Publication: The Green Soccer Journal undergoes a heavyweight redesign

Doing what I do, I get asked about my favourite magazines fairly frequently. In the past I have occasionally amused myself by making up absurd titles, until I found out that some people were actually trying to track down a copy of Armenian Cattle Quarterly. Now I have a go-to selection of publications which I genuinely admire and The Green Soccer Journal is foremost among them, so it was with some trepidation I heard about the redesign for the fifth issue.

Of course I needn’t have worried – James Roper and Adam Towle have made the whole experience bigger and better, doubling the page count but with no let-up in the relentless quality. This issue features a great interview with enfant terrible Ashley Cole (which has been picked up by several national newspapers), photo features by Stefan Ruiz on the new England shirt and fashion photographer Devin Blair documenting a Champions League game, and a great tripartite in-depth look at Liverpool down the decades written by Alex Moshakis (formerly of this parish).

There’s a masculine new logo, an illustration behind the cover photograph designed to add a bit more personality and a gloss finish to the cover stock. As Adam told Jeremy Leslie over on MagCulture: “We want readers to interact with the magazine and not feel like you can’t pick it up and place it in your bag ready for a commute, etc. However, we do still feel like this is a high-end product and we retained that quality through the paper choices and also through the support the layout provides for all the beautiful imagery.”

In short, it’s brilliant, but it’s no Armenian Cattle Quarterly…