Magazine The Memo aims to offer 'diversity of information'

A new magazine, which will dedicate each issue to a specific theme in a bid to offer "a real diversity of information", has taken to Kickstarter to crowdfund for the project.

The Memo, which aims to launch at the end of March next year, will be "mono-thematic", with each issue centred around a theme which regional editors across the world will feed into across a series of sections which take different perspectives.

The paid-for quarterly magazine is based in Berlin, but will be distributed worldwide with all articles are translated into English.

Founder Alexis Mardon told Journalism.co.uk while the volume of information available via digital platforms "is extremely huge", he feels it is "always a little hard to go through the clutter and get that information out ... to get a new perspective".

This promoted the idea for The Memo, which will "work with people based in different countries, on different continents, who would then hand pick relevant content to fit to the magazine".

He added that the team turned to crowdfunding platform Kickstarter as it "didn't want to have external investment".

"We really like to be independent to give us absolute freedom in the themes and information we put into the magazine and it's also a good way for us to test if there's interest to the idea of the concept of the magazine."

On Kickstarter the project is trying to raise $40,000, and at the time of writing pledges had reached $2,100.

The funding will be used to pay the team and their regional editors, he added, as well as getting its website set up and some financial security for the first few issues.

While there is a hope that in time an enhanced tablet version of the magazine could follow, for now the team is dedicated to making print work.

"There is, inside the team, a general love of print, a belief also that print isn't dead," he said. "If you do a nice product people are still willing to buy print ... people like to have something to hold in their hand and print is still, I think, alive.

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