To celebrate the launch of Wrap Magazine Issue 10 ‘Into the Wild’ we caught up with co-founder Polly Glass and asked her a few questions. She’s also agreed to give you lovely people a chance to win your very own copy! (Check below for details on how to win!)
What made you pick the theme ‘Into The Wild’ for issue 10?
All our themes come from a desire to explore and investigate what’s going on within illustration at the moment, whether it’s trends in style, new processes people are into, or topical issues – like how to price your work – that we think need talking about.
Issue 10 looks at two themes – ‘Plants’, and ‘Abstract design’. Both were inspired by some of the ways we’ve been seeing creative people express themselves recently, from people’s current love of cacti and succulents (we often see them proudly displayed on Instagram feeds!), to the growing prevalence of a more abstract aesthetic within illustration and design, and a resurgence of the Memphis Group aesthetic.
Of course there’s lots more to issue 10 than those two topics, byt they form the cornerstones for the rest of the content with work within… people should delve into a copy to find out more!
The cover by Jean Jullien really stands out, did you work closely with Jean to get the final image?
We did, which was great fun as Jean’s such a nice guy, and needless to say, super-talented! But, he had lots of freedom too – something we try to give all the illustrators we work with. We gave Jean an outline brief of what the cover needed to do – to reflect our plant-inspired content in issue 10 and to express the current zeitgeist for keeping house-plants – but after that we left it to him. He worked up a few different ideas before we all settled on the current image (every time I look at it, the guy’s sweet concentrated expression makes me chuckle), and then it was just down to finding the right colour palette, which he and Chris worked on together. We couldn’t be more happy with how the collaboration turned out.
You’re ten issues in, and Wrap looks better than ever – are you pleased with how this issue has been received?
Thanks! Yes we’re really pleased with how Wrap’s looking. Hitting our 10th issue is quite a milestone, and it’s been an exciting journey (with lots of lessons learnt along the way) getting here. We feel so proud of where it’s got to now, and the reaction to issue 10 has been excellent – it’s exciting.
How long does it take you to plan and produce an issue of Wrap?
It normally takes us around three months, and that’s split up into an intensive 2-3 weeks of planning, culminating in briefs being sent out to our writers, photographers and illustrators. Then we allow around 6 weeks for that content to be created/gathered before 2 weeks of editing, and 2 weeks on design. We have to build in some flexibility as we’ve got lots going on in the studio besides making the magazine, but we’re trying to be pretty strict on ourselves nowadays. Chris and I are absolute perfectionists and won’t send an issue to print until we’re totally happy with it – we feel a big responsibly for all the hard work that goes into it by contributors and try to make each issue the absolute best it can be.
You discuss the ‘New Abstract’ movement within the issue. Can you explain a little more about this movement?
Well the term ‘New Abstract’ actually comes from an exhibition of the same name at London’s Printhouse Gallery last year, curated by the excellent Saskia Pomeroy, whose also a contributing illustrator to Wrap 10. The show brought together around 20 different creatives – including Will Edmonds, Hazel Stark and Pat Bradbury – who are all experimenting with a similar aesthetic of pattern, abstract geometric shapes and gorgeous LA-tinged colour palettes. I think one of the things that ties them together is that their work is much less literal than what we’ve seen in illustration over the last few years, and more instinctive and intuitive. It’s also multi-disciplinary, with many of the designers working across a range of media including textiles, print and ceramics to produce both art and interior products – similar to how The Memphis Group did in the 1980s.
Essentially it’s about people taking a fresh approach and not being afraid to work in new ways, and for us, it was such a fascinating feature to work on.
Issue 11 must already be in the works, do you have any clues on what the next theme might be?
Ooooo… it is in the works, but it’s early stages, so I can’t give much away I’m afraid! There are lots of exciting ideas buzzing around though, and some great illustrators on our hit list to feature, so I’m sure it’ll be a goody.
How do you find your artists for each issue?
In all sorts of ways. We’re lucky enough to have lots of illustrators submit work to us ([email protected]), so that’s a great source of talent and always exciting to hear from them. We also get sent lots of fun parcels in the post, which is a nice way to see people’s work physically – we pin our favourites up onto a huge pin-board (old-school Pinterest!) in the studio to remind us of them when it comes to deciding on new people to work with, whether it be for the magazine or our range of products. And of course we keep an eye out ourselves for exciting artists too – especially on platforms like Tumblr and Instagram… it can get quite addictive!
Thanks Polly!
TO WIN: All you have to do to enter is retweet a relevant tweet or tweet directly about the competition linking to this blog post and tagging in @_wrap and @ohh_deer in the same tweet on Twitter 😀
Also drop us a comment below about why you’d love to win a copy!
We’re giving away two copies of the magazine and the winners will be picked at the end of July 😀
The competition is now CLOSED. The winners are @Magpie_That and @lucy210479… congratulations and thank you to everyone that took part.
Can’t wait to get your hands on a copy? You can purchase your own copy by clicking here!
Photography by Holly Booth.