Tank (magazine)

Tank is an independent UK-based magazine launched in 1998.^[1] It is a quarterly publication, printed in the UK, that covers contemporary culture, fashion, art, architecture, technology and politics. The magazine is considered one of the pioneering publications in boutique magazine publishing, balancing fewer advertisements with a high cover price.^[2] Since its launch, the Tank group has expanded to include Tank Form, tank.tv, TankBooks and Because magazine.

History

Tank was launched by editor-in-chief Masoud Golsorkhi and art director Andreas Laeufer in September 1998. The first issue was published in the form of a thick, square, miniature book. Its slogan “Small tank, big fish” began a trend where thinkers, writers, artists and photographers could look beyond conventional areas of discussion.^[3]

In 2002, upon Laeufer’s departure, Caroline Issa was appointed the magazine’s publisher and fashion director. Issa was quickly established as a “perennial street style favourite” and “fixture on the fashion week circuit”.^[4]

Format and content

The independent magazine’s 18 years of existence has seen a number of different incarnations: bulk pocket book, large wire-bound magazine and finally a rectangular perfect-bound edition^[2] – as it remains today.

Tank’s independent editorial platform takes its motto “Elitism for All” from a maxim by Jean-Francois Lyotard. Each issue revolves around a speculative concept or theoretical framework. Past subjects have included: revolution, disorientation, reality, bubbles and the city.

Tank Form

Launched in 2003, Tank Form is an independent, boutique creative agency that grew out of Tank magazine. Describing itself as "specialist, not generalist", the agency provides a creative consultancy. Tank Form is run by group creative director and editor-in-chief Masoud Golsorkhi, and CEO Caroline Issa.

Special projects have included sponsored publications created for Prada and Levi's. ...And? was a pink broadsheet newspaper created for Prada. MINED, a palindrome of the word ‘denim’, was a thick magazine created for Levi’s, it won the D&AD Yellow Pencil Editorial and Book Design Award in 2002.^[5]

TankBooks

TankBooks was launched in 2007 and features unabridged classics in the form of cigarette packs. Their release coincided with the ban on smoking in public places in the UK. Created for “lovers of literature and connoisseurs of design”. TankBooks repackages the works of Joseph Conrad, Ernest Hemingway, Rudyard Kipling, Leo Tolstoy, Franz Kafka and Robert Louis Stevenson. The cigarette books received an iF product design award in 2008.^[6]

O: Quarterly Fashion Supplement by Tank

O: by Tank was a luxury fashion supplement created for The Observer. It ran from 2005 to 2013 and focused on the world of fashion and beauty. Published four times a year, O: functioned both as a shopping guide and a source of inspiration for upcoming seasons.^[7]

From 2012, the supplement was accompanied with a free mobile application called Fashion Scan. The application uses image-recognition technology to link the pages of the supplement with online video content.

tank.tv

tank.tv is an online moving image gallery, established in 2003, that exhibits emerging and prominent video artists.^[8] The virtual gallery has collaborated on a number of events with art institutions across the world, among which are: Tate Modern, Kulturhuset, Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe and the Institute of Contemporary Arts.^[9]

The Turner Prize winning artist and curator Laure Provoust was the director of tank.tv from 2004-2011. Over the years, the online platform has worked with such artists and curators as Paul McCarthy,^[10] Pipilotti Rist, Jeremy Deller, John Latham, Hans-Ulrich Obrist, Stuart Comer,^[11] John Bock^[12] and Nandegar Azimi.^[13]

Because magazine

Because is Tank's digital sister publication, launched in 2009 with the strapline "How to look amazing and where to go when you do". Caroline Issa is the magazine’s editor-in-chief.

References

External links

• Tank Magazine Official Website