A very interesting thing happened this week. While doing some follow up on some street press magazines i noticed what appeared to be a serious error in printing.
The story i gathered was that Beat Magazine, a music based street press magazine was loosing their graphic designer as he was moving to America for another job. Like most papers they go to print on Tuesday night and like most weeks the editors all headed home in the evening. The art department stayed behind to set up the pages to go to print over night, including the member of the team that was leaving.
The cover that week was meant to be of the UK band, The Kaiser Chiefs, however that is not what happened.
The designer replaced it with something he had drawn and that night hundreds of thousands of copies were printed, bundled and that morning the delivery drivers picked the bundles and dropped them off as usual at their assigned spots.
The editors of Beat magazine woke up to countless frantic phone calls.
Our office had a good laugh at the cover and thought it was a seriously brave over on the designers behalf, but then i noticed Beat magazine changed their display picture on their Facebook page to the same image, that is where, i believe, the magazine has slipt up.
It occurred to me, this probably wasn't an act of rebellion but perhaps a carefully thought out PR stunt. How many people picked up the magazine to have a look after hearing that story? How many times did I personally send their link to coworkers and friends? How many times I, myself go onto their Facebook page.
Whether the story I heard was even correct or not, it certainly helped the magazine. It was definitely interesting and food for thought.
Hope you all have fantastic weekend!
