Amateur Magazine and the Do-It-Yourself Art Movement

Fact is, we’ve grown internationally and have found our central theme and what content is right for us. We changed from a very open-minded magazine for all kinds of visual expression to a more specific magazine with a focus on murals and illustration.

In terms of quantity, we have grown from 60 pages in the beginning to 100 pages now, and from 2000 print copies to 4000. We’re now at the perfect scope for us. Quality over quantity – we want to be rare.

Another great development was launching our online presence. My homies Meq and Ti joined Amateur in 2010 and took responsibility for all social media platforms, which increased our amount of followers and online-readers significantly. Our eleventh issue had more than 450,000 impressions on Issuu. 

More or less everything that you need to know about publishing. I was a total greenhorn in publishing before I started, and now – even though each issue is a new adventure – the whole process has become a daily routine and there’s not much that scares me anymore.

Although we have grown more professional, the content of Amateur Magazine is still my personal selection. All artists represented in the magazine are artists whose work I appreciate personally. Once I get to know them – in the real or in the digital world – I prepare their interview questions, which are a mix of standard Amateur questions and artist-customized questions.

It helped a lot, especially with international growth. You can reach so many more people online.

Being able to present the magazine online is a great addition to the printed magazine. And thanks to services such as Issuu, the online publishing became very easy. Thank you Issuu!

Independent publishers are very important. Because they are coming out of a particular scene, they act authentically and honestly.

We never declare an artist as “Amateur artist.” There are no strict rules or guidelines of what an artist should be like to be presented in the magazine. If it fits, it fits. What they all have in common is that Do-It-Yourself spirit: many have a background in street art or skateboarding which are both very DIY-oriented, too.

As far as I can see, Graffiti has reached the art world for a long time. Even in the 1980s, many of the graffiti pioneers did exhibitions and sold their artworks in galleries to survive. But, as graffiti needs the streets like flowers need the sun, it will never be a traditional art movement. Only time will tell what will be written about the Graffiti movement in future art history books.