We love Colophon - International Magazine Symposium Luxembourg

Drome Magazine

DROME

Issue 05

14 cover(s) available
view all

PHLEGMATICS

The Contemporary Art magazine based on Integrity and Visions

DROME magazine is a meeting place for the most groundbreaking artistic experiences happening in the world today.

Rome, Italy

Via Riccio da Parma, 18, 00176

Email: drome@dromemagazine.com

Category: Art
Periodicity: Quarterly
Language: Italian / English
Format: 210 x 297 mm
Circulation: 50,000
Price: 9 €
Web: http://www.dromemagazine.com

Founded in 2004

Exclusive Interview

We are convinced that advertising shouldn’t influence the content but the content should influence the advertisement.

What is your magazine about?
DROME magazine is about the contemporary world of art and culture. Every issue has its specific topic. DROME is a platform that presents talents from all over the world. We fill the gap between the old-fashioned specialised art press and the lack of intelligent youth culture-oriented medias.

Who’s behind the project? Tell us about the founders, their backgrounds and their motivations!
Rosanna Gangemi (an Italian journalist) and Stefan Pollak (an Austrian-French graphic designer) met and fell in love in Rome. After a long distance relationship – hours and hours of reading international magazines in airports – they moved together in Rome and decided to found the magazine that was missing in Italy: international and fresh content, appealing graphics, fotos and in-depth articles, wide-ranging as their personal interests.

How do you produce one issue? How much time do you spend on it? How big is your team?
The core of the team is made of 7 persons, every issue involves about 30 contributors. 3 of us are working full-time on the project to coordinate every issue, the others as much as they can afford.

What have been the important steps in the life of your magazine?
1- Finding a national distribution for bookstores even before we released the first issue. 2- Entering in newspaper stands (from the 3rd issue). 3- The first art fair with our own stand (Arte Fiera in Bologna). 4- The first bilingual issue (the 8th issue).

Which are the key ingredients for the success of your magazine?
DROME is able to mix glamour and intellect. The quality of DROME reflects on every aspect, from the paper we choose to the content of the articles. As every issue has a specific topic it becomes a collectors item. We keep in touch with our readers organising events, we build day after day a huge community.

What are the difficulties you are confronted with? What would be “the” thing to help the magazine to improve?
The launch of a magazine, especially when it is in full color on high quality paper, is a long and expensive adventure. You hardly manage to get advertising in the beginning and in Italy there is no public support for editorial projects that are not linked to some political activities. Some institutions that could give advices or practical help in fund-raising would surely have been helpful in the beginning.

Where do you want the magazine to be in five years?
On the bedside table of all art addicted.

Tell us about your audience! Who are the readers of your magazine?
DROME readers are interested in contemporary visions. Mostly young people, our readers closely follow subjects such as contemporary arts, style, design, high technology,communication, architecture, creativity, leisure and travelling. Most of them are opinion leaders and active in the cultural world as artists, creatives, art directors, architects, curators, fashion designers, photographers, journalists, musicians, film makers, etc.

Is remaining independent important to you? Is it part of the strategy?
Absolutely. Our strategy is to mix known and unknown, underground and overground. The high quality of our magazine is very confusing for some people, they do not expect an independent structure behind the project.

What’s your relationship with advertisement? Does it influence your content? Do you care about advertising-driven-editorials?
Advertisement is absolutely necessary, no doubt about it. We are convinced that advertising shouldn’t influence the content but the content should influence the advertisement. An advertising-driven editorial can be useful for the reader, as long as the magazine maintains its personality. Sometimes you have to say “NO”...

Do you think that magazine readers still need to watch TV?
No. But even if you do not read magazines you don’t need to watch TV.

Which is your relationship with your printer? Does he play a main role in your development?
Of course he does. We changed 2 times until we found a printer that was able to satisfy our needs. The printer has a lot of technical knowledge, but it is important to light the creative sparkle that sleeps in his brain!

Which magazines did influence you most? What are you looking for in other magazines?
Frigidaire, Senso, Minotaure, Spex, Esse, Torazine, Blok, Bon, ... In other magazines we look for interesting content, creative lay-out, innovative spirit, advertisement. And we also check if some of the content we plan for next issues has already been too present in other mags.

What do you think of your issue 01, when you look back at it?
Mixed feelings, let’s say that we were very proud of it when we launched it, but now we feel very proud of the latest issue comparing it with the first one! Many details have been improved in the following issues. Every issue has to be better than the previous one, that’s one of our main rules!

What question did you never ask in your magazine but would have liked to?
We are independent, we ask whatever we want.

How many magazines do you buy / get / read each month? Do you qualify yourself a maniac?
We get and buy dozens of magazines each month. Definitely a maniac.

E-mail interview from “27.10.2006”. © Colophon2007.com – Mike Koedinger Editions SA (Luxembourg)