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Distill

Distill

Cover January 2009

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Clodagh Walsh - Commercial Director Tel: +44 (0)207 148 3483 Mobile: +44 (0)7854 171092 clodagh@craftpublishing.com

Craft Publishing Ltd

A digest magazine that showcases the best of the international fashion and style press.

London, UK

16-24 Underwood St, N1 7JQ

Email: contact@craftpublishing.com

Category: Fashion
Periodicity: Bimontly
Language: English
Format: 210 x 290 mm
Circulation: 84,500 copies
Price: £ 4.50
Web: http://www.distilldigital.com

Founded in September 2008

Exclusive Interview

Distill

What is your magazine about?
Distill sets out to provide inspiration for leading creative professionals in the work and everyday lives. Distill is a digest of the most exciting and fabulous fashion and style editorial from the worlds best magazines - from leading newsstand titles to the smallest independents. Everybody gets it just right now and again and when they do we want to show people.

Who’s behind the project? Tell us about the founders, their backgrounds and their motivations!
The project was my idea - Having been lucky enough to have senior roles at Wallpaper, Dazed and Another to name but a few, I am obsessed with magazines but wanted to do something different. My real interest lies in the minds of the Creative Elite, how they work and what excites them. With Distill I wanted to bring together, make sense of and shout about the wealth of creativity that exists in the independent magazine market. I was lucky enough to persuade Colin McDowell to join me as Editor in Chief and we set about creating our high profile selection committee that now includes people as infamous as John Galliano, Stefano Pilati, Matthew Williamson, Giles Deacon, Donatella Versace, Manolo Blahnik, Tom Dixon and many other fabulous people that help us to chose the finest stories and comment on their significance creatively and as inspiration.

How do you produce one issue? How much time do you spend on it? How big is your team?
The team isn't huge but relies upon essential input from all involved. We usually spend about 2 months all in, from early selection through to full clearance and then the editorial elements around the selected work and design and pre press.

What have been the important steps in the life of your magazine?
We are still early on in our life but I would say that much more goes into the concepting, team building and raising finance than most people realise before we have even contemplated the creation of a single page.

Which are the key ingredients for the success of your magazine?
The continued brilliance of magazine and fashion creatives around the world. A template that is honest to the work - an kind of curated exhibition in print. The insight of our Editorial Board (selection committee) and a lot of love and attention to detail.

What are the difficulties you are confronted with? What would be “the” thing to help the magazine to improve?
In our case persuading people to let us have clearance to showcase their work - but this is easier now that the project has credibility and we have proved that we are not stealing their work for our gain. Now that we have got the formula right for selection and presentation of the work I think "the" thing will be learning how we can add our own relevant editorial that really makes sense of and adds an additional layer of interest to our creative consumers.

Where do you want the magazine to be in five years?
On the desks and neatly collected into the bookshelves at home of the greatest designers, architects, photographers, stylists, editors, film makers etc past and present - not to mention torn to bits by every student on every creative course in every city and regurgitated into their coursework.

Tell us about your audience! Who are the readers of your magazine?
They are creative professionals of all shapes and sizes in the worlds key creative hubs. They represent the single fastest growing sector of the global economy and our changing the world with fresh attitudes to work, lifestyle, uniform - more defined by their music than their age and sex.

Is remaining independent important to you? Is it part of the strategy?
Staying true to the mission is the strategy - if our corporate status changes due to necessity or fashion then so be it.

What’s your relationship with advertisement? Does it influence your content? Do you care about advertising-driven-editorials?
I come from a commercial background so appreciate the importance of advertising and commercial revenues. There is a time and place for all kinds of balance between completely independent editorial and highly sophisticated advertorial. I am sure that Distill will continue to retain its editorial independence, but as a title we are not against working with commercial brands to create intelligent and directional editorial that labelled and positioned appropriately can change they way a brand can be perceived.

What do you think of your issue 01, when you look back at it?
It was a solid start and as first issues go not embarrassing - I kind of wish we hadn't allowed a client to buy the gold swash at the bottom - but the clever mix of gold and silver made a very pretty shiny 'blonde' gold that printed well as a fifth.

Magazine favorite(s) that inspired you in your career.
Too many to write.

Do you keep old copies of magazines? If so, what is your favorite in your collection?
I had literally stacks of them from all over the world but when we had our second child gave into the pressure and culled them by about 75%. I have collected every issue of every magazine I have ever worked on and research around them - this is now also getting slightly ridiculous. When we were launching Dazed Japan back in 2000 we had a lot of Japanese magazines in the office as research - I kept a lot of them and as a mini collection often look at and enjoy them.

How many magazines do you buy / get / read each month? Do you qualify yourself a maniac?
If you have read this far you will know what Distill does - we get i would say 75% of the worlds leading independent and mainstream fashion and style magazines into the office whenever they come out - I don't spend as much time with them all as I used to but would say I at least flick through every single copy.

We are compiling answers from some of the most innovative magazine makers around the world today. Who else should we ask?
There are so many innovative magazine makers out there that it is difficult to be specific but if asked which magazines are likely to become legends over the longer term I would single out Lula, Acne Paper, Hercules, WAD and and and......

Answered by Christopher Lockwood (Creative & Publishing Director) Magazine: Distill Magazine Email: christopher@craftpublishing.com Date: 17-02-2009