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Published by Leonardo Calcagno
Flanelle, a Montréal magazine about design, fashion and photography has recently launched its 7th issue. Printing locally and using Hewlett-Packard MagCloud web service to self-publish on demand, Flanelle is one of many independent medias around the world using this service to spread the print gospel. Interview with Sarah-Eve Leduc, founder & creative director.
Baron: What’s the story behind Flanelle?
Sarah-Eve Leduc : The idea initially started in the summer of 2012, after reading a book where the protagonist was an editor. I thought to myself that it’d be so much fun to make a book. ”Why not ? ”, I have always loved art and photography, I have a graphic design and photography background, and the thought of making a book filled with amazing images made from underground artists started to float in my head, so I just did it.
The idea of a book then shifted to making a magazine, because having interviews and stories with great images, its a great way to tell a story. I gathered a team of freelancers – designer, journalist, blogger – to start the project and it has been alive since then.
B.: How does that translate to an editorial policy?
S-E.L.: There are a bunch of artists worldwide who are amazing and well known. But there are so many of them who have yet to be discovered. What we want is to give visibility to all those musicians, photographers, designers, who are talented but are not well known….yet.
Every week on our Facebook page we have a ‘photographer of the week’, and twice a week we publish an editorial on our web-zine with interviews. It started with a few submissions a week, then a lot more in a daily basis from all over the world. Its simply amazing!
B.: Why choose print? What kind of paper do you use and why?
S-E.L.: Although we do have a web-zine and a web version of the printed magazine, I think having something that you can actually take in your hands makes it more valuable. Majority of photographers use digital cameras, designers use their computer, and we tend to forget how it used to be and how great it is to create something real. Yes, digital has saved us from all the time and expense of shooting film…But at the end it is all about quality, and not quantity.
We have two printers. One is here in Montréal, and one is worldwide and takes care of the shipping for us (Magcloud ). Magcloud is printed on paper that is FSC-certified and acid-free with HP Indigo digital presses. Local magazines are printed from Sylvestre Delasalle on Digital dull 200M ( inside ) and digital dull 12pts (cover ) on a Xerox C75 press.
B.: What has been the readers’ response?
S-E.L.: The response has been very positive. The people that follow us are all creative in a way or love beautiful things. So we kind of think alike which make it easier. We cover many areas from photography, to fashion, to music or design, which makes it easier to find readers.
B.: Good print mags get a lot of love, but this isn’t always reflected in sales or advertising. How are your sales doing? What is your advertising philosophy?
S-E.L.: This is a good point. Making prints is, indeed, expensive. But I do not want a simple ad in this magazine, I think it would ruin it as a whole and also ruin the quality we offer. What we offer to advertisers is a great way to promote yourself without having that ”AD” stamped on your forehead. Ashley, our publicist, says : ” Nowadays more than ever, it’s getting increasingly hard to get people to pay for commodities such as magazines when there is so much information available for free over the internet. However, to many, nothing compares to print. We are not simply taking pages and throwing them together- each magazine is a work of art ”
B.: Any upcoming projects?
S-E.L.: : Our next issue will be release in April 2015. It will be our 8th issue. The team will be decided by mid-october. We hope to find even more amazing people to collaborate with us ! We also wish to start make more videos for the web !