How a lifestyle publication uses Flaunter

Offering the solution to a simple, meaningful, well-designed life through curated interiors, fashion, well-being, travel and design features, Fête Press gives their readers so much more than a stunning addition to the coffee table.??We caught up with co-founder and creative director?Jane Cameron, to hear more about the Fete/Life journey,?the importance of aesthetics and how Flaunter saves her sanity.

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All about Fête Press

We publish a printed lifestyle magazine,?Fête/Life?– our byline says it all – it’s the solution to a simple, meaningful and well-designed life. We’re a small team – my business partner, Annabelle Kerslake and I started the business five years ago with our own laptops and a camera. We launched a digital version of the magazine to build up readership before releasing a printed magazine 24 issues ago!

Now, we have an accounts manager, two editorial assistants and a photographer on the team – not a lot of people but it seems big to Annabelle and me given it was just us a few years ago. There is a lot of cross-over as we are dab hands at all aspects of the business but Annabelle and I both work on editorial content, we plan our own shoots together then she looks after advertising and grand plans while I work on the design and digital side of the business.

Our goal is to produce a magazine that will add value to our readers’?lives. We’re all about a controlled, refined aesthetic, but everything has to have a purpose or a meaning rather than just being decorative.?Fête/Life?includes helpful stories relating to well-being, health, finances and travel as well as a curated collection of homewares, food and fashion-focused products.

On finding the perfect picture

Our editorial assistant, Jessica Smith and I work on the product pages in the magazine. I’m a graphic designer so I’m primarily focused on bringing together a range of products that fit the brief while still working well together on the page. Sometimes these pages come together easily but others take more thought and research. I can’t give up until I’m totally happy with a page and am often swapping out products the night before we go to print in an effort to make the page look as good as it possibly can. It’s hard to explain but sometimes products should work together but when they’re put on the page next to one another, they don’t.

Jess and I spend a lot of time searching through websites, looking at new collections and stockpiling possible image choices for future editorial use. Flaunter is great when we are struggling to find an ideal pic and have exhausted our normal resources. It is like a smorgasbord of products all in the one spot.?Flaunter has saved our sanity on more than one occasion!

On the importance of aesthetics?

We have a very controlled aesthetic in the magazine. It took us a while to develop and refine it to a place that suits our style. It’s very important to us that we maintain the integrity of the design and style we have established so we will work within that criteria when searching for images.

Flaunter’s search function helps us narrow down choices

We want to provide our readers with the best possible product choices so we invest time into research. We’d rather offer a few options that are spot-on and fit with our brand ethos rather than provide other products that aren’t quite right. It’s very time-consuming to check in with our extensive list of both advertiser and supplier websites to view their updated ranges. I have over 200+ websites on my list that I regularly check but this is becoming unsustainable. The search function on Flaunter helps us narrow down choices when we know there’s a certain product or image that we’re looking for.

Flaunter helps us discover new brands

There’s an ever-growing range of brands that are regularly updated. This helps us keep on top of what’s newly released. It’s great because we’ve been introduced to brands we didn’t know before, that fit well within our magazine.

On essential resources

Well, I don’t know how we managed before the internet. It is absolutely integral to the product research aspect of our business. If we can’t find what we’re looking for from our existing contacts, or a service like Flaunter, we’ll resort to Google. It’s surprising what it can lead to – quite often not what we’re looking for, but something interesting and unexpected.

Saving time and money

I like how you can view images and then download high res then and there if it’s right. Oftentimes clients or suppliers won’t have a great understanding of the technical requirements of imagery for print. We often we struggle to get the right file size or format from them. With Flaunter, the images are the resolution and size we need so it can be a huge time-saver for us.

Occasionally we’ll find a great hero pic on Flaunter which saves us the time and expense of hiring a photographer and setting up the shot. We always make sure to look through the lifestyle shots before planning shoots of our own in case there is something we can use straight from the site.

Flaunter in three words

Easy, valuable and helpful.