Architect's Memo: Community Format

(I asked a friend to advise on how GRAPHX could approach community)

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Magazine as medium for community? That didn’t resonate--at first. A magazine is a great format for curating a specific aesthetic but community? After continuing my R&D it was clear the problem wasn’t the format but the context that informs it.

Magazines operate like pre-digital algorithms. Same content loops every month, every year, indefinitely. Without a cover page you'd barely notice a difference between issues.

My vision for community building was through a narrative framework, structured like a book, but serialized like a magazine. Storytelling that leads toward a destination. I couldn't find anything that made sense so I pivoted to architecture as a point of entry.

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If you've ever worked in architecture then you're familiar with binders.

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In architecture, binders are organized portfolios used to manage, present, and document project materials, decisions, and design development -Dezeen

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I took an editorial approach to binders, I obsessed over each one. Designing identity frameworks; logos, color palettes, graphics, layouts. This approach to creating gave every architecture project a sense of narrative. This was the breakthrough I was looking for.

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GRAPHX Magazine is an editorial binder of the process, practice, and perspective of worldbuilding.

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In a time dominated by generative AI, the magic now happens upstream. It’s the iterative process of research and development that makes the things we create truly unique. Remove that, and we lose more than the recipe, we lose why it was created in the first place.

The first binder from GRAPHX Magazine is Silverado, a project worldbuilding around the myth of El Dorado. The editorial is an excavation of contemporary American myth Informed by rare texts, deep research, and interviews with cultural archaeologists, designers, and artists.

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