The archive · Design & Visual · Product decision · 2023
Threaded's Te Pō & Te Ao Mārama issue turns a magazine into the Māori creation story
Threaded designed Ed.21 as two books — the darkness of Te Pō and the light of Te Ao Mārama — bound by a Z-fold, with AR sound in the pages.
Threaded (Threaded Media Limited)
What it had to solve
Threaded, an international design magazine published from Aotearoa New Zealand, wanted a special issue built around contemporary Māori worldviews in publication design. Reporting on tikanga and mātauranga Māori in a conventional magazine format would flatten them, so the edition itself had to embody the culture's cosmology and protocols.
How it works
Threaded is an international design magazine published from Aotearoa New Zealand. For its 21st edition it set itself a harder task than a themed issue: to build the publication around contemporary Māori worldviews so that the design itself — its themes, graphics and physical structure — participated in tikanga Māori (customary practice) and mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge) rather than merely illustrating them.
The answer was to make the reading journey follow the Māori creation narrative. The edition comprises two pukapuka (books) — Te Pō, the realms of night and darkness, and Te Ao Mārama, the realm of light — staged and bound together by a Z-fold cover that represents Te Kore, the void of potential from which the world begins.
Sound and augmented reality carry the meaning that print alone cannot. Printed motifs trigger AR sonic experiences composed from sound and moving image, drawing on taonga pūoro and the natural world; each sequence opens with a chanted karakia and ends with a mihi, honouring cultural protocol and the dualities of light and dark, seen and unseen, above and below.
Interviews in the issue are framed as speculation and reflection — inquiries into how meaning is made rather than statements about it. The edition was shortlisted at the D&AD Awards 2023, is documented in New Zealand's Best Design Awards, and remains in D&AD's awards archive.
Why it lands
- By making Te Pō and Te Ao Mārama two physical books, the cosmology becomes the reading experience rather than the topic of an article.
- The Z-fold cover gives Te Kore — nothingness — a physical role as the binding that stages both realms.
- AR and sonic layers carry knowledge that is felt aurally, honouring how mātauranga Māori is transmitted rather than forcing it into text.
- Karakia and mihi framing, guided by kaumātua and kuia cultural advice, build tikanga into the editorial structure itself.
- Framing interviews as speculation and reflection keeps the issue an open inquiry into meaning-making across cultures.
What it did
The issue was shortlisted at the D&AD Awards 2023 and is documented in New Zealand's Best Design Awards, and D&AD's awards archive carries it as a special edition whose themes, graphics and structure all carry Māori meaning.
What you can take
When a culture's cosmology is the subject, let the reading enact it: structure, binding, sound and AR make the story an experience instead of a caption.
Since then
Threaded Special Ed.21: The Te Pō & Te Ao Mārama Issue was produced by Threaded Media Limited with creative direction by Fiona Grieve and sound design by Maree Sheehan, drawing on cultural advice from kaumātua (elders) and kuia (female elders). The issue was shortlisted at the 2023 D&AD Awards and is documented in New Zealand's Best Design Awards under moving image and sound design; it remains in D&AD's awards archive among magazine and newspaper design work.
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