The View from Berlin: meet the defiant and resourceful creatives leading the city’s DIY culture explosion

The View From... is a column on It’s Nice That written by a team of international correspondents in major creative cities around the world. Every two weeks we report on the design scene in these cities, exploring the topics that are making an impact on the local creative community there. This week, Milly Burroughs is reporting from Berlin.

Did you get into Berghain? Stay in a squat? Explore polyamory? Did you wake up at 4pm without a care and stay out all night meeting a different version of yourself on every corner? The return from any stint in Berlin is often greeted with questions from those eager to learn how you released your inhibitions and traversed the boundaries of social acceptance. While the economic and political atmosphere in the German capital has evolved beyond the reach of the imagination in the decades since the Berlin Wall came down, its creative communities – dominated by club kids, punks, goths and poets – remain defined by a defiant, subculture spirit that is reluctant, even when eventually forced, to give in to the pressures of the 21st century and its complex technological and philosophical aspirations. As global issues compound Germany’s generational traumas, the nuanced politics of resistance in the city are too labyrinthian to dissect here, but what rings true and consistent throughout Berlin’s urban landscape is a resurgent design language that speaks to community, intent and a commitment to being heard.

Following the fall of the wall in late 1989, Berlin’s population embraced liberation, with many people occupying formerly East German government-owned properties and creating new communities or cultural destinations of their own, empowered by an emancipation from the Stasi that left them free from covert surveillance and violently policed segregation. As unprecedented access to new music and fashion converged with a sudden abundance of unclaimed real estate, the rave scene emerged as a place of freedom and expression where graphic artists and designers played an integral role in world-building for those dancing themselves free. Responding to the environment around them, designers leaned into graffiti aesthetics, dystopian architectural forms, warped motifs of communism and, of course, unapologetic imagery from Berlin’s iconic fetish scene. Rave posters often looked as bootlegged as the DJ’s set, while early computer-made logo fonts and typefaces hinted at the Y2K styles to come. People felt free to experiment with aesthetics and identities, so they did just that.

Fast-forward to the mid-2000s and early-2010s and Berlin has become one of the coolest cities in the world, known for its impenetrable super clubs, anti-establishment attitude and blasé approach to embracing technological innovations such as card payments and WiFi. Rents are still cheap in comparison to other major European cities, and with a flailing economy Berlin offers significant tax breaks to businesses starting up in the city. Cue the arrival of MacBook-wielding fin-tech brands, web-based music start-ups and a clean-line minimalism that has come to define an era of cult-adjacent creative agencies and too-cool-for-cursive art direction.

Quick to recognise the value of the city’s inimitable cultural capital, these rapidly expanding businesses made the city’s creatives offers they couldn’t refuse – impressive salaries, corporate perks and a previously unheard of sense of security in Berlin – all for the small price of surrendering their unique creative vision to the big machine. For a while it worked. Creatives could pay the bills and their names sat credited alongside some of the world’s most instantly recognisable logos. This provided young professionals with a cultural currency of their own, that was increasingly spent platforming themselves on a plump portfolio of aspirational lifestyle brands.

Was it all too good to be true? Absolutely, and as a result, the 2024 design voyeur is witnessing a DIY renaissance, and the rise of techniques and styles inspired by the 90s creatives of a newly reunified Germany. As the global economy buckles under pressure from all angles, start-up lay-offs dominate the Berlin employment landscape, and the creatives that sold their soul to big-corporate have been abandoned, left to reclaim their creativity and redefine their value.

While much of the design world appears increasingly dependent and interwoven with big tech and AI, Berlin’s subversive voices are rallying against these digital advances in typically defiant style. The city’s young designers are more likely to be found attempting to replicate grungy, analogue design techniques in digital mediums to promote their community radio show or artist-owned creative space than finding use for Midjourney or Runway, and imperfect street and lo-fi rave aesthetics have returned to the zeitgeist.

Where graphic designers and art directors have spent the last decade or so chasing ad-world accolades and Linkedin-worthy brand associations to cement their credentials, they can now be found operating outside the cycles of big-budget productions and client briefs. They’re self-publishing zines, collaborating with like-minded independents on passion projects and building self-sustained communities of talent that uplift themselves in the face of skyrocketing rents and capitalist demands. DIY is back, and designers don’t need a corporate co-sign to advocate for their worth.

Here are four people and projects you should check out to to experience Berlin’s DIY design spirit for yourself:

we make it

Located in the vibrant Wedding district of Berlin, we make it is a studio dedicated to Risography, publishing and graphics that was founded by Franziska Brandt and Moritz Grünke in October 2012. Jaded by corporate life and motivated by an “urge for self-enactment, visibility, accessibility and democratisation of art, politics and information”, the pair have cultivated a self-publishing practice that allows them to share their knowledge and experiences through collaboration. They explain: “Our space is dedicated to experimentation and testing alternate approaches to publishing, to rethink the use and concepts of printed matters but also enable individuals as well as communities in their urge to express their thoughts and ideas and to develop discourses.”

OR

Self-published “printed relic” OR is an ode to analogue explorations of decay, dampness and disinformation that engages the imagination and aims to fossilise the creativity of independent print. As explained by the magazine’s co-founder and editor Riley Butler, “Heavily led by worldbuilding, each issue of OR presents a new theme and editorial system, where subcultures, research fields, and cinematic realms inspire frameworks for seminal contributions. Community-minded, with a focus on queer narratives and the avant-garde, OR exists to uphold visionaries defining this moment.”

Dinamo

Aside from being the team of graphic designers turned type designers behind the ROM typeface used by New York City-based creative agency Special Offer, Inc. to create Charli xcx’s era-defining, rave-inspired brat album artwork, Dinamo is a Berlin-based type design studio that has become the first foundry to implement a value-based licensing model, making the cost of their fonts fairer to companies of all sizes. With research, experimentation, and collaboration at the heart of its practice, Dinamo’s team is actively engaged in essential cultural conversations while working closely with clients spanning art and culture, fashion, commerce, and technology.

Marie Cloppenburg

Born and raised in northern Germany and now based in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district, illustrator and artist Marie Cloppenburg’s creative approach sees a childlike, naïve view of her surroundings converge with urban narratives, preserving an essence of innocence within the context of contemporary aesthetics. Her approach to design, painting and sculpture often focuses on reclaiming digital and trend-driven fashion motifs in lo-fi, analogue mediums.

Milly picks out four Berlin must-visits, for exploring more of its DIY culture.

• Refuge Worldwide: Founded by Richard Akingbehin and George Patrick, community radio station and fundraising platform Refuge Worldwide is a fiercely independent must-listen. Proffering an impressive spectrum of shows – spotlighting everything from politics and activism to niche musical explorations and specialist interests – the station broadcasts from its intimate Neukölln home Oona Bar. Both online and in the physical space, Akingbehin and Patrick’s ever-evolving project welcomes voices from all corners of the world and has become the beating heart of Berlin’s creative community.

• Backhaus Projects: Located just down the street from Refuge Worldwide, community-focused arts and culture space Backhaus Projects regularly hosts exhibitions, pop-ups, workshops on a variety of themes, from art, tattoos and craft, to independent publishing and fashion projects. Recent highlights include the launch of creative writer and editor Madeleine Pollard’s inaugural zine 𝔭𝔢𝔞𝔯𝔩𝔰 (designed by Merle Gethke), which forms part of a new series of reading nights at the space that are not to be missed.

• Origins by Felipe Lira: Opening 20 July with a night of music and dancing, and on display throughout the summer at independent arts and events venue b23 space in Prenzlauer Berg, Origins is a new exhibition of one-of-a-kind wood-cut and lino prints by artist and designer Felipe Lira. Lira’s work is known for exploring themes of politics, consumerism, class and family; informed by his upbringing in Chile and experience of relocating to Berlin in 2019. This new body of work features portraits of Reggaeton superstars, spotlighting the faces that put this culturally significant music genre on the map worldwide.

• She said: A must-visit for those looking for great books and zines, interesting talks, inclusive conversations and thought-provoking publications, She said is a beautifully designed independent bookshop focused on platforming female and queer authors.