A short interview for Glass by me

因為功課的需要, 我要訪問一本雜誌
但對香港的垃圾雜誌沒興趣, 相信很多同學都會找牛奶或IdN
很想訪問外國雜誌, 很開心很開心Glass magazine覆了我的email, thank you the art director, Ben
分享一下吧:)

1. Can you introduce the initial concept of setting up Glass? What is the meaning of Glass?

Glass formed from the idea of creating something fresh and new – clarity and simplicity in all too often over-complicated times. We chose the name Glass because of its timeless and beautiful associations, and aimed to create a thought-provoking quarterly based on the best of creative culture today, contemporary arts and sustainable luxury.

2. Who are your target audiences? What is the core message you want to deliver to them?

Glass was aimed at people with a thirst for knowledge beyond the noise of publicity; a thinker armed with a discerning appreciation of aesthetics, artistic integrity and sustainability. The magazine is equally aimed at men and women. My aim as art director is to educate and entertain through meaningful and exciting layouts and an interesting journey through the magazine.

3. I discovered Glass contains quite many of fashion and luxury news, how many main sections in Glass magazine? and what are they?

The main sections are Style, Muse and Space.

Style – fashions, celebrities, trends

Muse – music, art and culture

Space – architecture, design, sustainable living

However, with the issue Grace we tried to break down and merge the sections – to create a more fluid journey though the magazine.

4. It seems Glass covering things from different countries, how do you find inspirations for the feature stories and editorials? Any criteria?

Each issue has a core concept that acts as a central node that influences and inspires all stories and editorials - this issue is Grace, the Beta issue was Truth. From this, ideas are generated and finally feature stories and editorials emerge. The core concept has to be carefully picked, with enough depth and breadth to inform an entire issue.

5. What are the characteristics of Glass’s layout design? How to organise the page settings and the contents?

We outlined the essence of the graphical identity as one of the early foundations for Glass. There are various key graphical and branding points that were derived from research into uses and properties of glass, e.g. lenses, stained glass, laminated glass, etc. This informed a series of ideas that creates the glass identity, down to the smallest points. A lot is down to knowing these ‘rules’ and then allowing yourself to be free and design.

6. How to choose the cover story for Glass?

The designing of Glass Issue 1 was a very fluid process. As our content was realised we just tried things out – we knew we wanted someone like Maggie Cheung, and it suddenly all fell into place with the writing of that article.

7. What is the most unique selling point of Glass that is different from other magazines? Are there any competitors?

We always wanted to create something refreshing and new, something timeless and more permanent, somewhere between a book and magazine, and form a personality of Glass that represented our principles and values. There is nothing like Glass that we know of, and I think that fact is the most unique selling point.

8. Glass is not a weekly/monthly magazine, is the production process more feasible? What is the most difficult part of making Glass?

Because Glass is quarterly it gives us time to build it from the bottom up, from the core concept right though to the finest details. We can allow the creative process to develop naturally and hopefully create something timeless that people can revisit again and again. The most difficult part is the cutting of content – we usually have too much content to go into the 240 pages and it is heartbreaking that some can’t make it in.

9. Can you share some of your experiences of working for magazines?How to collaborate with other people with different positions?

The magazine world is tough but very rewarding – being associated with a magazine can open up many doors, and everyone in the magazine has to use this cleverly if the magazine is to survive. One example is collaboration, and when in a magazine picking up that phone and making the connection with complementary people is essential. Usually collaborations occur when there is a creative vision that has to be realised!

10. Last but not least, what is Glass’s future direction or any interesting plannings?

The aim is to keep improving and innovating, loving what we do and developing – every issue is the best we can do at that particular time, and we are constantly feeding each other with knowledge and ideas for the future!

Ben Slater
Art Director
www.theglassmagazine.com