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Today marks a new era for frameweb.com as a membership-based platform. Our founder and director Robert Thiemann explains the shift and highlights why your support is invaluable for FRAME's future.
Imagine a world without internet. You’d need to travel far to find it. We’ve grown so used to searching, communicating and buying through the internet that it’s hard to believe that only 25 years ago it was in its infancy. When we launched FRAME magazine in 1997, we needed to dial up to a modem to access it. It would take a couple seconds and you’d hear a strange, squeaky sound before your connection was built. The user experience was poor, load time long and only a sliver of the information that you now find online would be available.
So if you were in design and architecture, you’d need to rely on personal travel or the odd magazine to provide a window to the world. That’s the role that FRAME has taken on from its beginning: to open up the world to an international audience of interior design professionals. And we’ve always stayed true to this initial idea.
But the world has changed significantly. If somebody somewhere now opens a new shop, office or restaurant that is remotely interesting, it will be plastered all over digital platforms within days. Design news has become ubiquitous. How to stand out from the crowd is a question we’ve been asking ourselves for a few years now.
The answer, for us, lies in the word ‘insight’. If design news is everywhere, how can you cut through the noise and understand what it all actually means? What’s more: why on earth should you know that ‘Studio X completes house between trees in location Y’ or ‘Wooden furniture and artworks decorate apartment Z’? What’s the significance of that ‘news’? Editors should curate what you need to know and provide insight into relevant developments in society, technology and business. This is the role that we want FRAME to play.
Therefore, we’ve been ever more selective in the spaces and products that we publish, and we give you our take on them. And we’ve started to produce insight-driven, well-researched content on developments like biomaterials, the metaverse and the future of work – all seen through the lens of the interior design professional: you.
We will continue publishing FRAME magazine, but will produce five instead of six issues in 2023. Every single issue will be entirely dedicated to a pressing topic. Our upcoming Spring publication will explore why and how spaces and products need to become more agile, for instance. So each magazine will be worth keeping and going back to over time. They won’t simply showcase the latest news, but illustrate how spatial design is future-proofing itself.
On this website you’ll find the spaces and products that really matter – and we’ll tell you why. On top of that, we’ll continue our research into the future of spatial design. We’ll tell you what’s significant to be aware of and show you how your peers are dealing with challenges like making retail spaces more inclusive, designing workplaces for neurodivergent staff, or tackling circular design with a new aesthetic.
All of this work is done by a small but dedicated staff at FRAME and a growing roster of external experts. Since there’s never been – and never will be – a lot of advertising on our website, we kindly ask for your understanding and support in making it a membership-based platform. It’s the only way for us to keep doing our jobs and help your business adapt and respond to change – to make it future-ready.
Today we’ll relaunch our website based on memberships, but rest assured: if you’re not yet ready to subscribe you can still read three articles per month for free. Also, to ease you into our new programme, we’re offering a 20% discount on memberships until 31 March. Simply use the code LAUNCH20 at checkout. Awards-related content and submissions will remain fully accessible.
It’s a tiny step for mankind, but a huge one for FRAME. Thank you for your support.
