Mark
Peter Huiberts
Another Architecture
An architecture magazine with a difference. Brilliant graphics. Arresting photography. Thought-provoking articles. That's Mark.
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Lijnbaansgracht 87, 1015 GZ
Email: robert@mark-magazine.com
- Category: Architecture
- Periodicity: Quarterly
- Language: English
- Format: 240 x 320 mm
- Circulation: 15,000
- Price: 19.95 €
- Web: http://www.mark-magazine.com
Founded in 2005
First issue is launched in November 2005. Mark is published by the makers of Frame.
Exclusive Interview
Leader in the business of architectural publishing
What is your magazine about?
Mark is first and foremost fascinated by what is going on in architecture, by what architects have come up with now. If you wanted to lay it on thick you could say that each issue of Mark contains a bundle of love letters, stories about beautiful things.
Who's behind the project? Tell us about the founders, their backgrounds and their motivations!
Mark and its sister magazine Frame are led by an editor-in-chief and a publisher who started the company together, along with a small club of people they have collected around them. Besides editors, this includes a distributor, advertising buyers and subscription administrators.
How do you produce one issue? How much time do you spend on it? How big is your team?
The choice of an editorial staff of 2.5 to offer a radically international perspective naturally means setting up and maintaining an extensive network of informants and correspondents. The editorial office is like the palace of Kublai Khan, receiving messages from a hundred Marco Polos (might Mark last name be Polo?) simultaneously exploring the empire of contemporary architecture and quite differently from the Tartars 700 years ago; bring back reports with the speed of a fibre-optic network in text and images. Projects can inspire, but they do not do so on their own. The choice of photographers, the selection of photographs, the format of the publication, the organization of the information, the tone of the text: all of these contribute to make a project communicate. The work of the editors consists of doing full justice to a project by placing judicious emphasis on certain aspects.
What have been the important steps in the life of your magazine?
The first issue of Mark was published in September 2005. It was thick, large, expensive and contained a visual explosion of photographs, illustrations, graphic effects and text. The editors received a big applause from graphic designers, illustrators and other creatives, but not from architects. Moreover, the first issue didn't sell well. The second issue sold even worse. While making issue three, publisher and editors decided to radically overhaul the magazine. Size, weight, price and graphics were changed. Since issue four the magazine finally was recognized by architects. Even better: they started to buy it.
Which are the key ingredients for the success of your magazine?
When we were working out the plans for the new magazine, three principles were key from the very beginning. The first was a radically international perspective. A new periodical, without connections to a local institution, without the ballast of a tradition, without obligations toward a subsidy provider, would be able to focus, carefree, on the Champions League of contemporary architecture, the playground of international transfers and worldwide distribution of images, we felt. Our second principle has always been that we wanted to view the magazine as a visual medium. The designer audience is visually oriented. The third principle is the attempt to escape jargon and academicism. In Mark we wanted direct communication.
What are the difficulties you are confronted with? What would be the thing to help the magazine to improve?
They must be hundreds of architecture magazines around. Since Mark is among the youngest, it has to carve out its own niche. That requires focus and time, not one 'thing'.
Where do you want the magazine to be in five years?
In five years Mark should be solid as a rock and profitable. It should be one of the mental market leaders in the business of architectural publishing.
Tell us about your audience! Who are the readers of your magazine?
See question 4: mainly architects and architecture students.
Is remaining independent important to you? Is it part of the strategy?
It's important with respect to our freedom, but not really part of our strategy.
What's your relationship with advertisement? Does it influence your content? Do you care about advertising-driven-editorials?
There are only a few advertisers in Mark yet. We try to work with them on editorials, so as to keep them connected to the magazine.
What do you think of your issue 01, when you look back at it?
Again, see question 4. The first issue differs radically from what Mark is now. Although we still have thousands of copies in stock which didn't sell, I'm still proud of that first attempt to make a different magazine about architecture. It's a true work of art about architecture.
Magazine favorite(s) that inspired you in your career.
Domus, Wallpaper, Intersection, Dazed & Confused, Another Magazine, Fantastic Man.
Do you keep old copies of magazines? If so, what is your favorite in your collection?
I keep the collection at home and must admit that the first three issues, which were a disaster sales-wise, are among my favourites.
How many magazines do you buy / get / read each month? Do you qualify yourself a maniac?
I get and buy about 10 magazines per month. I hardly ever read them from cover to cover. I flick through them and study how they're made. I guess I'm kind of a maniac when it comes to that: there's never relaxed reading of magazines for me, it's always study material.
We are compiling answers from some of the most innovative magazine makers around the world today. Who else should we ask?
A totally different architecture publication: http://www.pinupmagazine.org/.
Answered by Robert Thiemann (Editor in Chief)
Magazine: Mark
Email: robert@mark-magazine.com
Date: 29-09-2008
Publisher
Peter Huiberts
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