It all began with a typewriter and a sign on which Sabine Magnet wrote "Poetry to Go", reviving a centuries-old tradition: poetic performance, also known as spontaneous commissioned poetry. She now not only writes her special rhymes on the street, at events and in cultural institutions, but also at her desk at home - for example for her children's book "Der Gagahof"...
© Claudia Grassl
Sabine Magnet, who works not only as a poet but also as an author and journalist, often uses her ad hoc rhymes as a starting point for art projects, which are shown in solo and group exhibitions, such as with the collective Die Villa. For her first, completely rhymed children's book "Der Gagahof", she teamed up with illustrator Henriette Artz, whose light-footed, playful drawing style wonderfully complements the children's rhymes.
In her illustrative work, Berlin-based Henriette Artz focuses primarily on the people, things and absurdities in her immediate surroundings. After creative stages at the Kunsthochschule Berlin Weißensee and the Iceland University of the Arts, she now regularly works for the children's page of the Süddeutsche Zeitung and Zeit magazine, and illustrates cookbooks and political campaigns.
Magnet and Artz brought Toronto-based design studio Wulf into their circle for the realization of the book. Creative director Linna Xu and designer Sharon Pang, who similarly like to think "out of the box" and enjoy working with visual communication, which they say promotes healthy ways of thinking.
"Once upon a time there was a farm that all the farmers thought was stupid. The general opinion was: The animals there are strange! They don't do what they're supposed to. No farmer could want something like that. They have a hundred tricks up their sleeves, the whole farm is totally gaga!"
The story unfolds its charm on the one hand through funny and thought-provoking rhymes, and on the other through the detailed drawings, which in places have the character of hidden object pictures. For typography nerds, there is a special treat: the font is not a conventional computer font, but the actual font of the author's typewriter, a coral red Remington Riviera from the 1960s...
