Changing Rooms With Freunde von FreundenProfiles - Monday, 21 November 2016

As with all the best ideas, Berlin-based international storytelling platform Freunde von Freunden (FvF) is

the result of innovative minds wanting to do their own thing. It was back in 2008 that Frederik Frede

and Tim Seifert, two of FvF's founding members, met through design agency and studio NoMoreSleep.

Galvanised by the loss of two major clients, Frede and Seifert, along with FvF's third founder Torsten

Bergler, decided to branch out alone and find an alternative to working for other people. “We realised

that we could combine our strengths. Torsten is the brain, the intelligence and the innovator. I'm the

designer, the editor-in-chief. I do strategy and Timmy does all the sales and marketing. Of course, it

overlaps and everybody does a little bit of something,” Frede explains of the company's management

structure.

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While the triumvirate wanted to create an inspirational storytelling platform, they didn't want to go

down the hackneyed route of celebrity profiles. Instead, the three veered towards an entirely new

concept, inspired by Warhol's Interview magazine and popularity of Facebook as a hotbed for picture-

sharing. Seifert, Frede and Bergler decided to create an independent space providing insight into the

lives of friends of friends - as the translation of their name suggests - through interviews and pictures

taken in the most intimate of settings, homes and places of work. “It really started out as a friends

project. It was just a collection of different friendship networks which grew organically in Berlin through

those recommendations and the trust we built up,” Seifert says. “We thought ‘why don’t we just ask our

friends?’ Between all of our friends in the creative industries in Berlin, they have more than enough

stories to tell,” he continues.

“It's not really difficult to get people to invite us in, because the trust is

already there”

With the three well-positioned to start such a project, 2009 saw the birth of FvF. But the people that

FvF documents aren’t just any people – instead Frede, Seifert and Bergler have created a vast network

of human beings from a plethora of creative and cultural backgrounds to provide distinctive reflections

of cities, artistic industries and urban living across the globe. These are the people we sometimes don’t

hear about but are undoubtedly shaping the creative world.The premise of FvF is simple and effective:

find interesting, creative people, interview them and put the whole thing together with beautiful, candid

shots in celebration of creative life. FvF satisfies the 21st-century obsession with peeking into others'

private lives through its carefully curated look at the inner sanctums of people we otherwise wouldn’t

have access to – and it’s a cultural cachet that brands and corporations are keen to tap into.

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The end result is a rare, intimate glimpse portrait of creative life and making sure the stories are

personal is exactly what sets FvF apart. “It's not really difficult to get people to invite us in, because the

trust is already there and we always approach it sensitively,” explain Frede. But being invited into a

person’s private space is a big deal and the team behind FvF work hard to make sure that their subjects

are comfortable throughout. That’s what really makes the project so special. By putting people at ease,

the insight provided by FvF is much deeper. Working with full transparency, subjects are involved and

in control of the process from beginning to end, the pair explain. And it translates through the lens and

the final published story. Just take a look at the website and you’ll see that this is really a project built

on human relationships – nothing is allowed to jeopardise that. After all, it's the foundation that FvF is

built on. “We’re not misusing any of the content. We react to people and their needs so in the end it’s a

very positive project,” Seifert attests.

“Bringing people together and creating synergy is so important, because

it's fertile ground for new ideas and projects. If we can bring them

together under FvF then we can only benefit. So we said: "let's create

rooms"”

Initially starting off in Berlin, the trio behind FvF were first put in contact with photographers and

editors in cities like Paris and London, and then spanned out literally from one side of the globe to the

other. FvF is now a collection of stories from 95 local communities in around 100 cities, the pair tell us.

From the very beginning, Seifert and Frede were determined to ensure that FvF would be timeless,

meaning that content could grow and stay relevant over the years. What started as a something they

modestly termed a “friends project” has now snowballed into something much bigger.

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Aside from the online magazine concept of bringing people together, FvF has also expanded to a bricks

and mortar community space in the shape of their FvF Apartment in Berlin. “Bringing people together

and creating synergy is so important because it's fertile ground for new ideas and projects. If we can

bring them together under FvF then we can only benefit. So we said: ‘let's create rooms’”, explains

Seifert.The product of a community of creatives coming together to make something beautiful, The

Apartment acts as a physical venue for nurturing a community. It serves as a flexible space that

showcases products as well as a distinctive platform for events, workshops and presentations. The

Apartment itself is a manifestation of Frede and Seifert’s personal tastes – it’s meant to feel like a real

home with emotion and atmosphere in stark opposition to the standard of sterile, impersonal

showrooms. “This is basically our apartment,” Seifert says. “If people ask what it looks like in our homes

and what our taste and style is, this is basically it. There’s a lot of personal stuff here, you know?”

“It’s a very ‘Berlin’ project. It's very passionate. There are lots of other

friends in the building – artists, companies that we work with – so it’s

very community driven. It’s not only about profit. So that’s going to be

really nice”

The success of the apartment has led to FvF taking further steps into the physical field. The trio has

been working on a new project: a loft space in Kreuzberg, to add yet another string to their bow. This

additional dimension is, of course, the result of yet another collaboration with friends. Over the years

the trio had been approached countless times to host events but FvF had always veered away from

doing so, they explain. But when they were approached by their friend Philipp Solf, the building's owner

and a long-time friend based in Berlin, they realised the loft was the perfect blank canvas to realise a

new vision and add an additional layer to FvF.

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Working alongside Philipp Mainzer, the architect accompanying the huge 335 square metre loft, FvF's

newest project will serve as both a living and exhibition space. Because it’s been done with a friend,

they've been given freedom in abundance to reimagine it exactly as they wish and build something with

deep roots in Berlin’s creative community. In fact, the three charmingly refer to the loft as their “friends

space”. According to Seifert, the plan is to make it super accessible to local creatives. “It’s a very ‘Berlin’

project. It's very passionate. We have are lots of friends in the building – artists and companies that we

work with – so it’s very community driven. It’s not only about profit.” Seifert emphasises.

“We don’t really care about the format, if it’s digital or printed. It’s all

about the content and the storytelling. We just want to reach other

people and other platforms”

Since its inception, FvF has transformed from an intimate, friends-based storytelling platform into

something much bigger, while retaining those personal sensibilities. FvF is a universe of different things

- a constellation if you will - and it's hard to zero in on FvF’s business model. Even trying to get the

founders behind FvF to put what they do in a nutshell is impossible. “It’s interesting,” says Seifert “I feel

like I can’t really explain what we’re doing here.” But, the essence of the whole project is high-quality,

creative content – no matter the medium.

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While they're pretty low-key about what they have going on, preferring to list their tasks rather than

boasting about the magnitude of what they've achieved in less than ten years, it's clear they work

supremely hard. Both Frede and Seifert spend their days managing countless tasks – constant

communication with people and brands across multiple projects is essential to FvF’s smooth running.

Editorial meetings, presentations and pitches, hosting events and sitting on panels, editing videos and

conducting interviews themselves are also par for the course.It’s a tonne of work that’s only set to

increase with the projects they have lined up over the next few months. “It’s a lot of different things at

the same time. So all of that and squeezing in 30 minutes of swimming every day is quite a challenge,”

laughs Frede. Asked if they’ve changed focus since the beginning and Frede is adamant that they

haven’t. The focus of FvF has remained the same: a joyful showcase of creative people. They've simply

changed tack to get the most out of their resources. “We don’t really care about the format – if it’s

digital or printed. It’s all about the content and the storytelling. We just want to reach other people and

other platforms,” he concludes.

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Words by Alice Nicolov

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