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Studio Magazine
We welcome Rivista Studio onto the scene with its first issue 00, entitled “Avete mai visto the wire?” (Have you ever seen The Wire?), with a cover featuring badass The Wire star Michael Williams. Turns out its quite the enjoyable afternoon read. And while its art direction and smacks a little too pungently of the straight-laced Monocle zeitgeist, with its neat typefaces, high-contrast glossy piano black cover, slathering of illustrations and obsession with ellipsis points, on further consideration it actually seems a tongue-in-cheek smack in the face at that uppity publication for neo-yuppies (which we totally read every month).
It manages the gravity-defying task, however, of being irreverent and highly intelligent at once, with some of the most well-written and well-considered editorial content of any upstart Italian zine in recent memory. Articles range from The New Yorker style musings on life, profiles of under-the-radar creatives, sociopolitical discourse ranging from Sarah Palin and Berlusconi to Slow Food and the Simpsons, and there’s even an enlightening piece on the coming out of gay celebrities.
For a first edition, Studio seems remarkably polished and finished. And while we hope it manages to find a more distinctive visual tack in order to more effectively deliver its message, it has a remarkable amount to be happy about. Far more intelligent than the glossies and way more interesting inside than most of the indies, Studio should have a pretty bright future on Italian newsstands. We’ll keep you updated when issue 01 hits the streets.
