Dead print titles are starting to breathe again. Conde Nast has just relaunched its glossy food magazine Gourmet, which it closed last Autumn, as app called Gourmet Live and says that other titles that have recently been axed could follow.

Okay, so Gourmet hasn’t returned as a “magazine”: it’s now an “immersive and interactive content experience”. That basically means it has no staff and there don’t appear to be plans to produce new content. Rather it is about taking advantage of all those words and images that already exist and reinventing it — or “reimagining”as Conde Nast would have it.

The Gourmet Live app will bring together articles, tasty menus, photos and videos in an app that will be available not only for Apple’s iPad and iPhone, but for Google’s Android, Blackberry as well as other mobile platforms.

Charles Townsend, President and CEO of said that other magazines closed at the height of the recession could also make a similar return as that being enjoyed by Gourmet.

The closure of Gourmet in October after 58 years came as part of a Conde Nast company wide cull that claimed 180 jobs and also saw parenting magazine Cookie and the wedding publications Elegant Bride and Modern Bride shut.

Earlier last year Conde Nast closed shopping and decorating magazine Domino, which Townsend said had “real legs” in terms of a possible digital return.

Gourmet Live has been launched in collaboration with strategy and tech consulting firm Activate, which is run by Michael Wolf and Anil Dash. Wolf is a former MTV executive and media consultant at Booz Allen and McKinsey while Dash has blogged for more than a decade and a former VP at Six Apart.

They were tasked with relaunching Gourmet and specifically by taking advantage of its content catalogue and without need to produce more content.

According to Townsend: “We came up with a product that reimagines Gourmet and revalues engagement. We are extremely pleased with the magazine apps we have developed as part of our R&D efforts, however Gourmet Live is profoundly different. We approached this like a tech company, utilizing the rich assets of a media company, keeping Condé Nast at the forefront of content innovation.”

He added that while he can see many of the 5.5 million former Gourmet readers enjoying the product he sees it reaching out to a new generation of users who recognize the brand and appreciate food and social media.

Robert Sauerberg, group president, Condé Nast Consumer Marketing said that the magazine firm would rely heavily on analytics to quickly make changes and modify business models based on consumer usage.