Letter From Ashley Osborn (Co-Founder/Editor-In-Chief)
Today is March 1st.
In November of 2011, I was on a dinner date at Chilis (best place ever) with one of my best friends and co-founder McKenzie Hughes. We got to talking about the condition of the industry and my dreams of photographing for the rest of my life. At the end of our discussion there was a simple concept that we had come up with: uniting the industry. Proving that artists weren’t as shady as they all may seem at times and breaking down the walls that are put up between genres and the people within them. We agreed that music was universal and somebody needed to have a voice to prove this. So that night we agreed to start a magazine – having absolutely no idea where it would take us or what we would accomplish in doing so.
As we left Chilis, we were strolling around downtown walking over the most beautiful bridge about to hit Wacker Drive. I remember glancing out and thinking that everything felt exactly right. I had this gut feeling that this was a good idea and that’s about the easiest way I can explain it.
We immediately contacted Cara Bahniuk because she had been a photographer and has done magazine design in the past and the rest is history.
After that day we immediately began planning out everything we could. I remember one day specifically in December, Cara had come to my loft and we had the best grilled cheese sandwiches in the world – and we worked for hours upon hours figuring out how to start all of this.
About a week later I had hopped on a bus to return home to Minnesota to visit my family for winter break. One by one things were starting to work themselves out and we had started to reach out to set up features for the first issue. We were blown away by the positive responses. We had not even launched our website yet – but people believed in us. They believed in the ideas we had and they trusted us when we had absolutely nothing to show for ourselves. I, myself, even having a very minimal photography portfolio to show.
Fast forward to February 22nd, 2012: I was in Virginia visiting my good friend. Cara texted me and told me that the cover was in my inbox. It was the first time I had seen anything Highlight on my computer. Right there on my screen was the start of everything I had been envisioning for the past few months. It was Highlight Magazine’s first cover. It was actually happening and it looked amazing. I will never ever forget that night.
A few days later I had the entire issue in my inbox. It was amazing to see it all come to life and I was blown away by the amazing job that Cara had done. All of her hard work was just phenomenal.
March 1st, 2012 we launched the first issue of Highlight Magazine. With Silverstein, Cassadee Pope, Anarbor, Dave Melillo, You Me At Six & Dante. It’s so funny now to look at it and laugh. Yes, Cara designed it all from scratch but comparing it to what we now have is just hilarious to see how much we have improved and changed over the past year! It’s incredible. I will never forget this day. I was a nervous wreck and as the artist reps got back to us one by one regarding the issue we heard nothing but great responses. It then hit me that we actually now had a magazine.
Since then every month has felt like an obstacle for me. I’ve had a rough year to say the least but month by month I had something to look forward to: releasing a brand new issue. It was like my entire life revolved around this ONE day and that was all that actually mattered. It just made me so happy.
In that first issue we each wrote a little letter. The end of mine stated: “Music is great… we all know this. Never be afraid to love all of it at once. Open your mind to everything around you and take it all in. Music has no limits and neither do you. Thank you for giving us a chance and for helping me live out a goal that I’ve had for a very long time. I hope you find that the words and images in this magazine help you connect and expand your mind to something brand new.”
We will stand by this idea as Highlight lives on. We will never be afraid to bring you something new and we hope you will embrace it because it is who we are. Those are the ideas that we are founded on.
Thank you for reading our publication. I don’t care if you’ve read every single issue or if this is your first time even visiting our website… and you’re just really confused as to what’s happening. I love you for reading because it means you believe in us and/or you believe in one of the artist we have featured.
This is the time when I’d like to thank the staff members that have been around since Day #1: Liz, Jessica, Logan, Derrick, Charlie, Heather. Your names were in the first issue and they are in the 13th. I can not thank you enough for sticking around and working hard. I’d also like to thank all of the other staff members as well. I know I tell you this every month but I LOVE you so much for working so much. So many new staff members have come on since day #1 and I’ve never felt more surrounded by a family in my life. Cara, Mackie – I love you two so much. Cara, every month you put together something more and more beautiful. It amazes me.
Here’s to a lifetime of music and many more issues of Highlight Magazine. I can’t wait for you all to see Issue #13 on Monday – it’s the best we’ve ever done.
– Ashley Osborn
