“Every prototype is a first edition.”

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First Edition: The Magazine of Makers + Doers in Arizona and the Desert Southwest is a seasonless, collectible publication that explores the personalities behind passion projects before they hit the collective consciousness. 

 

It’s a mag that never gets old, and it focuses on regional makers and innovators whose clever efforts haven’t already been documented in other print avenues.

 

Yes — in print. First Edition snatches the ink-on-paper tradition from death in the digital age with artist-designed endpapers, the cachet of hand numbering, and 3D novelties like letterpress swatches and usable stickers.

 

Editorial director Lisa Polacheck and creative director Michael Min previously worked together on travel magazines and books for a corporate publisher, where we schemed to enhance brand standards with unexpected themes, thoughtful pagination, line-by-line visual finessing and painstaking proofreading.

 

Now, with First Edition, we’re free of cookie cutters, quotas, even schedules. Subjects are chosen without regard for luxury, celebrity or exclusivity. Coverage grows from conversations, not press releases. Pages are designed with room to breathe. And the next seasonless issue prints only once we’re sufficiently inspired. No stress! This is supposed to be fun.

 

It should be noted that, as a friendly new title in the media-rich Desert Southwest, we are not trying to take food off of anyone’s table. The magazine’s dimensions aren’t quite square because we believe Java in Phoenix and Tribeza in Austin rightfully “own” the shape. We’re not competing with our former publications for established, deep-pocketed advertisers. And when we’re reading our favorite magazines from throughout the region, it’s out of professional admiration, not for story ideas. 

 

We hope First Edition is the first print highlight in the brilliant future of many emerging makers.

 

Every little prototype is, after all, a “first edition.”

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