a book about a magazine about coming of age alexandra citrin mfa illustration practice 2014 maryland institute college of art dissertation
“have you thought about doing an online magazine instead of dealing with print?� (almost everyone)
I II
intro projected goals
III
writers
IV
artists
V VI
art direction case studies funding
VII
web + media presence
VIII
printing + publishing
IX
contracts
XI
the future
welcome to my master's thesis
(that's me, Alex)
I applied to graduate school for the most mundane of reasons: to enhance my craft, to become part of a community, to obtain my master’s degree so I could teach college and perhaps enjoy the benefits of a steady paycheck while continuing to work as a freelance illustrator… the lattermost I had been doing fulltime since graduating from Skidmore College in 2009, along with a string of design-related art department gigs in New York City that left me feeling jaded and burnt out at twenty-four years old. Now that I’ve reached the end of my tenure at MICA, I can say definitively that I got everything I initially set out for — I’m certainly a stronger illustrator, wholly due to the incredible professors and fellow studio-mates I’ve been so lucky to work with these past two years. I also feel so blissfully and wholly ingrained within the MICA graduate community that my initial distaste for academia has
all but vanished. And, unless I’m expelled in the next two weeks, I will be qualified to teach college-level studio courses once I’m declared an officially sanctioned Master of Fine Arts. All of this is great. I’ve never felt more creatively fulfilled in my life, and that alone would be enough. However, I could not have anticipated the deep and permanent change in my own illustration practice that would take place during my time here. Approximately halfway through my first year in the aptly-named Illustration Practice program, there was a shift. No MFA program would be worth it’s weight without fellow candidates to critique with, both formally and informally. I doled out as many informal critiques as those I asked for, but eventually this ratio began to tip. I began to care more about communicating with and helping other illustrators produce their strongest work than even working on my own illustrations. Slowly, I realized that my true strength, or at least my true
interest, is art direction, and that I could use my skills as an illustrator to inform this new pursuit. Until Now was born out of this revelation. Print publishing is currently in flux. There is the breakneck pace of the internet, a constant influx of new technology, and the way in which most people absorb visual content and information has dramatically changed in the past ten years. That said, a veritable cottage industry of beautifully produced independent magazines has sprung up around the alleged digitization of all media, perhaps partially as a reactive response — I wanted in. I love print and have a background in design, so producing a magazine appealed to me organically. I chose a topic that’s I've always found particularly intriguing, coming of age, and I simply ran with it. My idea was met mostly with support, if not slight bemusement. Why
go through the trouble of doing print? It’s expensive, it’s a headache, it’s gutwrenchingly permanent. But I wanted to produce something a person could hold, an object of tangible value that enhanced the impact of the content within its pages. This is, after all, a magazine about people’s pasts. The past may be static but the stories it provides are fluid and never dated, as it is already past due. A thing like that, it needs to live on a bookshelf, on your coffee table, and in your arms, not behind a computer screen. Throughout this “book about a magazine” I’ve detailed my process, covering everything from barcodes to printing to design. Ultimately, though, Until Now was an experiment in what to do with my gut instinct about art direction. I took everything I’d learned from my professional work life, my undergraduate degree in design, and my practice as an illustrator and combined it. I wanted to see if I could effectively
art direct illustrators from concept to completion and, if so, might I become sick of it. While I can only present Until Now as a means by which to judge my art directing ability, I can say for certain that I feel I’ve found that one thing I’m supposed to be doing, and now I just want to do it all the time. For this, I can only credit everyone in my graduating year from the Illustration Practice program for being the catalyst, for switching the light on in my brain. Had I not been surrounded by such diverse and unbelievably strong talent, I may not have ever put the pieces together.
alexandra citrin
The dichotomy between the reality of growing up versus what it means to grow up is fascinating. There is a cultural nostalgia ascribed to the idea of coming of age that skews either overlyromantic or painfully overwrought. In actuality, like so many things, the process of coming of age could probably be distilled into a few select moments in time (romantic, overwrought, or otherwise) linked by stretches of relatively mundane weeks just trying to make it through school or work or the people and places that make up a life. In here you'll find those moments in a series of essays, fiction, and illustrations from forty-two writers and artists who responded to the prompt "coming of age." It's not hip to do an editor's letter. Believe me, I rifled through hundreds of independently published, limited-edition matte paper lifestyle and literary quarterlies throughout the production of this publication and most do not have an editor's letter. Perhaps editor's letters are the bastion of the old guard, our editor forbearers who spent forty years in the industry and are (a certain kind of) household names in their own right. The non-specific omnipresent voice is both comforting and dissociative, and for those reasons I've been known to use it myself from time to time in regards to Until Now. But in print and in truth this publication is quite personal to me and hopefully to others. In February 2013 I was in graduate school at the Maryland Institute College of Art trying to generate an idea for my master's thesis, which by definition is simply a theory you attempt to prove is true. I wanted to prove that as an illustrator I could sufficiently (and joyfully) operate as an art director, working with other illustrators to produce work we both felt to be relevant, dynamic, and beautiful. What became of this idea is so much more than what I initially set out to do, and what you now hold in your hands is the result of many, many moving parts; the forty-two razor sharp and impassioned contributing artists and writers featured in this issue, my graduate
school colleagues, professors, and studio mates who patiently listened to my endless rambling about the who and what of this whole operation, plus a few tenacious voluntary editorial assistants without whom I could not have functioned. Every step of this process began with a series of questions and anxiety-induced inner monologues simply hinging on my own experiences as an illustrator, writer, and various levels of art department cog. What came of all this was the discovery that perhaps it is sometimes better not to know what you are getting yourself into at first, but to let the project take over, to let your priorities shuffle around organically until whatever it is you have set out to produce takes on a life of its own. This realization has fortunately provided me with a pretty convenient metaphor for coming of age which, in many ways, making this magazine has been for me in its completion. Of course, the business of coming of age never really plateaus, as there is no age (16, 18, 21, 25, 30, 40…) or arbitrary life event (menstruation, graduation, first job, first marriage, first divorce) by which to scientifically pinpoint the exact moment we learn whatever wise lesson is supposed to carry us gracefully through the years with the ease of what a child might believe an adult existence to be. But Until Now isn’t about wisdom or grace. It’s not about an endpoint and it’s certainly not advice — this is simply a time capsule. ~AC
Editor's letter from Issue #1 of Until Now magazine
but really this is the most important thing to me
goals i sought to achieve
Produce a real magazine, complete with appropriate production value for the medium Take the proper steps to insure the magazine's eventual distribution in bookstores Use my experience as an illustrator to art direct other illustrators Use my professional experience to produce every element of the magazine itself Keep over forty contributing writers and artists happy, engaged, and feeling respected Establish a sustainable enough business practice to ensure the potential future of the publication
I decided early on that the contributing writers to Until Now must be professional working writers, figuring this requirement would (likely) ensure minimal complications. As it turns out, I was pretty much correct in this assumption; with the exception of one person, every writer made his or her deadline promptly enough to provide me with ample time to brainstorm with the illustrators and art direct accordingly without needing to fuss over multiple rounds of editing with the writers (they are personal essays, after all). The one exception was a writer who sent her essay in a week before the print deadline. Having known this might happen, I produced a simple and highlyeditable layout for this one particular essay and took it upon myself to do the illustrations, as to not risk inconveniencing or upsetting any contributing artists with a rush deadline.
professional writer previously unpublished previously unpublished in the united states
until now writers
Annie Kreighbaum, senior beauty editor at Into The Gloss
Maria Passarivaki, editor at Ignant (Berlin)
Joe Ahearn, co-founder of Silent Barn (NYC), curator at the Clocktower Gallery
Doree Shafrir, managing editor at Buzzfeed
Alexandra Schwartz, staff writer at The New Yorker Gillian Reagan, editor at Capital New York Michael Sheffield, editor at The Village Voice Colin Lord, copywriter at Droga5 Vivek Nemana, stringer for The New York Times Shannon Hassett, freelance writer Carrie Battan, staff writer at Pitchfork Daniel D’Addario, culture reporter for Salon
Tom Haviv, freelance writer Lola Pellegrino, staff writer at Rookie Will Carlisle, copywriter at Colossal Media Charlotte Lewis, television writer for Warner Brothers Daniel Kraines, poet David Stern, writer and musician Emily Thompson, editor at The Le Sigh Christopher Sullivan, playwright and copywriter for MTV
(L to R) Lisk Feng Rand Renfrow Yelena Brysenkova
Dave Singley Sarah Jacoby Caleb Luke Lin
Nicolet Schenck Alex Citrin Maily Degnan
Valeria Molinari Rob Young
sts
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unti
arti now
(R to L) Billy Burkert Laura Callaghan Lisa Perrin
Jun Cen Greg Kletsel Angela Dalinger
Jordan Sondler Kevin Valente Lizzie Gill
Jonny Negron Will Laren
case study #1: yelena
case study #2: greg
Distorted screams through a cell phone
Disollution Days
bottle rolling from his fingertips, the
wet leaves dripping. I didn’t have a place
at 3 a.m. I held the phone far from my face
isolated knock of an empty plastic container
of my own in the city at the time, I’d often
to curb the blows but I didn’t do much. I had
hitting the wooden f loor, and a faint rolling.
come into Brooklyn from my family’s home
been drinking gin with Hunter at Passion, a
He was athletic, young, and handsome; olive
in New Jersey for weeks at a time, and
neon red dive bar off Broadway in Bedstuy,
skin, black hair with a Misfits curl in the
without Hunter I was fresh out of people who
and the two of us were making our way back
center, and a perpetual five o’clock shadow.
would let me crash on their couch. “I’ll go
to his and Claire’s place together to crash
His body would never be seen again.
somewhere.”
as Claire cried through the phone. “Where
essay by Michael Sheffield illustrations by GreG KletSel
I was moving more inwards that
It was late, the bars were closing, and
were you guys tonight? I feel like I don’t even
summer, drowning in failures, death and
so I trudged to the nearest bus stop at Gates
know you anymore. How long are you going
disappointment and Claire couldn’t bear to
and Wyckoff and waited under the partial
to keep this up?” The rain came in soft nails.
see it. She said my sadness wasn’t real, or
glass roof. I waited with a few nurses and
Our friendship had been shaky by then and
that everyone’s weight meant mine could
a schizophrenic man in a soiled sweat suit
by all accounts the blame fell on me. She
not be that heavy, and so I hung up the
who talked wildly to himself about water
blistered me about how I divided my time,
phone. It was my custom to cut people off
bugs infesting his skin as I watched the
lamented why I couldn’t confide in her and
if they tried to reason with me. As a child,
rain f low down gutters and rush onto the
shushed my quiet tributes to the dead. Our
I had been lectured by my parents against
street. Years before, crashing at friend’s
friend Terry had died that week in his bed,
self-pity. They saw it as a waste of time, “why
apartment on Himrod Street, I invited a girl,
and I couldn’t help but playback the whole
do you sit in the dark all day?” I left Hunter
Anita, to come see me before passing out
thing in my head. It was an itch: the room in
- despite his concerns for me and where I
on the f loor. I hadn’t thought twice about
a river hue, his long legs sticking out over
would stay - and found myself in an alleyway
what repercussions might be for luring a 21
the bed frame like tree trunks, the Tryptizol
between apartment buildings canopied by
year old girl out to Bushwick alone in the
UNTIL NOW
UNTIL NOW
16
17
morning hours. We were chugging 40s, I
I couldn’t differentiate dreams from reality.
frequently spattered racist, homophobic
real shit deals actually - but I was desperate
had wanted sex but one by one we simply fell
The door wasn’t opening, I’d shake it off
rants. During the week, I’d work odd one-
and he was a source. Julian had come from
off into drunken sleep. But she had come
and see nothing had happened but I dreamt I
off jobs giving out name tags at corporate
Chicago and learned the art of sound and
out from her dorm room in Manhattan, and
was exposed to the world. All sorts of people
parties in Midtown or counting income
producing records alongside his friend Steve
waited at this same bus stop calling and
came in. The friends who worried about me
reports at an Equity firm, anything to keep
Albini. That was all he had wanted to do in
texting me to no response until she found
or wrote me off as a waste would peek behind
drifting. So when former college buddies
life. To let his fingers gently cascade up and
a man masturbating beside her. She left me
the door and leave awkwardly ashamed
told me they were going to rent a spot in
down the mixing board, his eyes looking out
angry messages, “You dick, where the fuck
without saying a word. The lunk from Tucson
Bushwick where we could make a racket at
of the control room, a vapor gaze sculpting
are you? I was almost raped, I could have
who shared the room with me, a stupid but
any hour, I was more than inclined.
noise. Working the soundboard at a music
been killed!” Earlier in our f ling, she had
big guy who swore to me on coke fueled
f lirted with the idea of having me move in to
rampages that he’d slit my throat if I touched
the 90s but had failed as a business and been
hungry musicians looking to put their first
her Carroll Gardens brownstone, but that
his wilting amplifier, would come in and beat
vacant the few years before Tom and Julian
expressions onto tape, so I imagine working
was the last I would hear from her.
the shit out of me. The squatting stranger
came in. They sought to make it a utopian
Party City felt like a perfect fit for Julian.
who had nothing to lose would come down
concert venue, the biggest and best rock club
He had funded his studio out of pocket and
and left the block as those on board ate egg
and talk to me as if at confessional, violently
Bushwick had ever seen, and what a name!
it was his prized jewel. He called it the Fort.
sandwiches and drank coffee before going
pleading for some kind of meaning to it all,
Although we didn’t have much stake in their
Even if everything else in life gave out, he
off to work. Twenty blocks south, I unlocked
holding me and weeping. It all surely could
dreams, we saw an opportunity for cheap
had the Fort - his dream, his passion, and his
the massive gate to my renovated rehearsal
have happened, these were the realities of
rent. When we first arrived at Party City, the
earthly capital. Gradually our relationship
space below Party City. Inside the door,
basement Room #1 below Party City, but
place was a dim, garbage-covered expanse
extended beyond polite nods and drug deals
a squatter lay on a pile of cement rubble,
they didn’t. Nothing happened. I held the
– mold, sewer water, rotting garbage,
and we formed a camaraderie; watching
dirt, and wood intended for a bar. He didn’t
soggy bedding tightly and counted the
scattered soot-covered party accessories and
movies together, listening to the latest mixes
look familiar and so I said “hello” to no
times I’d wake up before the sun would rise
samba records. We took sledge hammers to
he was working on, talking guitars with his
response. He looked dead or sleeping except
completely, and I’d take a wrinkled suit out
the wooden work bench in the basement and
Australian roommate Kip. Our roles would
his stare; stark, uninhibited eyes, black
of my backpack and make my way to a funeral
crafted ourselves the first bunker. Room #1.
change and he would ask me for grass late
spheres in the jet blue room as morning’s
for a friend.
Midwood was a trek away from Bushwick,
at night or early in the morning, in the stale
and taking the subway back and forth I’d
heat or bleak cold of Party City.
I boarded the bus around 4:30 a.m.
mute light came in slowly. There would often
I had just finished NYU in 2009.
venue was one of the best ways to meet
Party City had been a costume outlet in
be homeless-looking squatters crashing at
Seventeen years in institutionalized learning
sometimes write, sometimes I’d sit gazing
Party City. They would be employed to do
and I was disillusioned. I hadn’t become
stoned out the window creating fictional
was no heat or insulation. Bands practiced
cheap labor for a month or two, installing
anything, I finally had nowhere left to go and
lives about the girls on the train or parsing
and performed as if trudging across a snow
toilets or repairing the decaying f loorboards
simply sought to erase my disappointment
together some half-thought meaning on why
coated bridge, wearing parkas in the broken
– disintegration was constant - and they
with pipe-dreams, cheap drinks and
the last four years had kicked my ass so hard,
shell of a building. They had hired an extra
would inevitably make Party City their
cheaper drugs; I was obsessively attracted
but mostly I’d drunkenly fall asleep coming
hand to help shovel ice and to keep the place
home. But this man I didn’t recognize. I
to anything other than what should have
home, riding the F train from Queens to
clean. Oscar lived a few blocks away. He was
traveled to the basement, unlocked my
been expected of me. I spent the last of my
Coney Island back and forth as I dreamt of
15 years old, a Puerto Rican boy who had
room and feigned sleep on a mold coated
dwindling money paying $300 a month for a
nothing.
sleeping bag. I pulled the bag over my face
room in a split house in Midwood, Brooklyn
and said a thousand unheard prayers. Some
for the summer, a remote residential
New York party scene for some time, an
going on than we actually did. He seemed
and it became a disgusting ritual. When all
out of his situation. He’d spend long nights
for Terry, but mostly for me. Everything was
neighborhood deep in South Brooklyn; a
independent promoter with a list of failed
to have forgotten what he was wearing, gave
the beer was gone, if you were still looking
watching us play in Room #1, occasionally
going nowhere, life was disappearing. The
place – for all intents and purposes –I had
ventures and shady investors decorating
me the rum – Ron Pampeno — as a gift and
for a bigger buzz, you’d take a swig of the
picking up drum sticks, and always rolling
f luorescent lights on in the dank basement,
no reason to live in. I lived on a Pakistani
his life. He was tall, with long thin arms, a
talked to me about business, “I’m going to
rum and remember how shitty life could get.
something before taking off to get a couple
I knew I wasn’t supposed to sleep there and
block with five Serbian water polo players
protruding jaw, and receding wiry black hair
put out your record and we’ll split the profits
The first few times I met Julian, I
in fevered paranoia, found myself in a loop
who smoked Marlborough Light 100s, ate
that rested just below the shoulders. He was
50/50, and then I’ll put out my band’s record
couldn’t remember his name. They say
School. I always wondered how he could
endlessly seeing the door open but a crack.
bundles of boiled hot dogs by the dozen and
clueless but an avid schemer to his credit.
once we finish it, and then we are going to
even with the best intentions, forgetting
get away with being out so late, sometimes
His name – Tom Meyers – was tattooed in
have a release party here and turn it into a
someone’s name is always a sign that you
we would play nearly all night. But certain
Gothic print on his knuckles and he looked
rave with afterhours DJs…” He was always
honestly don’t give a shit about them. And
things would reveal themselves in time.
like he was made of electronics. He was
pitching some idea; he was going to take
as much as I sought fondness in Julian, I was
He once came down with an oozing wound
always in black leather over his chalk white
over Brooklyn, his time had finally come and
guilty. But I could remember his shaggy
on his hand, telling us his uncle had burnt
skin, an Iggy Pop or Cramps t-shirt on,
Party City was it. It was hard to argue with
black mop top, his porn star moustache,
him with the end of a cigar moments before
always high on uppers that he’d share with
someone with some much confidence even if
his aviator shades on as I walked through
coming to Party City. Raised by a single
a different girlfriend every few months. I
he had been up for days dressed as a Nazi. I
the venue. He called everyone “boss” as he
mother, his father was in the Latin Kings and
remember in the dredges of winter, him
would agree with him to a blank expression,
would greet them with smiles pulling on
the Bloods and apparently had reemerged in
stumbling into Room #1 in a Nazi uniform,
I don’t think it mattered much what I had
his cigarette behind the mixing consul. I
his life upon puberty. His thirteen year old
high on dope with a cheap bottle of rum. He
to say. We would keep the rum on a shelf in
would learn his name after a few months and
brother had just been initiated into the Latin
would come by every now and then to pick
our practice space and drink it from time to
I would frequent his home recording studio
Kings and as it stood, Oscar had opted out
our brains; he may have thought we had more
time. It tasted like moonshine or gasoline,
to buy weed. He never gave the best deals –
of both gangs. That may have been the main
She said my sadness wasn’t real, or that everyone’s weight meant mine could not be that heavy, and so I hung up the phone. UNTIL NOW
18
The first winter at Party City, there
been on Locust Street in Bushwick his entire life. He despised Bushwick but saw no means
Tom Meyers had been involved in the
UNTIL NOW
19
hours sleep before another day of High
Using Kickstarter to raise funds was a crucial part of making Until Now a reality. I set a goal of $7,000 which was surpassed in a span of thirty days by $250. With this funding I was not only able to get the magazine printed, but purchase additional prizes for Kickstarter supporters as well as supply funds for postage and mailing. The remainder of the funds, plus the money raised by the sale of the magazine (priced at $18 USD) went to the contributors.
funding
In order to reach an audience, I developed a quiet but multi-pronged approach to the web presence of Until Now. I wanted to keep the focus on the print magazine itself, but also get potential readers excited about the contributors work for the magazine by promoting their other projects as well. The Until Now website is primarily informational; it includes the name and website of every contributor, a mission statement, information regarding funding (mostly for the Kickstarter campaign), as well as information about advertising should that become an endeavor in the future. In addition to the website, there is an Until Now Facebook page, Twitter, and Tumblr, all of which have been instrumental in reaching potential readers around the world.
web + social media presence
For printing I used Heidel Press, a large printer based in Seoul, Korea with an additional office in New York City. They fit my budget as well as my requirement for high production value.
2000 magazines = 1,499.10 lbs
printing + publishing
I obtained a BIPAD number and barcode through the appropriate venues to ensure that Until Now could be stocked and sold at bookstores.
Until Now on the shelves at McNally Jackson in New York City.
contracts
Contributing writers and artists recieved the same contract.
contracts
a magazine about Coming of Age
Alexandra Citrin Art Director alex@untilnowmag.com 203 249 2074 www.untilnowmag.com
the future...
I am planning on continuing Until Now in the form of an annual magazine. In future issues I would like to include photography as well as more diverse editorial content such as interviews. I built this project intending to maintain it, and I have received enough positive support from my colleagues as well as the independent publishing community that I feel it is a worthy endeavor. I am also hoping to find in-house work at a larger publication with a similar focus on print and dynamic visual content. Through the inception of Until Now I have managed to interest a few potential future employers, including Harper’s Bazaar, Oprah magazine, Nylon magazine, and Rookie. Hopefully this will parlay itself into a job. Check back with me later on that.