PUSH THE BUTTON

Dear Readers,

Oh well, Florian Böhm is a professional in pushing buttons, especially if it comes to cameras, keyboards and mouse buttons this is one of the reasons we got him on the cover. The theme Push the button also fits perfectly because I cant count the number of buttons I had to push to finish our magazine. Also I got this rental car from a friend today, to pick up some food. He gave me a funny looking key and told me You just have to push the button. As I looked at the key and asked which button, he laughed and said: No, in the car, the one to start the engine. Yes, we all know what pushing the button means. To get or set an impulse, to make something run, to work on it, test it. To start and try new things is the motivation of life, and having fun while doing it is the best that can happen.

When I first met my old friend Florian Böhm 25 years ago, I saw him skating while I was riding my BMX. I got caught and was infected in a second, I needed a skateboard immediately. I would say many other people were tainted by this disease as well. Without calculation or any master plan, Flo just pushed hard to do wall to wall mc twists and pushed friends to the limit while taking their photos. Supporting each other was a full time hobby and became his profession on many levels. Having fun while skating, taking pictures and finishing magazine layouts: Florian helped support the culture we live in; first in our area, then in Germany, later in Europe and now worldwide. What first began as a hand-made black/white skate fanzine became the creative direction and later the innovative implementation of far too many projects to name at this point.

Its obvious that he has always been eager to break fresh ground and to put his stamp on things with his own personal style. He did that in skateboarding and he succeeded in design, he even changed common rules of layout without knowing, just out of a passion and purposefulness. His tools might have changed over the years and become digital, but his goal and his impetus remains the same: To push the button. And Florian controls the most significant part of the game: Not just to push the knob for the heck of it, but to do it exactly at the right moment, to recognize and to react at the proper time. He proves this in his latest photo book, wait for walk, where, in one photo, he captured people in the streets of New York, waiting for a jaywalk possibility. The results are awesome moments of authenticity: One guy looks bored, another one talks on the phone, some seem to be at stand-by mode while others are rearing to go. Florian Böhm felt the pulse of the city, just by pushing the button.

Martin Magielka for streetwear today