Julian Victoria, Dog
We start the week with Julian Victoria, the man behind Dog magazine. Julian moved to London from New York ten years ago, shifting from TV to magazine work. Freelance design work led to the launch of Dog in late 2017, since when five issues have appeared. Alongside the magazine he now works as a photographer and looks after his three dogs – Pheobe, Daisy and Dora.
Tell us about your typical Monday journey to work
I’m normally woken up around 7am by one of my dogs, we jump in the car and go for a walk in Hyde park (this is what every day looks like, including weekends). Normally we’re back by 8am and then I get ready to go to the office.
My commute is probably one of the shortest ever, the Dog offices are located two doors down from where I live so I am always the first one to arrive. Mondays are pretty much about replying to emails from the weekend, getting things ready for our team meeting which we normally do Monday midday, it helps to plan the rest of the week. Normally my dogs will come with me to the office, so I take few small “dog walk” breaks during the day which helps to disconnect for a bit.
Also, we still pack and ship our magazine from the office so from 4pm until the end of the day we dedicate that time to prepare the shipments to be collected.
Describe the state of your desk and what you can see in your office
Our office is a green house on top the second floor in a residential area in Kensington, two work areas (including mine) are facing three private terraces. It got a bit distracting to see the neighbours using their space, so we decided to cover the green house with blinds to create a more discreet office so sadly currently I do not have an exciting view from my desk.
My desk is normally pretty clean, I like to keep it that way since I can’t concentrate if there is too much going on around me but sometimes it is overloaded with magazines I use for research and if we are lucky sometimes a dog. One of my dogs, Phoebe (above) a very small Lakeland terrier, was once placed on one of our team members desk and somehow, she thinks is the best place to take a nap when she had enough of the other two dogs Daisy and Dora (below). It happens once in a while.
Which magazine do you first remember?
The first magazine I remember when I was a kid was Vogue. My mom used to collect them for many years and I used to flip through them and look at the photography. Once, I got in trouble with my mom because I cut some of the pages of one of her favorite issues for a school assignment.
Which magazine matters to you the most right now?
Printed Pages, Sedition Magazine, Mincho, Kinfolk and Port are some of titles I religiously buy. They all bring different elements to print that I personally find very inspiriting.
Can you describe your magazine in three words?
Underrated, Unexpected, fun.
How do you decide which breed of dog to feature in the next issue?
We try to alternate breed sizes on each issue. We list few popular breeds, then we investigate their origin and if the location is a place of interest to our readers, we decide on that breed. Sometimes there is another element that can influence the decision and it is who owns the breed.
People can be quite fanatical about dogs - what has been the response to the magazine?
We created Dog without any expectation. We understood from the beginning that it was going to be tricky to prove that we were not just a pure dog publication but a publication that uses dogs as subject to inspire content. Our first readers were dog fanatics who were immediately drawn by our title and the intense cover, but slowly other people followed who understood what we are doing, that it is not only about cute photos of dogs but about travel, interesting people, artist showcase pieces, stories that might not even mention the word dog.
After people started to notice what we were actually trying to do the response was bigger than we expected. We are starting to be noticed by amazing brands who want to be collaborate with us, talented individuals that want to be part of the magazine and being approached to be part of other projects.
What have you learnt about dogs and their owners through making five issues of Dog?
I personally have learnt that it is very easy to get a yes from people I want to work with, if you go by their dogs.
What’s going to be the highlight of the week for you?
My highlight of the week will be to finalize the preparations for our issue five launch party. It is always very exciting to gather our favorite people to celebrate what we have done but it is a lot of work to get everything ready for that day. Hopefully by Friday everything is done so we can move on to the next big thing which is our next issue!
Editor-in-chief and creative director: Julian Victoria
Editor: Emily Rogers