It takes real teamwork to get quality writing published. Finding an exciting topic, researching sources, or hunting down interview subjects all require creativity and determination. In addition to the text, beautiful photos and unique illustrations are essential, and in our case, we shouldn’t forget that the articles need to be translated into another language to reach as many people as possible. Below the Hype&Hyper team shares with us which articles were the most memorable for them to create this year!
This is why we love “The Informant” | Interview with production designer Imola Láng
The rising and vanishing star of the Hungarian streaming year 2022 was Bálint Szentgyörgyi’s series The Informant, which also left an impression on the Hype editorial. Week by week we followed the fate of Száva and the rest in the pre-regime-change Budapest, and we were heartbroken to hear that not only was the second season canceled, but the first season’s episodes had also disappeared from the streaming. The silver lining, however, is that this spring, our colleague Kitti Mayer, an object-obsessed design theorist, conducted one of this year’s most exciting interviews with Imola Láng, the series’ production designer, which, in addition to giving us a behind-the-scenes peek, preserves a little bit of Hungarian HBO’s first entirely in-house developed production. My favorite from 2022!
Sári Győri, editor-in-chief
The facts stand against the propaganda
This article is about the Sakharov Prize, awarded this year to the brave people of Ukraine. Preparing for this article I listened to two Hungarian journalists who have been to Ukraine several times since the beginning of the war to report on the Ukrainian-Russian conflict. While the Ukrainians stand up for their country and the values of democracy, the journalists are fighting against disinformation, which is also a risky task—they shared the challenges of reporting in Ukraine, how foreign journalists are welcomed by the locals and why it is not advisable to talk to Russian soldiers. For me, it was truly fascinating to hear the experiences of journalists who saw first-hand what I only hear about in the news every day.
Eszter Hegedűs, editor
The surreal world of Matti Varga transmits the heritage of Berber women
My professional life in 2022 has been so eventful, which I would not have imagined at the beginning of the year. One moment I was nervous about an interview with the CEO of Reserved, in another I was chatting with a girl of Dutch-Hungarian descent about folk costumes, or I found myself in a photo shoot for our print magazine in the apartment of the founder of Art Market. But perhaps one of my most memorable pieces of work is related to Berber Budapest and its creator, Bori. At the beginning of the summer, the brand featured some beautiful photos taken by the talented Matti Varga, who’s a returning guest in the Hype columns—something that gave our editor-in-chief Sári the idea for the interview. Whether it was the preparation or the interview itself that impressed me more, I could not decide. The day before the interview, I flew to Denmark, where I was ‘lucky’ enough to miss my connecting flight, so I spent a whole night at the airport. Taking advantage of this time I read about Berber women and got so engrossed that I suddenly realized I had to leave for my 6 am check-in. Although I slept for half an hour, I consider the interview with Bori one of the best experiences of my career so far during which I also had the opportunity to talk with her about more profound cultural phenomena beyond the brand, which is perhaps reflected in the article.
Roberta Bertók, editor
