Meet Giselle Melendres, the Founder and Editor-in-Chief, as well as the Creative Director of Mad Sounds Magazine. Based in the Bay Area of California, Giselle's intention with Mad Sounds Magazine is to appeal and reach out to the young and daring and continue to generate an expressive outlet for creative individuals. In today's interview, we had the pleasure of hearing about her journey with starting and running Mad Sounds Magazine, her creative inspiration, the reason behind the name, and advice she would give those who are trying to branch out in the creative field.
1. Hello Giselle, can you briefly start off by telling us what exactly being the editor-in-chief of Mad Sounds Magazine means?
Hey Chalisa, thanks for interviewing me! Well, as the Editor-in-Chief I have a few key responsibilities. I’m essentially in charge of running the magazine as a whole, so I manage the website, the print publication, and I make sure that all staff members are contributing their part in each issue. As the editor I also put together the magazine itself, so I design the pages, edit the written text, and layout the entire magazine. I also am the creative director of the magazine, so I create the concepts/themes for every issue, work with staff members to create content for the themes, and conduct the interviews with people who we are interested in featuring. In short, I have a fair amount of both creative and non-creative roles in running the magazine, but it’s all fun to me regardless.
2. How would you describe your day to day of being the editor of Mad Sounds?
Because I’m a full-time college student, my day isn’t the typical day of a more ‘professional’ editor of a magazine. Working on Mad Sounds is definitely something I make time for, and it usually consists of me working for long hours on my computer sending business emails, messaging staff members or interns about concepts, and editing the actual magazine on my laptop. Sometimes I will go to a coffee shop to get my work done, but a lot of the time it is just me working from my bedroom when I am not at my part-time job or at school.
3. Do you feel that living in California gives you an advantage in the creative industry?
I definitely think that it has some major advantages! After attending college in Seattle for a year, I definitely appreciate my life in California a lot more, and I feel like there are a ton of creative opportunities here. I was raised in the Bay Area (a suburb in the valley), and I met a ton of creatives from the Bay Area area who are now regular staff members in the magazine. I’ve also been travelling to Los Angeles/Orange County a lot more recently, and have met so many talented individuals there as well. I think Southern California, L.A. specifically, is so deeply immersed in an industry of entertainment--which creates a lot of opportunities for people such as photographers, models, singers, etc. I think living in California, you tend to meet a lot of people with creative passions, and there are also a ton of opportunities to find a job for your creativity! For Mad Sounds, a lot of our interviewees are creatives from L.A., so I’d say there are definitely lots of creative minds out here.
4. When did you realize that you wanted to start your own magazine?
I was a junior in high school when I decided I wanted to start a magazine. I read an online magazine on issuu.com and I thought, “I want to do that. I could make a magazine” so I eventually started compiling my own photography, writing, etc. into a PDF that I made into a magazine. It was really bad at first--the graphic design was really inconsistent and the content was subpar (since it was solely my own work), but as I kept working and exploring the world of publishing, I developed a better idea of what I wanted my magazine to be, and the message I wanted to give my viewers. I started featuring other people’s work and making the magazine more diverse in content, and that definitely kick-started my love for making Mad Sounds.
5. How did the name “Mad Sounds” come about? Is there a particular message you are trying to brand with Mad Sounds?
Since I was a junior in high school when Mad Sounds was created, I was brainstorming ideas in my head and I just really liked the song “Mad Sounds” by the Arctic Monkeys, my favorite band at the time. I thought Mad Sounds Magazine would be a great title solely because of slight alliteration, and because I thought it would have a lot of music in it. It’s kind of ironic, because we mostly feature photographers and other creatives as opposed to solely music features. Sometimes I wish the name was different and a more accurate encompassment of what the magazine is today, but I think that so many people recognize/resonate with the title that it’s way too late to change it.
6. How do you juggle school and work alongside running the Mad Sounds?
I must say, it’s extremely difficult. I feel a bit overwhelmed at times since I am so busy. As I mentioned before, I’m a college student and have a part-time job which takes up a large chunk of my time. I essentially have to set aside enough free time on weekends or hours I’m not working to (solely) dedicate to the magazine. Although sometimes it can be a bit of a hassle, I still love it. I feel like working on Mad Sounds is my little escape from the pressures of school and work, and it’s always something that both excites me and relaxes me when I work on it. I try my best to make time for both my school work and the magazine, since it’s something that is so important to me.
7. Can you describe the process of how you started your own magazine? What were your biggest challenges?
In the beginning there were a lot of technical aspects of starting a magazine that I was completely clueless about. I didn’t know how to use an editor program to design the magazine, so I started by using Pages on my Macbook Pro. I also gathered a few staff members who were my close friends that did photography, and we somehow compiled enough content to create the magazine. The first few issues were terrible. I didn’t really know how to design, and each issue would be inconsistent due to the fact that my graphic design styles would change (solely because I was always experimenting and attempting to improve the magazine). We also didn’t have a very wide range of content in the magazine until we began doing more interviews and features, so the magazine was lacking in that aspect as well. Overall, I was really inexperienced and clueless about publishing. Eventually, though, I found my niche in terms of style and how I wanted the magazine to be presented, and the issues slowly became more of how I envisioned them in my head. I think some of the biggest challenges, for me, was finding the sort-of ‘voice’ of Mad Sounds. For a long time it ranged between a photography magazine, to a magazine about art, to a magazine about photographers themselves. I realized that what I wanted was a platform to promote creativity, and a place to feature the young creatives of our generation. Finding the identity of the magazine was definitely the hardest part, but it was so much easier to create once I could recognize it.
8. How does the collaborative process work? Do you reach out to people to be featured in the magazine or do they reach out to you?
It’s a good mix of both. At the beginning of Mad Sounds, we reached out to a lot of people and asked them if they’d want to be featured in our magazine, and eventually we reached a point where friends (and friends of friends) of those creatives would ask to be in our magazine or send us emails asking to collaborate. I feel like we’ve sort of formed a community or tight-knit circle of people whom we have/would love to work with, and it’s great to get to know so many different creative talents. We will still reach out to people whom we specifically want to work with, but a lot of times the network is formed through mutual connections!
9. How do you go about finding people to work/intern for Mad Sounds? What should people be prepared with if they wanted to be a part of Mad Sounds?
In the beginning I had mostly my Bay Area friends working for the magazine. I also reached out to a few photographers who I interviewed within our beginning issues to work for the magazine, and they agreed (and have been with us ever since!) Since then our staff has slowly expanded, and we’ve mostly added our new staff members through applications online and inquiries via email. More recently I put out an announcement that we were looking for interns/staff members for our website, madsoundsmag.com, and we were flooded with emails for the position! It was really incredible that so many people had reached out to us so eagerly, and I think that the people who work for the magazine now are truly a perfect fit!
To be a part of Mad Sounds you have to be passionate. That’s really all it takes. (It helps to be organized too), but passion is the key to being a great staff member.
10. How do you personally get your inspiration for creating?
I definitely find inspiration through reading publications. Magazines are such a great platform for all forms of creativity, and I have a ton of magazines that I will always go to for inspiration. Some of my favorites are Wonderland, Cereal, i-D, Vogue, Gentlewoman, Local Wolves, etc. Magazines in general have so many different intersections within the fields of design, photography, fashion, etc., and for me, it’s really cool to see how each magazine interprets and portrays these ideas to their readers in their own unique way.
11. What has been your proudest moment of Mad Sounds so far?
My proudest moment of Mad Sounds has probably been when I was invited to attend the issuu Generators Camp in San Francisco back in February. The event was a workshop/conference in which Mad Sounds and six other issuu publications were invited to meet some influential people in the publishing industry, and talk to issuu about our magazines. I felt so honored to be invited to an event that was so prestigious, and I remember thinking, “Why was I chosen to attend this?? I’m just a freshman in college!”. It was really surreal to have my hard work acknowledged, and I was honestly just happy that someone found Mad Sounds to be ‘special’ enough to recognize in this way! I totally had ‘imposter syndrome’, but that was definitely my proudest moment!
12. Is there a particular person who you dream to feature on a Mad Sounds Cover one day?
Ahh wow. I have a lot of people I would absolutely love to feature on the cover of Mad Sounds one day, but I think Rumi Neely would be an amazing cover feature. She’s the creative director of one of my favorite clothing boutiques, Are You Am I, and I think her work for her company is so inspiring. She’s a total girl boss, and I think her vibe would be extremely fitting for our magazine’s overall theme of “young and daring”.
13. What advice would you give to those who want to start their own magazine or go in the direction of working for a publication?
In terms of general advice to anyone working in a creative field, I would say to do everything you do in passion and because you love doing it. I feel like I know so many people who started a publication out of love for their creative work, but have grown to only seek the acclaim and so-called ‘fame’ that may come with it. Your passion and love for what you do will show in your work every time, and I think the most influential creatives are those who do everything as authentically and unapologetically as they can.
As for advice specific to the publishing industry itself: starting your own magazine is tough, but it’s truly indescribable when you feel that you’ve created a product that encompasses what you want to show the world. Finding your ‘niche’ in the industry and understanding what your niche is, is a really important step in creating a good publication. Once you find it, keep exploring ways you can make it better and connect with your readers.
14. What is one thing you wished someone had told you when starting all of this?
I wish someone had told me that it was okay to make mistakes, and okay to not know what you want from the beginning. In a way, creating Mad Sounds was a sort of search for identity--for both myself and the magazine. I was at a stage in my life where I was just beginning to recognize who I was and who I wanted to be, and I feel like I was trying to figure out Mad Sounds’ identity as a publication as well. I wish I knew that it was okay for me to take time to figure out what I wanted for the publication, and that not every issue would be one that people wanted to read. I think it’s important to remember that, especially in creative products, exploring your passion and taking time to figure out your direction is O.K. I think that without that experience of making mistakes and failing in the beginning issues, I wouldn’t have learned or grown to what I know now. I feel like I’m still growing!
15. Are there any exciting projects that you are currently working on that you would like to share with us? Anything people should keep their eyes peeled for?
We’re currently working with Sydney Carlson and a few other creatives who will be in our next issue. This next issue centers around the theme of Girl Bosses, and I’m really excited to be featuring Sydney on our cover. I’ve been such a huge fan of her for such a long time, and I think she’s such an inspiring creative. I’m excited for you all to see our shoot that we’re doing with her, and read her interview! This next issue is gonna be one of my favorites, I’m sure.
16. Lastly, where can we find out more about Mad Sounds and where can we be updated with new issues/content?
Follow any of the Mad Sounds social media, Twitter/Instagram @madsoundsmag, and Facebook: Mad Sounds Magazine. We post daily updates on our social media pages, including links to articles on our website, announcements, issue launches, and more! You can also follow my social media: Twitter/Instagram @gisellelisabeth, because I often post about Mad Sounds on those platforms.
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