6B2 - Undertake research to identify and evaluate their personal and professional skills and the career or progression opportunities available to them.
Valentina Egoavil Medina: SUSPIRA Magazine:
Graduated in 2009 in Fashion Design - began working in fashion, visualising, design, etc, but eventually got burnt out and studied an MA in Fashion Journalism.
Her first creative job was in a collective called the W Project (@wproject Instagram), working unpaid on social media and as an events organiser for the collective - worked remotely.
Put together an event for W Project x Tate Exchange - published about in Ripotse Magazine.
(Video - Caryn Franklin On: Going Grey - Not A Loss To Women).
Unpaid jobs can be good sometimes to gain experience, however since she was working for free she thought that she may as well do it for herself - was always interested in print magazines and publications, which then led her to create SUSPIRA magazine.
- Look at what you are passionate and knowledgeable about.
- Monsters and classic horror (1930's - 50's).
Her job title is as the Editor and Creative Director of SUSPIRA - at first she aimed not to become a Creative Director since she thought she did not have the correct skills to become this, however realised that this job does not have to be restrictive - define your own role (easier when you work for yourself), which means you can work to your own strengths and weaknesses.
Biggest professional challenge - "paying bills without selling your soul" - as a designer she found it was hard to be paid for what you do.
Inspirations - landing on the final concept took 6 months, however she knew early on that she wanted to produced themed issues. Was always interested in horror since the age of 4, and thought that the broad nature of this genre allowed this to be possible with SUSPIRA.
- Conducted lots of research on how to tackle the magazine.
- Wanted to prove that everything has a culture (literature and art in horror - cultural values).
- A focus on female voices, wanted to show the importance of women in this genre which is thought to be typically male-orientated.
Believes it is important to show your work to peers, which allows you to balance ideas off those who understand the industry - this is valuable for the development/production of your work.
Thinks horror is underappreciated as people do not understand it fully - its not just blood and gore, it can also be comedic, satire, etc. - Valentina wants people to understand the less obvious values associated with the horror genre.
"Women in design deserve to have a platform to have their voices heard".
Work flow/process - two issues to date (The Monster Issue and The Fetish Issue).
- Lots of research was done to try and find the right visual language for the magazine - Valentina extracted classic horror elements and put these into a sophisticated design layout.
First issue took 7 months to produce, while the second issue took about 5 months.
Valentina works with a team of two graphic designers in a studio environment - believes that face-to-face contact working is generally more effective, since this allows for a faster pace and a more hands-on approach to the magazine's production, whereas working remotely becomes limited up to a certain point.
How to represent visually? (The Monster Issue) - Intuition is what drives some initial visuals for Valentina, then begins to build a case around this.
How many routes can you go down with the horror genre? - in this issue Valentina has focused on sub-themes such as mental health/demons and how to tackle these by giving them a name, fears and phobias, the evolution of the monster, how the genre of the monster is now becoming non-existent, and the relationship between the monster and the women (sexual tension, etc).
- Looking at what does the monster actually represent? E.g. the story of Frankenstein - not actually the monster, the monsters are those who killed him).
"Women are just as capable of monstrosity" - not many female monsters/characters in classic horror, which reflects the time of the stories so found it hard to find visual examples. Believes women feel as though they have to suppress parts of their personalities to act a certain way - women in horror are not as well recognised.
Will SUSPIRA always be a print magazine or is there any future of its digital development?
- The print, finishing, papers, etc all add to the experience of the magazine, its an immersive experience between the magazine and the viewer, so Valentina believes its hard to see it becoming digital in the challenge of recreating these experiences.
- Creates a consistency between all the issues, but these consistencies still allow for elements to change, e.g. accent colours, typefaces and paper stocks.
- "Consistent but different", for example, the cover of the first issue features a bitmapped (dot) design, whereas the cover of the second issue features a lined design.
The Fetish Issue (1960's - 70's horror, exploitation and erotica) - focuses on the intersection of horror and sex.
Publicising the magazine - best place to start? Mainly uses other creatives to help spread the word through social media, which allows for an exchange of promotion/return favours. Having a good network helps with this/collaboration is important.
The magazine is publicised purely through social media - doesn't advertise elsewhere.
Also submit work for awards, even if you don't win you can still gain publicity through these. Valentina is always searching for different/more engaging ways to grow interest in SUSPIRA.
Team/funding? Spoke to someone about her idea, was lucky enough to know people who could help. This shows the importance of building a network of friends/contacts.
Setbacks? Mainly with printers not finishing a job on time.
Aims to produce two issues of SUSPIRA a year.
Future of the magazine? Starting to do a test run of events (Suspira Nights). It's important to try and figure out what other things, such as with events, work with the style and themes of the magazine.
The magazine also references some contemporary films, not just classics.
Finds references and content by reaching out to loads of people, whilst people were also getting in touch with submissions to contribute to the magazine. Now, SUSPIRA has some fixed contributors.
Compromise is an important part of the production process - Valentina gets graphic designers to work out of their comfort zone, get people to think about things in a different way - its important to have trust in the people you work with for these reasons.
Future themes are usually kept undercover in order to keep these more exciting to tease people and keep the engaged with the magazine, however Valentina suggested her interest in producing a si-fi horror issue and a slasher issue.
The magazine is very niche in what it explores, however Valentina recognised that within this horror has a huge industry behind it - its also about human psychology and fear, something which we all experience, so finds people respond to this more in the magazine.
Good to let ideas sit a bit longer - no need to rush ideas and issues (incubation stage).
Creates a visual juxtaposition - presents sophistication/glamour in its design, infusing the design with more femininity as a response to the horror genre being seen as more masculine - these ideas are mainly presented through the use of photography.
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