We were both born in Hamburg and we both lived in England for a long time. We both also went to Brighton University (Michelle, to study Graphic Design and Johannes, Fine Art with Music) but we didn’t actually meet until a few years later. Naturally we clicked right away and we started making silly experimental things, mainly dealing with clouds. We were dreamers really. Anyway, we both had solid jobs in agencies but we felt like we should give cloud-related, visual experimentation a go so we moved to Berlin. At the time Berlin was notorious for its creatives that were doing equally non-commercial, viable projects and so we got into making music videos and album artwork together. One thing lead to another and now it’s six years later and we mostly do art direction and design for editorials, catalogues, art books and so on.

It wasn’t easy, especially as the editors wanted the magazine to be read by not only Generation Z but also the two generations that came before it. Being inclusive is one of Sofa’s mottos, so getting back into the mind set of a teenager and finding out what they’re into nowadays was definitely a fun challenge. We were also really into Ricarda and Caia’s idea of giving Gen Z a voice. It’s hard enough for teenagers of any generation to get taken seriously, but now a lot of older people think Gen Z are lost digital addicts who are just brainlessly sending selfies to one another… no fingers pointed! It may be that they’re intimidated by how confidently and easily this new generation uses technology, they know how to make it work for them. Anyway, when Ricarda and Caia told us they were going to investigate, we were definitely up for finding out what today’s kids were really all about.

Yes absolutely. I guess we just made the kind of thing we would have liked to have had when we were teenagers!

I think the tastes and styles of today’s youth are more diverse than ever! We try to go about our work with a youthful energy and attitude and we can always look to Gen Z to show us how it’s done. They also seem to have a remarkable bullshit filter, we’re quite amazed at what they do and don’t like. They can be very discerning, it’s inspiring. A lot of the people we work with work closely with youth culture, like Ewen Spencer and Matt Lambert so this generation informs a lot of our work one way or another.

Our creative circles are mainly made up of our really good friends. I’m not sure which usually comes first, working together or hanging out. Maybe it’s not that Berlin-specific, but I do think that Berliners have a good way of blurring the line between work and play. Obviously we meet new people all the time and our network is constantly growing but most of our closest collaborators and creative friends have been around us for a while. Generally-speaking, Berlin is definitely changing and becoming more of a global player and this is evident in the creative scene too.

We’ve just moved to Hamburg for six months to art direct the children’s magazine Zeit Leo for the newspaper Die Zeit and we’ll be heading to Sao Paolo in spring for the next issue of Flaneur magazine. We’re also planning on working with Ewen Spencer’s new issue of Guapamente — other than that it’s near impossible to think about 2017 when there’s still so much left to do in 2016!