In Love with Letters …
This very unusual year, we have fallen back in love with letters. And paragraphs and chapters, too. The extra time we’ve been given to roam around the house has resulted in quite a few extra hours on the couch, leafing through a magazine or deeply sunken into a book.
These, our five favourite magazines and books for the winter of 2020, have all been chosen for their different qualities. While some are insightful, entertaining and captivating, others feature striking photography or carefully crafted typography and graphic design. All of them have one common denominator – they are all worthy of a prominent spot on the coffee table or bedside table.
01
Akt Magazine
Issue 3
With the risk of tooting our own horns, we highly recommend getting the latest issue of Akt, an independent magazine in search for greatness in a small corner, abstraction in the mass, with a keen eye for timeless aesthetics and a nod to Belgium’s creative landscape.
For Akt III, TypeO’s co-founder Micha van Dinther has contributed with two articles – an essay on the feeling of melancholy, as well as a portrait of Cédric Etienne of Studio Corkinho and self-proclaimed ‘curator of stillness’.
02
The Kinfolk Garden
With the release of The Kinfolk Table and The Kinfolk Home, lifestyle brand Kinfolk made quite a splash in the design world with its unique vision of community, gastronomy and design. Will their take on horticultural life have the same impact?
The Kinfolk Garden isn’t your average garden book. It is less about what to plant when, but more about the people behind some of the world’s most intriguing gardens and plant-filled homes. It also educates the reader about the secrets to a good garden and what it can do for our self-care and creativity.
03
The Monocle Book of Gentle Living
Monocle‘s books on home decor, entrepreneurship and eating and drinking have become staples here at TypeO. In their latest book, the editorial team takes on topics of slowing down, enjoying more and being happy. Not an easy feat, no doubt.
The book’s ten chapters cover how to live a gentler life, how to have a good home, what pastimes to make time for, how to eat well, how to dress with care, how to stay more active, how to occasionally get lost, the importance of seeing new places and how to find balance. This book is a sound investment for a better life.
04
Still: The Slow Home
“When were you last still? Without movement and motion. And free from thoughts tumbling and rumbling ahead. But still in the silent depths of quiet calm. Holding a space for now.”
With these words, interior stylist, author and designer Natalie Walton gets right down to business in her latest book, Still: The Slow Home. It is insightful, aspirational and down-to-earth, qualities that aren’t often found on the pages of the same book. Accompanied by gorgeous photographs by Chris Warnes, we get an intimate tour of the homes and lives of 20 individuals and families around the world. This book has it all.
05
Vincent Van Duysen: Works 2009–2018
Before the pandemic struck, we had the pleasure of visiting the wonderful city of Antwerp. While there, we stayed at August, Belgium master-designer Vincent Van Duysen‘s latest hospitality project (read the full story here), and toured some of his other public projects: Graanmarkt 13 and the Pulcinella youth hostel.
Now that all travel happens in the mind, this book, an anthology of Van Duysen’s works between the years of 2009 and 2018 (which unfortunately excludes August, as it opened in 2019) offers a journey into the aesthetic world of his. Be warned that this book will induce severe design wanderlust.
A selection of items you might like