Jefferson Hack’s quest to bring high definition video to print was realised earlier this year when Rihanna came to life on the cover of AnOther Magazine. The Drum’s Stephen Lepitak catches up with the acclaimed publisher to find out how the groundbreaking project came to fruition.
Dazed’s celebrated publisher and visionary Jefferson Hack is a far more reserved personality than his publication would suggest, but it’s also clear from his most recent project, the development of the world’s first digital video magazine cover for stablemate AnOther Magazine, that he is a single-minded and driven individual.
We meet Hack in his Shoreditch offices, previously the studio of photographer and Dazed co-founder Rankin, where he tells us he has always wanted to produce a multi-sensory magazine.
“We had been exploring all kinds of multiplatform communications and taking stories onto all kinds of different places,” he says. “With all the talk of whether print is dead, I wanted to do the first point where print became digital.” It was an ambition shared by rivals, he tells us, creating a form of “space race” to reach the finish line.
He is very considered when he discusses the creation of the digital motion cover that features a writhing leather-clad Rihanna. It was developed by PCH after Hack met with its founder, Liam Casey, by chance at the Founder’s Dinner during last year’s Web Summit in Dublin. He says the dinner came and went unnoticed as they discussed how Hack’s vision of a digital cover could become reality.