Fabien Baral, a French artist/designer (aka ” MR CUP“), has a loyal online following because his work seamlessly combines classic letterpress style and attention to detail with cutting-edge surrealism or grunge. Fabien has been celebrating “print design as an art object” for many years. He has created wall stickers, coasters, and his annual letterpress calendars. He brought this sensibility to a new publication last summer, Walter Magazine, after a successful Ulule crowd funding campaign.
“We All Live To Enhance Reality”
Fabien says, “I love print, and I love tangible things.” “I collect independent magazines, vinyl – I love a great object.”
He’s been blogging for over a decade about various “great objects” that have caught his fancy. For a long time, he dreamed about putting together a magazine. “But I wanted it different, to dive deeper into each project’s creative process. This was something that, unlike his other work,” he knew.
He approached his ex-boss at the design agency he used as an art director and slowly assembled a small team to create the issue. He explained that he brought some feature story ideas to the table and that each member of his team had their own editorial design ideas. “Then we all kept the best …” Andy Luce was also my designer for Walter’s logotype. I loved his hand lettering and wanted it to be hand-lettered.
The logo for Walter, oh yes! Why Walter?
He explains that they were searching for a magazine name and wanted it to be unique. I wanted to call it “Mr. Cup magazine” at the beginning, but it was a team effort, so it had to be something different. My partner then sent me this quote from Walter Gropius, an architect and founder of the Bauhaus School. It makes sense what the magazine actually is.
Construction is the ultimate goal of every creative project. Because there is no professional art, we all must return to the craft. There is no fundamental difference between an artist and a craftsman. Let us all wish, create, and conceive the future that will encompass all.
As you’d expect from someone who has spent the past decade blogging about design in all forms, Walter “tries not to be a magazine for graphic designers.” Graphic design can be found everywhere, in movie posters, on record sleeves… But for most people, it’s not a font or a color …’. I also love the creative process of how an idea becomes something!
All this leads us to the premiere issue.
Walter Vol. 1
Walter Vol. is the first thing you notice. The cover is artwork. The cover features a detail shot from Kevin Cantrell, a typographic artist whose Bible-inspired print Terra is featured. This cover shows how to spot varnish can be used to its best effect.
Fabien says, “I loved Terra and thought it could look great in black-on-black with all its details.” The cover of the first issue is just a spot varnish printed on dark black. However, it makes a striking contrast to the matte black underneath. The varnish covers all areas except the white ones. It looks completely different depending on where you look at it or how the light is shining through it.
The inside of Walter Vol. The knowledge of Walter Vol. 1 lives up to its promise. There are also features on the “Terra” poster, hand lettering by Andy Luce, as well as examinations of letterpress and Ty Mattson’s work, the credit sequence from “Sherlock Holmes,” starring Robert Downey Jr. and…coffee. All text is available in English and French.
The most challenging hurdle that the Walter Magazine creative team had was?
The hardest part of creating high-resolution images is definitely getting them! A blog is simple: You see something, take the photos, and then share them,” says Fabien. For print, high-resolution images are required, large ones. After waiting weeks for designers to send us pictures, we reversed the process. The pages were designed using the images that we had found online. We then reached out to the designers to request specific photos.
Walter Vol. 2
Fabien and his company had already begun to work towards crowdfunding the second Walter issue through Kickstarter in March. They created a cover, and several samples spreads to get support. Stories this time around will include a look at The Neon Museum in Las Vegas, globe makers, the recent luxury playing card craze, and an exclusive interview with Dutch photographer/director Anton Corbijn (“The American,” “Control”). Vol. 2’s cover. Vol. 2 has a similar body, but it is a two-color version.
Fabien says, “The idea was to have a design project highlighted on each cover.” It was the poster for Terra’s first edition, so I was astonished by this illustration by Rafael Araujo from Venezuela. The subject, a geometric shape that is based on the Fibonacci sequence and the golden ratio, is a beautiful metaphor for design: creativity in harmony. I don’t want too many rules, but more of my instincts will prevail. Why not put my picture on the cover of the next issue? Controls can be frustrating. I believe in guidelines.”
Walter’s perfect binding gives the magazine that “magazine-as-art object” feel. However, there are many binding options available. You can download your free HTML Specs binding cheat sheet now to see them all. You will find everything you need, including illustrations, pricing information, page count limits, and more!
