Fount Magazine, a fresh publication to embrace and encourage creatives

Fount magazine is a new publication that recognises the familiar to create a fresh concept. The premise is to start each issue with an open call to designers, illustrators, photographers, and so forth. With each issue there is a title which applicants must respond to. Following the first round of applications the pieces submitted are passed onto an artist in an alternative discipline to reinterpret. The pieces submitted so far, both the original and the reimagined, have all been culminated into the first issue of Fount, which features them side by side on each spread.

The influence for starting a magazine on the grounds of inspiration and appropriation began from one question, “Where does creativity come from? This led to other questions like, ‘Is there such a thing as an original idea?’ and ‘Is it okay to copy?’” explains one of Fount’s designers, Carsten Nierobisch. Fount cleverly accepts the notion that creatives being influenced by one another is a natural progression, and embraces it to create mash-ups of various work. “It expresses everything we learned in our research and gave us a clear line about our articles: we feature projects that show interdisciplinary thinking, along with articles that deal with creativity in a more theoretical way."

The first theme for the opening issue of Fount is Plant A Mountain, a very open brief with the intention of pushing designers to embrace the feeling of starting a new project. The ambiguous title is key to the publication’s ethos explains Carsten: “We chose a rather poetic title that could be interpreted in various ways.”

This act of passing on work and corresponding with other creatives is additionally how Fount’s founders work together. Meeting at university in Dortmund, Fount’s three designers; Ina Bunge, Daniel Ludwig, Carsten Nierobisch and photographer, Daniel Rupp, are now scattered across Germany, working on the mag from afar. However, in their design a mutual taste of rich editorial with personality is clear: “We enjoy print products that are made with love. Great editorial design and independent content are important to us, that is why we like magazines such as: Reportagen, Tolietpaper and Flaneur and Makeshift.”

The upcoming issue of Fount’s working title is Connect, which will include “emojis, the internet, globalisation and multi-typographic systems.” This magazine is an opportunity to appreciate excellent design and push established artists to see their work in a contemporary light, as well as giving new creatives a platform to showcase work.