The writing is on the wall for print advertising. Print media buys go down every year, while online ad buys double. That’s why it’s surprising that “don’t call it a phone” handset manufacturer and phone network Helio has decided to launch its own magazine. Even more surprising is that it’s pretty good.

Helio Magazine is 6×9, about 56 pages, and beautifully printed on matte paper. It focuses on entertainment, art, music, and movies, with a decidedly hipster vibe. Many projects like this would feel inauthentic – middle aged ad execs trying to talk like tweeners. But Helio’s triumph is that they pull it off. Credit probably goes to the magazine’s LA-based publisher, StreetVirus.

The magazine is distributed free, and you can’t subscribe, so you just have to luck into it. I recently found issue 6 (Fall 2007) in a local cafe in San Francisco. The cover by artist Mark Ryden immediately grabbed me, and the interview with him was a highlight of the issue for me.

But it’s hard to think about Helio Magazine without thinking about advertising. This issue has no advertisements (past issues have, which felt weird). Indeed, the whole magazine is an advertisement for Helio. But it’s subtle. The articles don’t ever mention Helio directly – a good thing, too, because I’d have thrown the thing away the moment they asked Ryden, “So, what do you love about your Helio?”

The issue is peppered with art – some really incredible, some just meh – by Otis School of Design students in what the magazine describes as an “art/ad collaboration.” It is only in these pieces that the Helio logo even appears. A pessimist would call this sneaky, but I found it playful. Most brands would not allow their logo to appear in the eye holes of a skull, or as a set of pasties on a fluorescent nude.

Low points in this issue: a story on Katamari Damacy which is about three years past its prime; a story on emoticons that reads like a high school final (the lede: “The 21st Century has been marked, perhaps most resonantly, by the incestuous intertwining of social communi….” Zzzzz.); and a photo essay that screams out “what were they thinking?” even in the bizarre world of fashion.

Even with its flaws, Helio Magazine is an interesting experiment. It shows what can happen when a company loves its audience more than its logo. If nothing else, it’s a beautiful page-flipper, and worth exactly as much as you paid for it.

Further Reading: Check out more photos of Helio Magazine Issue 6 or download PDFs of issues 4 and 5.