Ник Логан: Британдық журналист және журнал редакторының өмірі мен мансабы

British journalist and magazine editor

Nick Logan (born 3 January 1947 in Lincoln, Lincolnshire) is an English journalist, editor and publisher. Logan is best known for having founded The Face, the magazine which forged a new "lifestyle" sector in British publishing in the 1980s and 1990s. He was editor of the New Musical Express during its 1970s heyday and created a slew of other titles alongside The Face: pop fortnightly Smash Hits, men's magazines Arena, Arena Homme + and Deluxe and women's publication Frank.

One of four children born to John and Doris Logan, Nick Logan was brought up in east London neighbourhoods Leytonstone and Wanstead, and attended Leyton County High School for Boys. He married Julie Hillier (1947 2016) in October 1967, and has three children.

Logan started his career in 1963 as a reporter at the West Essex Gazette & Walthamstow Guardian series of local papers in east London, where he was given responsibility for the pop pages. "I might have interviewed the Small Faces, who lived locally, or the drummer of the Nashville Teens, but it was all minor stuff", Logan said later.

In 1967 Logan joined IPC's NME as one of five staff writers. The weekly was still reliant on the major stars of the earlier part of the decade such as the Beatles, and, as rock music supplanted pop and album sales overtook those of singles, NME lost ground to its rival Melody Maker, also published by IPC. In 1972 IPC's management promoted Logan's colleague Alan Smith to editor and Logan as assistant editor with the brief of overhauling the content and design of the publication. Together they assembled a new editorial team drawn from the ranks of the underground and independently published press, including Charles Shaar Murray from Oz and Nick Kent and Pennie Smith from Frendz. Logan assumed the editorship from Smith in 1973 at the age of 26, becoming the youngest national newspaper editor in the UK. His recruitment of the cream of young British writing talent, including Julie Burchill and Tony Parsons, resulted in the title becoming the pre eminent music weekly of the period, with sales topping 180,000 copies a week.

In 1978 Logan left the NME, determined to never again work in a corporate environment. He pitched several magazine ideas to the printing company East Midlands Allied Press, which was developing its magazine division Emap. Among these was the proposal for a colourful teenage pop monthly which was test marketed in the north east of England in the autumn of 1978 as Smash Hits. "My interest was in featuring excellent photography with song lyrics as ballast and bringing good acts like the Jam to a young audience," Logan said later. Encouraged by the test marketing exercise Emap put the first issue into national circulation; over the next couple of months sales increased to above 100,000 and the publisher reached agreement with Logan to switch to fortnightly publication. Smash Hits circulation rapidly rose to 166,000 copies, just 35,000 fewer than the NME and 10,000 more than Melody Maker, but by the autumn of 1979 Logan was ready to move on. Journalist Ian Cranna became editor and Logan, in his role as editorial director, proposed a new magazine – "a well produced, well designed and well written monthly with music at its core but with expanding coverage of the subjects that informed it, from fashion and film to nightclubbing and social issues". When Emap's directors passed on the proposal, Logan and his wife decided to go it alone and invest £3,500 savings into the new title, which he named The Face.

While Benson did not join Emap, Johnny Davis and Ashley Heath were among the team who made the transfer. In 2002 Davis was succeeded as editor by Neil Stevenson, co founder of the Popbitch gossip website. By the spring of 2004 monthly sales had slipped to 40,000 copies and Emap consumer division head Paul Keenan announced the magazine's closure. The final issue was published in May 2004.

In autumn 1986 Logan published the first issue of men's magazine Arena; he was editor, with Dylan Jones, who had previously been at i D, as assistant editor, Neville Brody as art director and Steve Taylor as contributing editor. Arena was initially a biannual before becoming a quarterly. Later it was published 10 times a year. Dylan Jones succeeded Logan as editor in 1990 and Robin Derrick became art editor. Kathryn Flett assumed the role of editor of Arena from 1992 to 1995 and was succeeded by Peter Howarth. Ekow Eshun moved across from The Face to take Howarth's place in February 1997 until the sale of Wagadon in July 1999. The last issue of Arena was published in 2009.

Pitched as "an intelligent women's magazine", Logan published the first issue of Frank in September 1997 having appointed Tina Gaudoin as editor with Lisa Markwell as deputy editor and Harriet Quick as features editor. The first issue sold 120,000 copies and Gaudoin told the trade press that the publication would "fill the niche for the disenfranchised 25 year old reader". Frank failed to gain a toehold in the highly competitive market and after staff departures and office in fighting Logan shuttered the magazine in the spring of 1999. Latterly, the magazine has been seen to have pioneered more thoughtful and unpatronising journalism for women. Writer Lou Stoppard has declared Frank "really ahead of its time".

Deluxe was conceived as a more sophisticated magazine for young men who were then being targeted with such "New Lad" titles as FHM, Loaded and Maxim, based on a proposal by Andrew Harrison, a contributor to The Face who Logan appointed editor. "Deluxe is here because a group of people got tired of being told that the same clapped out subjects were the be all and end all of men's interests," announced Harrison prior to the publication of the first issue in May 1998. Deluxe failed to achieve circulation close to the 150,000 target that had been set for it. A redesign after four issues failed to turn around its fortunes and Logan decided to close the title in December 1998 with advertising manager Rod Sopp citing lacklustre sales.

After selling Wagadon, Nick Logan retired from publishing. In 2012 he contributed the catalogue introduction to the exhibition Lloyd Johnson: The Modern Outfitter. Between 2012 and 2017 Logan worked with author Paul Gorman on his book The Story Of The Face: The Magazine That Changed Culture. In November 2017 Logan took part in the in conversation event The Story Of The Face at Central Saint Martin's, London. Logan divides his time between London and Portugal.

In 2011 DJ Giles Field donated his complete run of The Face issues to the permanent collection of London's Design Museum. In November 2017, Thames & Hudson published Paul Gorman's The Story Of The Face: The Magazine That Changed Culture, with a foreword by Dylan Jones and contributions from Nick Logan.