Freestyle Magazine (part 2)

Magazines. It's all been done before. Or has it?
Holding Freestyle Mag you realise there is always space for more. It's not just the unusual shape, but also the choice of content, the challenge of placing it into a circle and the even greater one of working with people scattered across Europe. It sure is " Game on!" for this biannual new comer.

Alecca: What new is Freestyle mag bringing to the world of print magazines?
Freestyle: First and most important is the round format and the challenge to create/photograph/design within/for it and the experience of lecture of this format.

A: Why bi-annual?
F: Everybody in our team has another job/profession we need time for as well. Beside that we are a young magazine and could not afford more than two productions a year right now.

A: Are you keeping the round shape in the future? What difficulties did you have to face because of it and in what ways you think it's better?
F: We will definitely keep the round format in the future. We consider Freestyle Magazine a collectable design object consisting in the magazine and the limited edition professional Frisbee which each issue is a different model, designed by a different designer. We had all kinds of difficulties that we prefer to call challenges; technical aspects as cutting and binding as well as creative aspects. We wouldn't like to call the round format better, more likely call it different.

A: Your team is spread across Europe! How many countries is that and how do you manage to put an issue together without ever being in the same room?
F: Our headquarter is in Berlin, Germany, art direction and graphic team are based in Milan, Italy, fashion team and web designer are in London, England and our copy editor is based in Paris, France.
We communicate a lot via Skype, mail and telephone and of course the spatial separation of the team is quite a task.

A: In times when everyone is moving towards the web, you are make an (admittedly wicked!) print magazine. Do you see the www as a threat to print?
F: This question cannot be answered with yes or no. Of course the www has taken a part of importance of printed publications. Magazines (pretty much) lost their informative character, the news are online first. Being a bi-annual publication means that our value of reporting news is almost non-existent, we use the web for that in the form of our Blog.

Still, printed publications have their own qualities that have a clear luxury character. As for example in case of FSM, you cannot play Frisbee in the web and it is not the same experience to see a round page design digital then to flicker through our FSM in real time.

Or as Jan Joswig writes in his article in Game On!, “magazines teach you style.”

(Mark Eley from Eley Kishimoto, dj-ing at Freestyle's launch party in Berlin. Photo: Marina Rosso)

A: Why did you choose Eley Kishimoto to do the design for the Frisbee of your launch issue?
F: Freestyle Magazine is a magazine for creative people who like to play. Eley Kishimoto represents that way of freestyle life and freestyle work perfectly. Beside that their flash design looks fantastic on a spinning Frisbee.

A: Best moment whilst putting together "Game On"?
F: Without a doubt the best moment was when almost the whole team came together for the launch in Berlin.

(Overview of Freestyle's launch party in Berlin. Photo: Marina Rosso)

(DJ Cristiano Spiller sipping a cocktail at Freestyle's launch party in Berlin. Photo: Marina Rosso)

(Party people checking out the first issue of Freestyle. Photo: Marina Rosso)

(Freestyle lovely Nele Schrinner -right- made sure this interview reached you. Photo: Marina Rosso)