Almost is an international print publication based in the heart of Berlin with a design sensibility that evokes the communal, slightly utopian energy of the 1970s. The magazine's purpose is to give a voice to rookies — emerging creatives from around the world who have not yet been absorbed into the machinery of established media — and to present their work in a format that refuses uniformity. Every contribution is displayed in a personalised layout, so that the magazine itself becomes a visual demonstration of the diversity it advocates.
The concept of togetherness runs through everything Almost does, but it is a particular kind of togetherness: the kind that lets people go their own way while still travelling in the same direction. It is a philosophy better suited to a collective than a corporation, and the magazine reflects this in its structure. There is no single editorial voice imposing coherence from above. Instead, the coherence emerges from the shared sensibility of people who are all, in their own ways, almost there — almost established, almost recognised, almost where they want to be.
The title is not self-deprecating. It is aspirational. Almost is the most exciting place to be, because everything is still possible. The artists featured in its pages are not looking backward at what they have achieved but forward at what they might become. That energy — the energy of potential rather than accomplishment — is what makes the magazine feel alive in a way that more established publications, with their canon of approved names and their predictable structures, often do not.
Published from a city that has always attracted people in exactly this state of becoming, Almost captures something essential about what it means to be young, creative, and multilingual in a world that keeps telling you to pick a lane. The magazine's answer, characteristically, is to build a wider road.