form 287—Frauen und Design

The facts are completely banal: women make up half of the world’s population and some women design. The vast majority of them use designed products daily. And yet, like in many other male-dominated industries, women are still less visible in design than their male colleagues. Even as users, in the design process they regularly disappear in the shadow of the standard white male. form 287—Frauen und Design is dedicated to the diverse perspectives that feminism opens up for design. It collects brilliant feminist design projects as well as outstanding designers and design experts. form talks to them about their work and experience in the industry and learn that design is never gender neutral.

Since form edition 287 Anton Rahlwes and Nina Sieverding are the new chief editors. Both were previously part of the form editorial team. Anton Rahlwes took care of the art direction, Nina Sieverding was text and picture editor. Also due to Anton’s background in product design and Nina’s strength in communication and integrated design, they form the perfect team to lead form into a new era of design-relevant content.

The current form 287—Frauen und Design (Women and Design) editorial gives us a glimpse in which direction the new editors are heading: Does a contemporary design magazine need an editorial? Just one of the many questions we asked ourselves in the process of creating this issue. Other questions were: What will a design magazine look like in 2020? Who do we want to show? What can you say without hurting others? What is a good topic? Is “women and design” a good topic? Do we still need print? Do we still need magazines? What is design again? What is good design? And why should we of all people know that?

“With the new alignment we want to reach young people interested in design, but of course we also want to inspire long-established readers. We have tried to make exactly the design magazine that we wanted to make as students: queer and feministic, with many good stories and interesting personalities from all design disciplines.

I think our first issue has also become a good mix: there are topics that you would have found just as well in the previous form (such as the Everything-Else-Other-than-Vegan cluster, the material section on algae or the article on furniture designer Otto Zapf) and then there are topics that are really completely new for us, such as the personal essay by type designer Charlotte Rohde and the caricature by Rán Flygenring.” – Nina Sieverding

form 287—Frauen und Design

Editors in Chief and Art Direction: Anton Rahlwes and Nina Sieverding
Editors: Jonas Bornhorst, Mateja Huff, Jonas Aaron Lecointe
Release: March 19th, 2020
Pages: 180
Language: German
Price: € 15.– (DE)
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