Carl's Cars
Carl's Car
A magazine about people
Features with a highly personal view and a socio-cultural presentation by renowned writers and photographers.
Oslo, Norway
Riddervoldsgt. 12, 0258
Email: karl@carls-cars.com
- Category: Cars, Cinema, Culture, Design, Fashion, Music, Photography
- Periodicity: Quarterly
- Language: English
- Format: 230 x 280 mm
- Circulation: 25,000
- Price: 69 NOK
- Web: http://www.carls-cars.com
Founded in 2001
Carl's Cars is also the first magazine which blends car culture with music, fashion, film and design. Carl's Cars is about people's creativity: All the strange things people say, all the random stuff they do, and the cars they drive. Every one of them is a friend of the magazine.
Carl's colleagues are a group of international photographers and journalists. You can read Carl's own articles in the regular columns. The small stuff is called "Carl's Smalltalk". Carl also likes to give the readers challenging assignments; check out Carl's Quiz. The thick cover of Carl's Cars should feel like a firm handshake when you pick it up to read, because Carl is a nice guy.
Carl's Cars is going to be much more than a magazine. Carl will show up in unexpected places. Eventually on TV too. On the 22nd of November 2001 Carl launched his magazine with a garage party and a not-quite-too-small international car show. It didn't go unnoticed.
Karl Eirik Haug and Stéphanie Dumont are working for Carl at Carl's Cars. The idea came from a napkin. The name Carl's Cars was written together with other suggestions for a possible magazine about car culture. The people who sat around the table voted for Carl's Cars. Now the napkin is gone and the magazine is a reality.
Do you park your car in front of your fireplace? Or on the pink wall-to-wall carpeting in your bedroom? Then Carl would like to speak with you. Maybe you'll be in the magazine.
Interviews with musicians, film-makers, artists and othes about their
relation to car culture and related subjects
Exclusive Interview
Carl*s Cars
What is your magazine about?
Carl's cars tries to capture that special mood when you drive without a purpose. Carl's cars is about people and cars in popular culture, design and art. Our readers get introduced to a well-respected musician or painter as much as a factory employee at Mini or a parking lot boy.
Who’s behind the project? Tell us about the founders, their backgrounds and their motivations!
Stéphanie Dumont has been awarded regularly internationally for her art direction before joining Karl Eirik Haug, a journalist, to start Carl's cars in 2001. Although Carl's cars is our main activity we continue to be part of other projects, like Stéphanies art exhibition at Galleri Riis in Oslo.
How do you produce one issue? How much time do you spend on it? How big is your team?
Carl's Cars is a small and efficient team working with the magazine every day all year: The last month prior to printing we also work night shift. Over the 7 years since the launch there have been growth everywhere except for the green plants in the office window.
What have been the important steps in the life of your magazine?
Among the awards that have helped us getting attention and credibility, the 2006 gold award at The society of Publication Designers was most welcome, but also the recent 2008 D&AD magazine award where we again competed with the world's most respected titles.
Which are the key ingredients for the success of your magazine?
It depends on how you measure success: Carl's Cars is a personal project that is not just another job. We wake up in the morning happy to know that we have a very loyal readership who appreciate what we are trying to create.
What are the difficulties you are confronted with? What would be “the” thing to help the magazine to improve?
We never went to any meeting with investors as we do know it will shrink our freedom to be tied up financially, but there is no doubt a serious investor would help bringing the magazine's organization further.
Where do you want the magazine to be in five years?
We would like it to retain its individuality and one-of-a-kindness: at the same time we would like to see the magazine grow into a bigger company where the boring parts of running a place are taken care of.
Tell us about your audience! Who are the readers of your magazine?
Our typical reader is half man, half woman - the type who can smile while watching a movie when no other people are smiling. Our reader is into both art and popular culture curiosities, and they are intelligent enough to understand they should read the newspaper in addition to Carl's cars.
Is remaining independent important to you? Is it part of the strategy?
Independent in the spirit is crucial, if not we could take any job.
What’s your relationship with advertisement? Does it influence your content? Do you care about advertising-driven-editorials?
We don't do advertorials, but we do admit advertising is an important part of the magazine, content-wise and visually. We like brands who keep an open and independent attitude like us, and it makes it easy to collaborate.
What do you think of your issue 01, when you look back at it?
Issue 1 was fun to make because we had a quite clear idea of a tone of voice. When it hit the street the reactions were surprisingly close to what we wanted to express. The themes were not news-related,so it should be possible to hand it out today and say it is fresh from the printers.
Magazine favorite(s) that inspired you in your career.
40 years ago magazines like Vogue, Nova, Esquire, Playboy renewed art direction in a bold and elegant way. Now Music magazines like Wire and outdoor titles like Huck put some new life into photography and layout. Unfortunately, the most interesting interior magazine ever, Nest, is closed down. We miss their unique stories, like those from prisons for women.
Do you keep old copies of magazines? If so, what is your favorite in your collection?
The Nest issue with cat sand glued to its cover is a killer. In addition mostly all French magazines from the 60s are able to make one happy.
How many magazines do you buy / get / read each month? Do you qualify yourself a maniac?
We always spend a lot of time in magazine shops around the world. We walk in the door and stay there for an hour. Now there are also many interesting magazines on the net that we follow daily, like nymag.com.
We are compiling answers from some of the most innovative magazine makers around the world today. Who else should we ask?
It seems the ones we like are already taken care of, and that makes us happy.
Answered by Stéphanie Dumont-Haug (Creative Director)
Magazine: Carl*s Cars
Email: stephanie@carls-cars.com
Date: 15-10-2008
Publisher
Carl's Car
- 2044
- 5180
- 2482
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