It’s been ten years since we published a print edition of Vanity Teen. It’s said easy, but it has been a long road and a steep learning curve for both Toni and me and the great people who’ve been part of this project during these years.
By 2012 when we initially came up with the idea of going for a physical format, print magazines were seen as a relic from the past. Numerous were discontinued, and some either became fully digital or simply disappeared, so why release a print magazine?
Vanity Teen originally started as a digital magazine showcasing the work of new talents worldwide, which later became the basis for the website we currently have—we can certainly say that our magazine is a digital-native project. However, we still felt that we needed to take another step, and it was creating a print magazine.
I can say that I’m a digital native myself. I was born in an era where the Internet already existed. Computers were pretty much ordinary anywhere. At least for me, it was the standard, so I just saw magazines as something exotic and essentially as a craft from a past era.
As with any other physical format, the thing with magazines is that the experience of visualizing them is entirely different. Nowadays, we got beautiful HDR HiDPI screens that can reproduce any picture or video with super high fidelity and color accuracy. Still, the experience is much more different compared to grabbing something physical.
Magazines were always a source of inspiration and good times. I recall my earliest memories with magazines when I found an old vault of old issues of LIFE and NatGeo. I was blown away by the beautiful images and print quality. I also remember enjoying going through vintage Thrasher mags with friends as we waited for the rain to cease so we could go outdoors again.
Going through a magazine is a ritual that involves most of our senses: touch, sight, smell, and hearing, and is, in the end, the result of a carefully crafted selection of paper materials, the complex engineering behind an offset printing plant which demands highly skilled technicians and precise manipulation, cautious handling and logistical distribution, and the most fundamental part of all: the creative mind of new talents from all around the globe.
We can’t wait to continue bringing you the best contemporary and upcoming artists from different parts of the world and showcasing their work in a magazine made with the utmost care and love by and for the youth.
We’re also very enthusiastic about having had the opportunity to expand to the Chinese market, featuring some of the most important emerging and current artists from China with a carefully curated selection of images and interviews.
In an era when screens are virtually everywhere, surrounding us anywhere, disconnecting for a little while with a magazine that inspires is a privilege to have, so we hope to be here for years to come.