With three issues under our belt at this point you could say we had transcended novice-dom and landed ourselves on the doormat of Getting-OK-At-This-Land. We knew what mistakes we had made with Issue 3 and had some ideas around how we could fix them. Firstly, Nina needed an extra pair of eyes, ears and hands to help on the design front, so in came Michael, a close friend and regular collaborator. The result was Issue 4 being the best designed so far. The design of the mags has always been its strongpoint, and now looking back, it’s crazy to think that Nina was the only one in charge. She killed it and continues to do so. With Issue 4’s design, it was about more than just natural progression. There was a gear shift in how we understood the design and the voice it could have for itself.

Our approach to our stories developed, too. Commissions became a much more collaborative, time-intensive process. We had the confidence to know what worked for the magazine and the trust in key writers and artists (we hope they trusted us too). The open call continued to be an unbelievably rewarding process to go through. Nothing beats the feeling of strangers getting in touch and committing their time, energy and intellect to an idea of your own doing. A nice synergy opened up between the commissioning and open call process - best exemplified by the Latin Village photo-essay. Emily got in touch via the open call with an idea to do a piece on the market. Her initial proposal was great - but not appropriate for a printed magazine (don’t want to give the idea away in case we come back to it). We knew Alex from around-the-way and having seen his photographs of the Latin American community in Elephant and Castle suggested they talk and see if something could arise. What came to flower was the anchor piece of the whole magazine. It made the bloody front cover! The piece on Latin Market, along with Amika’s exploration of arts and creativity post-Grenfell, represented a clear attempt to develop our engagement with current happenings in the crazy city we call London. Understanding and dissecting contemporary realities has always been a key focus of our work; now we wanted to move beyond mere reporting and commentary, and towards a more proactive and constructive engagement with issues that we felt passionate about.

It took exactly eleven months to get Issue 4 out. It was the longest we had spent on an issue. We knew there was no rush and it was better to take our time with everything. Of course, we were all well out of university now, deep in ‘The Real World™’, and time had to be thought of differently. Yet it was worth it. For sure. To celebrate, we booked out the window display of Charlotte St. News for a week (the week leading up to Christmas obvs) and got everyone down one weekday evening to drink free beer and freeze their hands and minds whilst 9-5ers walked past and looked at us like the weirdos we are.