After starting our iPad issues in March 2014, last year marked our first year as an online entity. We launched our website on January 24, 2015 at our launch party. Since then our website has gone through a massive overhaul when it comes to colour scheme, layout and content (more on that later). As the workload increased we unfortunately had to make the difficult decision to put our iPad issues on hold to build up our website, but we’ll be bringing them back in 2017.
Early in the year we added our first film reviewer, Vladimir Jean-Gilles, who would eventually become the editor of our film section.
We attended our first big music industry party- King Empire Entertainment’s private cocktail party for their newest artist, B. Howard.
As Summer rolled around we really hit our stride. We covered our biggest events yet, Glowfair and Bluesfest, and participated in the latter’s Style Squad. Huge thanks to Julie Beun for that one! Out of these events came our biggest interviews of the year. We also published our first look book featuring Daniele Ramdial and his wife, Brittany.
Then last November we made a decision that would completely change the course of our magazine for the better. We decided to rebrand from SHIFT Magazine to SHIFTER Magazine to focus our content on the creatives and aspiring cultural influencers we wanted to serve. This focus brought clarity to our content and gave us a sense of identity.
After this move we were positioned for growth. We added team members and contributors including correspondents in Los Angeles, Montreal and Toronto.
Finally, last December we crowned recording artist, Akon, as our Person of the Year for his development work in Africa and his new approach to music distribution.
So this brings us to 2016. Already in the first weeks of this new year we have done our first television spot, appearing on CTV Morning Live. This will be the first of many media opportunities. We also welcomed Toronto podcasters CDH Live! and Shel Rock to the SHFTER family, becoming the sponsors for the Live! & Rock show.
Our goals for 2016 include:
- Hosting our first event
- Launching our apparel line (limited run)
- Conducting higher profile interviews
- Growing our Art, Fashion and Music sections
2016 promises to be our greatest year yet! Thank you for joining us on this journey. Here’s to you, SHIFTERS!