The last two days were excellent. After I wrote my last post, I left for Berlin. First good thing that happened: I wrote down some ideas for graphics during the 4-hour-trip and now I’m super motivated to actually search for the data and do some great stuff with it.
After I arrived in Berlin, I went to “do you read me!?”; THE magazine store in Berlin. I wanted to buy the PORT magazine, but the new issue wasn’t out yet - well, I bought the old one nevertheless. Which was a GOOD thing, then today I read on magculture that they slightly changed the design of PORT in the new issue. And I’m not sure if I like that.
Well, after I bought the PORT I learned to appreciate this magazine even more than I did before. Firstly, I noticed the typeface. “Wait a second,” I thought, “I know you!” And indeed, I met my old friend, the font Quadraat, which I used for my Bachelor’s Thesis two years ago. PORT uses the Quadraat in their whole magazine; from the first to the last page - and nothing but the Quadraat. Great typeface. Great magazine.
Secondly, the last PORT has this very well written article about cancer research at the end of the magazine - and the layout of these spreads is just genius: They use only one column of the two columns that you can have on a page (with a 12-column grid, for example). So simple, so innovative. I saw it and totally loved it. And I totally wanted to copy it for my own magazine.
The next thing that happened after my wonderful encounter with PORT was a talk from both bosses at my last two internships: Richard Turley, Creative Director of the Bloomberg Businessweek and Sven Ehmann, Creative Director of the Gestalten publisher, met in the Gestalten Space in Berlin and invited the public. That was amazing. Richard hold a really good talk (about his past projects as well), and Sven asked smart questions. I also enjoyed talking to Richard shortly in private - the Modern Magazine Conference in London was the last time I saw him.
Maybe the biggest surprise at this evening was a short conversation with Nicolas Bourquin from onlab. If you don’t know them: It’s worth visiting their website every few months; they’re doing great projects (always super inspiring!). I’ve also admired their website since the first day I opened it a few years ago. It’s so simple and so timeless; I guess that’s why it’s working for years now. Anyway, I was surprised that Nicolas still recognized me. I was one of his and Thibaud students when they both were guest profs at the Bauhaus University. It was a great course - we designed three magazines in three weeks in three teams. I was in my fourth semester, and this was the first time when I was actually forced to deliver something good very quickly - and that I noticed that I like this mode of working. And I guess this course was also a huge inspiration for my Master’s Thesis project.
After the talk I felt super honored to have some dinner with all these smart people. And Kati Krause drew a group picture of us that I really like and which one can see at the top.
And then, after one night in Berlin, I came back; and I came back with so many good ideas and had such a productive day today that I ask myself: Have I even lose time while being away from the computer for 24 hours? Or was it, to the contrary, a great time-saver to get the inspiration through PORT, Richard Turley, Sven Ehmann etc.? Should I even consider to have less computer-time and more thinking-time? Because (surprise!) I had to notice: Sometimes it’s better to think before you do stuff. Sometimes, however, thinking THROUGH doing is great, too. I still don’t know what’s necessary when; but I will try to solve this mystery.