BoSacks Speaks Out: Magazines as Maps, and the Geography of Print

This morning at Wegman’s, tucked between the greeting cards and the batteries, I spotted a stack of printed maps. Not novelty items. Not clearance-bin nostalgia. Just quietly available, waiting to be useful. And it hit me: magazines are maps. Not of terrain, but of taste, identity, and cultural curiosity.

For centuries, maps guided armies, explorers, and road-trippers. They offered orientation, scale, and possibility. Magazines have done the same for the mind. They’ve charted obsessions, documented subcultures, and offered coordinates for belonging. In 2025, the best magazines aren’t just publications. They’re cartographic instruments, tools for navigating the emotional and intellectual topography of our time.

The Ancient Art of Mapping Territory and Taste

The history of printed maps mirrors the evolution of magazines in uncanny ways. Gutenberg’s press didn’t just birth Bibles, it gave us atlases. By the late 1400s, Ptolemy’s Geography was being reproduced across Europe, democratizing navigation just as magazines would later democratize culture.

During the golden age of cartography (roughly 1570 to 1670), mapmakers like Ortelius and Mercator transformed navigation from guild secret to public knowledge. Their atlases weren’t just functional. They were aspirational. Sound familiar? Like magazines, these maps declared not just where you could go, but who you were for wanting to go there.

Maps and magazines both ask the same question: Where are you, and where are you going?

Magazines as Instruments of Orientation

A good magazine doesn’t just inform. It locates you. It says: here’s what matters, here’s what’s shifting, here’s what’s worth your attention. Whether it’s The New Yorker sketching the contours of urban intellect, The Atlantic mapping ideological fault lines, or Selvedge tracing the texture of textile heritage, magazines offer orientation in a disorienting world.

This echoes the great age of exploration. When Captain Cook’s voyages were charted in the 1770s, those maps didn’t just show coastlines. They revealed new possibilities for identity. You could be an armchair explorer simply by owning the charts. Magazines work the same way today. They let you inhabit worlds you’ve never visited.

Digital feeds may be faster, but they’re rarely coherent. Magazines, by contrast, are curated. They offer a wide-angle view without the algorithmic fog. Like a printed map, they don’t update every second, but they don’t vanish when the battery dies either. They persist. They guide.

Maps as Memory, Myth, and Meaning

In the 18th and 19th centuries, maps became deeply personal. The British Ordnance Survey, commissioned in 1791, gave official form to local landscapes. Suddenly, your neighborhood had documented significance. These weren’t just tools. They were proof that your place mattered.

Maps are declarations. A framed map of Paris says you’ve been there or dream of going. A trail map taped to the garage wall says: I climbed this. I endured this. I returned. Maps hold memory. They mark experience.

Magazines do the same. A copy of Life from 1968. A dog-eared Rolling Stone from your college years. A pristine issue of Apartamento on your shelf. These aren’t just objects. They’re proof of presence. They say: I was here. I cared about this. I belonged to this moment.

Both maps and magazines are narrative tools. They don’t just show where you are. They show who you are.

From Mass Production to Artisanal Revival

The industrial revolution turned maps and magazines into mass commodities. By the 1880s, Rand McNally was printing millions of road atlases. Harper’s and The Atlantic Monthly reached hundreds of thousands of readers. Standardization ruled. Distribution scaled. Pricing dropped.

But something was lost. The hand-drawn detail of maritime charts. The personal touch of local printers. The sense that each copy was crafted, not manufactured.

Artifacts of Craft and Intentionality

Today’s best magazines are made with the same care as artisanal maps. Just as cartographers like David Imus and Nathaniel Kelso produce museum-quality maps with custom projections and archival inks, independent publishers are rediscovering the power of physical craft.

Typography matters. Paper stock matters. The pacing of the layout, the rhythm of the headlines, the weight of the cover, none of it is accidental.

Publishers like Cabinet, Kinfolk, and The Gentlewoman aren’t chasing mass utility. They’re crafting experiences. These titles are designed to be kept, revisited, and displayed. They’re not disposable. They’re directional.

Printed maps have followed suit. Specialty cartographers now produce limited-edition maps that belong in galleries, not gloveboxes. These are cultural artifacts. They’re built to last.

The Digital Disruption and Renaissance

When GPS arrived in the 1990s, experts predicted the death of printed maps. Smartphones made that prediction feel inevitable. But folded atlases didn’t vanish. They transformed. Today’s printed maps serve new roles: wall art, emergency backup, tactile pleasure. They’ve moved upmarket. They’ve become beautiful.

Magazines are following the same path. Digital media handles the churn. Print handles the meaning. The best magazines aren’t trying to keep up. They’re trying to stand out.

The BoSacks Bottom Line

Magaines are maps. Not of roads, but of relevance. They chart the contours of culture, the boundaries of taste, and the coordinates of curiosity. Like printed maps, they’ve moved from mass production to curated permanence. From gloveboxes to galleries. From checkout lines to coffee tables.

The parallel isn’t poetic. It’s historical. Both maps and magazines emerged from the same printing revolution. Both democratized knowledge. Both became mass commodities, then cultural artifacts. Both faced digital disruption, then found renewed purpose through craft and curation.

Maps didn’t die when GPS arrived. They adapted. They became intentional. They became beautiful. The same is true for magazines. Utility alone can’t compete with digital, but meaning can. Tactility can. Trust can.

So next time someone tells you print is obsolete, hand them a folded map and a well-made magazine. Then tell them to find themselves. Literally.