Founded in 1995, Ahead Media GmbH is a publishing, media and communication company. Ahead Media is regarded as an authority on lifestyle and design journalism in Central Europe. As a corporate member of the IDZ and media partner of many of our awards and events, it has been a close companion for many years. We have asked editor and publishing director Angelika Müller to introduce the company to us and are pleased that she has brought us a small gift: The current digital May-June issue of H.O.M.E. is available here free of charge after registration.
1. Would you like to briefly introduce ahead media GmbH to us?
Ahead media is a boutique publishing house, founded in Vienna 25 years ago by Alexander Geringer, with headquarters in Berlin and Vienna and the magazine portfolio H.O.M.E. (present in 6 countries with own editions D, A, CU, HU, SLO, SK), flair, DOMUS and the design retailer platform TopdiTop. With its international network of contributors ahead media is omnipresent and scouts, filters, curates, communicates and multiplies Premium Competence Content in the appropriate context. Our international Premium and Luxury Competence is also confirmed by the long lasting multilingual contract publishing for Chopard, Nespresso & Silhouette.
As editor and publishing director, I have been living the Design & Lifestyle Spirit every day for almost 20 years with emotionality and passion for details and people. As a purely digital baby, I founded the international Design & Travel Directory Signatureplaces three years ago and work on numerous juries and as a moderator.
2. What was the best experience in your professional life so far? What are you particularly proud of in connection with your company?
In my almost 20 years at ahead media - smile - I am fascinated every day anew by the different people from all areas and the constant change and development of brands and therefore also of our own portfolio and of our company that keeps up with the times. I am particularly proud of our 20-year anniversary project DAS H.O.M.E. HOUSE 2020 with GRAFT Architekten. The first 360° degree journalistic case study. In a whole print magazine issue the complete house was built and furnished. For the first time in Germany, a complete Competence Content implementation was carried out, extended by a Virtual Reality Tour and 3D print model making, accompanied by social media and made tangible at trade fairs such as imm cologne.
The best client was Volkswagen, who gave us the greatest freedom to produce the complete creation journey of a car as a unique experience journey for print for the lifestyle travel magazine ANYWAY.
3. What motivated you to become a member of the IDZ?
The versatile network activity, the professionally established and realized UX Design Awards and the federal prize Ecodesign and the likeable people. The process of evolution of design and its value for sustainable solutions requires cross-media collaboration and bonding. Proactive and productive collaboration is highly desired and is very much in our nature. According to our claim: being stronger together - together ahead!
4. What inspires you at present?
The exhibition SHOW OFF at the MAKK Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna is particularly recommendable. It represents 40 years of fashion, fashion magazine and cultural time travel and is very ahead. The location setting of the English series "Young Inspector Morse" and the modern design stage in the film "Parasite". And absolutely worth seeing in Berlin is the exhibition in the Hamburger Bahnhof by Katharina Grosse: Indoor and Outdoor. And of course the upcoming H.O.M.E. July-August TRAVEL double issue from July 10th with the timely cover story NOW OPEN featuring the 23 most livable cities of the current Mercer 2019 study, with many wonderful signature places in DACH and of course a Berlin Cityguide Special.