Saku Magazine was an experimental digital youth culture platform reporting on the boldest of creativity as it emerged. Our goal was to be intellectually playful, redefining concepts and exploring ideas that had not been yet exposed in the Honduran society.
A collective expression of a desire for culture in a unifed effort to shape a new Central America through youth, design, music, and art discourse.
Out of the need to challenge conventional editorial design in the Honduran society while converging with digital media into a movement that would empower creative freedom for ourselves and rest of the honduran creative youth, Saku was first born after a late night conversation at the then beloved indie bar Café Cabernet, between Momo, Nikki and me, two of my best friends and creative sidekicks.
We were driven by our love for magazines and editorial design, and since there wasn't any magazine at the time quite like Saku, we decided to pitch the idea to a group of creative and talented people and create it ourselves.
Photograph of Ariel Merlo by Gaby Fu for The Bravest Issue, Saku Magazine.
Right from the start, our idea was to become an experimental digital youth culture platform reporting on the boldest of creativity as it emerged. A project and vision independently funded and created with complete total freedom. Our goal was to be intellectually playful, redefining concepts and exploring ideas that had not been yet exposed in the Honduran society. We were a collective expression of a desire for culture. We wished to inspire, spark conversation, and fuel curiosity amongst our country's youth.
Photograph of Ainajuana by Ariel Sosa for Issue Number 6, Saku Magazine.
The final editorial team, after six issues made for print and a multimedia digital platform, was made of Moisés Sosa as Creative Director, Madelline Sevilla as Editor in Chief, and myself as the Editorial Director. At the end, we were just a group of friends getting together over Skype calls, reading our favorite magazines, and sharing stories about individuals we admired and were inspired by.
What I learned about this project was that you don’t have to wait for someone to give you your perfect job, you can just create in yourself, as long as you dare and trust enough in yourself and the people you surround yourself with to nurture your talent.
Photograph of Anarella Velez by Joan Hidalgo for The Women Issue, Saku Magazine.
After dying and coming back to life twice, the project came eventually to an end in January of 2017. Inconsistencies in communication in our team and a constant challenge of finding the right funding for ourselves, our collaborators, and a way to print the magazine as we originally intended, eventually made the project unsustainable.
Photograph of Boreal Scala shot by Ariel Sosa for The Bravest Issue, Saku Magazine.
I can now say that favorite part about the project, and what I learnt most from it, was working in an environment surrounded by creative minds creating freely and with one same goal, to live fully through the expression of our individuality.
Still from TOMBOY. The Women Issue, Saku Magazine.