Famous
Famous wants to be theoretical and practical, intimate and mundane.
Paris, France
14 rue Therese, 75001
Email: talk@tsunami-addiction.com
- Category: Art, Visual Art
- Periodicity: Quarterly
- Language: French / English
- Format: Variable
- Circulation: 10,000
- Price: 7.50 €
- Web: http://www.tsunami-addiction.com
Founded in 2004
The primer concept of Famous was that of an entirely white magazine, empty, devoid of any visual representation. Only names, of real or virtual "anti-contributors", would have come to the light of such an immaculate matter.
Thereafter, Famous became a polymorphous magazine, with fluctuation directive lines and variable contents. Dissolving subjective identities on behalf of the purpose, Famous can also take the decision to use star system's codes in order to have diverse individualities emerge. Famous wants to be theoretical and practical, intimate and mundane.
Famous was a fanzine support, born in march 2002 for the in-shop session in Paris,
to illustrate what Tsunami-Addiction's people were selling. It works with theme,
but in this theme it will embrace all artistic fields around music, fashion, art etc…
Exclusive Interview
The difficulty is to create a good content, and the most difficult thing is TIME
What is your magazine about?
Famous magazine is following a special theme for each issue, so it really depends on our mood, and inspiration.
Who’s behind the project? Tell us about the founders, their backgrounds and their motivations!
Editor in Chief : Gloria Pedemonte aka Reiko Underwater
Art Direction : Benoit from EVENT10
At the begining I came up with the idea of doing a fanzine, like a catalog of what we were selling in our ephemeral shop called in-shop.
I did it myself, hand-made, with a friend, Hypo. We were doing a 100 copies, and gave it away during the in-shop. But the graphical part was really weird as I’m not a graphic designer.
Then for the second issue I’ve asked to another friend, Martin Krutzki, do make the art direction, it was better, but still hand-made.
Then for the third issue, I’ve met Benoit from Event10, and we had an artistic crush on each other, like he exactly understood my realm, and intentions, and vise versa , and then we created a team on Famous. He is the art director and i’m the editor in chief, taking care of the contents. We get along very well, we’re in the same realm.
How do you produce one issue? How much time do you spend on it? How big is your team?
As we work on a special theme for each issue, when we agree for a theme, then we send it to people / targetted contributors.
We spend a lot of time on it but it’s really random, cause we both have different other projects going on.
Our team is 2 people. Then Sophie our Publisher, then people who contribute. It depends on each issue.
What have been the important steps in the life of your magazine?
Meeting Benoit / Event10, to establish an art direction inside the magazine.
Meeting Sophie Mörner, from Capricious, our Publisher, who enabled us to print our fanzine into a real magazine, and make our dream comes true in terms of quality.
Which are the key incredients for the success of your magazine?
To evolve in different realms and spaces, to not establish our magazine into cells, to let it go free as inspiration, and try to evolve in a very crowded area, make our small space in this magazines world. It’s very hard nowadays to appeal interest with independent culture, and mostly in France, where independent culture is dying because of the economic system. Independent culture doesn’t make anymore interest for the readers. But I think we have to keep going through this. And hopefully our publisher believes in it, and it’s the most important thing.
What are the difficulties you are confronted with? What would be “the” thing to help the magazine to improve?
The difficulty is to create a good content, and the most difficult thing is TIME, cause we don’t work on Famous day by day, we give it small time cause we have a lot of different projects to take care of, and of course, it’s something about the money.
Find time.
To improve the magazine ? I think we would need to have a bigger team, and to have a bigger team, is to have a little money to give to them, which we don’t have for the moment.
Where do you want the magazine to be in five years?
We would like to have a magazine more constant, with a real distribution, and have developped a real team.
Tell us about your audience! Who are the readers of your magazine?
Our audience is mostly graphic designer, photographer, and people interested in independent culture. Average age 20-40
Is remaining independent important to you? Is it part of the strategy?
Yes it is more than important, it’s crucial for our goal to exist.
What’s your relationship with advertisement? Does it influence your content? Do you care about advertising-driven-editorials?
For the moment we don’t have any ads in our magazine exept from our friends.
The thing which is strange, is that if you don’t have nowadays advertisements in your magazine, people (bookstores, distributors) don’t take you seriously. We have the chance to have a publisher who doesn’t push us to find ads in our magazine, which is completely amazing and strong ! and keep us independent from big companies. But now the question that we think about is : maybe we need ads in our magazine, to be taken seriously by distributors and bookstores, which is completely insane in my opinion. Distributors, bookstores or others, should support magazines like us. But now we need to find support from brands, which is also weird.
Do you think that magazine readers still need to watch TV?
It doesn’t really matter. It depends only on the way you are watching tv, and the same as the way you’re reading a magazine.
Which is your relationship with your printer? Does he play a main role in your development?
Yes of course, the printer has to understand where you want to go with the print of your magazine. It’s really important.
Which magazines did influence you most? What are you looking for in other magazines?
I don’t know. I like a lot of magazines, but i’m not sure to get inspirated by some of them ?
What do you think of your issue 01, when you look back at it?
It’s funny, completely hand made, and not well done. It’s just clumsy, but I like it always, reminding me our first goals.
What question did you never ask in your magazine but would have liked to?
I think I would have liked to turn it more into politics. But I will.
How many magazines do you buy / get / read each month? Do you qualify yourself a maniac?
No maniac at all. It depends really. I don’t buy so much magazine, but more theorical books.
E-mail interview from “12.9.2006”. © Colophon2007.com – Mike Koedinger Editions SA (Luxembourg)
Staff
Editor in chief: Reiko Underwater...
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