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Gym Class Magazine is establishing itself as an essential for anyone interested in independent magazines. Every issue features well-chosen interviews and pieces about the scene, as well as other more tangential pieces (in this case Mystery Jets).

Issue 6 continues its tour of formats. What started as a small-format black and white and became a taboid black and whites now turns up as a mid-sized colour glossy. So glossy in fact that the cover is almost impossible to photograph. The example above is the limited edition pink version – most copies have a high-gloss black background.

Art director Andrew Diprose (The Ride Journal, Wired) is interviewed about his love of cycling, and offers the above rallying call for magazine makers.

There’s also a timely Q&A with Clara Montagut, art director of Spanish Esquire. Their covers have been attracting much attention recently, not least here, and the above selection shows why.

Editor of The Gentlewoman Penny Martin and 032c’s Joerg Koch are also interviewed in the issue.

If you love magazines – and if you’ve come this far I think that can be taken for granted – this is a must-have both for itself as a magazine and for its content. It’s great to see a small project grow issue by issue and show such ambition.

Meanwhile we shall express our darker purpose.Give me the map there. Know that we have dividedIn three our kingdom: and ’tis our fast intentTo shake all cares and business from our age;Conferring them on younger strenghts, while weUnburthen’d crawl toward death.The Dead Photos by Tom Phillips.