For Hello I Love You, Ludwig Nikulski traveled through Japan with a Japanese love letter. From Tokyo to the east coast, through the deserted region of Fukushima, over a road cut into the ice through the Hachimantai Mountains, to the west coast, through green hills back to Tokyo, he showed the letter to the people he met and documented his search. Hello I Love You won the bronze medal at the German Photobook Award 2018/19 and was a finalist for the Award for Emerging Artists in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania 2018/19.
Ludwig Nikulski is a photographer grown up in Greifswald and living in Berlin. In his photographic projects he works with documentary image strategies and an allusion to fiction, differing between art and journalism.
2020 was a strange year. Starting off as self-therapy to cope with nameless solitude this body of work evolved into a documentation of ten odd weeks. Ten weeks that didn’t line up with any other weeks before.
Alexander Kilian lives and works as a still life and fashion photographer in Berlin. His photographic work is characterized by the precise combination between structures and colors captured together with the playful use of light and shadows. His photographs are always highly composed and arranged but still contain the feeling of a snapshot, almost like he’s stumbled across an immaculate plant or table already set up.
The Vienna-based photo collective Fountain’s Edit sheds a light on the notion of discipline in six series and an accompanying glossary. The softcover book underlines and emphasizes their different photographic styles and aesthetics by using a different kind of paper for each series.
Fountain’s Edit is a group of photographers—Erli Grünzweil, Susanna Hofer, Martina Lajczak, Marlene Mautner, Nadia Morozewicz, Stefan Pani and Alicia Pawelczak—based in Vienna, Berlin, and San Francisco.
Italo Summer Dreams is a series about loving and longing. Dreams of Capri, Sirmione, dreams of Bellini e bacione. A series for the ones you love. Per sempre.
KOEKKOEK is a director and photographer based in Berlin and Vienna. KOEKKOEK was bird of the year 2008. KOEKKOEK is dutch for cuckoo.
Since the 1970s, Wolfgang Weingart has exerted a decisive influence on the international development of typography. He instilled creativity and a desire for experimentation into the ossified Swiss typographical industry and reflected this renewal in his own work. Countless designers have been inspired by Weingart’s teaching at the Basel School of Design and by his lectures.
In Typography, Weingart gives an unusual and frank narrative of his early life and development as a designer. This long-awaited reprint of Weingart’s opus magnum gives a comprehensive survey of 40 years of his work.
This book is an attempt to think through life and the universe in graphic-design terms. With concise drawings and brief texts, illustrator and designer Ruida Si quietly shows humanity in the grip of a dawning realization about its own collectivity. Facing the imminent collapse of the ecosystem, humanity must prepare to replace “I” with “we”–“we” defined in a utopian spirit as a subject transcending generations and individuals.
The simple and clear visuals are the product of Si’s extensive and sophisticated knowledge of information, pattern and rhythm–and they deliver her message with great clarity and simplicity. Muji art director Kenya Hara, with whom Si studied, provided a foreword.
By what means did so much beauty and ingenuity appear in articles of everyday rural life in Portugal? How did the shape of these objects balance necessity and formal perfection so skillfully? The Hard Life by Jasper Morrison is a book of photographs taken by Morrison of objects in the collection of the National Museum of Ethnology in Lisbon, Portugal.
This book explores the effect that generations of trial and error, individual craftsmanship and an instinct to carve out the essential with the slenderest of means brought to objects that made life both livable and meaningful to a pre-industrial society. The objects photographed and described by designer Jasper Morrison may be appreciated both for their beauty and for the example they set of design at its purest.
The Hard Life is a continuation of Morrison’s celebration of the ordinary and offers a new perspective on his design philosophy. It’s an homage to the beauty of ancient commodities.
The 333th edition of idea, the legendary Japanese magazine on international graphic art and typography, lent 226 pages to Emil Ruder, showcasing his work, influence, and legacy in the world of typography and beyond. Sold out soon after its publication in 2009, this comprehensive survey of the life and works of a Swiss typographic legend is now again available in its original version.
Complemented by commentaries from Michael Renner and Lars Müller, it brings together essays, discussions, and appraisals of Emil Ruder from fellow designers, typographers, and artists–engaging with the designer’s many years of work and teaching in Basel, his thirty years as publisher of the famous Typografische Monatsblätter as well as his posters, fonts, and philosophy.
A continuation of Otto Neurath’s 1939 book Modern Man in the Making, Joy and Fear questions how modernity, through its promises and failures, continues to reshape mankind. The promises have been fulfilled, especially for people in the West, where hygiene, modern medicine, and education have led to steep increases in health, life expectancy, and literacy rates. For large parts of the world’s population, however, these promises have not been fulfilled. The current average life expectancy in Chad, for example, is equal to that of the United States in the 1920s, and at 52 is eight years below the retirement age there. The entire globe is unquestioningly and irreversibly involved in the modern project, but its benefits are very unevenly distributed.
By depicting these asymmetries, Joy and Fear brings clarity to today’s modern world. The pictograms and illustrations and their accompanying texts touch on global issues ranging from agriculture to warfare to the welfare state. The visual language makes complex issues immediately accessible. Holding the various themes together is a coherent narrative.
In 1957, Swiss typographer Max Miedinger came up with Haas Grotesk. Renamed Helvetica after 1960, this typeface went on to become one of the world’s most used typefaces ever. It embodies the myth of Sachlichkeit, propagated at the time by Swiss Typography. This book sings the praises of this shift-worker and solo entertainer of typefaces, of its forgotten creator and all those who have contributed to its unparalleled international march of triumph over the past forty years.
The designs gathered together here in honour of Helvetica have been created by superb designers and anonymous amateurs from all over the world. They present a unique panoply of this icon of modern design. Superb applications are juxtaposed with an anonymous collection of ugly, ingenious, charming, and hair-raising samples of its use. Helvetica is not only the preferred typeface of leading professionals, it is also an all-time favorite among the multitude of codes and signals and commands that enliven urban life.
Helmut Schmid was a master of his craft. The Austrian typographer put his own spin on Emil Ruder’s teachings at the Basel School of Design while remaining faithful to the principles of clarity, simplicity, and elegance. Blending eastern and western influences, Schmid honed his skills and put them into practice in the fields of editorial design, packaging of ethical drugs, and the visual identity of brands such as Pocari Sweat sports drink (Otsuka Pharmaceutical), Maquillage (Shiseido) and IPSA. He also produced publications, such as the famous journal Typographic Reflections.
Helmut Schmid Typography explores the typographer’s oeuvre in its entirety. The book’s generous design allows each image to breathe, and the accompanying texts narrate Schmid’s life and career in an informative and pleasant manner. Complementing the publications Weingart: Typography and Ruder Typography, Ruder Philosophy, this bilingual monograph completes the Basel school of typographic thought.
Handbook of Tyranny portrays the routine cruelties of the twenty-first century through a series of detailed non-fictional graphic illustrations. None of these cruelties represent extraordinary violence—they reflect day-to-day implementation of laws and regulations around the globe.
Every page of the book questions our current world of walls and fences, police tactics and prison cells, crowd control and refugee camps. The dry and factual style of storytelling through technical drawings is the graphic equivalent to bureaucratic rigidity born of laws and regulations. The level of detail depicted in the illustrations of the book mirror the repressive efforts taken by authorities around the globe.
The twenty-first century shows a general striving for an ever more regulated and protective society. Yet the scale of authoritarian intervention and their stealth design adds to the growing difficulty of linking cause and effect. Handbook of Tyranny gives a profound insight into the relationship between political power, territoriality and systematic cruelties.
This new edition includes updated figures and eight additional pages.
Cleanliness is a core value of societies around the globe. So much so that cleaning seems to be an inherent part of human nature and an expression of how we interact with and domesticate our environment. This book explores the concept of cleaning in its various aspects. Illustrations from various cleaning methods expand our conception of an activity that is such a big part of our daily lives. From a child sorting its toys and the meticulous work of a clockmaker to an impressive deep-clean of a ship: each process is treated with the same calm fascination while short texts add a semi-poetic dimension. The book’s handy size invites readers to take it out into the world as they look at everyday processes with fresh eyes. Flipping through the pages of Cleaning is as enlightening as it is entertaining.
Instant Doodles is an archive showcasing over a thousand submissions generated with an online drawing and writing tool on a 500 × 660 pixel canvas. The artworks vary from ad hoc doodles to hypnotic poetry and reveal how creativity can emerge from limitation.
101 is a design and coding studio based in Vienna, Austria. On their homepage they implemented a tool for people to interact via a pen, eraser, or writing tool. Over four years, more than 500 people around the world participated in this open call.
Wien is a perennial calendar featuring twelve illustrated glimpses of contemporary Vienna.
Francesco Ciccolella, born in Salzburg in 1990, is an illustrator and graphic artist living in Vienna. His award-winning illustration work regularly appears on the covers of international newspapers and magazines or on advertising billboards around the globe. And now, on a brand-new calendar.
The New Fashion Container project was born and sharpened in 2020 while we were witnessing a tremendous shake up of our values and expectations in the (fashion) industry. It is based on 11 concepts—those concepts are the new language fashion needs. The NFC Project is connecting people, cities, ideas from all over the world thanks to the digital. Drawn from notes at a special moment in history, this “notebook” is a document that points to the future.We need to be critical. We can and we must build a more balanced fashion industry.
Linda Loppa is a honorary doctor of University of the Arts, London, and founder of Linda Loppa Factory with 50 years fashion industry experience. For The New Fashion Container project she invited 22 personalities from fashion and beyond to contribute on concepts for the future of fashion. With illustrations by Max Anish Gowriah.
Fassade Parade is a collection of lost souls of modern aesthetics compiled by Tobias Faisst that stand in strong contrast to pixel-perfect designs and high-end photography. Foreword by Felipe Duque. The book appears as an artist edition in a strictly limited edition of 150 pieces.
Tobias Faisst is a photographer and graphic designer. He studied at University of Applied Science Potsdam. His photographs create the balancing act between hyperrealism and banality, between surrealism and the overwritten now. Tobias currently lives and works in Berlin.
With Facts and Fiction, artist Peter Phobia presents a carefully selected overview of his works and solo exhibitions in a limited artist collection.
Peter Phobia is a New York-based artist and illustrator. He is deeply influenced by pop culture and everyday life observations. Phobia’s work is rather a statement but an open invitation to reflect on current topics in society.
The book features an innovative and captivating visual representation of the classic play Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Faust is a photography book that brings the characters and scenes of the play to life through striking imagery captured by photographer Marcel Urlaub as part of the performances live on stage of Vienna’s renowned Volkstheater—including production shots by Franzi Kreis. The book presents thus a fresh interpretation of Faust, showcasing the talents of the Volkstheater’s ensemble and the original nature of director Kay Voges’ approach to the play. Each photograph becomes a visual poem, a frozen moment that encapsulates the universal themes and timeless questions Goethe explored.
Marcel Urlaub is a photographer whose lens possesses the remarkable ability to transcend time and space, capturing the essence of iconic literary works and bringing them to life visually.
Façades of Brooklyn Heights is a walk through the New York City neighborhood and its charming streetscapes with picturesque rows of houses—a testament to the skill and creativity of their architects and builders, but also to the enduring beauty and character of traditional architecture. The peaceful, tree-lined streets of the Heights provide a welcome break from the fast-paced lifestyle of the city, a respite from the distractions of city life.
Based in Berlin, photographer Robert Rieger takes inspiration from the likes of Vermeer and Viggo Johansen, and applies his cohesive approach to every narrative he crafts, from still-life shots to intimate portraits and documentary series.
Indonesia ranks third on the list of countries with the most volcanoes, after the United States and Russia. There are no less than 127 active craters across the archipelago, where people live very close to the dangerous mountains. The land’s fertility—a result of the eruptions that, despite everything, has a beneficial impact on agricultural life—is one reason. Photographer Putu Sayoga documents the people and their daily lives and rituals, as well as the consequences of the eruptions on the communities surrounding the volcanoes, including Bali, Java, Sumatra, and North Moluccas.
Putu Sayoga is documentary and travel photographer based in Island of Bali. He studied politics in Gadjah Mada University where he graduated in 2010 from the Department of Politics and Government. An autodidact, he taught himself photography—especially street photography—during his college days.
For over one hundred years, we humans of the post-postmodern times have turned ourselves into outstanding visual athletes. We made visuality our superpower. Now we are about to change the rules of the game right in the middle of it. Will all this result in some new weird kind of blindness?
With contributions by Blatant Space, Catelijne van Middelkoop, David Horvitz, Eleonora Marton, Melody “LeMoon” Bossan and Rob Lowe.
This issue of Some Magazine is dedicated to the skill, the craft and the pure joy of looking!
A Magazine for Visual Inventors!
Since 2010, changing editorial teams of young design students research, write, layout, and produce the bi-annual Some Magazine. It is a part of the experimental design course of Prof. Sven Völker at the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam.
The series Non-Structures presents London—and cities in general—as a spectacle of constant conflict, negotiation, and flux. Capturing key moments in the life of diverse buildings, the images reveal a condition of transience, trapped as these buildings and sites are between the boundaries of architecture and ruin, planning and chance, process and product. The term “Non-Structures” alludes to anthropologist Marc Augé’s influential work Non-Places; this boundary condition, defined by an absence of identity, has lent its name to the series.
What is real and what is fiction? We can distort and disfigure our faces using various digital filters. A self-portrait is created that can only be produced in a digital world. This image plays with the viewer with its surreal look and asks is it real or fiction?
The Flowers in the Dark No.1 print with surreal surrounding comes as a DIN A5 print on 246g/qm photo paper (C Type Fuji Gloss). The Print is sold unframed.