Interview: Michael Freimuth of Matériel Magazine

By Jen Hazen in Arts & Entertainment on Mar 19, 2009 8:15PM

Admit it. Magazines are pretty much in the shithole these days. Publications are either folding, downsizing, or going online with the hopes that readers will pay for content. (Yea, right.) So, imagine how happy (and surprised) we are to hear that the folks of the Public Media Institute are celebrating the launch of a new design magazine, Matériel, this Saturday, March 21 at Co-Prosperity Sphere.

As the sister publication to PMI's art journal Proximity Magazine, Matériel is an image-driven design mag that features an eclectic mix of photography, illustration, and artwork created by emerging (and occasionally established) visual artists. With a tiny staff (one editor, two creative directors, and a few contributors), Matériel seeks to take the pretension out of design and treat it as an ongoing conversation much like the creative process. Something to inspire, to share with others, and then toss away to make way for a new idea. And with a large newspaper format (34”w x 22”h when unfolded) the pages of Matériel are basically posters, so sharing is definitely an option.

Chicagoist chatted with Matériel’s editor / co-creative director Michael Freimuth about Matériel, designing a design magazine, and his unwavering respect for Ed Marzewski (aka Edmar), a driving force in Chicago’s art scene.

Chicagoist: Are you the only editor of Matériel’s first issue?

Mike Freimuth: I am at this point. I actually work with a really brilliant creative director, Kyle Poff, who is based in Chicago. We didn’t have the luxury of time, budget or resources to pull in anyone else. We hope that the launch of the pilot issue will bring on more people for our next issue.

C: So, you don’t live in Chicago?

MF: No, my girlfriend and I moved to New York from Chicago last September for jobs. I'm an art director at a design firm by day. We do miss Chicago though and I’m trying to maintain my ties with collaborative projects like Matériel, Proximity, and Lumpen. I should mention that Lumpen is a magazine related to, yet different than, PMI’s publications. Anyway, I like staying involved with folks back there like Kyle, Edmar, the Post Family, and the Lumpen crew.

C: So many projects! How did you meet the Lumpen Crew?

I graduated from RISD in June 2003 and moved to Chicago that summer without a job lined up. I interviewed at several design firms and at least three separate people told me about this guy ‘Edmar’ and Lumpen, which was definitely random. I tracked him down and we worked on side projects for a while.

I worked as Lumpen’s Creative Director from 2003 to 2005, and have continued to contribute to the magazine until recently. Frankly, if you’re in on one of Ed’s projects, you could easily be in on a dozen. I think his work deserves a lot more credit and attention than it gets.

C: How did the idea of creating a design magazine come about?

MF: Ed asked me to help design and creative direct a new art journal, Proximity, to be published mid-2008. Having left VSA Partners in Chicago around the same time, I was just getting my freelance practice up and running and gladly accepted. As we began to work on Issue’s One and Two, it seemed like there was an opportunity to diversify some of the content through the addition of people / projects who lean towards the "art/design" world—quotes necessary because that’s a ridiculously blurry distinction, and its often a very arbitrary one.

Nonetheless, we thought we could kick these two channels apart somewhat and create Matériel to be Proximity's "design" counterpart.

C: We should probably ask what the magazine’s title means.

MF: It was pulled from a vintage French pulp novella / craft book of the same name.

C: Nice. What can we expect to see that makes it different from other design mags?

MF: It's totally image-driven. We’ve woven in a little bit of written content for this first issue, there’s an interview and a short story, but it’s almost like a series of large format posters. Part of the idea was that these could literally be posters, and we encourage as much wheat-pasting as possible. You can check out a sneak peak here.

C: How are you approaching the design of a design magazine. It must be a challenge to give pages and pages of cool creative just the right stage.

MF: In this inaugural issue we’ve been very conscious of letting the work come to the forefront and letting the design fall back. I think the only concession would be pulling up the importance of the artists’ names, as we’d really like to emphasize who these folks are. But there are plenty of precedents for designing design mags incredibly well. Issue one leans toward the more classic interpretation of showcasing work—let the mag be a vessel, (while still infusing some Matériel point of view). But as we continue to develop, I’m not opposed to the next issue being completely different in every way. I think we’d like to keep this a really dynamic, engaging venue…

C: How do you select what’s going to be in Matériel?

MF: We had a relatively short list of designers, photographers, illustrators and artists whose work we’ve been admiring for a while. We really wanted to work with people with a strong range of points of view and I think we got it. So we selectively invited submissions from those folks and for the most part went with them.

C: Any possibility of accepting submissions in the future?

MF: Probably for the next issue. The easiest way to do that at this point, until we get our mailing list set up, is to get in touch with me or Ed.

C: Where can we buy Matériel?

MF: It will be available in stores in both New York and Chicago for $10 and on the web, hopefully within a month of the launch. We’ll make sure to keep people informed about that on our site.

Co-Prosperity Sphere, 3219 S. Morgan St., Release party Saturday, March 21 at 8 p.m. Everyone who attends will receive a complimentary copy of Matériel and the new Pr poster/newsletter (Proximity’s in-between issues newsletter and art poster featuring articles interviews, reviews, a calendar, and more. $10 suggested donation.