Gossamer volume three takes a darker turn, exploring the theme of “night”

It’s Nice That’s Ones to Watch shines a light on 12 emerging talents who we think will conquer the creative world in the coming year. Over the coming months, we’ll be catching up with creatives from our 2019 selection to see what they’ve been up to. Ones to Watch 2019 is supported by Uniqlo.

The third volume of Gossamer – the one we mentioned as being “on the way” when we interviewed the magazine’s founders David Weiner and Verena von Pfetten as part of Ones to Watch 2019 – has arrived. And what a banger it is.

Featuring a luminescent image of a glowing TV screen, shot by Caroline Fayette and Marina Melentieva on its cover, Gossamer’s latest instalment takes a darker turn, focussing on the theme of “night”. But, in true Gossamer fashion, things aren’t as serious as they might seem.

On why they chose this theme, David and Verena tell us: “We knew that this volume would be out in spring and summer, so it was immediately tempting to focus on something bright and sunny and green… It’s funny, when people picture spring and summer, they most often think of long sunny days and beach vacations and things of that nature. But to us, it’s when night falls that these seasons really come alive. So we didn’t think it was too much of a stretch to kind of flip the general idea of spring and summer on their heads and go with something so dark.”

Throughout the issue, a multitude of talented contributors discuss the theme, often times turning it on its head, bringing out the fun in darkness and any potential upbeat sensibilities. Cara Parks offers a “revelatory essay on how life as an overnight baker gave rise to a new purpose,” for example, while Noémi Ottilia Szabo and Arianna Pianca offer up a “twilight fashion feature,” and chef and TV star Vanessa Lavorato’s pens a dreamy exploration of “Silene undulata, the latest plant to find its way into the hands of ‘psychonauts’,” with illustrations by Nicholas Law.

As a result, the issue feels like, well, a really good night’s sleep. Kristina Bartošová and Verena Michelitsch, Gossamer’s creative team explain: “You start slowly dozing off in the dusk, fall into deep REM sleep and get into your wildest dreams – from vivid and lucid to the more fuzzy and odd. To support the feel of this, we also played around with different paper types like coated, high gloss, uncoated, and high contrast colour changes with the two black and white sections.” Touching on some of the other recent design changes, the duo for whom this is the second issue they’ve designed add: “Generally, we changed the body copy to Domaine Serif, we’re mostly working with the Domaine family, which has a great variety and allows for fun experiments and modifications, such as stretching the headlines. Our motto is to have fun with design, colour and experiment with layout while having established a consistent visual system for types of articles and opener pages.”

For the first time in the magazine’s history, the cover was locked in pretty early, usually, a decision the team makes right at the end. “It’s also the first time where everyone more or less simultaneously agreed on an image,” David and Verena remark. “We loved how this image really continues to reveal itself the more you look at it. From afar, the glow of the TV really pops (obviously an important consideration for newsstands), but as you look more closely, the vibrancy and pattern of the wallpaper creates this incredible texture.” In turn, the cover sets a cinematic, enigmatic tone for the whole issue, both aesthetically and conceptually. It toes the line between mundanity and intrigue, darkness and luminosity. And it’s in this space that Gossamer volume three sits, once again pulling apart a theme to reveal unexpected and insightful stories within it.