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Foam Magazine

Quarterly Photography Magazine

Foam Magazine is an international, quarterly photography magazine. Each issue features a specific theme that unites 6 diverse portfolios of 16 pages each, accompanied by an essay or interview.

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Keizersgracht 609, 1017 DS

Email: foam@foammagazine.nl

Category: Photography
Periodicity: Quarterly
Language: English
Format: 230 x 300 mm
Circulation: 10,000
Price: 12.50 €
Web: http://www.foammagazine.nl

Founded in 2002

Foam Magazine is an international, quarterly photography magazine. Each issue features a specific theme that unites 6 diverse portfolios of 16 pages each, accompanied by an essay or interview. Foam Magazine serves as an exhibition space that embraces every aspect of photography: from documentary to fashion, from contemporary to historical, from world-famous photographers to young talent.

Exclusive Interview

Foam Magazine

What is your magazine about?
Foam Magazine is a quarterly photography magazine published by Foam_Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam and Vandejong Communications. Each issue includes six portfolios selected around a theme, covering a wide range of photography. The portfolios are 16 pages long, each printed on its own specially selected paper stock, edited and designed in such a way that the work is shown at its best, usually in close collaboration with the photographers. Each portfolio is accompanied by an essay or interview, written by a renowned journalist or critic. Additional features include an interview with a leading figure from the world of photography; plus in every issue a book section with reviews of recently published photobooks as well as detailed information on the exhibition programme of Foam.

Who’s behind the project? Tell us about the founders, their backgrounds and their motivations!
The magazine was initiated by Foam, the photography museum founded in Amsterdam in 2001, and Vandejong, a communications agency based in Amsterdam. Or more specifically by Marloes Krijnen, director of Foam and Pjotr de Jong, director of Vandejong. Both have been part of the editorial team from the start. The first issue was published in December 2001, on the occasion of the opening exhibition at the museum, and served as a catalogue to the exhibition, as did the second issue. Foam Magazine #3 was in fact the first independent issue based on the six portfolios format. While the relation to the museum is obvious, given the title, the selection of themes and portfolios is unrelated to the exhibition programme of the museum. There may be an overlap occasionally, but that's entirely coincidental. The motivation behind Foam Magazine was to create an additional high quality platform for photography, almost like an extra exhibition space for the museum in magazine format. Foam has always tried to look beyond the museum walls and organizes many projects outside the building. A magazine fits very well within that philosophy; it can travel to places and people who may never be able to visit the museum, and stimulate discussion on photography anywhere. Printed matter has always been an important medium for the presentation of photographers’ work, perhaps even more important than exhibitions - look at the current boom in photobook publishing and collecting. So a magazine, especially in the way Foam Magazine is published, remains an excellent medium for the presentation of photography to a worldwide audience.

How do you produce one issue? How much time do you spend on it? How big is your team?
In addition to Marloes Krijnen and Pjotr de Jong, the editorial team consists of Marcel Feil, curator at Foam, and Tanja Wallroth, managing editor – who was initially the only full time employee at the magazine. The team is supported by interns and volunteers. And there is Markus Schaden of Schaden.com (the most passionate and well informed photobook seller in the world!) who is involved as editor from Cologne. Kathy Ryan, photo editor of The New York Times Magazine, and Christian Caujolle, art director at VU Paris, are on our editorial board and serve as advisors. Foam's valuable collaboration with Vandejong, who has handled all of the museum’s communications from the start, and is now co-publisher has profited from the combination of Foam’s art historical knowledge and its wide international network with the experience and innovation of photo editing and design at Vandejong. In all marketing and advertising activities as well as subscriptions and distribution, Tanja Wallroth has been assisted by employees at both Foam and Vandejong, but it has now become essential to concentrate all of these matters in one person. So we are very happy to welcome the new full time magazine manager Chee Yee Tang who joined our team this summer. An issue is usually produced across about seven weeks. We work on various themes and issues at the same time, but have not always succeeded in doing so to the degree we would have liked, though this will surely improve in the future.

What have been the important steps in the life of your magazine?
The relaunch in November 2006, when Foam and Vandejong decided to continue publication of the magazine together; a huge adventure, quite different from the daily routines of a museum and a communications agency. Publication of the magazine had been on hold for some time after its former publisher, an artbook publisher based in Amsterdam, went out of business. The first new issue to be published by Foam and Vandejong was Foam Magazine #9 Eden, and the magazine has been growing steadily ever since.

Which are the key ingredients for the success of your magazine?
Its consistent high quality and surprising content and layout. The well-researched and carefully selected themes allow us to combine a wide variety of photography in a surprising way, contemporary work next to historical, landscape, portraiture and photojournalism, world-famous artists and emerging talent etc. This makes the magazine a well-balanced unity that is definitely more than the sum of its individual parts. It is highly respectful of photographers and lavish in its presentation of their work. We select specific paper for each portfolio (within some limitations). We do not hesitate to use fold-out pages in a portfolio if that seems the best way to present panorama-size images, or to capture the spatial effects of an installation. We sometimes seem to hover between an artist's book and a magazine. This feeling is strengthened by the magazine's distinctive design, for which Vandejong is responsible. For instance, for each issue a unique typography is developed for the title pages, inspired by its specific theme; in the past we've used fonts worked up out of cut-out letters or a pencil-sketched alphabet, or titles that were recorded while being written in the air using the light of a mobile phone. The production process can take time but it is always rewarding. Our issues have a long life and have become collectible; we know that readers of Foam Magazine hoard old issues. They do not become outdated.

What are the difficulties you are confronted with? What would be “the” thing to help the magazine to improve?
Quite simple: more time and money! To improve our distribution system, to create a good website, to give special assignments to photographers and reward them better financially, to do more and better research for new issues, to include special gifts or editions, to be present at all important fairs and festivals... I could go on! We have only been publishing the magazine ourselves for two years, so there is plenty of room for growth and improvement.

Where do you want the magazine to be in five years?
Prominently displayed in every culturally-orientated bookshop and newsstand around the world and in the possession of every person with the slightest interest in photography.

Tell us about your audience! Who are the readers of your magazine?
Most of our readers are professionals in the fields of photography and art, advertising, fashion, publishing, graphic design, styling, film and architecture, and of course students. Aside from this core readership Foam Magazine is also read by a broad group of non-professionals including amateur photographers as well as a general reading public with a wide cultural interest.

Is remaining independent important to you? Is it part of the strategy?
It is essential for us to retain complete creative freedom. If this could be assured by a publisher who takes financial responsibility for the magazine we would not object.

What’s your relationship with advertisement? Does it influence your content? Do you care about advertising-driven-editorials?
Advertising is very important, but it does not influence our content. We are open to special collaborations with sponsors or advertisers but only if they are compatible with our editorial plans.

What do you think of your issue 01, when you look back at it?
Issue 01 is still a great issue and has become a collector's item. But as explained before, it is very different from the current magazine. Foam Magazine #3 feels like our first issue, and looking back it still looks great. Certain features have been added or improved, and I’m sure we would have done some things differently now. The magazines feels more balanced and mature nowadays, but the strong points of the magazine were definitely already in place by issue #3.

Magazine favorite(s) that inspired you in your career.
So many... maybe not so much as a direct influence, but just as interesting magazines: Fantastic Man, Kids Wear, Kilimanjaro, 032C, A Magazine, Purple, Colors, Useful Photography (not really a magazine but that makes it even nicer!), Ojodepez, Next Level,Aperture, Next Level, Capricious as well as Frame, Frieze, Domus and Art Review.

Do you keep old copies of magazines? If so, what is your favorite in your collection?
Yes, quite a lot. My favourites have ceased to exist: Re Magazine by Jop van Bennekom, and the fashion magazine No. A, B, C etc, the predecessor of A Magazine.

How many magazines do you buy / get / read each month? Do you qualify yourself a maniac?
We exchange subscriptions with quite a few photography magazines. And we are all regular visitors at the Athenaeum Nieuwscentrum in Amsterdam, a real magazine lovers' heaven. Aside from the usual mainstream magazines they have a wonderful collection of relatively unknown, independent publications.

We are compiling answers from some of the most innovative magazine makers around the world today. Who else should we ask?
See above, but I think especially Jop van Bennekom and Gert Jonkers. With Fantastic Man they really make a different kind of fashion magazine. And Butt is unique as well.

Answered by Tanja Wallroth (managing editor) Magazine: Foam Magazine Email: tanja@foammagazine.nl Date: 13-11-2008