Outlish Magazine is a new, weekly, online magazine targeted at young adult Trinbagonians. It showcases people who are going after their dreams and features fresh perspectives on issues that readers obviously relate to, because its popularity is soaring. I decided to find out what makes Outlish the newest “in” thing by talking with its founder and Editor-in-Chief, Karel Mc Intosh… Janine Mendes-Franco: You were blogging intermittently at Caribbean Public Relations, contributing occasional posts to Global Voices Online and working for “The Man” in a marketing job when you decided to follow through with creating this online magazine you'd had your heart set on for a while. How did you make the move and why did you feel there was room for it in a largely traditional market? Karel Mc Intosh: I started blogging in June 2006 at CPR and maintained it for quite a bit until things started to get very hectic as I moved up in the corporate world. When I left my job, I was holding a managerial position, which for some is a big deal. I don’t care much for titles; I’m more concerned about doing things that I enjoy and which push me to be constantly creating. I was feeling stifled and frustrated, so I left. Just before that, the vision for Outlish started cementing itself in my mind, and I decided since I now had the free time, I’d start the magazine. I’ve been blogging for the past few years, I’m a total Internet junkie, and I love magazines. Being a digital native, online was the obvious choice for me, so I went with it. Not to mention the start-up costs are incredibly low. Karel Mc Intosh, Founder and Editor-in-Chief, Outlish Magazine. Photo by Mark Lyndersay, used with permission. When I started Outlish I didn’t care about competition and whether there was space for it in the market. This was more a project of passion and love than trying to find a way to make money. Most of my favourite magazines and websites are foreign-based, and I know it’s like that for many Trinbagonians. I wanted to see something that dealt with issues that I was interested in, without getting too intellectual. The number of people using the Internet in Trinidad and Tobago alone is growing every single year. Look at Facebook. You’re seeing people online every day, posting links to articles they like and discussing various issues, so I knew there were tons of people who would be interested in what Outlish would be offering. Besides, once you’re online, your audience is literally the world. I’ve started out by focusing on T&T. The ultimate goal is to eventually widen our scope [of content] to the wider Caribbean. JMF: What went into the mag's creation technically and creatively? And why the name? KMI: I wanted something that represented the idea of being different and operating outside of the box. Popular media tends to focus on what’s in, and there are people out there who don’t care about what’s in or what the trends are and prefer to ascribe to their own individual path. So that’s what I wanted the name to represent. I went through a slew of names. The thing about being online though, is so many people have parked domains or have taken up names, so it’s hard to get the domain name you want. I wanted something short and sweet. I’d seen the name online sometime before and liked it, and it kind of always stayed with me. When I checked to see if the name was available and it was, I registered it immediately. There was a lot of fine-tuning that went into solidifying Outlish’s vision. I wanted to ensure that what I had set out to achieve was sustainable, so I’m very much conscious of how ideas impact work flows; what’s achievable and manageable. I got help with creating the brand. My friend Jeunanne Alkins designed the logo and was a great sounding board. Other people's support and interest in what I was doing [like that of Assistant Editor, Quilin Achat] was also very encouraging, especially when I’d stop and ask myself, “Karel what yuh really doing?” I had also started a Coming Soon page that gave an overview of Outlish, a Twitter account, and the Facebook fan page very early on so that people could start engaging with the brand and give feedback on what they wanted to see before we even published it. Readers were regularly emailing to say how much they loved what Outlish represented, so this provided a lot of encouragement and told me that my intuition was strong. On the technical side, a fellow blogger, Ndelamiko Lord designed the website. She’s also known as Sun Goddess for her blog. Funnily enough, Ndelamiko helped lay the seed for my desire to start a magazine years ago! She had a digital magazine called Sunhead Magazine, which I read religiously and thought was so cool.