Written By : Kyle Macneill

Jess Barker doesn’t pull punches when it comes to Northern pride. “The North is full of raw talent. It deserves just as much recognition as anywhere else,” says the magazine editor. After graduating in the hazy post-COVID era, she watched friends leave Manc for, cue the Coronation Street meme - LUN-DUN! Tired of the capital poaching creatives, she had a realisation: “Young creatives weren’t getting the same recognition. That’s when it clicked - we needed something to spotlight Northern talent.”

The answer was Outset, a print publication she co-founded with photographer and creative director Ella Kenneally, dedicated to amplifying new voices in music, fashion and art. Since then, it’s grown into a community of aesthetes. “I love hearing people’s stories and giving them space to be seen. It’s been a huge confidence boost - and proof that print still matters,” she says.

Many mags are designed to sit on coffee tables. Dial In, ( @dial.in.mag ) on the other hand, is about coffee. “It was pretty much a fusion of all my interests,” co-creators Ania Klekot and Elliot Howard say, explaining that it stemmed from a MA project combining their work as a writer and a barista. Elliot thinks that Dial In, with its fittingly grainy visuals, is a bit like the caffeinated elixir.

“One of the best ways to describe Dial In, is like going to a cafe and picking a coffee that you want to try - but you actually get to sit down with the owner of the roastery and get to know them personally.”

Blending energetic creativity and equally compelling origin stories, Dial In champions brewing culture. “It’s important to show how much work, time and money goes into specialty coffee and why it needs to be valued to ensure everyone gets paid fairly for what they do.” Packed full of recipes, it’s enough to turn instant coffee drinkers into DIY baristas, without the need to deal with certain insufferable customers (you know the ones!)

HS2 might be a faded dream; but the GRAVY train is flying right now ( @gravymag ). “It’s serious. It’s daft. It’s working class as fuck,” founder Maisie Thompson says of her gritty, glam magazine. Based in Little Hulton, a suburb in Salford - GRAVY was borne from Thompson’s desire to represent her own, granular style. “I was originally part of another team and the idea of starting a mag came up. I was keen to spearhead it, but as time went on and compromises were made, I realised I had a very clear, very stubborn vision. I wasn’t willing to let go of it,” she says.

But Thompson’s single-mindedness doesn’t mean that it’s not nuanced. “It’s important to me that we allow space for duality - we can be sentimental about where we’re from, but we also have to interrogate why things are the way they are, and the harm that’s often tied up in that.” And the nuts and bolts of GRAVY are DIY. “Something rooted in working-class identity, full of heart and humour, unafraid to be daft - but also thoughtful, grounded, and self-aware.” While Thompson isn’t the biggest fan of answering emails and patterning admin, the graft is worth it. “Hopefully I’ll get over myself eventually,” she laughs. 

The aforementioned Outset ( @outset.mag ) came out of a course at Factory International, the city’s eclectic arts hub. Fittingly, it’s not boxed into one category. “Our print is rooted in fashion, but it spans music, art, and photography.

At its core, it’s a documentation of what’s happening creatively in the North, told through the people shaping it,” says co-founder Jess Barker. Kitted out with a futuristic aesthetic and hypersaturated imagery, Outset bigs up the Manchester movers and shakers hustling away in the city’s industrial mills, gritty studios and - obviously, their bedrooms. Issue 02 is already on its way, propelled by a two-way energy transfer from Outset’s readers and editors. “The North is full of raw talent,” Barker says. 

“We have genuinely enjoyed every second of the journey. That’s not to say it’s all been smooth sailing - every day presents its own little challenges - but it’s never felt overwhelming. If anything, the process itself is the challenge, but in the best way possible. We’re constantly learning, growing, and figuring things out as we go, and that’s actually part of the fun. It keeps us motivated and reminds us why we started in the first place.”

On Unitom’s hallowed shelves, alongside the likes of Dazed and THE FACE, sits SAUI. Ella Shiangkwang’s mag genuinely deserves such a coveted spot. The sequel to M-Press, a publication exploring the divine feminine through tarot, SAUI is dedicated to highlighting the underrepresentation of Asian beauty in Western society. “It challenges the resulting misconception that Asians don’t conform to beauty standards, while simultaneously celebrating the diverse beauty, cultural identity, and lived experiences of Asians growing up in England through journalistic photography,” she explains.

Half Thai and half English, Shiangkwang is inspired by her feeling isolated while growing up. "I grew up in a predominantly white neighborhood and attended primary school there. I had blonde Barbies, and I was obsessed with Disney princesses; and as cliché as it sounds, I did feel different. I had nothing around me to relate to, so I felt embarrassed, wishing I had looked a certain way to fit in," she says. SAUI (meaning "beautiful" in Thai) is the glossy result, a collaboration with four other creatives (all of different Asian nationalities) to find the common threads within the continent’s myriad cultures. Shiangkwang hopes SAUI can act as a salve for other young British Asians. “I’m not only healing my own inner child but also helping to heal so many others.”

Like many, many good things in life, HAZY ( @hazy.magazine ) started life at the pub. “We were sitting down having a pint one day in Liverpool in The Cambridge and were talking about the idea of bringing creatives together through a physical publication,” says co-founder Oscar Hedge. The Hazy Mag team used to host exhibition events in Liverpool with other North-West photographers. They had always been mad about mags. “Zine-making is a big part of street photography and film culture. It is a way to showcase your projects in a physical space,” Hedge says. Covered with spray-can lettering, it's packed full of raw inner-city imagery and tagged with graffiti graphics.

And Hedge believes that HAZY can function as an incubator for talent. “The creative industry is getting harder and harder to break into, especially for the working class. Hazy aims to provide a platform and hopefully in the future act as a launchpad.” The early success of Hazy has seen them publish street photography from across the globe (literally, from New York to Melbourne). But it's still rooted firmly in their North West identity. “It motivates us to continue connecting creatives from our local area with creatives across the world.” The Norf has officially gone global.