The Journey

Naware Magazine was born as the Editor-in-Chief’s personal commitment to raise awareness about the climate crisis. The design and content of the magazine are rooted in East Asian aesthetic traditions, in particular, the concept “Mono No Aware” – the beauty of finite things.

In cultures such as Japanese, Korean, and Chinese, the relationship between humans and nature is one of interconnectedness. Design, art and architecture bow to nature instead of trying to dominate it. Moments of finite beauty – such as the passing of the seasons or the blossoming of cherry trees – are embraced and enhanced by the structures, materials and textures used.

Naware shares this notion of the relationship between humans and nature. For that reason, we delved into East Asian aesthetic principles and applied them to our magazine. Readers will encounter plenty of blank space and asymmetry (Hakanasa), lack of ornamentation (Kiyoshi), gentle curves (Kuwashi), and moments of praise for nothingness (Mu).

In addition, the magazine was designed in landscape format as a nod to the parchments on which people used to write in these regions of the world prior to the arrival of Western design canons. The paper is Biotop 120g recyclable on the inside, and Fredigoni’s Blue Materica for the cover.