You wouldn’t know it today, but
The Bark originally
started as an eight-page newsletter with minimal
graphics. First published on a bare-bones budget in
1997 and distributed for free, its original purpose
was to galvanize local support for a leash-free dog
zone in Berkeley, Calif. The founders, Cameron
Woo, an art director, and Claudia Kawczynska, a
public policy person, never imagined their grassroots
newsletter would one day be a four-color franchise.
“My partner and I had talked about doing a
magazine for dog lovers and we noted that there
wasn’t anything we thought was of interest out
there,” Woo says. “But when we started the newsletter,
oddly enough, we didn’t put the magazine idea
and the newsletter together. The newsletter had
a very specific function—to organize and inform
people about establishing an off-leash park. When we
started The Bark, we did not plan to evolve it into
the magazine that it is today. It seems like an obvious
thing, but it wasn’t in our thoughts at the time.”
Perhaps that’s why The Bark now has quite a
bite. Woo and Kawczynska have let their venture
grow organically—starting small and letting it find
its own voice and personality. “We try to surprise
people,” Woo says. “While you want to establish
a consistent personality, I think in any relationship
you have—if you equate that to a friend—it’s
delightful when they surprise you. So, you choose to
spend time with this friend based on personality and
consistency, but what keeps it interesting are those
surprises. If it’s always the same, those kinds of relationships
dead-end.”
The first few issues of The Bark look very
much like a community newsletter, especially when
you compare the masthead with the current style.
Although the transition from newsletter to magazine
was gradual, Woo still faced several challenges early
on. The first major change was in format, when The
Bark went from traditional newsletter size to a tabloid.
“By issue 3 or 4, we grew to a tabloid size and
there was a printer in San Francisco that specialized
in this. It afforded us more space and drove the look
to be more interesting and more challenging.”
Woo says he saw The Bark as another outlet for
his creative expression and he was never afraid to
experiment. One of the things that made The Bark
unique from the very beginning was Woo’s willingness
to use illustration, soliciting artists who had
a history of featuring canines in their work. This
departure from what he considered staid and boring
newsletter filler became part of the publication’s
unique design direction.
Another motivating factor in favoring illustration
was that it helped keep The Bark from focusing
on specific breeds of dogs.
“If I’m doing a cheap black-and-white piece, I
tend to use illustration,” Woo says. “I used so much
photography in my corporate design work, I thought,
‘Let’s use illustration.’ Besides, if you start using
[photos] of dogs then you are speaking to that one
breed of dog, and I wanted to use something more
universal. So I tended to use drawings that were the
idea of a dog. And that carried over to the tabloid
issues—I used a lot of illustrations.”
As the magazine’s circulation grew, Woo began
to bring in more photos, especially on covers. He was
concerned that illustrations might cause The Bark to
look less like a dog magazine and more like, say, a
literary magazine. While acknowledging that literary
content is a component of the magazine, he says, “It
was a very fine line in terms of how something would
read. We tried more abstract covers, illustration-wise,
and people would say, ‘What is that? Is it a dog?’ We
understood that it needed to register very quickly
that this is a dog magazine, and that pushed us
toward using photography.” But he says the decision
was timely: “I was actually running out of illustrators
that I liked.”
Ultimately, Woo believes the reason why The
Bark has captured dog-lovers’ attention is that the
publication has a distinct character. He likens the
relationship between his readers and the magazine to
relationships in real life. “People associate themselves
with the magazine and a big part of that is the personality.
They rely on that consistency of personality.
It distinguishes us from other publications, whether
they are in our space or even in another medium.”
A publication, he says, has to quickly establish
its personality, whether it’s serious, playful, or
humorous. “You have to vie for people’s time and
attention. If it has an attitude of some kind, it’s
amazing how people will pick up on [it] and accept,
embrace, or reject your magazine based on the subtlest
of nuanced personality traits.”
Thanks to his continued commitment to keeping
the personality of The Bark consistently captivating,
Woo has found that you really can teach an
old dog new tricks. He might even admit it’s true of
himself as well.
