{"id":2655,"date":"2022-07-03T10:53:06","date_gmt":"2022-07-03T08:53:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/?p=2655"},"modified":"2022-11-15T20:36:51","modified_gmt":"2022-11-15T18:36:51","slug":"012022-it-takes-a-village","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/2022\/07\/012022-it-takes-a-village\/","title":{"rendered":"012022: It Takes A Village"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"a<\/figure>\n

Coordinates:<\/em> It\u2019s half past midnight and I just switched the light back on to start typing this. It was one of those situations we all know: As soon as you put your body to rest, your mind starts wandering, walking, sometimes running. So did mine \u2013 and another issue of this newsletter was long overdue! So here we are: 0:24am. Welcome back!<\/p>\n

Log book:<\/em> Since the last newsletter, six months passed by. I kept true to my belief that one should only write something when there is something to tell, and the last months have been so full of work and projects and business that I didn\u2019t know how to make shareable sense of everything. That\u2019s why I sticked to the simple format of lists: I made one for every month of 2022 so far, and if you understand German, you can read them all<\/a> in the blog. However, I actually do have some bigger news I want to share with you:<\/p>\n

\u2733\ufe0e \u2733\ufe0e \u2733\ufe0e<\/p>\n

I am co-founding a company! For the last two years, I\u2019ve been enjoying my freelance life and all the freedom that comes with it, but I’ve been missing exchange and tackling bigger, more relevant topics with a team of smart people. Luckily, I found these people, I’ve been knowing them all along. For a while, we’ve been talking about how we want to work, what we want to work on, and how we can build a framework that provides a flexible, democratic work environment to design and build digital products.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why we decided to found a cooperative: Village One<\/a>. \u2728 We signed all the paperwork on Friday, and it is all very exciting!<\/p>\n

Why cooperative though? As it is owned by its workers, the format truly ensures that everyone can have a say and steer the company towards the right direction. The world and our society are battling so many crises at the moment, and as much as designers like to tell themselves that „design will save the world“ \u2013 it won\u2019t, I\u2019m sorry, not until we use our energy for the right things. Overcome capitalist thinking; putting the planet over profit; redistribute privilege; foster a calmer, better society; online and offline \u2013\u00a0that\u2019s what we aim for. It sounds utopian, yes, but we have to start creating the right frameworks to steer the narrative. Harry Keller, one of my co-founders, puts it very well in his newsletter<\/a> (which I highly recommend):<\/p>\n

For a long time I\u2019ve felt powerless and unsure what I can contribute here, but over the past months I\u2019ve sat down with a few thoughtful people and we\u2019ve sketched out a new kind of workplace. A place that embraces emergence over hierarchical planning, a place that\u2019s owned by all its workers, embracing diversity and new perspectives, which is democratically governed, feminist, anti-racist, curious and humble, choosing cooperation over competition, operating as a distributed team with asynchronous workflows, enabling maximum flexibility for its people, empowering them to live the life they want.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At the moment, we\u2019re a small team, but we\u2019re very excited to get going with our first projects, build our own site, and get to know more people (maybe you?) that are interested in our idea. I\u2019d be happy if you followed along; on twitter<\/a>, on our mailing list<\/a>, or just by reaching out (simply by replying to this e-mail).<\/p>\n

You can read even more about it on our Village One site<\/a> (more content to come!) and in Harry\u2019s recent newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2733\ufe0e \u2733\ufe0e \u2733\ufe0e<\/p>\n

We\u2019re still busy getting everything up and running, but I wanted to have you all aboard already and share the news with you (and also the reason that kept me so busy during the past months). So, what else happened?<\/p>\n

I wrote more columns for form<\/a> design magazine about digital nostalgia: One about the Cloud, and the most recent one about Desktop Publishing. Ordering the printed magazine is highly recommended; the form team always manages to add a big variety of perspectives towards one topic; most recently: Generations<\/a>.<\/p>\n

During this summer semester, from April to July, I teach a course at University of the Arts Berlin. Together with the students, we work on a book about the University\u2019s illustration class, and I teach writing techniques. Mark your calendars: The „UdK Rundgang<\/a>“ is on July 22\u201324.<\/p>\n

Also: You can still sign up for my one-week writing workshop Writing = Design<\/a> together with Sonja Knecht from August 8\u201312, 2022, in Berlin. I\u2019m already excited for it, it\u2019s going to be fun!<\/p>\n

On the blog: I\u2019ve been listening to OTTO<\/a>, Belle & Sebastian<\/a> and Charli XCX a lot, I wrote about the annoyance of queues<\/a> in Berlin, and about weird drinking glasses<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2733\ufe0e \u2733\ufe0e \u2733\ufe0e<\/p>\n

Ok. That was a lot, take some deep breaths now. Six months of stuff<\/em>, but I\u2019ll let you go enjoy the sunny weather now. I hope you\u2019re all well, savoring summer, soaking up the sun!<\/p>\n

(If you enjoy content like this: I send it out as an irregular newsletter called <\/em>Christel\u2019s Corner.\u00a0Sign up for it here<\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Coordinates: It\u2019s half past midnight and I just switched the light back on to start typing this. It was one of those situations we all know: As soon as you put your body to rest, your mind starts wandering, walking, sometimes running. So did mine \u2013 and another issue of this newsletter was long overdue! … 012022: It Takes A Village<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1197,1206],"tags":[3606,41,40,3,2,3626,43],"class_list":["post-2655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beobachtungen","category-christels-corner","tag-christelscorner","tag-english","tag-newsletter","tag-schreiben","tag-text","tag-village-one","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2655"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2658,"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2655\/revisions\/2658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}