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VIBES Selah Sue

Jan Verschueren

Vertical Farming

The Simplicity of life

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Auriol by Matthew Carter

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Grafisch Nederland

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Interview Poschauko-brothers

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CRA VIB

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AZY BES

by Sellah Sue

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A good friend of mine looks like Selah Sue, she’s got the same crazy but beautiful style of hair and she can even sing amazing as well.

That’s what I say to her but she doesn’t want to hear about it. She doesn’t want to be a look-a-like, and that’s what makes her have the same vibe as Selah Sue aswel.

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She turns her doubts into soul, funk and reggae melodies, trying hard to be worthy of her idols, Lauryn Hill, Erykah Badu and Bob Marley. She sings in local clubs on the weekend and attends high school during the week. She records in home-studios, at friends houses, and publishes drafts of her songs on Myspace, without a thought of making a career in music.

What happens next seems almost unreal. Thousands of fans respond to her on the net, attracting the attention of professionals, and the interest of ‘Because Music’, which eventually leads to a record deal for the young musician.

Her songs remind me of when I was little, when trying to be cool, to be “one of them” at school. Later I relised the people I hanged out with weren’t those who would be there for you. Those were at home or at my place in the weekend.

Alwas be who you wanna be, not who others want it. Stay true to your own VIBE.

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SCHOOLTRIP ‘11 @ Københaven Hope this year will be as good as it was back than, with as much intresting museums and cities to visit.

And may the parties be as pleasant as they were than because we had a blast of a time, with all my classmates and other friends.

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NEA MA

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ACHINA

by Thomas and Martin Poschauko

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What happens when you can just keep on putting creative vibes onto one photograph? How can free experimentation lead to creative deisgns? These are two graphic designers and artists who know how.

They’ve created an artistic process with over 1000 different graphic designs, which is, together with their working methods combined in the book ‘Nea Machina’. The book, which became an unexpected great success, was published in 2007.

Nea Machina is a creative book based on a creative experiment by the twinbrothers Thomas and Martin Poschauko.

They’ve set themselves the task to create, within a period of four months, as many different versions as possible, using manually cutting and placing pieces of the photograph, drawing, painting and using photoshop. They use two constants as formal elements, a human portrait and the title of “Nea Machina”. Within these four months, they created over 1000 different graphic design and countless different styles, which are all shown in this book.

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How did you both become graphic designers?

“We’re born as twins in Rosenheim, a little town in Germany in 1980. We’ve both studied Communication Design at the Fachhochschule at Würzburg (University of Applied Sciences). We’ve graduated in 2007 with our shared project ‘Nea Machina’.

We became freelance designers since 2001 and worked for various projects (music, culture, economy and social affairs) in the fields of illustration, graphic design and corporate design. In addition, we are also active as a freelance artist (drawing, painting, printmaking). This double identity ‘Designers and Artists’ is for us a very breeding situation.”

Why is the book devided in two parts, it doesn’t only contain the different designs, but also a (let’s say) theoretic part.

“First there’s the formal experiment: This shows the history of the individual variants, plus our live commentary. We give out all the background knowledge and make the creative process more transparent. You have the ability as a reader to witness it lively and to use this input for your own work.”

“Next there’s the ‘Theses on design and creativity,’ From the creative experiment, we’ve distilled our own ‘theories of design and creativity,’ In the center of this thesis is the self-developed creative method ‘head - stomach - source - computer,’ which allowed the large output of the project Nea Machina and is therefor important to understand the working process of the first part.”

How did you get to the idea of making a creative process instead of one design?

“Basically the idea was very quickly ... because we wanted to create a kind of sketchbook-style with our complete repertoire, because we felt that our former stylistic range was too low. And in order to ensure comparability, we needed a consistent theme. We chose a human portrait, because it’s just a very strong and worthy of interpretation and subject us to recognize it also facilitates real feelings in different styles.

From our experiment we were hoping for new insights, beyond concept and repetitive styles, we wanted to go beyond the norm and reinvent ourselves again, so do more than the usual three drafts, which can justify it by design. That was our main intention. That it would become an analysis of our whole creative process was, we couldn’t refrain in this form.”

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‘Do first, then think’ is the main method of the book. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this method?

“We can’t predict from the start witch variations will come out good, that’s a rather negative point about this method. The advantage here is what you get by making all these new variations. We stumble across unpredicted, new varieties of whom we’d never thought off be simply sketching out a few examples and make one final design.”

“We think, the active bypass, to try and play with a theme, is the best way to understand it really. And making as much variations you can is already an important, even sensual inspiration. It makes you think or if, as Otl Aicher said, often ‘a condition of thinking’.”

Well do first, then think, AND Think before you do.”

“If we were only the method ‘do first, then think to use’ that would be for a well planned targeted visual communications safe enough. But we think that the danger is rather

“DO FIRST, THAN THINK” AND “THINK BEFORE YOU DO” If you never reflect the methods you use to get something new, isn’t it difficult to find any structure in your working process?

“Basically, we use both methods but anyway always change our method to get a new variation,

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that when designers, too cerebral and structured to be as freely and playfully.

The structure of the profession then brings on its own.”

What’s the idea behind the name of the book?

“The term “Nea Machina” was for us only a superficially interesting typographic combination of letters, but it also defines the essence of our work.

The Greek translation says “The new machine,” a reference to the combination of old and new techniques, digital and manual. It refers to the fact that we try something new.”

Where do you get all those new ideas to keep on designing one single photo?

“Often we read it easily into our environment ... most of the good things lie ahead of us on the road. The most important finding for us was to make our head the source of all ideas, but the ideas that surround us.

Piet Mondrian, says: ‘The position of the artist is humble, he is essentially a channel’ that is a passive, rather humble position.”

“As young students they gave us this tactic of an overwhelming number of paths and possibilities. As we have already lost one time or another. But if we have a concrete, structural imaging project (at that time were mostly the CD cover) edited, that was never really a problem.”

Is this kind of approach something that you can learn for example in school?

“Hard to say. Everyone has a little different skills.

We already think that anyone can learn the “other

side to consider” in them.

Because we all think emotionally and rationally.

We train the cerebral but not right away, because our processes are in between some very pragmatic. We try only from themselves and to make small traps, which take the control out of the hands and give your head a certain extent no chance.

For example, high speed, random principles such as cubes or materials that can be controlled not really.”

Unlike many designers and creatives did you decide not to live in one of the typical big cities.

Especially cities like Berlin or Hamburg by designers for their creative possibilities and inspirations ... Why? Was that a conscious choice or rather coincidence?

“We are aware returned to our hometown. This is a small village in Upper Bavaria, in which no one really has anything to do with graphic design. Wonderful to us, because we don’t constantly want to be flooded with the design

BASICALLY WE JUST TRY TO INCORPORATE MUCH OF OUR WORK TO MAKE WATH INSPIRES AND FASCINATES US IN PERSON. AND THEN IT’S ALL NOT THAT HARD.

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of others. We believe that one of the ever-present creativity of others, as may in Berlin, may slain your own creativity.”

“We have certainly not the impression that we are missing something if we are not in the vibrant design cities. Even though Berlin is just an incredibly fascinating place that we like very much. As well as our rich TYPO 4 days and our source is back for a year. Basically, however, we have chosen especially for this place, because we like to live in this environment and because our family and friends are there. So ostensibly it’s a completely “un-ideological” decision.”

As last question, I’d like to ask what advice you would give designers to be able to remain creative and to think “out of the box.

The everyday work of a designer is usually characterized by deadlines and short ampunts of time, how can that be avoided?

“We believe the greatest courage we must have in our profession, is the courage to be unprofessional. To give a break, to go out or in general: do what is good for us.

Although the life of a graphic designer is always stressful.

But constantly run along

Thank You, Thomas and Martin Poschauko for thi was already inspired by your working method and last piece of advice.

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in this rat race, affects us somehow illogical. Before, for years we were working around the clock, always at the last minute deal, but did not even have a few hours a month for inspiring and creative breaks outside of the screen and the office.�

What will help ensure it is in calm phases you should keep a sketchbook and everything to hold on to ideas wherever you are.

Then you have a creative fund during stressful periods, and can rely on it.

But without specific phases of trial and error free, the danger is that you only have repeated because it is always the tried and tested ways.�

is interesting interview. I d will surely remind thatt

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The ability to ‘’ to eliminate the that the necess

Hans Hofmann - 19 24

o simplify means e unnecessary so sary may speak.

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SCHONE S

JAN VERSC 28

SCHROOT

CHUEREN 29

Verschueren recycles scrap objects, let’s say dirt to create art. In his spare-time he drives around the local neighbourhoods to collect scrap metal and pick up useable or meltable pieces at peoples houses. Other than that he uses terracotta, newspapers and found objects to create these art-pieces.

In 2008 Verschueren startet to create the first pieces of “Schoon Schroot”. These artworks are all made of found and collected scrap. With this he tries to give people the message that scrap isn’t always garbage. We have to recycle things and if not, he’ll make something beautiful out of it.

Hoe roest mooi kan zijn.

Hoe schoonheid kan roesten.

Hoe constructief destructie is.

Hoe chaotisch structuren zijn.

Hoe structureel chaos is.

Hoe men observeert en geobserveerd wordt.

Hoe dicht grote idealen bij kleine kantjes liggen.

Hoe anekdoten vereeuwigd lijken.

Hoe eeuwigheden veranekdotiseren.

Hoe humor is.

Hoe dicht zwart bij wit ligt.

Hoe dicht de beeldhouwer bij zijn liefde ligt.

Hoe dicht de beeldhouwer bij zijn werk staat.

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“Onthaasten” (Slowing down)

“Het spel van de engel” (The angel’s play)

“De Nieuwe Ark” (The New Ark)

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In 2011 he started to use another type of recyclable objects, using prints, old newspapers, magazines, calanders and so on as background for his paintings.

Although not all of them are painted on steel, they all have this old, rusty character. Therefor collection was named “Rusty Flatscreens�.

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VERTICA

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AL FARMS

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The Problem By the year 2050, nearly 80% of the earth’s population will reside in urban centers.

Applying the most conservative estimates to current demographic trends, the human population will increase by about 3 billion people during the interim. An estimated 109 hectares of new land (about 20% more land than is represented by the country of Brazil) will be needed to grow enough food to feed them, if traditional farming practices continue as they are practiced today. At present, throughout the world, over 80% of the land that is suitable for raising crops is in use (sources: FAO and NASA).

Historically, some 15% of that has been laid waste by poor management practices.

What can be done to avoid this impending disaster?

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A Potential Solution: Farm Vertically The concept of indoor farming is not new, since hothouse production of tomatoes, a wide variety of herbs, and other produce has been in vogue for some time. What is new is the urgent need to scale up this technology to accommodate another 3 billion people. An entirely new approach to indoor farming must be invented, employing cutting edge technologies. The Vertical Farm must be efficient (cheap to construct and safe to operate). Vertical farms, many stories high, will be situated in the heart of the world's urban centers. If successfully implemented, they offer the promise of urban renewal, sustainable production of a safe and varied food supply (year-round crop production), and the eventual repair of ecosystems that have been sacrificed for horizontal farming.

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SNOWBOARDING: My favorite sport Here’s a picture I took at my snowboard holiday last year. The dude in the green pants was an Italian, passing by when I was taking pictures of my friends. After seeing I was taking pictures of him he passed by the jump several times, just to show off. I even expected him to come to me and ask if I could send him the pictures or whatever but no, he just wanted to show off and be proud of himself. Italian macho, but damn he could snowboard, be shure of that.

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GRAFISCH NEDERLAND

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The book “ Nederland Published 2007” is a collection of de yearly Christmas-editions of Nederland Publishing.

The let’s say “catalogue” contains about 100 editions about graphic design in the Netherlands.

Although the catalogue has a nice cover itself, it comes with a cardboardcover. Not a usual package you’d throw away when putting the book on your shelf.

The actual cover has a transparent overlay-cover wich fills in the number zero. When closed the cover looks like a zero, cut in two. When spreading the cover a zero appears. By opening the book at the first and last page you notice the numbers “2007”,

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THIS SIDE DOWN

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PLEASE KEEP DRY

HANDLE WITH CARE