The esteemed design magazine is giving readers 250 characters to design their own cover

Those of us still in print have decided the medium isn’t on its deathbed, but to survive, there've had to be a few changes. Print publications have had to become collectible, their content has to be timeless and the their aesthetic luxury.

For the latest issue of Print Isn’t Dead™ (Element 003), the magazine and its accompanying website invite readers to personalise their own covers by supplying up to 250 characters of text, conveying any message they want – as creative, crude, personal or poignant as they like. Submissions will then be individually typeset in Milieu Grotesque’s Patron typeface by designer James Lunn and delivered free to recipients worldwide.

“By making the cover personalisable [sic], People of Print draw the reader into the collaborative process of magazine production,” say the team. It’s this involvement that gives the reader and increased sense of ownership and attachment to the brand.

The content of Element 003 looks at the themes of personalisation and variable data alongside both digital and analogue printing, focusing on the idea of permanence. This issue features Eike König, Hansje van Halem, YEVU Clothing, Peter Judson, Studio Moross, Kin Design, Brixton Brewery and many more.

Print has to keep moving if it is to survive the print vs digital war. Recently Garage magazine attempted to blur the boundaries of print and digital by hiding additional digital content within in pages (including augmented 3D scupltures) that could only be viewed using the accompanying Garage app.

Create your own cover here.