forgotten designs: the first DATUM campaign ever

Since I was going over old designs I wanted to write a little bit about DATUM. In 2009 I was asked to create a low budget print and digital campaign for Datum. the first campaign the magazine ever made. And I believe the last one too. Datum, being a critical independent magazine for politics and social matters at that time, was founded by journalist and author Klaus Stimeder. I got to know Klaus through a friend of a friend and over lots of beer we fell in love platonically.
So I offered to help him, knowingly that it had to be low budget. Also, I had to work with people who loved the magazine and/or supported it.
So I gathered a little group of people to work on the campaign. First, I had my best friend Sophie, who was a journalist and who would do the copy part, then I literally picked the most talented photographers who were working for the magazine at that time: Martin Fuchs (now editor of magnum photos), Gianmaria Gava, and Maurizio Maier. Together we formed the collective Liebe Leute and came up with the campaign. It happened very naturally and very much like I assemble the perfect team with the WOW CREATIVES theses days - likeminded people who were perfect for the campaigns tasks.
Inspired by the magazine’s title "Datum" or "Date" we created a testimonial-campaign in which celebrated personalities tell stories about an important ‘date’ in their life. We always had lots of fun with the protagonists and the postcards and stickers (a little viral campaign where things like toilets and mailboxes were telling "their story" through attached stickers) became legendary.

Klaus left to work and live in New York and we did not continue to work on the campaign... that is how it goes. I still love to look at the campaign 9 years later and although it was "just a testimonial campaign" it showed me how close art direction and production go together and how important the right team and individuals with specialized skills are to make a project great.