A New Shade of DIY

by Anastasia Goodstein
March 1, 2006
Ypulse.com

Back when I worked at Teen Voices we had this "big idea" of teaming up with other independent feminist publications and creating our own publishing company -- the concept was strength in numbers. We were going to team with other indie mags from different life stages so we chose New Moon (for girls and tweens), Teen Voices would cover teens, HUES (Hear Us Emerging Sisters) would cover older teens and twentysomethings and we thought maybe Ms. would cover the rest. We never quite got it together, but the process included a retreat in upstate New York where I got to know the Edut twins -- two of the three founders of HUES magazine. They launched HUES when they were just 19, with the simple goal of creating the "perfect magazine." From Ophira Edut's own description:

"It would speak to women of all cultures and sizes. It would redefine beauty and strength, making it cool for women to be powerful and self-aware. We would invite women to write about their own experiences and identities, from a first-person perspective."

There must be something in the water up in Michigan (where HUES started) because there is a new multi-cultural women's mag in town called Tint, which was founded by 21-year-old Margarita Barry. According to this article in the Detroit Metro Times, Barry founded Tint to fill a "big need":

"I felt like there was a big need for some kind of publication that spoke to minority women — something that all women can relate to. ... I know when I read magazines I don't necessarily see people that look like me or that have the same thoughts and ideas or even the same values that I care about. In a lot of the mainstream publications you read about celebrity gossip, and you see beauty columns, but the columns don't really have anything to do with you because your hair is not like that or your skin color is not like that."

The article describes the first issue:

"The first issue, available both online and in a Kinko's-assisted, cut-and-paste format, covered everything from fashion, entertainment and culture to first-person narratives and global news. Past Tint article titles read a little like a Mother Jones-meets-Jane mag: 'Silenced Beauty: the Yemeni Illiteracy Epidemic," "How to Start a Revolution,' 'Afro Punk'd: a Place in the Scene' and 'Blogging for Girls.'

This spring Tint will go full-color and be published bi-monthly. It will be distributed free in the metro Detroit area, but you can also have it shipped to you.