“How did we do?” is the question I’d ask you, our readers, who have been along with us for this first year. I hope you read ― and discovered ― a series of unexpected stories: a few tidbits about famous Italian characters ― from the big names who made history to the small ones still rocking today, and some nostalgic stories from back in the day.
The last time I openly talked to with you guys was over a year ago when we were about to launch our online magazine A Million Steps. For us at the office, it was important to tell you a bit more about who was behind this new publication before we started posting articles.
“Today, the idea is to go behind the scenes of what happened during these three hundred sixty-five days online.”
Inside my inbox, there are a few spontaneous emails from readers ― from Italy, or other countries far and wide ― suggesting stories to us that they would love to see in the magazine.
For publication as young as ours, this is very promising. Of course, it’s hard to satisfy everyone, but when a reader understands our editorial style, it pushes us to keep researching and writing even more stories.
Other times, instead, I received emails underlining typos we made, or with editorial input. We’re equally happy to receive this feedback because it means you’re looking after us and you care about telling good stories.
Speaking of telling good stories: last December, Velasca ― the company for which this magazine is designed ― won the first prize for Best E-Commerce Storyteller in Italy. A part of the success goes to this magazine (and its writers) for powerfully communicating the idea of the Italian lifestyle.
“Two of our sections have been renamed ― now called Interviews and Style ― because we wanted to be even more clear, and follow a contemporary writing style.”
Our promise of not annoying you with as many newsletters has been honored. We send one, and only one, each month ― on Saturday mornings usually, when there’s more time to dedicate to reading long articles ― because we ourselves hate being bombarded with emails.
And later in the year, we put our Instagram account online. Expanding to the most visual social network seemed like a good fit. You can tell a lot about the Italian lifestyle through photography.
It’s hard to sit in our usual creative meeting every Monday, because we’re always changing our priorities, and piling up extraordinary tasks to work on.
But we still manage to meet up to talk about how things are going, and the exciting stories we’re planning on publishing in the near future. The debate over the art direction is almost daily. We care about words just as much as style.
“Behind our desks, there’s a little basketball hoop: we play ball during lunch break and the person who loses has to wash the dishes.”
Lots of us used to play basketball; some even played on the same team or were rivals when we were kids. At our editorial office, there’s a daily rule now: anyone who scores a basket is safe from washing the dishes. However, if you make two airballs ― you’re stuck washing the dishes.
Now, getting back to our early question, we can’t tell how well we did on our own. The thing that we can say is that we definitely enjoyed our first year, and we’ll keep on telling stories.
I’m directly asking you guys: what would you like to honestly tell us about this magazine, and what would you change to make it better? Send all your thoughts to magazine@velasca.com.
