Report : A messy meal with Kinfolk

Last weekend it was Kinfolk time again. In about 25 countries like minded people were enjoying their messy meal, inspired by wabi sabi. Together with Annemarie, I organised and hosted the gathering in my hometown Ghent and I was so delighted to have met all these magnificent persons and to have shared this evening with them. Each time it is different, but it is for sure a special experience.

So many words of appreciation for SIR catering, the food was délicieux!

Thank you C'est party - Qualitea Time - Or coffee - KERK (location)

And merci Melissa Milis for the beautiful photography.

(and not to forget my friends who helped to put everything into place)

Top of the Pile : New Mags on the Block

The past few months a lot of new magazines were born (how is it possible/where do they come from!). Just when I thought I was up-to-date in magazine land, new ones turn up (or older ones I just discovered). These I would love to read or turn the pages of in the future.

Golly / "Think of Golly as a worldly friend with impeccable taste and razor-sharp wit."

NOT TODAY / "Maybe, what we can do or think of today will never be enough, or we are too lazy to even start today."

Nourished Journal / "We believe in taking a holistic view on life, Nourished's content is as comprehensive as it is diverse."

Freckled(online only) / "We hope to inspire the desire to create art and to appreciate our surroundings"

Endless / "We are the trip family. We are traveling around the world and let you be part of our experience."

Hole & Corner / "Continuing in our quest to bring you stories of dedication, craft, beauty, passion and skill.."

Tiny Atlas Quarterly (online with printed annual) / "It's the hired guns showing you how we like to do things. It's the kids dance at the end of Dirty Dancing."

Perdiz / "A survival manual without magic formulae"

The Alpine Review / "The Alpine Review is a compendium of ideas for a world in transition."

Top of the Pile : Wanderlust

It's summer and I have some more time to read, these offer a good escape in anticipation of my holiday.

Openhouse (n°1): The first kickstarter project I ever funded and it felt good! The magazine is a project of our Kinfolk co-hosts in Barcelona. In Openhouse you can read about the life of creative personalities and experience their tips in different European cities.

Another Escape (volume 3): Stories of crafters, promising projects and nice photography, the perfect inspiration.

GRANTA (127): Granta is a literary magazine, each issue has a theme and is filled with short stories of young writers. The next issue (128) looks interesting as well, American Wild!

Top of the Pile : Magazines

I really can enjoy a well curated magazine. Quite often I discover new publications and some of them are good enough and could exist longer than 3 issues (which depends on financing more or less) and others don't make a large enough difference and disappear again. I believe the 3 discussed below are stayers and keepers!

Apartamento #12, I'm hooked since I read my first one (it was n°6). It's the perfect literature for a train travel (the Belgian railway catchphrase 'the train is always a bit of traveling') and I actually read the texts. I like the interviews with those one-of-a-kind people and their often extravagant interiors and the comic with that mouse :).
Nowadays you can find your copy in most newsstands as in a lot of concept stores as well.

Frankie issue 55
Also a familiar one and their distribution has been fine-tuned as well. A couple of years ago you couldn't find any copy in Europe except for London and now it's for sale everywhere and that's just great! They have a good selection of illustration, enterprising/surprising people and DIY's.
This is already an older copy, I bought it a couple of months ago and I really like the illustration on the cover by Emily Winfield Martin, who also illustrated the cover of Frankie's calendar.

Thisispaper Inaugural issue : YAY! the best of the best curated website, I'm very very happy with this one, a beautiful distilled publication with an interesting and inspiring content (interviews with Studio Formafantasma, Faye Toogood, Studio Glithero, ...)

gather your Gather Journal

Some weeks ago I ordered 2 magazines which have been on my radar for a while. One of them is the Gather Journal. I especially tried to find the first issue as it is the one made out of conviction to start a magazine, it has the enthusiasm of the creator in it. And I now can speak of a budding romance.
Gather journal is a magazine about Food with a capital, in the style of the slow living/to know what you eat and to know where your food comes from...all things I appreciate. It contains recipes for starters, mains, desserts and has other chapters like Essay, Marketplace,... .The photography is literally mouthwatering and the recipes seems not too hard (as I don't like to spend hours of ingredients in the kitchen) and I immediately want to try out a lot, but will start with the Quick Pickles.

and what else : they have a mixtape on their website too :) !

Unwrapped

Yippie, my copy of Wrap issue 6 arrived today.

Thanks Polly & Chris for yet again a lovely Wrap, everything goes well here!

Inventory Inventario

I'm fan of the bookzine Iventario published by design label Foscarini. It has just the right amount of text, a good inventory of trends & designer interviews (°01's content from 2010 is still topical), fresh lay-out and not expensive at all (no advertising, except for Foscarini). Only maybe little negative : it's connected to one of the biggest design brands, so a lot of the content is related to it.

 

Something for the Weekend

One of my favourite newsletters, I read each time : Bulletin from Mr.Porter (the very manly match of net-a-porter), kind of a weekly online magazine.

A Kinfolker

Kinfolk, it almost can't get better than this... beautiful concept, sweet content and a simple, stunning lay-out. I bought n° 2 and 3 on my vacation. We found them in Portland (OR) in the beautiful store Beam & Anchor , where you could spend hours just with looking, a very inspiring day it was.

Fanmail

I'm blown away by the online magazine thisispaper. It is summarized as a clean, very user-friendly website with a beautiful lay-out and most important a very good selection.

Presents

I've missed the first one, but the second and third are really gifts in themselves. One of the prints of the second issue I framed and the third magazine is showing off on my fireplace. Can't wait until the next issue is coming out of Wrap. Each issue is a collection of 10 wrapping papers made by known and unknown illustrators/artists. SuperDuper8

in Sacramento

I'm in love with a magazine (with different ones actually), but this one really charmed me : Apartamento. 
(and I believe I'm not the only one)
Common stories of creative and interesting people about there work and were they live. I first met with issue 6 a couple of weeks ago, and I'm still not finished reading it. It's perfect for a (train) journey. I recently bought number 7 and I really look forward to read it... I can only recommend!