David McKendrick spent nearly twenty years art directing magazines for other people — including a multi-award-winning stint as creative director at British Esquire — before the relentless doom of 2020 pushed him to make his own. The co-founder of London design studio BAM drew up a wish list of accomplished writers, photographers, and artists, got on the phone in an old-fashioned way, offered everyone the same flat fee of £150, and asked a single open brief: make something that feels like good news. To his surprise, everyone said yes. PAPERBOY launched in 2021 with a tagline that doubled as a mission statement: delivering only good news.
The format is deliberately unpretentious — a publication you can roll up and stick in your pocket, designed to be read and used, not displayed. But the contents are anything but disposable. Each issue pairs world-renowned contributors with high school students and undergraduates, giving them equal billing on the page. A student's illustration sits beside an essay by an established writer; a teenager's photography faces a commission by a veteran art director. McKendrick, who grew up delivering Glasgow's Evening Times after school, treats the pairing as the magazine's engine: accomplished and emerging talents creating unexpected visual conversations, with no hierarchy between them. Bound into each issue is a book of stamps, so readers can post the magazine forward to someone else once they've finished it.
Eight issues have been published so far, each thickening the magazine's identity. The Scottish Issue wrapped everything in tartan and featured the world's strongest men and chef Jeremy Lee on his treasured possessions. The magazine is distributed by Antenne Books and covered by MagCulture and It's Nice That. McKendrick, who was made an Honorary Doctor of Design at Southampton Solent University in 2015, also teaches at Glasgow School of Art and Bath School of Art — which explains why PAPERBOY treats emerging talent not as a token gesture but as the entire point.
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