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Add Linefeed to Google ReaderInterview: Pekka Toivonen, Kasino A4
Steven Gregor of Gym Class Magazine fame [gymclassmagazine.com] was linefeed’s secret spy at Colophon2009 [colophon2009.com] a week or so ago where he managed to score some face time with Kasino A4’s [wearekasino.com] art director, Pekka Toivonen where they chit chatted about the event, what it means to be Finnish and magazines on the fringe. Steven managed to take a few snaps on his iPhone for us too. All sounds pretty darn spesh to me…
Steven: Hey Pekka, thanks for agreeing to answer these questions. It was great to meet you at Colophon2009. Did you enjoy the event? Any highlights?
Pekka: It was a blast! I had so much fun, getting inspired from all the events, the friendly atmosphere and most of all, from all the talented and enthusiastic magazine people around!
Steven: A highlight of Colophon2009 for me was the grand opening of the Kasino A4 exhibition and the Grayscale Bar. Did you have fun hosting the party?
Pekka: You bet we had! Last time, in Colophon 2007, the highlight for us was defenitely the bar area at Casino Luxembourg. Magazine fanatics around the world hanging out and getting tipsy – awesome! So we thought we could put up something similar. We Finns are known for our heavy drinking habits, and designing a bar have always been almost like a dream for our core, so it was very natural choice for our “exhibition concept”.
Steven: You and Jonathan Mander participated in an ‘In Conversation With…’ session with Colophon2009 curator Jeremy Leslie. Jeremy’s written a lot of great stuff about Kasino A4 over on his blog. How was the session for you? Did you enjoy it? Had you done anything like that for Kasino A4 before?
Pekka: We’ve had sessions like that before, but this time it was for such a respected audience, I think I almost felt a little nervous… But it was a pleasure, Jeremy is just great, he knows so much about magazines and also about our way of doing things, so it was defenitely an honourable moment for us.
Steven: The magazine refers to itself as being “the most melancholy magazine.” Yet, there’s a lot of humour in its content and design – I mean, the HAT SHOES WATCH SOCKS & SHADES feature in issue #8 is hilarious. What does the slogan mean?
Pekka: Finns are quite melancholy people, and it has a lot to do with the fact that it’s pretty damn cold and dark up here most of the year! Also, we’ve always been in the middle of east and west, not quite knowing in which side do we really belong. Our neighbours, the strong and gigantic russia and the happy and productive sweden have always felt bit of strangers to us, modest and shy Finns.
I think our unique melancholy state of mind is one of the things that is truly, purely and typically Finnish. It is the way we see things, it is irremovable part of our vision, and that’s why we want to emphasise it in our magazine aswell. Also note that melancholy is not a bad or sad thing. Melancholy can be beautiful, melancholy can be aggressive – even funny!
And I bet our magazine would look a lot different if we were based in Miami.
Steven: In his Colophon2009 keynote, Jörg Koch, creative director and co-founder of Berlin’s 032c magazine, mentioned how he couldn’t see a magazine like 032c or Kasino A4 coming out of a city like London or Paris. Magazines like Kasino A4 and 032c, he said, tend to come from the fringes. What do you think of Jörg’s comments? And how influential is Helsinki and Finland on the content and look of Kasino A4?
Pekka: Like I said, our mindset has grown from the land we come from. And it might be that there is enough room and air in a little city to build such ‘weird’ magazine concepts like us or 032c. In a metropol there is so much more competition and media noise that the own, unique voice tends to get lost in track.
Steven: Of the other magazine’s that exhibited in Luxembourg as part of Colophon2009, which is your favourite? What do you like about it?
Pekka: It was a nice mixture of very different kind of medias, all very well done magazines. Do I have to choose just one? If so, then it would be BabyBabyBaby, simply because of the raw energy in it. And the people behind it are just a-ma-zing! But I also like Liebling and Good a lot.
I have to admit we didn’t have any time to check out the other exhibitions, which were relatively far away from our bar – we had to keep our customers happy all day long! But I heard a lot about them, especially about Karen’s more English intrepretation. Gladly I was able pop by some of the keynotes and talks, so for example Lula’s Creative Director Becky Smith’s story on her magazine was very fashinating.
Steven: What does the name Kasino A4 mean? And why did you add three little stars to the masthead in issue #8?
Pekka: This one is tricky! Everybody seems to understand the ‘A4’ part of it. I can tell you that ‘Kasino’ means Casino in Finnish, and it is also the name of our design collective, but unfortunately the story behind the whole name is a secret… It’s a great name to pick up taxi by phone late at night – Hello, this is Pekka from Kasino… – ’cause they think you’re loaded.
And about the stars: You are the first to ask! We wanted to give a little shoutout to one of the greatest of all time, the early Playboy, which we investigated heavily during the making of our sex issue. They sure knew how to make a mindblowing magazine around sex in the 70s! Playboy used to have those little stars on the cover to point out the different editions for different regions… so we ended up adding 3 little stars aswell to make some magazine lover sizzle – it finally happened!
Steven: With previous issues of Kasino A4 you’ve played around with different inks, stocks and varnishing/laminating techniques. You’ve even personalised copies. How important is it to you to mix in these different design and production tricks?
Pekka: Everybody’s shouting in the newsstands, so we try to keep our mouth shut. And impress with the simplicity. Our design concept is pretty strict, and we want to play around with the little possibilities we have. I like to keep the continuation clear, so designwise every issue has a lot in common. ‘Timelessness’ is one of our key words, so we don’t want to rush with our magazine, nor invent the wheel every time over and over again. But we want to keep the magazine in motion, so we use these little tricks to make it (even) more appealing.
Steven: Issue #9, THE ABC ISSUE, is due out soon. What can we expect?
Pekka: A is for Abstract, B is for Black & white, and C is for Comedy – it’ll be our take on humour! it’ll be hilarious, in a very weird and even a bit scary way… Or so I hope. Let’s see. But I can assure you, it’ll defenitely be the greatest Kasino A4 magazine so far!
Steven: Thanks for your time Pekka. You, and indeed the other guys at Kasino A4 magazine, are gentlemen.
First published: March 27th, 2009
Filed under: Interviews
Posted by: Michael