YEAR: 2020
CATEGORY: Visual Communication, Design Research, Editorial Design
ROLE: Author, Editor, Team Lead, Design Support
CLIENT / TYPE: Semester Project, Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle
COLLABORATORS: Pauline Löhr, Lucas Kramer, Lukas Schilling, Lea Zimmermann, Ellen-Sophie Neugebauer
PHOTOS: Pauline Löhr, Lukas Schilling
TOOLS / MEDIUM: Scientific writing, editorial work, analogue and digital research, magazine production
OUTPUT: Printed magazine, 19 × 14.5 cm, ISBN 978-3-86019-155-2, edition of 400, 8 EUR

NEUWERK-Magazin Volume 7 – KONTAKT

Neuwerk magazine is the leading publication of design science at Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle.

Challenge
The seventh issue of NEUWERK – Magazine for Design Science explores the theme of contact at a moment when distance, connection and social interaction had become especially charged. The challenge was to develop an issue that did not only discuss contact as a topic, but also translated it into the structure and reading experience of the magazine itself.

Approach
The issue understands design as an interface: something that connects people, tools, actions, objects and the world. Following this idea, contact is explored as a field of negotiation between closeness and distance, boundaries and transitions, bodies and technologies, knowledge and design. Instead of presenting the articles as isolated contributions, the magazine connects them through a central word and image index. This index becomes more than an appendix. It runs through the publication, links the texts to one another and invites readers to navigate the magazine associatively.

Process
The magazine was developed and produced in a self-organised editorial process. My role included writing a scientific article, working as part of the editorial team, contributing to the design process and helping to coordinate the project together with Pauline Löhr and the wider team. My own contribution examines haptic technologies from a design-theoretical perspective. The essay questions whether touch-based systems, such as Braille displays and tactile interfaces, should be understood only as functional accessibility tools — or whether they can also open up expressive, aesthetic and sensory dimensions. A summary can be found here.

Result
The result is the seventh issue of NEUWERK, published by Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle. The magazine contains design science articles and practical projects that investigate how design creates contact, forms relationships and crosses boundaries. Through its word and image index, the issue breaks with conventional reading habits. Readers can move through the magazine like through a search system: following terms, discovering connections and building new relationships between the contributions.

Reflection
NEUWERK Vol. 7 – KONTAKT was an important editorial project because it combined design theory, writing, editing and publication design in one process. The issue does not treat contact as a simple theme, but as a structural principle. It shows how design can create connections not only through objects and interfaces, but also through editorial systems, reading paths and forms of shared knowledge.

*Magazine language: German

Collaborators:
Pauline Löhr, Lucas Kramer,
Lukas Schilling, Lea Zimmermann,
Ellen-Sophie Neugebauer

Photos: Pauline Löhr, Lukas Schilling