After founding item Magazin in 2019—a collaborative platform for young designers—I was offered a lectureship at the Design Department at HTW Berlin. As part of my annual teaching assignment the students design and publish item Magazin under my guidance.

Founding and supervision: Sally Paschmann
Editor: HTW Berlin, Design Department
Team: Franziska Saischek, Julia Krämer, Renée Klöffer, Sonja Kotlyar, Tina Thalmann, Barnabás Böröcz, Miguel Martín Betancor, Chikoba Masonga, Bengi Günay, Jonah Seifried, Karoline Nørbæk, Yana Sokova, Dennis Mayerhöffer
Print: Pöge Druck
ISSN: 2629-6691

With this project Sally Paschmann founded item Magazin—a collaborative platform for young designers that allows them to publish their work to a broader audience and gives them the opportunity to explore the field of editorial design by publishing their own student magazine. After the implementation of item I was offered a lectureship at the Design Department at HTW Berlin. Within this annual teaching assignment the students design and publish the ongoing issues of item Magazin under my guidance. The project is officially funded by the university and has become an essential module of the curriculum.

The typography of issue #1 features Funktional Grotesk and Minion, alongside Source Code (not shown here).

item (Independent platform for the Transfer of Educational impulses via a student Magazine) is the student magazine of the Department of Design and Culture at HTW Berlin.

In the fourth issue, the students explored the topic of “strip,” thereby breaking barriers, questioning privilege, and addressing subjects such as body positivity, diversity, sex work, and social norms.

Is love for sale or is noncommittal sex the new ideal? Are people whose bodies don’t conform to the norm included in fantasies and behaviors of the majority? Why, even in 2022, are feelings still interpreted as obstacles and femininity as weakness?

Questions like these were tackled in this issue and exciting people, such as Ivana Vladislava, Annabelle Ferlings, Yanis Berrewaerts and Fritzi Krafczyk, shared their thoughts with us.

In addition, 19 projects by students from the Department of Design and Culture are featured in this year’s issue and provide an interesting insight into the recent semesters at university. The magazine was founded, conceived, designed, and introduced by Sally Paschmann and is intended to provide insights into the debates, thoughts, impulses, and projects that arise during the course of studies. It provides a platform for students to introduce themselves and their projects and to consider their work in a socially relevant context.

Publisher: HTW Berlin, Department of Design and Culture
Founding and supervision: Sally Paschmann
Editing: Coco Nova Estèle Schätzke, Emilia Moro, Eli Zaza Moysiopoulou, Dylan Demtröder, Aylin Eryilmaz, Luzie Drawe
Design: Al Ayaasha Medford, Alexandra Trinkl, Camille Baumann, Ella MacWilliams, Florencia Ramirez, Mani Pham Bui

In 1516 – at the peak of the Renaissance – the English lawyer, social philosopher, author and statesman Thomas More released a book called De Optimo Reipublicae Statu deque Nova Insula Utopia. The Latin title translates to “Of a republic's best state and of the new island Utopia” and tells the story of a complex, self-contained world set on an island, in which communities shared a common culture and way of life, eliminating social conflict and distress. There were few laws – and no laywers. Property and wealth were evenly shared among the population, and every aspect of life heavily regulated from cradle to grave.

Combining the Greek words ou (οὐ), “not”, and topos (τόπος), “place”, the term “Utopia” has come to mean a perfect, yet perhaps ultimately unreachable, place. Although the book is considered a critique of the state of England at the time, the ideas put forward by More have been instrumental in shaping modern political socialism. His theories and principles apply even today, but at the same time arouse an uneasiness and fear of total surveillance and total control of citizens by the state.

Jacqueline Dietz’s semester project at Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft revives More’s now 500 year old book in an ingenious way. By the simple addition of the year 2516 to the title, Dietz places the book 500 years in the future. Combined with her original illustrations, the fictional work of Utopia has suddenly become science fiction.

Typesetting the book in Sindre Bremnes’ debut typeface is an equally genius move. Satyr builds upon the shapes of the early humanist antiquas, which first saw light during the Renessaince – the very same period in which More wrote his book. Still, Satyr is no mere emulation of analogue tools. The letterforms are crafted independently of the broad-nib pen, almost as if the designer is shaping a boat or a viola, juxtaposing concave and convex curves to create a simultaneosly dark and airy textface. Satyr lends as much from the past, as it looks beyond now and towards the future. Breaking free from convention, its letters seems to change their mind midway through strokes, distributing weight in unusual places. With axe-like terminals and accentuated corners, Satyr creates a lively texture, just tempered enough as to not overshine the content.

The execution is topped off with Dietz’ custom-drawn initials, based on Satyr and matching in style to her illustrations. The book is cloth-bound with tactile three-dimensional white letters and, in urgent, alarmingly red – just like its endpapers – the numerals 2 5 1 6.