Tonight at the Great Hall, Spacing magazine will celebrate its fifth birthday and the release of its 13th print issue. Run by two full-time editors (Matthew Blackett and Todd Harrison) and a handful of part-timers, Spacing has evolved from a good-looking glossy into an authoritative institution on public space and urban issues that wins magazine awards, pulls weight at City Hall, has ubiquitized subway-station buttons, and draws about 10,000 visitors a day to the Spacing blog. Says Publisher and Creative Director Blackett: “It's been amazing to be exposed to the vast array of talent and imagination that the city has.” EYE WEEKLY interviewed Blackett as he prepared for tonight's party.
How did Spacing grow from your initial vision five years ago?
Originally it was a campaign of the Toronto Public Space Committee. That's what it came out of. Then after the first issue we realized we needed to be independent and run it more like a business. It just didn't operate the same way that a regular advocacy campaign [does]. Slowly it has grown into a more traditional magazine over that period of time, at least in terms of how it's run, and operates. We'd like to think that it's a non-traditional magazine and product.
How has it moved into the other efforts, like Spacing Wire?
In Spring 2005, we decided there was too much of a delay between issues; we come out every four months. It was too long for us not to be able to have our voices out there on some of these topics. So, we started Spacing Wire, our daily blog, and it was about a year and a half ago that we rebranded it to Spacing Toronto because we started working on Spacing Montreal, our sister blog that we have going in that city. We went from being a three-times-a-year magazine to a daily blog as well. We've extended out in other ways, with the subway buttons, our Toronto the Good parties that we do each year during the Festival of Architecture and Design. We've done two gallery shows, we're about to do a third one really soon, three film festival nights called “Public Space Invaders.” We try to be more than just a magazine in many ways. We try to involve our contributors a lot more, involve the public, so it's not just a magazine of our six editors, it's not just the voice of us, it's the voice of hopefully hundreds of people.
Insofar as the breadth of work you do, and the subject matter and how you've approached it, do you feel that you have any peers, here or in Europe or in the U.S.?
Next American City is kind of a national version of Spacing for the states. We have a really good relationship with them, we're partnering up with them soon, with some editorial work. We're really excited about that. We've partnered up with an organization out in Vancouver called “re:place,” which is very much like Spacing but for Vancouver, blog-wise. We might be making it even more official in the new year, we might be absorbing them. 2009 looks like we're going to expand our blog network, so it'll stretch right across the country, from coast to coast. But I don't want to jinx it because we're not confirmed entirely, I guess. And the other thing is, the buttons.
An extension of Spacing and our brand in many ways is related to our buttons and their popularity. We're starting to do new stations, like Museum station; it looks like Union is being re-done. We're updating them. We're going to come out in the new year with some new products playing on the riffs of our subway buttons. Again, I don't want to give too much away on that, but we have new stuff coming out soon.
Is there anything you feel you have left to do in terms of developing the magazine and the brand?
We did a re-design and kind of a new format. Any kind of concerns that we might have had that we weren't covering in the magazine, I think we've addressed. We've focused our editorial a lot better. There is really a lot to cover in the city, obviously. There's much more that we could be doing, and we're hoping to fill those gaps [in the future]. More coverage of the issues that we find dear to heart.
Would you consider putting out more editions of the print magazine per year?
We're hoping for that. If we can reach a certain subscriber level, we'll be able to add another issue each year, and we're hoping to do an annual national issue of Spacing. That's our eventual goal. That may not be 2009, but hopefully 2010.
Obviously Spacing has a pretty significant influence on this city, on people in this city who like to think about [the topics covered by the magazine]. Is that influence something that you purposefully set out for?
Spacing is a form of advocacy journalism, in many ways, so the fact that people think we do have an effect or influence on the city is great. Your goal is always to be considered important, I think, when you start a magazine, especially one that has an opinion and a certain perspective, the fact that people take us seriously and see us as a voice of a certain part of the city, I think is great. We're flattered and humbled by that kind of stuff. We work hard to ensure we are taken seriously and are providing a unique voice for city-building in the city.
Admission for tonight's party is $5 for subscribers, or $10 with a magazine for everyone else.