Four Minutes to Midnight issues 1 through 5 were created as part of my MA thesis at the London College of Printing in 2004. The ideas behind them and the desire to create a design magazine had been running through my head for many years before (often in frenzied dialogue with John), and the MA provided the perfect opportunity for me to realise them. They were created in a very limited edition (though available for free as printable pdfs) and released over the span of three hectic months.

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Four Minutes to Midnight (23:56) is an experimental literary arts zine edited, designed and published by Kevin Lo and John W. Stuart. The zine began with an open question posed to friends and acquaintances, “what’s wrong?” and has since developed into an annual showcase of experimental writing, design and visual art.

Based in the firm belief that the personal is political, the zine explores the possibility for small stories, bad poetry, vast dreams and private pains as a means of advancing social change. We aim to shed some beauty onto our individual struggles, drawing the connections between them and fostering more honest expressions of love and dissent. Though realistically, we know one little booklet isn’t really going to “change things”, we do hope it’s something that people will carry around with them, flip through, and find a little encouragement and energy when needed.

The zine is also a space for radical typographic experimentation, blurring the line between form and content. We see typography (and graphic design more generally) as a critical and contested area of cultural engagement. We fuck with typography because typography fucks with you…

We’re always looking for new contributors and collaborators, so please feel free to get in touch.