Brian Burns

Andy McMillan, creator and curator of the world renowned Build Conference Festival of Design, launched his latest venture today via Kickstarter. As promised at Build 2010, Andy will be publishing a magazine called The Manual.

The Manual is a new limited-run print magazine published three times a year. Each issue will have six substantial, beautifully illustrated feature articles, along with additional rich and unexpected bonuses. Challenging, contemplative, playful, and visionary, the articles focus on bringing a greater depth and maturity to our craft and profession: design on the web.

The Manual will not provide code snippets, tutorials, nor will it point to flash-in-the-pan trends. Instead it will publish articles by high-level thinkers and doers on topics that examine and question why online design is how it is. Andy will be aiming to produce a publication that inspires readers in the same way that @buildconf inspires conference goers.

This magazine … (will provide a) discourse about design online that many of us have been yearning for, that gives the subject the respect it deserves, challenging all of us, as an industry, to set a much higher standard.

A stellar team of contributors has been lined up to help Andy produce Issue #1. Frank Chimero, Simon Collison, Liz Danzico, Jessica Hische, Chris Murphy, Nik Persson, Jez Burrows, Jon Tan, Carolyn Wood et al. each look set to be chipping in to get the inaugural copy of The Manual off the press and through your letterbox.

Andy, like Frank Chimero and Craig Mod, appreciates the need for printed words that are bound together to act as functional objects. The Manual will be confident in form and its materials will help illuminate its narrative. I’m in no doubt that the series of magazines will be beautifully crafted and built to last. You’ll be wanting to clear some space on your favourite shelf real soon. Believe me.

Pledge your support to The Manual before March 10. Don’t miss out on getting your hands on a copy. You can also keep up-to-date with The Manual on the Twitter — @themanual.

Good luck Andy! (…not that you’ll need it mate.)