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Colors Magazine: Showing you the unexpected
Taurai Maduna interviews Benjamin Joffe-Walt, Editor Colors magazine
April 24, 2008

Taurai Maduna: What is Colors magazine?

Benjamin Joffe-Walt: Colors is an experimental magazine produced by Benetton. It's monographic, so each issue has a completely new theme. Themes can range from quite serious topics like violence and HIV to the frivolous like toys, shopping, to very abstract ideas, such as the road, heaven, or water. Generally, it's a magazine that focuses on the rest of the world. What this means changes over time. When we did an issue about toys, for example, we focused on toys in ‘the rest of the world', toys that you wouldn't expect. When we did an issue about sports, the cover featured kids standing on top of a train and surfing. The cover of the issue on shopping features guns. It's what you wouldn't expect within a particular theme.

Our most recent issue is money, and we focus on different ways of understanding, approaching, using and creating money - all aspects of money that you wouldn't expect - unconventional economics. So we have stories about ways in which money was created to boost a local community or encourage people to bring their trash, currencies that were created to assist a pensioners system in Japan, electronic money, artificial money, money that doesn't exist, etc. This is Colors.

TM: And how did Colors determine who their target market is? And do Colors have any strategies for sharing their publication in a different format for those communities unable to afford their publication.

BJW: The first answer is that Colors is a magazine for the youth. From its birth, Colors was intended to reach out to youth, so anyone between say 15-40, that's the target audience of Colors, and it's meant to be an international audience.

To answer the second question, the difficulty is how to successfully access an international audience. To that degree, I'm not sure we've been as successful as we could have been . . . The Internet makes it a little bit easier for those people on earth who have access to the Internet. The trouble is designing a website that is both artistic yet easily downloadable in countries with slower connections.

We also charge for the magazine and that of course makes it inaccessible to those who can't afford it. Colors exists in almost fifty countries now, and you can find it in a lot of art galleries, museums, libraries, photography and design institutions. Those with access to those institutions can get Colors. But in terms of making it accessible in a country where the average person on the street doesn't have R60 to buy a magazine, yes, we could do better.

TM: Colors uses photography as a co-medium for story telling. Are there any tips for photographing people who live in compromised situations, for example slums, whilst trying to maintain the subject's dignity and humanity?

BJW: That's more a question for Mauro, our photo editor. I think a tip I would give to photographers, writers, designers, and really anyone producing journalistic media of any kind is to think about the message. Think about what you're trying to say about the scene, not simply how you want to document it. There's no such thing as simple documenting. You're always trying to say something with it, and a lot of questions come with that. How do you represent the person? Do you represent them in a positive light, negative light, lost light, depressed light? How do you depict their situation? Do you think they've been screwed over? Do you think they've screwed themselves over? Then there is the degree to which you're trying to be provocative about the situation. Are you trying to form a simplistic portrait of them? Or are you trying to portray the most extreme aspect of the situation to make a statement? All of those things I think are good, dignified and respectful of the subject. To me it's more a question of what you're trying to say and whether you're being honest about what you're trying to say.

If you take a picture, for example, in a slum or shanty town in South Africa, of 15 people living in a shack two metres square, that photograph could be interpreted in many ways. I think it's important to distinguish between the difference between the way something is intended, and the way it's interpreted: just because something is interpreted in a certain way doesn't mean that it was intended that way. So a picture of 15 people living in horrible conditions could be interpreted as judgmental. It could also be interpreted as a quite profound, strong statement against the situation that led those people to have to live in that way. Taking pictures of a war is similar. Do you take a picture of a dead body under a blanket, or do you take a picture of somebody's head after they've been shot in the head. Those are two very different ways of approaching provocation, and I think photographers especially need to think about the degree to which they're trying to provoke and to what end . . . Why do they want to provoke? What's the point? What's the message? What are they trying to say?

TM: Can Colors comment on whether remuneration is appropriate if photographing people on the street or informally.

BJW: Colors has a policy of getting written consent from people who are photographed. We're not always able to do that and I think it's very rare that we would pay someone directly. I think that's the decision of the photographer. That's our policy. As for our opinion, I don't think that we have a collective opinion. Colors is an experimental magazine, produced by different young people each time. I can tell you my opinion, but I don't think it is consistent with what other people in Colors would think.

I personally believe that yes, people should be paid for pictures if they want to be paid for them. I think your image is your image and you should to some degree be allowed to control how that image is used. You certainly should be allowed to control whether that image is used in the first place. I don't think a photographer should be able to just go on the street, take a picture of whomever they want, and not pay or ask that person. They must ask that person. If that person says yes you can use my image, that's fine. If that person says yes you can use my image, but I would like to be paid for it, then I also think that's fine, and it's the photographer's decision whether they want to pay them for the picture.

TM: What's Colors' profitability like? Does it depend heavily on advertising revenue? Does the cover price cover costs? We ask this question because in countries like Zimbabwe, people are hesitant to pay for information.

BJW: Colors is a unique publication economically. It doesn't have the need to make money. Colors is a communication project funded 100% by Benetton. So it doesn't depend on advertising or revenue from sales. For that reason, I think, it has the privilege of being quite experimental, whereas other magazines must worry more about their bottom line.

TM: Does Colors have a policy on what kind of advertising to accept? Does it reject certain advertisers on political or social grounds?

BJW: No. Not that I know of.

TM: Anyone can advertise?

BJW: As far as I know, anyone can advertise. Of course Colors has difficulty getting certain types of advertising, as Benetton competes with other companies that may not want to advertise in Colors. I cannot speak on behalf of Benetton, but I believe the company is quite open to anyone. For aesthetic reasons, though, we often have issues that have no advertising. The current issue doesn't have a single ad.

TM: Often Colors publishes in two languages. Why is this?

BJW: Colors tries to be accessible to most of the world. The problem is that right now we're printing only in European languages, and that's just a question of cost. We've already done a few issues in Chinese, and we hope to expand to Arabic. Ideally, we'd like to print in ten of the most spoken or influential languages in the world. Unfortunately, a lot of those languages are European. For example, if you want to have a magazine that's read in most of West Africa, you print in French, not in an African language. If you want to have a magazine that can be read in most of southern Africa, you print in English, not in Zulu, Xhosa or seSotho. This is, of course, a little problematic. I mean, I think it would be fantastic if we could print in Zulu. The problem is that Zulu, outside of Johannesburg and other parts of South Africa, isn't very useful. So we're probably not going to translate into a language that is only spoken in one or two countries. And unfortunately, one of the consequences of monoculture and imperialism is that a few languages dominate the world. So by printing in Spanish, we reach most of South America. By printing in French, we reach most of West Africa, etc.

TM: What can Colors say regarding the balance between visual content and written content? Is it a balancing act or does Colors see one as more important?

BJW: Certainly historically, Colors is a photographic and visual magazine. That said, the writing has been quite creative throughout. I would just say that it's creative writing that writes around or in relation to images, so there's always an interplay between them. But it never has been, and I think it never will be, a magazine that is sought after or admired simply because of its writing. Often times we have sarcastic writing, for example, that has something to do with the pictures, or explanatory captions, or things like that. Sometimes we have creative writing and sometimes we have creative ways of approaching text that is related to the topic. For example, a text that is mirrored, or financial text in a magazine about money. If you look in the current issue, the script is designed in the way in which it appears on conventional cash. So if you look at Rand or Euro, you'll see that some of the numbers are written with small spaces cut out between them, to protect from counterfeiting. We took that design and used it for the title script. So while the content of the writing is creative, the style and font are also inspired by the overall design and theme.

TM: Colors carries quite disturbing images. Has there been a negative response to this?

BJW: Yes, sure. There's always a question about to what extent one can or should be provocative, and yes, Colors is intentionally provocative... But it is provocative about reality. Sure, there has been backlash to that approach, but it is also how Colors made its name: by printing extremely provocative images, especially socially provocative images, and using that to make statements and engage young people.

TM: As the editor of Benetton Colors magazine, what do you enjoy most about your job.

BJW: I enjoy the ability in Colors to come up with a theme, then a concept, and implement it from start to finish - something that I would not get to do in other magazines. I'll give you an example: right now we're talking about making an issue about the Internet. Yesterday someone had the idea of making an issue about the Internet without using any Internet resources directly or indirectly. Meaning we would try produce an issue by never sending emails, never going on any websites, never buying plane tickets, never buying boat tickets, never buying train tickets. It's a huge, exciting challenge to do that. We must figure out what the content of the issue could be, we get to think it through, we get to debate. What do we want to say about the Internet? How do we want to say it? How do we want to represent it and how do we want to approach it? We end up approach it in a kind of exciting way that we're not sure we can succeed at. That part of my job I love. Of course, the flip side to that is that the entire process can be extremely frustrating, aggravating and requires a lot of people who have very different ideas to work together. It takes a lot longer and it can be very tiring. But on the whole, it's a nice creative space and a really amazing opportunity.

TM: Can you tell me about this money issue of Colors in relation to Zimbabwe.

BJW: The money issue asks the question what is money, and what are creative ways of approaching money? One of the things we did with the issue is focus on communities that had created currencies to solve a social problem or crisis that they had. I'll give you a couple very brief examples . . . One example is a community in Brazil, where they had too much trash in slum areas, and the rubbish trucks couldn't get into those areas because of overpopulation. So they created a currency which they give to people to bring their trash to the nearest street. Those people can then use that currency, in the form of tickets, to buy food locally and to travel on buses. So they created money that solved the problem.

In Japan, they had a problem with pensioners. There were basically too many people getting old and they didn't have the money to care for them. So they created a currency where you go shopping for the grandmother who lives next door to you. Say you spend two hours helping her with her shopping, in exchange you get two hours worth of credits. You can then send those two hours of credits by email to your mom, or your grandmother, who's living on the other side of the country. It created a currency to fix the problem of too many pensioners.

We have stories about lots of local currencies that were created to promote local communities, basically different ways of approaching money beyond national currencies - Zim Dollars, South African Rand, US dollars, Euro, what have you. Maybe it's something that can be inspiring to Zimbabweans to think about other ways of approaching money. For a country that has the most serious monetary crisis in the world . . . How to solve it? Do you solve it simply through traditional capitalist methods, or do you solve it by thinking about alternative ways of approaching money? What if some day, after the political situation in Zimbabwe eases up, they came up with a system of local currencies throughout Zimbabwe that could promote local communities, which could work with one another. They could create a system of market sharing, a system of hour based currencies, there are something like 4,000 different currencies around the world that are not traditional, national currencies. They all are extremely creative and innovative ways of promoting community and solving social problems for communities that are in crisis. So I think it's something that might be quite interesting for Zimbabweans to explore.

TM: Thank you very much.

*Benjamin Joffe-Walt was born in the US and holds dual South African / American citizenship. After studying at the University of Toronto in Canada and at Birzeit University in Ramallah, Palestine, he moved to South Africa in 2004 and began his career as a journalist. Writing for a wide variety of media, including the Economist and BBC, he served as a foreign correspondent for the Guardian and Chief Africa Correspondent for the Sunday Telegraph. His work has appeared in the Sunday Independent, Star, Cape Times, Argus, Noseweek, This Day and the Mail & Guardian. In 2004 he was awarded Young Journalist of the Year by the British Foreign Press Association and was awarded Africa Print Journalist of the Year by CNN the following year.

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