Lisbon-based design studio Frau im Mond launches Alien Magazine, a publication built for people who feel other, with design decisions that enact the very dichotomies they describe: rough where you expect smooth, unreadable where you expect legible, strange where you expect welcome.
Alien Magazine began as a question: what would it look like to gather a community of people who felt other? Lisa H. Moura started it as a personal project, and the first issue, titled Aliens of Extraordinary Ability, answers that question through contributions, commissions and open call submissions that bring together photographers, illustrators and writers united by a shared sense of not quite fitting in.
The design is doing something more than carrying content. Every material and typographic decision reflects the experience of the alien, the person who tries to fit in and is alienated despite the effort. “Aliens have been alienated despite all their efforts to fit in,” as the studio puts it, “and so the design plays on those dichotomies.” Avara, the display typeface, is a classic serif with rough, irregular edges: familiar in structure, strange at the surface. The cover stock, from Arjowiggins’ Curious Matter collection, has a rough and almost unwelcoming touch, contrasting with the softer papers inside. Blocks of text are cut through by freely curved lines of text that insist on being seen, even when they resist being read.
“We wanted a magazine that looks like it belongs somewhere until you get close enough to notice it doesn’t,” Moura says. “That felt right.”
Contributions to the first issue include photography by Matilde Viegas, illustrations by Ciro Miguel and an interview with Nelly Ben Hayoun. The publication exists to offer, as its founding idea has it, a safe haven to those who feel they have none.
Frau im Mond is a graphic, space, digital and education design studio run by Lisa H. Moura, based in Lisbon. The studio’s name pays homage to Fritz Lang’s 1929 film, a masterpiece of science fiction featuring a moon voyage before one was possible.
Website: alien-magazine.com Instagram: @alienmagazinealien / @frau_im_moooond
Alien Magazine Issue 1: Aliens of Extraordinary Ability. Cover: Arjowiggins Curious Matter. Typeface: Avara. Contributions include Matilde Viegas (photography), Ciro Miguel (illustrations), Nelly Ben Hayoun (interview).
