Freunde von Freunden started in Berlin in 2009. An online interview magazine that visited creative people at home and at work, in text, photography and film. Co-founded with Tim Seifert and Torsten Bergler. The idea grew out of NoMoreSleep, the agency the founders ran at the time.
Every person portrayed came through the network. A friend, or a friend of a friend. The rule gave the magazine its name and its method.
The magazine became a company. Books, an iPad edition, mixtapes, a production company for brands, an apartment and a loft in Berlin. In 2014 about ten people worked in the Berlin office, with around 150 freelance photographers, filmmakers, producers and editors in the wider network.
The core was the interview. Creatives photographed in their homes and studios, then given room to talk. No news, no gossip, no celebrity. Stories meant to stay readable for years. Berlin first, then London, New York, Los Angeles, Paris, Milan, Munich and Tokyo.
FvF books gathered the portraits between covers. Published with Distanz, distributed worldwide by Gestalten. Volume one appeared in 2012, volume two in 2015.
Readers and contributors met across Facebook, Tumblr, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest. Each channel got its own content instead of one message pushed everywhere. More than 80 mixtapes, compiled by the team and friends, ran as a podcast and on Mixcloud.
An in-house production company made films and stories for brands and corporate clients, in the look of FvF. Some ran on the magazine. Others stayed internal. By 2014, partnerships with Vitra, Mercedes-Benz, Design Hotels and the Vienna Business Agency had run for two years or more.
In 2013 the magazine moved onto the iPad as its own product, not a ported website. Concept, design and development in-house at MoreSleep. A built-in video player, touch gestures, portrait and landscape reading, offline downloads. Ten interviews were free. A premium edition added book content, behind-the-scenes material and iPad-only stories. Vitra made it free at launch.
After years of portraying people at home, FvF opened a home of its own. The Friends Apartment launched in 2014 in Mulackstraße, Berlin-Mitte. Sixty-five square metres, two bedrooms, a full kitchen, furnished with products from partners. A venue for dinners, workshops, presentations and overnight stays.
In 2016 a larger venue followed. The first floor of a 350 square metre design loft in Kreuzberg, designed with architect Philipp Mainzer. Modular architecture and furniture, a gallery lighting system, an open kitchen built with Siemens, a Sonos surround system. Productions, dinners, talks and brand events, among them a Dr. Hauschka launch event.
After eleven years and almost 700 interviews, the platform relaunched as Friends of Friends. The German name had become hard to pronounce for most readers. A plain translation kept the meaning. A new identity followed: logo animation, colour, typography and motion, built to travel across editorial and social. Typefaces: Adieu by Good Type Foundry and Untitled Sans by Klim Type Foundry.
The website was rebuilt from the ground up. A modular system let editors compose articles with unusual layouts. New interactions and a deeper search opened the full archive.
A place for sharing stories. Accessible to everybody.
Logo animation, social templates, showreel, merchandise and print. Each channel received its own content.
Co-founder and managing director of Freunde von Freunden. Creative direction across the magazine, books, iPad edition, brand productions, the Friends Apartment and Friends Space, and the rebrand as Friends of Friends.
