O.K. Festival shows survey of beautiful and strange magazines

Friday the 16th of April sees the opening of O.K. Festival / 3 Days of Magazines, a unique three-day event entirely devoted to the independent magazine. The programme features an exposition of special magazines and workshops by renowned magazine designers, as well as debates on various topics, festivities and interesting encounters. The event takes place at Arnhem and continues a series of independent magazine festivals previously held in Luxemburg, Barcelona and Tokyo. In the wake of the larger publishing houses an increasing number of magazines are being issued independently. Thousands of independent magazines exist worldwide, with millions of readers. Their magazines are usually spread in limited edition and behind them is an active new scene of magazine design. During the O.K. festival the most striking examples will be gathered in an exhibition. There will be room for Dutch art, design and architecture magazines like ‘Mister Motley’ and ‘Items en Archis’, but also for ‘artzines’ in particular, like the extremely slim ‘One Page Magazine’ from the Netherlands, the Spanish art magazine ‘La Más Bella’, which takes on a marvelously original form for every new issue (ranging from a candy machine to a wallet), the Swiss ‘Nimes’, the Finnish ‘A4 Casino’, the South African music magazine ‘BruceLee’, the English magazine slash diary ‘Karen’ and periodicals like ‘Yummy’ and ‘Meat Magazine’, the lifestyle glossy for carnivores.

Creative director William van Giessen sees the independent magazine as an answer to the uniformity of the mass media: ‘The printed media are falling victim to increasingly strict formats. Sales figures reign. In the gaping hole they leave behind the independent magazine manifests itself. Everything that is excluded by the mainstream media finds its place here. In this sense, the independent magazine offers a sanctuary to designers, illustrators and writers. It is at times defiant and headstrong but always brimming with energy and playfulness. Readers from across the world are increasingly drawn to its versatility, originality and creativity. Whereas the printed media are trying to come to terms with diminishing advertising revenues, the independent magazine thrives. It achieves this by embracing the new media and ‘social networking’, phenomena that large publishers are still struggling to understand.

Editor’s note
Dates: 16, 17 and 18 April 2010.
Location: Villa Sonsbeek, Tellegenlaan 3, 6814 BT Arnhem.
Programme: www.ok-festival.com.
Contact: Tanja Koning, communicatie@okfestival.com, tel. 06-28817133

Vist the Source: Swiss Legacy