Editorial: Region of Design
Germany’s East
Germany’s East
Text: Stephan Ott
All too often, there is still talk of “us” and “them”, although “[o]f course […] people in the East thought about flexible accommodation at the same time as people in the West or in Japan”, as photographer Wiebke Loeper states, among other things, in an interview. This is also an important statement because of the aspect of new nationalistic tendencies worldwide.

Filter: The Glossy Look
Text: Anton Rahlwes
Glossiness stands for purity and perfection, control down to the last atom. In their eternal ambition to want to control everything, human beings smooth out as many surfaces as possible.

Focus: Glocalisation
Text: Ingo Müller
In discussing eastern German design, the aim is not to find a distinct identity or to apply a uniform label, but rather to consider the contemporary situation in a region that, for some 40 years, was officially known as the GDR but has now been part of the Federal Republic of Germany for almost 30 years.

Files: Accept Refuse
Text: Kim Kaborda
Last December, Netflix released the interactive film “Bandersnatch” within the framework of the British science fiction series “Black Mirror”. But what is the impact if I identify with a story so much that the consequences of the decision I have taken in the fictional realm actually move me?
2017 marked the 60th anniversary of form, a milestone that has prompted us to stop and take stock. In particular, we were revisiting a specific article, reader’s letter, image, cover, etc. from each of the magazine’s six decades to date.
Revisit historical starting points
All the issues of form published between 1957 and 2011 can be accessed in the archive free of charge.
Visit the form archive
Founded in 1957 as an international journal, form soon became a well-known fixture of design journalism, and with its 280 editions so far has written a piece of design history.
The history of form