Holocaust memorial

Here is the project we did with Andreea at Berlin’s workshop

Go here for the whole pdf

archiving geocities

The Deleted City, a digital archeology project from a designer chap named Richard Vijgen, takes the neighbourhood metaphor of now-defunct web host GeoCities very seriously — with an interactive street map of the ghost town.

more info here

Report from the symposium

In a few lines I tried to cover the basic things discussed at the symposium. If I left out important information please feel free to contribute!

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In a period of democratization and economic crisis, all speakers agreed on advising the new designers to expertise and find their niche audience. Daniel van der Velde commented on today’s reality where many people believe that design is easy and fun to do and is considered more as a hobby, than as a profession. “Find your way to manage your budget and create space for self-initiative projects, to establish your identity as a studio.” he said, like Metahaven did with Wikileaks and Sealand.

Irma Boom advised us strongly not to compromise, to follow our vision and not to focus on the average reader. In her case, she sees herself as a designer who tries to preserve the form of the book. “Pdf and e-books are easier to have, distribute and link, but they don’t have this quality of correct and long lasting information, as books. A book is a complete entity.”

On the other hand Thomas Castro from Lust, showcased their project for mobile tablets “Architecture xyz app”, which for me is the equivalent of the book in the digital age. Is a whole entity, but is also dynamic. As Lust state in their website “The tablet computer promises to be more than the missing link between printed and digital media. It is a platform on its own where design, interaction and content need to be redefined.”

So the question comes to whether the man should follow the machine or the machine the man. Wim Crouwel answered that by showing the “New alphabet”. He also explained about his systematic approach, which stems more from his inspiration from architecture than from graphic design. And this is where Jan van Toorn agreed.

Jan van Toorn used the reference of Rem Koolhas to explain that “Culture is re-definition, re-interpretation and re-invention. A way of exploring and mapping the world again and again and telling stories about it – comment it on the way it is, or seems to be.”

In all cases, except maybe Irma Boom, the speakers highlighted the importance of having a “laboratory” next to the studio, in order to experiment, stress the limits and bring the graphic design discipline forward.

picture editing workshop

In the workshop of picture editing with Frank van der Stok we were asked to edit 24 pages for a magazine featuring the work of the photographer Paul Bogaers.

We were given the pre-selection of images for the book Upset Down and we had to design a small magazine with the concept of upside-down. The right picture has always to be straight and the left reversed. The book should be read also reversed, so from the end to the beginning. For that reason we created a loop narrative, where starts and ends with quite similar images of holes that bring you to the other side of a “dream”.

It was an interesting challenge and we are happy with the results!

Andreea – Natasha

 

Bold Italic

Has anybody booked? more info here

I am going

Design report Greece

Here is the documentary I was telling you about the graphic design scene in Greece. It is really interesting because it connects the social and political events to the evolution of greek design.

Unfortunately there is only with german subtitles for the moment. Here is the link

Design walk 2012

Next week in Athens there is the biannual graphic design event Design Walk. This year they explore how Greece is going to be in 2022.

more info here

Ecstasy

Remember discussing what is real and what is not?

Here is an opinion for that.

ethics for the starving designer

A 23 year-old graphic designer, when he realised how is the graphic design world he was about to enter, he felt the urge to initiate this project. His aim is to start a dialogue and create a manifesto about the ethics in graphic design, an issue which most schools miss to touch. Visit his site and watch the information video here.

A similar exploration we had last year in collaboration with Pratt Institute, under the workshop “valorised designer”. We started some discussions with the students there, trying to define which are the values in graphic design and at the end we had to design a poster based on a value. Due to cultural differences the dialogue was really interesting. You can find more info here

The laws of simplicity

a “simple” book about simplicity.

In The Laws of Simplicity, John Maeda offers ten laws for balancing simplicity and complexity in business, technology, and design–guidelines for needing less and actually getting more.

free to download here

visit also the website here

Natasha Pincus

A director I just discovered

using nice metaphors at her movies

an interesting case to study and observe to unlock the tricks of story telling

 

somebody that I used to know

train logos

I just found the british railways logo from the 60’s and reminded me something… I am looking for the designer of the NS logo but I can’t find him. And I am curious for the stories behind these two logos. They are communicating the same for different national companies of railways. It is funny to see the results when you ask two designers to come up with designs for the same brief, but is more funny to see designers come up with quite the same design for different briefs.

I am not implying anything about copying, but I would like to explore these two stories and answer questions about the limits of graphic design. How different two logos from two different companies about the same product may be?

picture source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/artblog/2006/dec/12/everydesignthebritishrail

Branding

C R A Z Y lecture about branding! (really nice narrative)

must see. I watched it and realised – again – how we consume every story they feed us!

watch it here

if this then that

Put the internet to work for you by fitting this simple structure: if this then that

more info here

Amsterdam Art and Design Book Fair

With (new) titles of 010 , Alauda publications , A , Coen Slichting Book Import , De Harmonie ,Foam Publishers , Frame Publishers , IDEA BOOKS , Jap Sam Books , KesselsKramer Publishing ,Lebowski , NAi Publishers / Publishers , TAB , publishing the Outside , 99 Publishers ,Booksellers Linnaeus , Post Editions , hazazaH , Photographers Federation , Footnote Publishers, Re: and Valiz .

more info here