Frontpage (techno fanzine)

 Frontpage (techno fanzine)

Frontpage was a German magazine for techno and electronic music. The first release was in May 1989 with a run of 5000 copies and 8 pages. Frontpage developed into one of the most influential German techno magazines with a run of 70,000 copies and 140 pages in 1996. Stefan Weil is one of the founders. It was established as an in house fanzine for Technoclub, Dorian Gray (located in Frankfurt airport). in 1992 the headquarters were moved to Berlin. The last release of Frontpage was in 1997 after running out of money. 

According to founder Stefan, Frontpage was a 'printed rave' and 'graphic ecstasy', documenting the explosion of a new subculture bound b a fixation with music and culture. Frontpage was at the centre of the rivalry between Frankfurt and Berlin, with both cities claiming techno as their own. When the headquarters moved to Berlin, they saw a big change in the techno sound, swapping established synth-punk bands for acid house and disused warehouses. The Frontpage editors felts like they found a scene that was more forward facing, where young East Germans would integrate into West Berlin. 'The impact of the GDR youth was massive on the movement. It was the sound of a revolution of liberation for them'; 'there was nowhere that German reunification worked better than in the techno scene. On the dancefloor, you couldn't tell who was East and West'. 

Frontage published content focusing on the emergence of new subcultures like trance and gabber, printing early stories on figures such as Aphex Twin and Moby and mastered the 'you saw it here first' mindset. There were also some super crazy columns like 'shopping on speed' and 'Ocopussies'; a monthly column following a group of female scenesters described as 'the spice girls before the spice girls'. The Octopussies were given a monthly budget to go out and were encouraged to 'attend parties, misbehave, and write about it'. 

Before covering festivals and events, a Frontpages contributors job was to report on the 'hot shit' and 'wear and gear'; club wear labels became as much as part of the scene as the magazines themselves. 

Frontpages' aesthetic mirrored technos' sonic innovation; in its early years, the magazine took inspiration from DIY fanzines, but it soon transformed into a unique style of its own, with a maximalist layout and cutting edge art direction by graphic designer Alexander Branczyk. According to Weil, Branczyk translated the outstanding content and the attitude of the raving society into a very own visual language. Frontpage was the first magazine in Germany to be created entirely on a Macintosh; analogue photographs were manipulated, altered and transformed, with every font used in Branczyk's 5 year career with Frontpage being unique. 

'My inspiration was the dancefloor and the flickering lights in Berlins' nightclubs' according to Branczyk, 'I wanted to make the design fucked up and messy'. The teams' obsession with new technology also leading to Frontpage being one of the first magazines available online, under the legendary domain techno.de.