As a child in Calgary, Janine Vangool stapled scrap paper into tiny booklets, drew her own stories inside, and forced her family to read them at Christmas and Easter gatherings. Decades later, not much has changed — except the production values. Vangool is the publisher, editor, designer, and entire operational staff of UPPERCASE, a quarterly, ad-free magazine for designers, illustrators, craftspeople, and paper lovers that she has run as a one-woman operation since its first issue in June 2009.
Before the magazine, there was a gallery. In 2005, Vangool opened a retail and exhibition space called Uppercase in downtown Calgary's Art Central building, where she curated shows and sold design-oriented goods. When that building was eventually sold and demolished, she carried the name into publishing. Her background as a freelance graphic designer for arts and culture clients — twelve years of work for the Calgary Opera, theatre companies, small publishers, and other magazines — gave her the skills to handle everything from editorial direction to page layout to customer service emails. The result is a publication that feels unmistakably personal, as if the editor made it for herself and then invited everyone else to look over her shoulder.
Each issue of UPPERCASE is built around a theme — transformation, time, craft, play — and filled with contributions from a loyal roster of illustrators, photographers, and writers worldwide. The magazine also runs open calls for participation, inviting readers to submit their work, which has created a community loop rare in publishing: the audience is also the content. Beyond the quarterly, Vangool publishes the UPPERCASE Encyclopedia of Inspiration, a series of beautifully designed books released in whimsical non-alphabetical order, with volumes dedicated to subjects like feed sacks (Volume F) and glue (Volume G). She has also collaborated with Windham Fabrics on quilt-weight fabric collections based on the magazine's distinctive spine patterns.
Funded entirely by subscribers and readers, with no advertising revenue, UPPERCASE is proof that a magazine can survive — and thrive — on the strength of a genuine relationship between a maker and the people who love what she makes. From Calgary to a global readership of paper lovers, it remains one of the most distinctive independent design publications in print.
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