleek Holsum Lofts studio. With her background in real estate here and in California, she became increasingly interested in design and writing.
“Lacey and I met when I sold her and her husband their first home,” Bald-Bruni said.
Murray had spent 12 years working as a designer in Minneapolis before moving to Las Vegas to serve as director and designer at an agency, all while maintaining a freelance business.
“When I found out she was a graphic designer,” Bald-Bruni said, “I asked her to help me rebrand my business.”
That’s when they realized they made a good team.
Having just stepped out of designing a quarterly magazine, Murray was ready for a new project.
“After a cancer diagnosis, I started to feel unhappy working for somebody else, juggling art and creative director roles and working freelance in my spare time,” she said.
Murray left to pursue freelance full-time, and she and Bald-Bruni made A MAGAZINE their collective creative outlet.
But in this digital age, the question remains: Should you spend so much creative capital on print?
“As an artist, it was incredibly important to me to have a tangible piece at the end of the process,” Murray said. Armed with a desire to combat the temporary nature of the times with something more timeless, Bald-Bruni agrees that it was important that their product “relate to many different groups and not be too trendy.”
And the digital realm is hardly ignored, with a complementary website and in-print digital elements like app and playlist recommendations.
“Our friend describes us as taste-makers,” Bald-Bruni says, “but we just set out to create and have fun.”
Creative outlets that succeed often grow, and according to Murray, “it just keeps getting bigger. I have people ask me if they can get it in other states, and I’m like, ‘You realize this is just for Las Vegas, right?’ ”
Given its momentum, A MAGAZINE just upped the ante by ordering a print run of 10,000 copies — 5,000 will be mailed to residential and commercial addresses in the valley, 3,000 will go to local distribution points (such as Vesta Coffee Roasters and Sister House Collective) and 2,000 will be on hand for the founders. Although they’re being “very selective” with distribution, Bald-Bruni says, it does seem like more large-scale print runs are the goal: “We just hit a million impressions via our online version … so we’re hoping to really ramp up our ad sales.”
Murray adds, “We’ll still be selective in the types of ads we place, allowing only full pages that meet our standards and fit with our aesthetic, in addition to in-article product highlights” (a tactic popular in music videos and social media posts by influencers).
Whatever the look and placement of advertisements, ad sales likely will be key with a current cover price of $10 an issue. (The duo is hopeful this price point will drop once subscriptions from strategic placement and mailing pick up come winter.) And despite the luxurious feel of the product, A MAGAZINE is geared toward an early-30s crowd and concerned with affordability. Bald-Bruni offers an example from the On Trend section: “We may show you a $1,200 pair of shoes, but we’ll also show you a similar pair for $100.” With home décor pieces from Target spotlighted, her assertion bears out.
Despite this focus on local affordability, the buzz about the magazine has got the pair thinking about nearby markets in California.
“We have two cities in mind right now,” Bald-Bruni says, “both of which are smaller cities with big arts and culture communities and tons of smaller, locally owned businesses.”
For now, A MAGAZINE’s quarterly frequency, modeled partly on publications like Domino, should be enough to satisfy those locals anxious to be in the know. Only time will tell if this beautiful thing will be forever, but two gratis teaser copies should be plenty to give readers a sense of what they’d be signing up for if they subscribed. And with the summer issue out now and another set to release before the Life Is Beautiful festival in late September, free is, in and of itself, a beautiful thing.
To get a copy, send a request via avegasmagazine.com.