Feedback from design students, working makers and gallery visitors who read the magazine, send in studio stories, or use our tool lists and sourcing notes in their own workshops.
"The Braamfontein workshop piece finally explained grain direction in a way that stuck. I used the same jig notes on a small oak bench for a client in Pretoria."
"I run a shared electric kiln in Woodstock. The firing notebook idea from issue 7 changed how our whole studio tracks glaze results."
"Honest numbers on screen costs and misprints. I show the Durban textile article to my second-year students every term."
"I visit galleries mostly, not workshops. The process photography is what keeps me subscribing, issue after issue."
Studios and spaces featured in recent issues
Not every story fits the same shape. Some makers want a full studio visit with process photography and a tool list; others just need a short written piece for the archive. Below are the formats we run most often, what each one actually involves, and who tends to pick which.
A half-day visit to your workshop, usually in Johannesburg, Cape Town or Durban. We photograph the bench, the tools and the half-finished work, then sit down for a long interview about materials, sourcing and how you quote jobs.
Best for established workshops
A shorter written piece built from a phone call, your own photos and a few follow-up questions. Useful when you are mid-project and cannot host a full visit, or when the story is really about one technique rather than the whole studio.
Best for solo makers and students
Coverage of a show, open studio or market where your work appears. We attend, take notes, and write a short critical record that sits alongside the archive rather than reading like a press release.
Best for group shows and open studios
Every issue is built around things you can actually use in a workshop or a studio. We visit the people doing the work, photograph the process, and write down the parts that usually stay off the record: what a material really costs to source, which tools earn their bench space, and where a technique breaks down under real deadlines.
The mix stays close to the ground. Long-form profiles sit next to shorter notes, tool lists and studio visits, so you can read a piece end to end or pull one page into a conversation with a client.
New to the publication? Start with the studio and editorial background, or see how a single story moves from first visit to printed page.
Two to four thousand words on one maker or small team, following a single piece from raw material to finished object. We ask about quoting, waste, and the commissions they turn down.
Sequences shot in the workshop, not styled afterwards. Jigs, offcuts, glaze buckets and drying racks, printed large enough to read the grain and the tool marks.
What a studio actually runs on: hand planes, kiln shelves, screen frames, the suppliers they keep coming back to, and the local sourcing notes behind timber, clay and fabric.
Conversations about pricing, shared studio costs, market stalls and running a practice without outside backing. Recorded, edited lightly, and published with the maker's approval.
Short entries on shows worth the trip, plus a running archive of past issues so students and working makers can trace how a technique or a studio has changed over time.
Have a studio story worth telling? The editorial contact page explains what we look for before a visit.
Every profile in the journal follows the same working route. It keeps the reporting honest and the production predictable, whether we are in a Braamfontein furniture workshop or a Glenwood print room.
Makers, students and studio neighbours send in a story. We check whether there is a real process to document, a workable location and a person willing to talk about materials, timelines and money.
We spend a working day on site, usually while a piece is actually being made. Tool lists, offcuts, failed glaze tests and half-finished jigs get recorded alongside the interview.
Shots are taken at the bench, not in a studio setup. Grain direction, screen registration marks and kiln shelves stay visible, because those details are the point of the piece.
The maker reads the draft before it goes anywhere. We correct species names, firing temperatures, thread counts and any claim about sourcing that does not hold up.
Long-form text sits next to the images it describes, with tool lists and sourcing notes set as sidebars. The issue is proofed on paper before it goes to the press.
Published profiles go into the archive with their original notes. We return to the same studios a year later to see what changed in the work, the tools or the way they quote.
Want the background on who runs this journal? Read about the editors or send in a studio story.