Designing the Story

From Zembla to Port, via INQUE and Butterfly, my work as an editor and publisher has always circled the same question: what happens at the intersection of culture and design?

In this talk, I want to explore how design can elevate editorial thinking – how it can take strong writing and make it resonate more deeply. But also where the line is. When does design clarify a story, and when does it begin to compete with it? What are the elements that truly serve the narrative, and what are we left with when we strip everything back?

Ultimately, this is about refinement – about understanding what helps a story move, what holds it back, how to keep a magazine alive, and how we can keep improving by removing the unnecessary.