Creative Director and editor-in-chief, Bagio White, describes DOPENESS magazine and his creative works as art "fixated on the influential," and the new revamp work for the magazine that has certainly seen a lot of "iconic moments" in its years. Born in Kingston, Jamaica, the island native says that creativity is in his blood and has known that all his life. Bagio creates some of the industry's most iconic editorials within the pop and urban culture
In October: Bagio introduced a new initiative, spanning his current work for DOPENESS as well as its digital offshoots, to a new platform to encompass and build on. The editor-in-chief said that this new initiative will have about five magazines along with DOPENESS.
I've been following Bagio's career for quite some time and I've become a bit of a fan of his work as a creative director and more so his approach to also being an editor-in-chief. I had the chance to sit down with Bagio for International Business Times to speak more on his career, and his many notable works so far. White stated that he has been busy all year preparing his upcoming platforms and magazines. "In a nutshell, it's been a pretty busy year, but it's gonna be a great upcoming year for editorial".
Bagio has been in the industry for the better part of 13 years now since interning as a graphic designer for Def Jam Recordings in his early teenage years into the early part of is college years. "Def Jam really gave me some key tools to work with, it was more like my baptism into design" White stated. While interning Bagio worked on various sample projects one being for singer Rihanna. "I was part of the interning team to work on design art samples for her Good Girl Gone Bad deluxe album, which was awesome, because I was graduating high school at the time and it was surreal to me because I was working on one of the biggest musician's in the world, album design, which I considered a blessing in its self" White stated.
Now fast forwarding into the birth of his magazine (DOPENESS Magazine), White had his hand with working with a slew of talents for all genres in the industry from singers like Tinashe and Mila J, Comedians like King Bach and Amanda Cerny and even actresses like Cierra Ramirez and Milana Vayntrub. "I've created some real impactful editorial art with probably some of your favorite entertainers. White states "My art form is really fixated on the on the influential but rather the impact I can create for their fans and our readers".
In addition to being editor in chief, and creative director, White is also the art director for DOPENESS's offshoot video medias, one in particular is their video series ThePLUG. "Being a video art director is a new one for me [laughs] but it's not so unfamiliar it's the same aesthetic but I guess a different approach, so I've learned". White has worked with rapper G Herbo, Cyhi The Prynce and singer Izzy Bizu for the video series so far. White states "That artform is really honest because it's centered around the comfort level and the vulnerability that the acts display for the camera, so it's sort of my job to warp a certain visual mood for that".
The press event Bagio held in early October revealed his plans for editorial in 2020. He introduced a new platform, merging tangible and digital editorials interactively. Bagio said his innovation will firsthand spearhead the elevation to print media in a dying industry. Many of whom that were present was Bagio's business partner, prompting that magazine's editorial union to his new initiative is going to be "refreshing way to experience magazines in the near future".
We later asked Bagio that with all these new updates will his role change as creative director within his publications or even overall? Bagio responded with a quick smirk saying
"I think that's entirely up to my brain [laughs]. I really don't think I'll ever be anything but an artist, so it would be pretty difficult to say. I do hold other positions in my company only because I'm a bit of a mad scientist [laughs]. I will always be a student of art and a man married to creativity, I've been in the industry for so long and created so many visuals for so many public figures it would be hard for me to jump ship [laughs] but for now I'm just a creative director to the influential."
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