Ayanna McNeil
What are your thoughts:
On digital vs. print magazines. Why was it important to make FWRD a print magazine?
We live on our phones. 24/7. Staring at screens. Holding stories in your hand feels POWERFUL. Meaningful, even. Those sorts of stories never die. They live on forever. FWRD will live on forever.
On what makes a woman “FWRD” thinking and how that translates that in your magazine from your writing to your photoshoots
FWRD thinking women are those who stand in the sun. Women who are unafraid to push boundaries and change culture. The women featured in FWRD from Chef Nakai to Chelsea Bravo do just that. Our editorials were meant to capture the very essence of each of the features. Show them in their natural habitats being their most authentic selves. Of course, with a little magic.
On the inability to separate your Blackness from your art and why Black writers and creatives should be responsible for their narratives
Asking black artists to separate their art from their blackness is asking them to separate themselves from the very source of that art. There is no art without blackness. Even if we tried to, we could never separate the two. Even if we're writing a story about One Direction or creating a cooking show for Food Network, our blackness is always there. In the passenger seat.
On the importance of claiming your talent
You've gotta walk in your power. Claim it. Stand in it. The world will constantly tell you you're not good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, etc. It is up to you to combat those stories with what you know to be true. Even if those stories are coming from your own mind. You've gotta find a way to tap in.
On your process of breaking down music videos for the “In Living Color” section on brainwash
When choosing artists to cover for our In Living Colour series our team almost always chooses artists who utilize colour to tell their story. Who are seemingly not just interested in creating a pretty picture but evoking some sort of feeling. Turn up the saturation and you have a DRAM video— innocent and childlike. Remove all colour and you have one of Tyler's earlier videos— introspective and dark. After the artist is chosen, one of our editors sifts through the artists' catalog and finds videos that speak to us. From there we create a colour palette pulling exact hex codes from screengrabs of the video and use our understanding of colour and colour theory to explain to our audience the role each colour plays in the final video.
On the use of color to translate ideas and how you think colors and words can come together to tell a larger story
Colour speaks to our most primal instincts. A bull sees red and it charges ahead. We see red and we proceed with caution, if at all. Colour triggers an involuntary response within the body— something that words alone sometimes cannot do. It's one thing to describe that feeling of knowing there is something creepy around the corner. It's another thing to create a world where everything is this sort of gross throw-up green. You FEEL it.