When new print magazines are announced, reporters usually write about the irony of the startup amid a decades-long decline in publishing dailies and weeklies and monthlies.
The future of print is certainly a scattered one, but one that will probably involve novelty and specialty, in addition to the current clearing of the brush the past decade has shown.
Somewhere in there, Tek Lado, a quarterly, bi-lingual geek culture magazine with its setting in the Philadelphia region, either makes sense or it doesn’t.
Regardless, 20,000 32-page inaugural issues will land in honor boxes, cafes, bars, restaurants and waiting rooms throughout the region on Sept. 22, with plans to move to every other month in 2011. Funded by advertising and supported strictly by freelance contributions, the magazine will be free and pick-up only.
[Full disclosure: Technically Philly is a promotional partner for the magazine's launch. The two publications exchanged advertising space. This Q&A is an independent editorial choice.]
Southwest Philadelphia-based Bartash Printing is bankrolling the project, a company that handles printing projects for others but didn’t have one of its own, until Tek Lado, which was first conceived in March. The publisher is Bartash’s own Mel Gomez.
To make their first foray into magazine publishing a successful one, Gomez brought on last month one of the more familiar names in Philadelphia media, tapping former Philadelphia Weekly senior editor and columnist Liz Spikol to lead the project’s editorial product.
Inaugural Issue Release Party
Thursday, Sept. 30,
6-9 p.m. @ TRUST
249 Arch Street, Old City
Cost: FREE
Register here
Tek Games
The name of the magazine is a play on words.
In Spanish, ‘lado’ means ‘side.’ ‘Teclado’ mean ‘keyboard.’ ‘Tek Lado’ together means “tech side.”
Based out of Bartash’s building at 5400 Grays Ave., near Bartram’s Garden, until moving to independent offices if things go well, Spikol, 42, is now charged with growing the reputation and editorial product of a magazine with at least three niches: geeks and gadgets, Philadelphia and, while stories will appear both in English and Spanish, a natural Hispanic target.
Below, the West Philadelphia resident, who grew up in Center City and speaks Spanish fluently, talks to Technically Philly about what we can expect from Tek Lado, why she’s not exactly following her father’s footsteps and what led her here.
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