OOMK: the small magazine with lots of big ideas

February 20, 2013 | Be the first to comment

Created by two MA design students and an architect friend, OOMK (One Of My Kind) is a new, small circulation magazine that explores the imaginations, creativity and spirituality of women. It's brilliantly done

For Issue One: Fabric creators Sabba Khan, Sofia Niazi and Rose Nordin chose to "unpick the work of artists who explore fabric in interesting and inspiring ways" taking in art, illustration, embroidered self-portraits and a travelogue about a Kurdish family in Syria; its content a reflection of its creators' interest in feminism and Muslim culture.

Running to 68 A5 pages, One Of My Kind (OOMK) looks and feels like a high-class fanzine, thanks in part to a DIY aesthetic that mixes photographs of people, illustration and fabric artwork with typewriter style body copy and seemingly hand-drawn headlines, but with decent paper stock and a perfect bound spine.

Bite-size

Because of its size and the way OOMK has been designed, it's inevitable that a lot of the articles feel rather short, often limited to a few lines of text, an image or two and a URL to find out more. However, that conceit works very well in this context: there's enough variety, interest and inspiration contained within its pages to keep you interested and its bite-size format encourages repeat visits.

From the curtains that shut the world out to the bandages that help us heal, to the clothes that cover and protect us, we keep fabric close and always have." -- Introduction, OOMK, Issue One: Fabric

Even the self-promotional note Computer Arts received with its copy of the magazine was a source of delight. It was hand-typed using an eccentric manual typewriter with dropped 'a's and faintly inked passages where the typewriter keys had hit a nearly exhausted piece of ribbon. No wonder Sofia, Rose and Sabba called their first issue "a real labour of love."

If there's one thing that's disappointing about OOMK Issue One: Fabric is that it's limited to just 300 copies. Hopefully you'll be able to snap one up when the magazine is officially launched on Friday 22 February, when it will be on sale at Girls Get Busy and Magazine Shack. But if you do miss out though, don't worry. Issue Two: Print is already in the pipeline.