KRAMER
KESSELS KK: Amst Inspiring
SKRAMER terdam g works
HOW HARD CAN IT BIN?
“The students of Koning Willem I College seem to have some difficulties with throwing away their trash. They litter all over campus. So we presented them with a series of new trash cans and a challenge. Because throwing away your trash, how hard can it be?�
My review: They have challenged students to enter a contest with their personal video. They have interacted with them in a fun and different way: we have seen many designs of bins trying to make us our life easier so we recycle more. However it still does not work... So why not to try it to make our life harder?
DEAD MAGAZINE My review: This magazine talks about a taboo topic: death. They have used a humoristic tone of voice which makes this magazine works perfectly since the audience really enjoy it (= really enjoy life since their argue dead is part of our life). These are some article’s examples: What is would it be your last diner? or ‘I would never die’.
MAKE IT TOGETHER “Voordekunst (for the art) is a crowd funding platform for art and culture. The aim of this new campaign is to bring creators and culture lovers together. The message is: make it together. It’s not just politics or the ‘elites’ that decide the future of art. The public has a big say in it as well. More and more people realise this and are prepared to contribute to creative projects that they believe in.”
My review: Once again, KesselsKrammer have done a simple add with great originality. I believe the message has been communicated in the best form possible: the zoom out/ surprise effect makes the viewer laugh and think how true is this, how everybody tries to make their projects in the most professional way while behind the scenes you can see all the disaster you have created to come up with a great outcome. I love the fact that KK: spend a lot of time brainstorming in such interesting ideas and how they come out with such amazing outcomes breaking rules and thinking out of the box.
MAKE IT TOGETHER “Men at Work is a Dutch multi-brand clothing store with over 40 shops in the Netherlands and Belgium. We developed their new brand identity that included a new brand book, store-concept and an event for their employees. Nowadays more and more people shop online unless they are offered something special in your store. So we figured Men at Work should function as as more than just a store. It’s a platform. Their stores are now ever-changing space where picking up great clothes also leads to great experiences. The goal is to empower their customers — a generation of self- starters — to hone their skills, pick up a new passion, or find like-minded people. The campaign we developed was photographed by Thomas Mailaender.” My review: They know how to combine their entrepreneur vein with humor. They have inspired and helped me to understand how branding works and can work (with no limits).
WE <3 GRAPHIC DESIGN “ ‘We love Graphic Design’ is an annual design festival in Copenhagen Denmark. Every year they ask a different party to design that years’ visual identity. This year (2016) it was our turn. We too love graphic design, but what we don’t love is ‘design just for the design’. We believe that in order to make great graphic design you need to have other hobbies too. Because when you have a great passion for random other things, your design will become a lot more interesting. So this years’ identity wasn’t going to need slick, complicated and amazing design. Rather it highlighted the name of the festival (quite literally) and took the theme a step further. By doing this we wanted to inspire more designers to step out of their comfort zones, start a new passion and as a result, make interesting design that everyone will love. Or hate of course. We asked the speakers what their other interests were, and used this in their introduction video’s.”
My review: I can only say bravo for this one. It is amazingly well done. Their way of breaking rules fascinates me. How they have controlled this project it is just art. The videos are so bad edited that it is so clever and an idea of a genius. The paradox works really well.
WE <3 GRAPHIC DESIGN
My review: This is the introductory video of Erik Kessels and it is horrendous but fantastic at the same time. And as always, it makes
you laugh. It is a perfect example on how to make it unapealing since that was their purpose.
WOMEN INC. “Since 2004, Dutch foundation WOMEN Inc. has been on a mission to increase opportunities for women in the Netherlands. As of 2013, WOMEN Inc. decided to focus on a theme vitally important to women: the pay gap between genders. To draw attention to this, KesselsKramer produced posters calling attention to the fact that
men earn 300,000 euros more than women over the course of a lifetime (photography by Isabelle Wenzel). At the same time, we stimulate women to find out what they’re worth with an online test. In the next stage of the campaign, we created an online film together with Margôt Ros and Maike Meijer, known from satirical Dutch television program Toren C. In the film, Maike and Margôt go to extreme lengths to close the gender pay gap. In addition to address women directly, we also call on Dutch politicians to take their responsibility to place the pay gap between genders on the political agenda. That’s why we came up with a stunt to let politicians experience how large the pay gap actually is and feels by placing a bath filled with €300.000 euros in front of The House of Representatives in The Hague.” My review: They have shown me that designers can do branding and design activism both at the same time with a humoristic tone of voice. It is useful, functional and politicaloriented.
Function/form & Entertainment: Form and entertainment are in all projects presented in the most clever and interesting way possible where the “form” is their key to make us doublethink about the idea behind the aesthetic. I can see they do a lot of research and I bet they do many experiments to came up with such great outcomes... They interact in the most random way possible and that makes their work be identifiable. Form = The shape of visual quality of something = Aesthetic = Most of the companies focus on how to make it appealing/ unappealing/... depending on your message. Function = Getting the job done = Pragmatic / Useful / Functional = Business-oriented = Think about what can be worth it = material vs money = message: what form will communicate it best.
Year 2: I would like to get inspired by them. I do know I don’t have the same style as the one they follow. However, I want to be inspired by how they work harded to produce such intelligent ideas since I believe by ideas are not projected in the best way possible...
My poster: In the Western culture self acceptance can be sometimes hard to swallow since everyday we see advertisements, TV, beauty magazines, social media, etc. that makes us conscious or subconsciously criticise our body negatively, specially girls.
Year 2: I would like to raise awareness on our ethical, cultural and most importantly, social responsibilities for a positive future change.
KESSELS
SALON XVII
Carmen Jowett The use of animation.
Michaela Vildova Great packaging, great use of identification.
Serena Neo Clever use of material.
Hola de nuevo