Hurrah for publishers doing new and interesting things with print. Such moves, like the recent Wired* bespoke covers project, are to be celebrated.

Now swish lifestyle magazine Monocle is doing its bit with the launch of a new summer 'newspaper'. Monocle Mediterraneo is a 64pp A3-plus format publication, printed on 100% recycled improved newsprint type of stock.

In keeping with everything in the Monocle world it looks super, of course. The print run was 70,000 and it's on sale in selected locations around the Med, and beyond, where Monocle readers can be found sunning themselves and looking suitably stylish over the summer. The one-off print product is teamed with a weekly audio broadcast, too.  

Love this quote about the launch by Monocle founder and editor-in-chief Tyler Brûlé: "There's a huge amount of talk about the death of print, thanks to various types of 'pad' devices, but if you think of summer - with sand, swimming, sun cream and socialising - a carefully crafted newspaper is more useful and reader-friendly than a backlit screen that hates the sun and salt."

Rah to that. The cover also includes the strapline "a completely sun, water, tanning oil and sweat-friendly print media product from the editors of Monocle". Water-friendly may be pushing it a tad, but I won't quibble.

Content-wise it also includes paens to the beauty of business cards produced using letterpress; and the joys of proper printed postcards so my print cup runneth over.

And 'rah too for Stones the Printers, who printed it. Nice job.