Typing “Naked Mag” into your Google search bar may raise some eyebrows—but it won’t bring you to an erotic website, as some might expect. 

Instead, the first thing you will find is the Facebook fan page for Naked Mag, a digital magazine focused on alternative music artists and bands like Underoath, There for Tomorrow and Reliant K.

Co-founders Catherine Powell, a Ridgewood High School senior and Ariella Mastroianni, a junior at Fordham University's Lincoln Center campus, created the magazine out of their mutual love for music, blogging and photography.

While their intentions with the magazine are professional, they have fun playing with the taboo nature of the term they chose to represent their publication.

The title "Naked" was chosen to represent the "raw and real" side of an artist, but can be misleading.

“If people search [the term] ‘Naked Magazine’ expecting porn and come across our site, and still check it out? Fine with me,” Powell said.

Naked Mag is published online monthly. The editorial features are heavily visual—if a feature is 10 pages long, typically six are full of photographs, taken by Powell.

The content focuses on separating artists and public figures from their professional lives, Powell said.

“[An artist] can write a really great song, but what’s more interesting is the story behind that really great song,” Powell said. “We care more about what sparked [the artist] to write it.”

To create a personal atmosphere, the young journalists use a unique approach: “We approach interviews like a first date,” Mastroianni said. “You start off getting to know the basic facts and then dive in.”

After meeting at a concert in 2010, the idea for a digital magazine came about spontaneously one night when Powell and Mastroianni were discussing their love for music blogging. Within two hours of coming up with the idea the pair had already created a press release introducing their new endeavor and fired off emails to friends, acquiring a staff of mixed high school and college students.

Both frequent concert-goers, Powell and Mastroianni used their connections to contact artist’s managers about securing interviews. 

The first issue of Naked Mag launched in July featuring the cast of MTV’s The Buried Life on the cover. Though not music artists, The Buried Life cast gained notoriety by filming their mission to complete a bucket list of “100 things to do before you die” and airing it on MTV. Bands featured inside the issue included Action Item, Silverstein and The Morning Of, to name a few.

The Naked Mag staff underestimated the impact of the July issue. Within the first three hours of launch, the website got over 1,000 hits, crashing the server.

“We thought, maybe 100 people would look at it [in total],” Mastroianni said. “Now we get average about 100 hits per day.” 

The August issue of Naked Mag attracted an even larger audience with the alternative rock band There for Tomorrow on the cover and an exclusive interview with the Christian rock band Underoath inside, Powell said. 

In between issues, Powell and Mastroianni keep fans engaged by updating the publications’ social media accounts and holding contests on Twitter, offering unreleased photos of artists from various shoots as prizes.

Venturing into the digital publishing industry has been tough, but the real test will come in the fall once the staff must balance school with their professional venture.

Naked Mag is still in development, but Powell and Mastroianni are proud of its success so far. Future plans include coming out with a print edition of the magazine, featuring actresses, actors and charities in addition to music artists, and—hopefully—one day interviewing Jimmy Eat World, Powell said. 

As for the young professionals, both hope to keep up with Naked Mag and pursue careers in the music sphere. Powell plans to focus on photography at a visual arts college after graduating from RHS, while Mastroianni will continue pursuing music journalism at Fordham.

Although other music magazines exist, such as J-14, Billboard and Rolling Stone, Mastroianni emphasized how Naked Mag stands out.

“[Naked Mag] is not news,” Mastroianni said. “We take artists and separate them from their work, so its like you’re hanging out with them.”