While publications purporting to “change the world” are pretty much a dime a dozen, it is rare to witness one that actually lives up to such lofty aspirations. COLORS by Fabrica was unleashed into our consciousness like a burst of fresh, alpine air, making it its mission to be “a magazine about the rest of the world”, and to represent a unique point of reference in the global publishing world. Till today, it has awoken public attention to topics and themes from areas of the world that other publications rarely write about.

THE BIRTH OF A GLOBAL VISION
Established in 1991 in New York under the direction of Tibor Kalman, from an original concept by Luciano Benetton and Oliviero Toscani, COLORS started life originally as an in-house organ of the Benetton Group with the premise that diversity is positive but that all cultures have equal value.

Its first issue heralded an entirely novel editorial concept. The birth of a baby girl represented the launch of a new magazine on the editorial panorama. This particular image had already been used by Giusy for a Benetton advertising campaign, and in a sense was also perfect for defining the novelty of the experiment that is COLORS: a magazine that, as it describes itself in the first editorial, is founded on a simple idea – “diversity is good” – which was “borrowed” from the Benetton advertising campaigns.

Since its inception, COLORS has always been dedicated to stories approached from a broad perspective of global journalism, with a far-reaching journalistic mission.


Click on the thumbnails to view the the Fabrica complex in detail.

COLORS is part of the publishing activity of Fabrica, Benetton's communication research center established in 1994. It has evolved into a quarterly magazine read by young adults across the world. It is sold in over 40 countries, in three editions and four languages. Continuing in its proud 17 years’ tradition, each themed issue still examines the profound and playful sides of contemporary life around the world.

Each issue of COLORS is monothematic and reportage-based, and pictures are COLORS’ expressive medium: a method that is universal and reaches the greatest number of people with a strong, immediate impact.

Another characteristic of COLORS is the nomadic spirit of the publication: over the years, it has been based in different cities, such as New York, Paris and Rome. Currently, its editorial offices are situated in Fabrica's architectural complex, restored and enlarged by Japanese architect Tadao Ando. The Fabrica complex is situated near Treviso, a beautifully restored town 30 km away from Venice.

Today, COLORS remains an integral part of Fabrica’s publishing activities and is intimately connected to it operations. Fabrica is not a school, advertising agency or university. It is an applied creativity laboratory, a talent incubator, a studio of sorts all rolled into one in which young, modern artists come from all over the world to develop innovative projects and explore new directions in myriad avenues of communication - ranging from design, music and film to photography, publishing and the Internet. These artist-experimenters are accompanied along their research path by leading figures in art and communication, blurring the boundaries of culture and language and transgressing the traditional borders between a diverse range of communication mediums.

THE QUIET REVOLUTION
COLORS may be based in Italy, but it speaks a universal language, promoting the idea of a multiracial world. Its young, dynamic and passionate editorial team is composed of journalists, writers, photographers and collaborators from all over the world (currently there are people from Brazil, Cuba, India, Uganda, etc.). This meeting of different opinions, cultures and races generates richness and diversity that provides the cultural and intellectual melting pot that is required to produce COLORS.

Everybody at COLORS are free to propose themes and ideas. Sometimes, the choice is contingent to a particular historic or social moment, or it is strictly connected with the Benetton brand values and communicational approach. For example, issue #73 “Money” is one of the expressions of “Africa Works”, the last Benetton global communication campaign promoting the micro-credit programme. As can be seen, COLORS’ themes alternate between the challengingly serious, such as ecology, wars around the world, the fight against Aids, and the frankly frivolous, such as shopping, fashion, and toys.


Click on the thumbnails to view the people that comprise COLORS in detail.

Over the years, Fabrica and COLORS have been developing communication campaigns and projects for many prestigious organizations, counting among them United Nations (UN)agencies, FAO (the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation), UNHCR (the UN High Commissioner for Refugees), Amnesty International, Reporters Without Borders, SOS Racism, etc., just to name a few.

THE NOTABLE AND NOTEWORTHY


Over the years, many issues of COLORS have served to impact the global demographic in various significant ways. Some of the highlights include:

1993. issue n° 4. Race
The fourth issue of COLORS was also the first monothematic issue, a formula that continues today. The theme, could be no other than Race, in the singular of course. This is clearly because there is only one race - the human race. This particular issue was an issue that faces the theme of racism in a different, ironic way. But the British, despite their proverbial sense of humour, were angered to see a black Queen Elizabeth.

1994. issue n° 7. AIDS
For the first time the problem of AIDS was tackled clearly and directly, discrediting prejudices and spreading accurate information on prevention, without being alarmist and with a little irony. The AIDS issue, which became lately one of the most requested cult issues, gave the impulse to a Benetton campaign on the same theme and to a guerrilla marketing episode (endorsed by ACT UP, which is one of the most radical associations involved in information about, and the fight against AIDS)in Paris, where for the sixth World AIDS Day, on December 1st 1993, an enormous pink condom, 22 meters high and 3.5 meters wide, was placed on the obelisk in Place de la Concorde.

1997. issue n° 21. Smoking
An issue all about smoking, in its different aspects: economic, social and religious. And inside a pitiful Playboy-style pin-up showing all the damage that smoking can do to the human body. Till today, the World Health Organization still uses this document for its anti-smoking campaigns.

1998. issue n° 28. Touch
The image of a gay kiss introduces the issue in Touch, bringing to mind the most direct way in which people relate to one another. The issue explores the many cultural differences and taboos relating to touch.


1999. issue n° 31. Water
The cover image shows a little boy urinating to celebrate the vitality of water. It was considered pornographic in Switzerland. The commission in charge of inspecting editorial products ordered that all copies of COLORS be removed from newsstands or wrapped in plastic like pornographic material.

2000. issue n° 36. Monoculture
A cover that almost made itself. A reject from a series of photos taken years before by Oliviero Toscani for a campaign promoting the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), representing a bloodstain and that had unexpectedly taken on the shape of Mickey Mouse. What other image could so powerfully have represented the threat of widespread monoculture that COLORS attempt to counteract?

2001. issue n° 41. Refugees
An issue entirely dedicated to a refugee camp in Tanzania, and produced with the support of the UNHCR. It was the beginning of a series on “communities”. The cover is an original illustration by a refugee who was asked to draw the typical traits of the two peoples at war, Hutu and Tutsi.

2002. issue n° 47. Madness
A self-portrait by a patient from the Camaguey Psychiatric Hospital in Cuba is the cover for an issue about Madness. The issue includes reports from different countries about the living conditions of people with a mental illness. It explores this topic in various places: from Belgium, where psychiatric patients are housed with regular families, to the Ivory Coast, where they’re chained to trees like animals and abandoned outside villages.

2002. issue n° 50. Prison
Colors visited fourteen prisons in fourteen different countries to explore every dimension of incarceration. The world’s total prison population represents one of the fastest-growing communities on earth. COLORS staff spoke to people both in and out of prison in the United States, in South Africa, in Mexico, in Colombia and in ten other countries. The answers our reporters obtained confirmed one irrefutable fact: in its present form, prison doesn’t work.

This was why COLORS had decided to take the opportunity offered by the feature to open a wider-ranging debate on prisons and prisoners. COLORS 50 was presented at the San Vittore prison in Milan, at the presence of the famous Chilean writer Luis Sepúlveda, and of a committee of detainees.


Click on the thumbnails to view COLORS thumbnails in detail.

2003. issue n° 53. Slavery
A photo of modern slaves in a mine in India opens the issue, made in collaboration with Anti-Slavery International. It dramatically brings to light a problem that many people think is no longer relevant, and shows that slaves still exist, and are often closer to home than we think.

2003. issue n° 56. Violence
The victim of a beating outside a nightclub in Johannesburg, South Africa, is the powerful image on the cover of an issue about violence. It was produced to support the World Health Organization’s Global Campaign for Violence Prevention.

2005. issue n° 65. Freedom of Speech
The calligraphy graffiti of Tsang Tsou-Choi is featured on the cover. He believes that he is the king or emperor of China. The issue celebrates freedom of expression and words, helping to mark the 20th anniversary of the organization Reporters Sans Frontières.

2006. issue n° 67. AIDS/HIV
Twelve years after the first AIDS issue, an update on the evolution of the problem and its new geography, with a focus on both personal stories and general issues. On the cover the portrait of Nyameka J. Matiayana, one of over three million people who died of AIDS-related causes in 2005.

2006. issue n° 69. Back to Earth
The image of a farmer riding his mule is the symbol of an ideal return to the land and nature. It’s call for sustainable production and consumption. An issue produced in conjunction with Slow Food to support the project Terra Madre, a huge meeting of farming community representatives from around the world where ideas and experiences are exchanged.

2007. issue n° 70 Beijing. Stories from a city
A special issue on Beijing, realize by two young Chinese Fabrica photographers, to tell, through stories of common people, the transformations that China is going through today.

2007. issue n° 271 Welcome to Vörland
An issue on environmental sustainability based into the future in Vörland, a tropical island off the coast of Scandinavia where the climate is perfect and there is also a lot going on within the community.

2007. issue n° 72 Colors Without Colors
The first black-and-white COLORS, for the world’s 40 million people who are blind or partially sighted, with an audio version on CD included with the magazine.

2008. issue n° 73. Money
COLORS 73 looks at money, life’s most coveted companion, in its myriad forms. Passing through the hands of millions, money retains traces of the activities - both noble and scandalous - of those who touched it. COLORS had cash taken out of circulation and tested in a lab for telltale substances. The findings form the basis of the magazine, which explores the relationships – both abstract and literal – each substance brings up.

Interviews with internationally renowned economists appear throughout the magazine, with discussions of everything from formal monetary systems to the rest of the world: non-conventional economies and money as a tool for development and social change.

“Money” is also one of the expressions of Africa Works, the Benetton global communication campaign promoting the micro-credit programme of Birima, a Senegalese co-operative credit society founded by the singer Youssou N'Dour.

2008. issue n° 74. Victims
This issue features the thirty most meaningful, touching photos of the disastrous Sichuan earthquake. Thirty monks agreed to dedicate their prayers to the victims of the earthquake that recently terrorized the Sichuan province of China. From Italy and India, to the US and Germany, COLORS visited them and showed them pictures of turmoil and hope. Each photo became a prayer and each prayer, in Tibetan tradition, fluttered about in the air as colourful flags animating the installation. This was combined with two previously unpublished articles by the famous Chinese writers Yu Hua and Acheng and ten blank pages to fill with one’s own hopes, reflections and thoughts.

Victims was launched on 08.08.2008, the opening day of the Chinese Olympics.

THE GLOBAL IMPACT
Over the years, COLORS has become a unique point of reference for many young creative artists, setting forth a distinct and opinionated view of global culture today.


Click on the thumbnails to view COLORS' causes in detail.

Today COLORS is not only a publication, but also a way of communicating and of using diverse media languages to interpret the world. COLORS’ experience and cultural background have engendered numerous editorial projects, among which a music collection, books, documentaries and exhibitions in prestigious venues in locations including Florence, Rome, London, Istanbul, Madrid, Barcelona, Maastricht and Budapest.

The magazine has received media accolades from all over the world, such as for example Good Magazine, an American bi-monthly cultural and lifestyle publication, which included the first thirteen issues, under Tibor Kalman’s editorship, in the ranking of the 51 best magazines of all times, or La Vanguardia, a Spanish daily which described it as one of the trendiest cultural magazines on the world scene. Recently, COLORS has been also included in Inside the great magazines, a documentary trilogy produced in Canada that explores the evolution of magazines from their European origins to their current popularity and the powerful influence they have on our social, political and cultural identities.

The full series of all COLORS’ issues was also included in the prestigious 25/25 exhibition at the Design Museum in London (2007), which featured the 25 most influential design objects of the past 25 years.

Among the most recent events was an exhibition at the San Francisco Academy of Art about the “Money” issue (2008), and an installation at an International Journalism Festival, which took place in Ferrara (Italy, 2008), inspired by the last issue “Victims”, which was on thirty Tibetan monks agreeing to dedicate their prayers to the victims of the earthquake that recently terrorized the Sichuan province of China. From Italy and India, to the US and Germany, COLORS visited them and showed them pictures of turmoil and hope. Each photo became a prayer and each prayer, in Tibetan tradition, fluttered about in the air as colourful flags animating the installation.

The world can only wait and watch with bated breath for the next issue, out in time for Christmas this year. Prepare to be surprised.



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