Tim Hayward on Fire and Knives. Part 2.

Here's the second part of The Story of Fire & Knives; the first bit was published yesterday. We hope that you enjoy it....

Then I met Cathy, the force of nature who runs Anorak magazine. Cathy is one of those very rare people who makes things happen. She can, in the nicest possible way, be bloody terrifying but when she says something can be done, it can and will be done. It was Cathy who introduced me to the world of ‘’Zines’. I had no idea that there was an entire subculture of people putting together their own magazines and self-publishing using all the benefits that new technology could offer.

Within three weeks we’d worked out that we could design and print a magazine on a loan of a couple of thousand pounds and Cathy agreed to ride shotgun on the first issue. She also introduced me to Rob Lowe (not that one), the Art Director who was going to make Fire & Knives into a beautiful object. I wrote a brief for Rob (maybe all those years in advertising weren’t entirely wasted) and a couple of weeks later he returned with a first draft so perfect in every respect that we accepted it without any changes. It’s unbelievably rare in any creative endeavour to hit it off so easily with a collaborator and when it happens, believe me you treasure it.

We used Twitter, and food blogs to talk about what we were doing and by October 2009 were selling subscriptions in advance. By the time we had the first magazine ready to go to press in late November, several traditional food mags had recommended a subscription as an ideal Christmas present and we had enough money in the bank to run the presses and pay postage.

From the first issue, F&K has pretty much broken even, which is all we ask as we never intended to make a profit. The writers contribute their work unpaid. We run the kind of pieces they want to write, properly subbed but not butchered, beautifully laid out and presented and we ensure that copies of the mag go to several hundred of the top commissioning editors in the country (many of our writers have already sold other work or gained book or TV engagements on the strength of F&K pieces). Subscriptions continue to rise and, though we never expected it to happen, some smart retailers are now picking up the magazine to sell as individual issues - thank you Pedlars. We’re happy that we produce a beautiful object, our writers seem happy to see their work go out in it and our readers continue to say wonderful things about us. Because we don’t rely on advertising to stay afloat we can continue to publish great stuff without compromise - Nobody’s getting rich, but we’re all feeling good.

When Rob showed us those first beautiful designs, he’d planned a palette of colours so the year’s four covers would look great on a shelf together. It was the kind of beautiful touch that distinguishes his work and Cathy and I smiled and quietly hoped we’d survive long enough to see the full set. Now, as we begin the second year we’ve run out of colours - it’s a nice problem to have, having survived longer than you thought possible - so we’ve had a bit of a redesign. Inspired by original Penguin book covers we commissioned a Marie-Claire Bridges, a brilliant textile designer, to come up with a set of patterns based on domestic fabrics from the Festival of Britain so next year's magazines will look as beautiful as this year's... and yes, thank you, we've already thought about tea towels.

Perhaps the oddest thing about being magazine editor in this odd new world is the emails I get from design or journalism students asking if they can spend the summer interning on the magazine. Since the beginning, F&K has been put together online. I commission writers by email, copy is held in an online ‘drop-box’ where Rob, the subs and I can all get to it and Rob files the final designs to the same place where I approve them. I'm writing this in a Vietnamese restaurant just around the corner from my house and once I've finished this, I'll be checking off the final proofs on the same iPad.

Though I'm prepared to bet Rupert Murdoch isn't having as much fun, it's hard to explain to students that we don't have an imposing front door, receptionists, lifts, or ad-sales departments and a meeting with the editor is likely to be held over a bowl of bun bo Hue or in my Camden Town kitchen. To be fair, though, the coffee is much better.