Linda Moers, eins eins eins
Trained as a designer, Linda Moers was drawn to magazines by her interest in text and writing, and now works as an advertising copywriter in Munich. She also works on various side projects, one of which is Eins Eins Eins, a magazine archive project she set up with university friends Lena-F. Nearer and Mirjam Sieger. Their website features reviews of magazines and interviews with magazine makers in German and English. We asked her to pick some favourites from the Eins Eins Eins collection.
As ever, we invited Linda to select a new issue, and old issue and one other thing.
A new issue: The Heritage Post
I’m pretty sure that many readers won’t have come across this magazine, though the layout will appear familiar to them. The Heritage Post is one of my favourite magazines, created by resident Düsseldorfer, Uwe van Afferden. It’s a magazine that concerns men’s culture which runs against time: „The pair of shoes which you are searching for today, may have already been invented 100 years ago.“
The Heritage Post pays homage to good products invented by good people. It’s about understanding where products come from and why they are priced accordingly. It’s about passion, love and most of all, getting to know the people, the tools and the ideas outside of the mainstream.
The Saturday Evening Post is rich in heritage. One may now recognise the source of what’s familiar to them; the font and illustration of the cover link directly to the American magazine, first published in 1821. It’s always enlightening to discover connections. This is common whilst spending a lot of time reading various issues. It’s like making a tour around the world – visiting old garages, wandering through flea markets, meeting makers and creators in their hometowns and soaking up the heritage of people and things; you always come back with new findings, new names, new tools, new stories, new clothing’s, new ideas, to simply realise that “new”, most of the time, is simply “the good old”.
An old issue… ZEITMagazin and Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin
I couldn’t decide for this category, so I simply picked up two. ZEITMagazin and Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin are both popular weekly publications in widespread circulation across Germany. They perform a brilliant job of magazine making; brilliant content combined with brilliant design. For each topic they break down their own barriers. Talking about the famous Gerhard Steidl, a German language publisher, they used different types of papers for the printed magazine. Talking about the ‘New York Review of Books’ they used the cover layout to pay homage to the legendary magazine.
Talking about order, Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin, literally reordered their name. Talking about tennis player Steffi Graf, they created the cover with the sand of a tennis court. Both magazines surprise you with uncanny regularity. It’s an essential ritual of mine to take one of these surprises home every week.
And another thing… Reportagen
I had to ask a friend to give this magazine to me in order to shoot it on my floor. Eins Eins Eins holds an expansive magazine collection in Düsseldorf, yet my personal treasure trove isn’t so deep. Once I’ve read a magazine, most of the time I pass it on to somebody else. I think it’s important, that the magazines are out there. Copy pages, underline words, work with it, share it. Reportagen is a German magazine about good journalism, finding stories all over the world most of the newspapers and magazines do not cover.
When I read ‘Another Thing’ I directly thought about the story of the Indian man who invented a machine which produced sanitary napkins for women. The product could be sold cheaply, so that any woman who was exposed to garbage, leaves or old fabrics that could cause horrendous diseases, could afford it. Everyone labelled him as crazy after he had tested them by himself with goat’s blood. What a man! Ever since reading the article, the story has been engrained on my mind.
That’s the fascination about magazines. Sitting on your couch, you’re then suddenly transported to a little village in India. You get to know a man who inspires you and continues to be on your mind, long after you leave the couch.