
ALL IMAGES FROM erwanchecman.tumblr.com
It’s a lazy August afternoon when the doorbell to my apartment chimes. The microphone is out and ready to record the interview with one of the co-founders of Beware! a webzine dedicated to culture, fashion, design, architecture, photography, and music. That might seem like a lot of subjects to cover, impossible maybe. It sounds like a project doomed to fail, the result of an over-ambitious web denizen who gets amped up on coffee one morning and decides to change how the world digests culture. But that’s not the case here at all, because Beware! has been publishing original content daily for over four and a half years.
The man who walks in is young, attentive, excited, and a little nervous. His project has grown to such large levels because of his passion, and the time he invests everyday into improving the quality of the content on Beware! He is also my neighbor, and co-hosted our second AperoMusicTech at Point Éphémère. His name is Erwan Manchec.
The publication of this interview is timed with the first Whyd Selection for Beware! that just hit the web today. It is the first in a monthly series featuring the most popular music on Whyd, alternating roughly between electronic and indie. Make sure you check Beware! every second weekend of the month to listen to Whyd’s selection.

We sit down to begin the discussion, to hear the story behind Beware! and how they got to where they are today. I tap the microphone, it’s recording.
TH: Let’s start by talking about the timeline. When did it begin? How did it develop?
EM: For the context, Beware! was created officially on January 1st, 2009. We started with something called Beware Blog, a terrible name that didn’t work very well, so in 2010 we created a new site also with content in English called Beware Mag. Today it’s the 13th of August and we are about 50 contributors.
Beware! is an urban culture magazine focusing on architecture, fashion, graphics, design, photography, and music. We started with all of the topics at the same time. What we did was organize it so that we had a different category each day of the week; Monday was design, Wednesday was fashion, etc. The idea was really good but it didn’t work because news doesn’t work like that.
TH: Didn’t people appreciate that? Seems like that is a really interesting format to present your content.
EM: Well to be honest we didn’t really have much of a response at the beginning, so it’s hard to tell, but we weren’t able to cover news quickly because of the structure of the format, and we are always searching for things that are truly exclusive, which is hard to do after the fact.
TH: What is your favorite category personally?
EM: Photography, because I am a photographer on the side. It’s the category that I understand the most. I appreciate the other categories too, but not as much.

TH: What type of photography do you do?
EM: Portraits, landscapes, streetscapes. Images talk the most to people I think.
TH: Did you start Beware! to create inspiration for your own work?
EM: No, I started photography two years after I started Beware! The idea for Beware! was to create something to showcase things that are beautiful. I like things that look nice. Beware! was a way to create a project around those beautiful things.

TH: So photography for you came after?
EM: Yeah, I was in Copenhagen with the guy who designed our logo and he started to teach me things about talking photos, and when I went to live in London I really fell in love with it, the environments, the light.
TH: Are there any links between the styles of the content across the different categories of Beware?
EM: We always talked about a lot of things at the same time, so they are not connected, as long as it inspires. It’s photos that emit emotion, that can be transmitted and rejoined in a certain way.

TH: Now that you are working on this for more than four years, you’ve seen things online change. Is it more difficult now?
EM: In 2009 there were already a lot of blogs. We were able to keep it together for over four years because we found a model that works. We all do this for free, and there are a lot of blogs that just stop, people change jobs or lose interest. We found a way to do this with no cost, lots of time, for sure, but I think that it’s about as complicated today as it was before. We have more ways to promote ourselves but all of these social channels are jammed up.
TH: The average lifespan of a blog is six months. It starts off very well, and then it collapses. How did you keep it going?
EM: I’ve always looked at this like a pleasure, I spend four or five hours per day on this, and I found really cool people to help me who feel the same way. They are people who love to share, and the desire to do this comes naturally from that desire to share. We have also created a good team dynamic. We meet once a month for example.

TH: What is the music side of Beware?
EM: We started doing different compilations but it was really time-intensive. We started doing podcasts of about 30-40 minute mixes, but we couldn’t keep doing it because one of the guys left, and we couldn’t get someone to replace him. So we definitely want to relaunch the podcasts, and keep doing selections.
TH: What was the podcast?
EM: Nu-disco, a little Frenchie, things that have character, we have all gotten older throughout this whole thing, so the tracklists have become more mature too. We were thinking about things that are designed for moments, like a podcast to work to, etc.
TH: We have a ton of people who listen to Whyd only at work, so we know how that goes. What is your longterm objective? Do you want to continue to do this for fun?
EM: We are always talking about this, do we want to professionalize this stuff? We really want to go more pro, better content, more artistic, more in depth, higher quality really. We need to find our balance, so that our work is to push Beware to maybe become a creative agency, or a resource for creatives, there might be a way to monetize the site and our services. The brand Beware is also important, we have already made T-shirts, and other merchandise. We can’t take all of the routes at the same time. It’s a ton of time to get everything done. You just have to come and see it!

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