Kai Brach, founder of Offscreen Magazine, is a German transplant currently based in Melbourne, Australia.
With a background in UI web design and love for all things tech, he set out to launch a print magazine to humanize the World Wide Web.
Offscreen sits at the intersection of technology and humanity; its purpose is to remind us that the main goal of technology is to enhance human connection. It accomplishes this through intimate, honest interviews with people working in technology, sharing their stories, struggles and successes. The magazine also includes personal reflective essays about working in technology, inspiration and advice from tech innovators and roundups of tech trends and new products.
To bring these stories and information to life, Kai decided to work in print. Print offers a tangible, tactile experience as well as an additional design element. Holding the magazine, flipping through the pages, and breaking away from the computer screen, allows readers to digitally detox and consume information in a different way.
Kai launched Offscreen Magazine in early 2012, and in a short six months he designed the layout, conducted and edited interviews, secured sponsors, built a distribution network and published the first issue. Kai’s advice: “you might not be as great as your hero designer or as perfect as your hero writer, but by combining these roles into one person and doing it even just half as good, you have the chance to create something very unique that results in great work.”
Offscreen is a published three times a year and now offers a weekly e-newsletter as well. They just published their 16th print issue, and their newsletter goes out to 11,377 readers every Tuesday.
In 2014, we caught up with Kai Brach and our video team made this feature to highlight his story and vision.
“I’m more and more inspired by stories that have nothing to do with our industry… stories that are taken out of real life….The person living on the street, he can probably teach us a lot more about the meaning of life and what it means to fail and what sort of challenges life gives you than any entrepreneur, any millionaire, any developer or designer in our industry. Talking to people like that puts everything into perspective. It shows you that we worry too much about design and the product and code and all this stuff, when at the end of the day it’s all about people and how we connect with people.”- Kai Brach
