The development of such a mixed media such as a consumer magazine is really exciting and at times a tiny bit nerve-wracking ;). I admit: in the beginning I was afraid we wouldn’t find any contributors and in the end I would have an issue consisting of my own articles. But far wrong: our idea has been accepted and greeted with such positive response and we have won great photographers, writers, crafters and friends.
We are moving towards our publish date with giant steps, thus I finally sat down and wrote down the precise issue planning. There are still a few articles in hiatus and I am still chasing a few people, but I am really excited about the content of our first issue. In the next days I will send out the whole plan to all contributors – top secret of course ;).
How do you like to brainstorm ideas? Do you usually use digital tools or do you rather scribble on paper? This time I bought a so-called “Kladde” (= note-/daybook) at PapierConcept (Kastanienallee 11) and glued little colourful scraps of paper for each article. Later that week I digitalized everything in InDesign to send out via eMail.

A great place to do this thinking? For example the Napoljanska café on Kastanienallee in Berlin!

To this day we have talked a lot about strategy, we’ve shown you some contributors and asked you for your opinion about structure and categories. In the coffeehouses and back rooms of Berlin, London and Leipzig our first issue has begun to shape, we know the motto, the articles we want to have written or featured and the little bits and bobs we still have to think about (and believe me: there are a lot). Of course we cannot tell you everything in advance, because that would ruin the suspense. However you should know what to expect. Today I therefore start our little series about the main topics and themes we will cover. Over time I am sure we will have more to come and some topic may evolve when we meet new people and authors.

A topic which is dear to our heart and will be incorporated in many sections of the magazine is DIY. Do-it-yourself does not only mean gluing buttons on a piece of fabric and staple it onto a piece of wood. At SISTER we do believe in the concept of sustainability, but not in the trendy hype-wise way, but in us making things and preserve techniques or products we’ve inherited.

Let me tell you about a relative of mine: I have never actually met her. The only thing I know is that she used to be a painter for the chinaware manufacture in Meißen. To this day my grandmother shows me the cards she sends out for birthdays and christmas which she paints herself. And it is very easy to do a little drawing yourself, even if you are not the super-talented watercolour artist (I am not for sure!). There is so much inspiration on the web (e.g. portfolio from Caitlin McGauley) or on Pinterest (Search for “watercolor” – you’ll be blown away!) and SISTER wants to give away one of three little CASS ART Watercolour Postcard Blogs for you to create your own greeting cards. With the festive season coming up, it is just the right product you’ll need!

The little pads are in the size of postcards, the front is empty – great watercolour paper (structured), the back has printed lines of a postcard.

Giveaway ends next week: 26th October! Open to all countries and nationalities!

Good luck to all of you and please tell your friends about it! Thea

With creating a digital magazine we’ll focus on the many benefits this will have. Today we just want to share a few of our ideas:

• Click-through possibility for products – so you can directly enter the online shop of a product and hopefully find a bargain
• Downloads and Goodies – there will be a lot more around our issue than the plain editorial parts: recipes, printable goodies, playlists, little travel guides, patterns … you are going to get a lot out of our magazine! Some goodies will be for free, others you can directly buy for a certain click price
• You may have to bear with us as we are developping our final product but the final goal is a platform neutral product which does not only work in your Chrome or Firefox browser, but which you can download onto the iPad, Galaxy or which articles you can have as ePub for Kindle & Co.
• Connect! The last post briefly described our idea behind the SISTER name. We want to give you many platforms for connecting with your new sisters in spirit. Thus we’ll create opportunities for you to contact each other: Flickr groups for sharing pictures of your SISTER DIY projects, our Facebook Fanpage whose wall is open for everyone to post on, the hash-tag #sister-mag for connecting through Twitter or brand images on Pinterest! And we’ll be adding on, trying out new Social Media forms and services
• We like to think of ourselves as a new breed of publishers, but we also want to be your friends! If you feel like giving us feedback or just dropping us a line: SISTER is an open project and we are always happy to hear from you!

Bye from the SISTER team … you don’t get a robot answer, even though we are a digital magazine ;)!

You may think that I will state the obvious and only talk about my sister Toni and me being the founders of SISTER. However there is another dimension to this name:

Traditional print publications for women have generally focused on the single woman in her private space. Whether it is waiting in the doctor’s office or sitting in front of the TV flipping through the pages: you read these magazines by yourself, at the best sharing an outfit or a ripped out page with a friend or family member. Thus many of these magazines are called singular names: SHE, Brigitte, myself, Elle.
With the possibilities of Web 2.0 and the sharing mentality our generation, we rather wish to create a community of like-minded women. Our idea: if you read SISTER or participate in any of our “Connect!”-ideas you’ll have a lot of sisters in spirit, even if you are a lonely child!