MUSAADE IREM ATAYIK MAVA

MUSAADE
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İrem Atayık
Mava446
Graduation Project

OUR STORY
‘‘Müsaade’’ is a platform to support the creative world. It’s an online platform
and an online magazine which gathers people existing in the creative field.
Müsaade is an online magazine which aims to create a local community,
people with different interests and visions. We as a team of three, not only aim
to publish an online magazine but also become a platform which brings
people with different voices. Consisting mostly of our friends, we do interviews
and collaborations in order to find inspiration and also in order to be an
inspiration for our readers. By interviewing different people from different
fields, we aim to create an area where people can easily meet and ask questions.
We want our followers to be in constant engagement and in mutual
communication. I think it’s very inspiring to share your journey with an
audience and that’s what we are offering to our friends. Voices to be heard,
faces to be seen. New opportunities and new engagements.
TARGET AUDIENCE
Our target audience consists mostly of our friends and
familiar faces. Mostly aged between 16 to 25.
People who are in search of
inspiration in their education, job and their path are our
target audience.

HOW DID IT START
It all started when one day Lavin called me and asked me to be a part
of this platform. I was so busy at the moment and I didn’t listen to her
carefully but as I trusted her vision and thoughts, I didn’t hesitate to
say yes. She wanted to create a world where people can reach out to
each other, learn from each other and be in communication. It was also
a great way to make new friends. As we collaborate with people, we
make new friends and we socialize with them unintentionally. I really
had the chance to talk with a lot of people. When they followed our
instagram account, they knew that it was ruled by me, Öykü and Lavin.
Even though we have approximately 400 followers, it is good for us. For
now, 400 is a good number. We are not very active these days and it is
a miracle that people still keep following us. When I get together with
some of my friends, they tend to ask me about when we will launch
the new copy. When I sense that people are curious about what we’re
doing, it makes me really happy because it proves that we’re doing something
cool and we should continue.
OUR TEAM
The story of ‘‘Müsaade’’ began spontaneously. As I said earlier, we are a
team of three. Lavin, Öykü and me. Lavin is the founder of Müsaade. She
is my dearest and bestest friend since
kindergarten. She graduated from Galileo Galilei di Istanbul, which is
an italian high school. With the freedom and the opportunities that her
school offered her, Lavin found her interest and her love for fashion
during high school years and she decided to pursue her dreams in the
heart of fashion Milan. Lavin studies fashion design in NABA, Nuova Accademia
di Belle Arti. It’s a Fine Arts Academy which is one of the most
prestigious universities in Italy. NABA offers an open- minded education
for its students. Lavin is well educated in digital media and it is very beneficial
for us as we create an online platform. She is the heart of Müsaade.
She is responsible for the design part. She brings up the interviews,
photos and other findings together and turns them into a magazine
form. Her passion for fashion and arts in general forms the vision of
Müsaade. She collects images from other online platforms and magazines
which then becomes a part of our magazine. She turns hers and
also our thoughts into paper and then the design of Müsaade emerges.

Öykü is the second member of Müsaade. She is also studying in Italy. Different
from Milan, she studies in Turin. Öyke and I are friends from high
school. We graduated from Lycée Sainte Pulchérie, and we have known
each other since preparatoire. Öykü is majoring in architectural design
and she is passionate about dance and photography. The fact that she is
living in Turin, she is very social. She is an easy going person and therefore
she has many friends. She is friends with many Italians, dj’s, photographers,
illustrators etc. When she learns new things from them she immediately
tells us about them. We share our knowledge with each other
and then we develop the vision of our platform.

I am the third member of the Müsaade. As a person who enjoys arts and
aims to be a part of the creative world, I know the key in this field is having
a wide network. Meeting with people in the field that you’re interested
in opens new possibilities and new paths for you and as I’m studying
Media and Visual Arts, this platform is very related to my major. I have
always been interested in magazines. I always thought that I would become
an editor one day and this was what I thought I wanted. After a few
internships, one in Elele Magazine and another in Based Istanbul, I realized
that being an editor wasn’t my dream. The reason I wanted to be a
part of this world was because during my time in traditional magazines,
I realized that something was missing. They weren’t giving any voice to
other talented people.

THE MISSING PART IN OTHER MAGAZINES
Elele is a monthly Turkish magazine which was first published in 1976. It is
one of the oldest magazines about women’s fashion and lifestyle in Turkey.
Elele mostly covers the topics of fashion, women’s life, relationships, psychology,
travel destinations and also health. During my time in Elele, I observed
what everyone else was doing. I mostly did translations of texts and transcriptions
of interviews. I attended a cover shoot and other than that I interviewed
some turkish brands in the bag industry. I realized that sitting in the
same chair for 8 hours wasn’t my thing. I also understood that magazines,
the traditional ones, didn’t have a big number of readers. Elele had approximately
5 to 10 workers… One of them was the editor in chief, the other was
the reporter, beauty editor, photographe etc. I saw no light in traditional
magazines, Elele being one of them disappointed me in the ways of not
adapting themselves to the digitized area. I noticed that Elele was running
out of ideas and it was hard for them to stand tall. There were many opportunities
that they could benefit from but I think that with their identity and
their target audience they resisted against the digitized area. Cover shoots
were being done with similar and boring faces of the industry. More instant
information can be reached from online platforms as the printed media
such as Elele publishes one copy in a month. Some people say that printed
media is dying due to the reasons I cited earlier and some say that the more
people choose to read magazines online the more printed ones are
becoming ‘rare’ and valuable.
Unlike Elele, Based Istanbul is a digital platform and magazine which collaborates
with artists, musicians, actors and so on. It publishes self-titled
magazines, not monthly or weekly, as I recall the timing is uncertain and it
is free of charge. I can say that Based Istanbul is an inspiration for us. Based
İstanbul is an inspiration for many other platforms because it is one of the
biggest and one of the most popular platforms of these days. During my
time in Based Istanbul, I’ve developed myself in many ways. I wrote news/articles
about fashion, arts and lifestyle on a daily basis. I contributed to Based
Istanbul’s digital platform by supporting the editorial team in deciphering
and editing the interviews to be published. I searched a lot and learned a
lot. I saw new ways in managing social media and this is helping me to cope
with Müsaade. Working in a very digitized platform had its perks too. Even
in my free time I had to work. I had to search constantly and present new
ideas to my boss. My boss was a young woman who was in her thirties. At
first, she seemed very nice and understanding but after a while she became
unbearable. I was stressing over everything and was under a lot of pressure.
We had a WhatsApp group and also they were sending me direct messages
and we were in touch 7/24. It was bothering me a lot because constantly
they were giving me some things to do and I couldn’t find any time for myself.
Even at midnight they were sending messages or emails about some
emergencies and as an intern, I was doing everything that I was told. As
much as I hate the majority of my time there, I gained a lot of experience.
And my experience in this field united with the excitement and the interests
of Öykü and Lavin.

BEING
PARTNERS
Sometimes I felt like Lavin and Öykü were putting themselves forward
but then I realized that it was okay to feel left behind. Even in school
assignments it’s hard to work as a group, so it wasn’t surprising when
things weren’t going well between me, Lavin and Öykü. Lavin is always
eager to post something on our social media and it is hard to stop her.
Meanwhile, Öykü and I think that planning is very important and we
shouldn’t rush things. Rushing things just makes everything worse. A lot
of disagreements happen because of our lack of experiences but I think
that in some cases I know a lot more things about them. I can say that
Lavin is our designer and obviously Müsaade couldn’t happen without
her. Öykü on the other hand is like me, she is the creative director. And I
think that I am editor in chief and also the marketing manager of Müsaade.
Thanks to my experiences, I know when we have to wait and when
we have to post. I try to tell Lavin that but she sometimes doesn’t listen
to me but she is a very hard working person and that’s what I love the
most about her. Lavin has been in İstanbul since October due to coronavirus
and it makes everything easier but Öykü is still in Torino and it
makes everything harder. It is hard to reach out to her and she sometimes
ignores our texts and it drives me crazy. Becoming a partner means
that we could easily reach out to each other and communicate. Without
communication we are done, we are dead. We are still very unprofessional
regarding things we want to accomplish. I always want to arrange
some zoom meetings and dates that we should respect.
Becoming a partner with your friends
is hard because you can’t talk
about the negative things directly
with them but if it was someone
else you could easily make criticism.
Criticism is tough to take for a lot of us and when it comes from a loved one
it is harder. Nevertheless when you are working with someone, there are a
lot of things that you should both discuss. Exchanging ideas and telling each
other whether you’re satisfied or not is important. Even so, working with your
best friend is challenging. When I’m not satisfied with something I find it hard
to say and it makes everything a little bit complicated. When things are unsaid
between a team of three, there are unanswered questions left behind. As
they have sides which are bothering me, I also have habits that could bother
them. Every so often, my mood constantly changes and it is hard for me to
communicate and discuss. Also I can be very realistic regarding Lavin’s point
of view. She makes statements and throws out ideas which are unrealistic for
me. As not to sound too harsh, I try to tell her that we have a lot to
accomplish before we get into her ideas. Her passion for doing this job also
excites me and scares me at the same time because I don’t want to rush
things.

STRUGGLES WE FACED DURING
OUR JOURNEY
At the first stage of our journey, we didn’t know what to do. We opened
an instagram account, we prepared some announcement posts and then
we were stuck. We didn’t know how to create a website and we didn’t care
about it at the moment. There were already three people who we wanted to
collaborate with in our heads. One of them was Can, he is a gastronomy graduate
and he is passionate about photography. He is a food & lifestyle photographer.
I interviewed him and asked him some general questions which
people can benefit from. Can loved the idea of our platform and he was
really excited about it.
Also Mina was a part of our first issue. Mina is the co- founder of Jungleous.
Jungleous can not be described as a flower shop because it is more than
that. It has set out to make a difference in our homes by offering different
plant varieties grown both in Turkey and from other countries with different
pot varieties and also decoration products. Mina was the first entrepreneur
that we featured in Müsaade. Mina was also very up to our idea and she immediately
accepted to be a part of it.

The last person who we collaborated on our first issue was David. And David
was a challenging person. He was questioning everything and we weren’t
capable of the answers. We didn’t think very much about our purpose at first,
we weren’t capable of explaining what our purpose was. It was a big mistake.
I realized that you have to think about all the details before you start. David
was thinking that we were not explicit enough. He thought that what we
wrote in our instagram bio, ‘‘Local artist community’’ was not correct and he
advised us to change it. After a few debates between us we decided to make
a more clear explanation to him and also to our followers and we posted
explaining the true purpose of Müsaade. I think what we had with David was
a common misunderstanding. From that I learned not to let others interfere
in our business and we should’ve given more information to people.
Second struggle that we faced was properly defining our aim and our identity.
Sometimes it’s really hard to put into words what you’re thinking and
planning, that leads to
misunderstandings and missing information. After finishing the first issue,
we realized that we didn’t have a website and we didn’t know how to create
one. With some help from our friends we figured it out and named it ‘‘musaade.art’’.
When we thought we accomplished the hardest task, there was the
problem of where to upload the online magazine. As we prepare our magazine
in InDesign, we turn it to PDF but when you upload it as PDF, it seems
very sloppy and cheap. Therefore we found another website called ‘‘YUMPU’’
where you can upload your pdf and then it turns it into a magazine form. We
were very relieved when we found out about YUMPU but it proves that
starting a job without preliminary preparation is a bad idea.

As we are a team of three friends, there is no one above us and it makes
everything magical and sometimes it makes everything worse. We are relieved
because we don’t have a deadline and we don’t have someone above us
who is rushing things. Our schools, homeworks and also personal lives matter
too. Müsaade is not the first thing in my life, neither in Öykü’s and Lavin’s
lives. We are not responsible for anyone above us, we are responsible for ourselves
but sometimes being the boss of your own job makes it harder. You
start postponing things as you like then things you should be doing never
get finished. I think it’s hard to stay motivated when you are working with
your friends. When one of us wants to get things done the other person has
homeworks or finals. We think that we can arrange meetings between ourselves
but when the time comes the other person doesn’t reply to a message
or answer a call then things get postponed immediately. Our main problem
is being available at the same time.
OUR GOALS
When we come to the issue of ‘where are we now’ and ‘what are we aiming
for’ , I think we are very far away from where we should be. As I stated earlier,
we postpone things and it is hard to stay connected between us. Someone
could easily say that, when you can’t stay connected between three people,
how are you aiming to connect young adults with passion? I really am not
sure about the answer for now. I love to dream and so does Lavin. We believe
that everything will settle down and during summer we will be focusing on
Müsaade. We’ve done two issues so far and the third one is in progress. We’ve
decided on whom to interview but we haven’t done anything else. After the
third issue, we’re thinking about something different. So far, we’re collaborating
with our friends and after the third issue we want to try for more. We
also want to include someone who is professional in their field. Lavin’s cousin
Eylem is helping us as she is a stylist and she has many acquaintances from
the industry. Eylem is also guiding us about where we can also send our magazine.
Two weeks ago, Lavin sent an email to Turkcell. Turkcell has a
magazine platform where people can enjoy online magazines and
newspapers.
We wanted to reach out to them and learn more about their way of
publishing and their conditions.
I am excited and motivated for the future of Müsaade. Even if we can’t show
progress from time to time, I think that starting is one of the most important
processes of building a job and the fact that we got that part covered, it gives
me relief.

İrem Atayık
Mava446
Graduation Project