design and visual culture
issue 24 summer 2011 GB ÂŁ25 de E28
it E24
issn 1767-4751 Printed in France
issue 24 summer 2011 GB £25 de E28
it E24
issn 1767-4751 Printed in France
Summer 2011
scandinavian portfolios
sandrine pelletier
visual waves
draeger
sagmeister
design and visual culture
24
IMAGES & QUICK HITS
n° 24 A CLOSER LOOK
SCANDINAVIAN PORTFOLIOS
P10
CLEMENS BEHR
P12
EKTA
P14
MATT SHLIAN
P16
LUDOVICA GIOSCA
P18
FILIP DUJARDIN
P40 BYCAROLINE BOUIGE
EDHOLM ULLENIUS AND HAOSHI DESIGN
P23
WINK, WORK LABS AND IVANNA SHASHKINA
P24
ALVVINO AND CONTAINER
P25
EDUARDO DEL FRAILE & ALEXIS ROM ESTUDIO
P26 BROGEN AVERILL
P42
BY CAROLINE BOUIGE
P58
BY CAROLINE BOUIGE
SAC YOKO LAND MAGIQUE
MARIAN BANTJES
P33
PRACTICE + THEORY
P34
ED AWARDS 2011
Cover by Geoff Mcfetridge Girl, 30 x 40 cm, 2010. © 2010. Geoff Mcfetridge, The Westest Show, The Half Gallery, NewYork. Fonts: Boton by Albert Boton, Oranda by Gerard Unger, Kievit by Michael Abbink. 8
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P78 BYCLARE MCNALLY Former advertising copywriter at TBWA, Clare McNally works as a journalist and editor.
PORTFOLIOS
DESIGN LAB P29 SCANDINAVIAN
P32
Yolanda Zappaterra is a writer and designer.
LAB
P28 GAÎTÉ LYRIQUE P30 CAMPING DESIGN
BY YOLANDA ZAPPATERRA
CLARA STOCKHOLM DESIGN MARI TERNE MEKKO
P20 GUERRA DE LA PAZ P22
P50 BYISABELLE MOISY
P70
THE GRAPHIC
P46
BY CAROLINE BOUIGE
MATTI
HAGELBERG
DESIGNER’S
P64 BYISABELLE MOISY
KOKORO
& MOI
MIRROR
OPINION
P88 BYVANINA PINTER Vanina Pinter teaches history of graphic design in Orléans and Le Havre.
CAPERS
VISUAL WAVES
P98
BY GÉRALD VENTURI
A composer and musician who also teaches at the ENM (École Nationale de Musique) in Villeurbanne, France..
AND MUSIC NOTATION
GOING
AGAINST
P114
BY PIERRE PONANT
P129
BY CHANTAL PROD’HOM
Pierre Ponant is a teacher at the École des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux.
Chantal Prod’hom is director of MUDAC (Musée de Design et d’Arts appliqués contemporains) in Lausanne.
DRAEGER
STEFAN
THE VOICE OF
INK
SAG MEISTER P132
THE GRAIN
BY RAQUEL PELTA
Design historian, teacher and author of a book about the design profession.
GOOD
P104 BYJOËL VACHERON Web editor now resident in London, Joël Vacheron teaches visual culture at the ECAL in Lausanne.
WAVES
OF ALTER
NATION
P124
BY SILVIA SFLIGIOTTI
Designer and professor at the Free University of Bozen and the SPD (Scuola Politecnica di Design), Milan..
THE DOUBLE
LIFE OF GRAPHIC
DESIGNERS
P112
BYE
POSTERS? P137
BY ANNE BEYAERT-GESLIN
Head of CeRes, she teaches the semiotics of images, the media and objects at Limoges University.
THE
LABEL
BY ISABELLE MOISY
Isabelle Moisy is editorial coordinator of étapes: magazine.
FRANCIS
BAUDEVIN
THE BOTTLE
AND THE CONTRADICTION
OF TIME P140
BOOKS
WWW.ETAPES.COM/ENGLISH
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Through the Looking-Glass In his compositions Ekta strikes a balance between abstract and figurative art. Human morphology is not immediately apparent in his portraits. A dash of caricature and a splash of paint is all it takes to turn passers-by in the street into fairytale characters. With particular care given to the palette of colours, the aerosol ends up plunging the image into a semi-reality, a vaporous world provided with a solid base and resonance through the insertion of highly concrete objects and details. Swedish-born Ekta now works in London and adds his personal touch to decorations on T-shirts, skateboards and concert posters. CB www.ekta.nu
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Packaging
Overweight. Designing packaging is becoming a real challenge. The accumulation of graphic elements is no longer a seller. Nor is the slogan in fluorescent lettering. With the superposition of colourful banners, grotesque, simplistic illustrations or other information about the product’s qualities, the identity of the contents and container disappear, buried under a horde of logos illustrating multiple buyouts of a brand name by multinationals. But how do we still manage to find the desired brand or product on a shelf, and worse still, to read
what is in it? A recent experimental work by the Turkish agency Antrepo highlighted the steady increase in writing and images on everyday packages over the last few years. By gradually removing certain graphic elements from the label – a can of Red Bull, a jar of Nutella or a packet of Nesquik – the original logo and the object’s silhouette are laid bare, sometimes revealing a sophisticated but forgotten form. The meaning and consistency of man-made products would have disappeared altogether had not certain shopping sectors
advertised new operating procedures. Luxury goods turned to artists or designers for solutions. A few major brands are still looking for original ideas to catch the eye, simplifying line and graphic codes while seeking to keep to the functional contingencies that have become almost primordial: a product has to be transportable, easy to use – intuitive if possible – be part of a sustainable process or environmentally friendly, slip into the background or be a fun item, and of course attractive too. A quick tour of current packaging.
Edholm Ullenius • Sweden Cocoa Painting With its flat tints in bright colours, it looks like a Paul Klee. Commissioned by Stockholm’s modern art museum Moderna Museet, this is a bar of chocolate in packaging inspired by the work of Olle Baertling, a female Swedish artist who was doing shows at the museum at the same time as the cocoa product came out. Designed by the Swedish studio Edholm Ullenius, the food packaging is in the image of its two founders, the graphic artists and illustrators Sissi Edholm and Lisa Ullenius: full of vitality yet sober. IM www.EdholmullEnius.sE
haoshi Design • Taiwan Eco Tin Can The American population gets through 106,000 tin cans every 30 seconds. Designed by the Haoshi and PLA studios, the new environmentally-friendly Tin Can range, produced in a limited run, invites consumers to rethink their behaviour with regard to food packaging in the “throwaway” age. The Tin Cans are in PLA (Poly-Lactic Acid), a material that is biodegradable in 180 days. In this eco-minded effort, the packaging has no illustrations and no paper. Each can is reusable: it has a double insulation capsule and can withstand temperatures from – 20 °C to + 110 °C. Tea, coffee or fruit juice: just unscrew the top cover and choose your day’s beverage! A-SC www.haoshi.com.tw
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Wink • USA home-Made Ice Cream The ice cream specialists Honey & Mackie called in the designer Scott Thares to spruce up the packaging for their little tubs. A patchwork of letters and information combines several coloured typefaces in tints recalling the flavours of the products. The same colours are used for the ground on which the white lettering of the logo is set. The packaging has an old-school effect reminiscent of ice cream sundaes at the fairground. A-SC www.winK-mPls.com
Work Labs • USA Less is more A registered trademark of the White Fences Vineyard company, Meteor adopts a very simple design echoing its stage name. Designed by the American Work Labs studio, for this range of wines the packaging reaches out into an intergalactic universe. Like the Virginia night sky, the dark tall glass scintillates all the way round. A meteor, the moon and the solar system in turn dress it in white dots. As a side note, the illustration of an apprentice astrologer is hidden behind each bottle. It turns it into an astronomer’s telescope opening up onto a really starry sky once emptied! A-SC www.woRKlaBs.com
Ivanna Shashkina • Russia hair-raising Chocolate! Sweet & Hot invites adventurous chocolate lovers to a spicy culinary experience! A student at the British Higher School of Art and Design (Moscow), Ivanna Shashkina chose an original, dynamic illustration for the packaging of this project, combining sweet cocoa and sharp vermilion colours. Snippets of text in handwritten lettering in labelbubbles are intended for hungry young consumers. On each product, the face of a young woman with a spiced-up hairdo gives chocolate lovers a foretaste of what is coming to them! A-SC www.BEhancE.nEt/iVannash
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Alvvino • Germany Crumple, unfold! Large cities all contain within them the historical marks of people traffic flows in every age. So many visible and invisible traces make up the urban kernel forming folds and connecting spaces that cannot be erased. To escape from this jungle, the Palomar company asked the Alvvino studio and the designer Emanuele Pizzolorusso to devise an intuitive graphic design for Crumpled City, a collection of guides and maps of large cities. The booklet is in a small format and comes with a map on recycled paper that is crumpleproof and waterproof and clearly indicates all the must-see sights and places to go. You just stuff it any old how in your pocket. IM www.alVVino.oRG
Container • Australia / China 21st-Century Make-up Cases Their names are Körner, Radii, Kevin Murphy, Milk, Slingback and O&M. They are not the children of some star, or the titles of the latest chart-toppers, but cosmetics, the newest in the upmarket Container cosmetic range. Each of them was entrusted for its creation or revamping to a different design studio, including HCP and Rebecca Corner, responsible for coming up with some seductive curves. The result is an innovative range of packaging for lipstick, gels, creams and eyeshadow with simplified lines and rounded shapes. Luxury cases for the modern-day princess. CB www.containERmadE.com
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Eduardo del Fraile • Spain Lascala: Theatrical Spanish Wine While theatre director Ariane Mnouchkine was working with the Théâtre du Soleil in late 2010, Spanish graphic designer Eduardo del Fraile was inventing wine packaging for a producer in Murcia who wanted to conquer the Chinese market. There’s no doubt that a number of Asian traditions, including Chinese theatre, classical Kathakali dance-drama and Balinese theatre, had an influence on his labels for the Lascala range, but Del Fraile also blended typical Spanish symbols, such as red polka-dot paper to evoke the flamenco tradition, with the Asian iconography. As a final touch, three faces that seem to be modelled on Japanese kabuki masks illustrate the wine range: la peineta (sculpted comb) for the rosé, el abanico (fan) for the white wine and la bailadora de flamenco (flamenco dancer) for the red. IM www.EduaRdodElFRailE.com
Alexis Rom Estudio • Spain/Italy Chic Souvenir La Vie en France designed a range for The Original Chá-Chá Barcelona with humour and imagination based on symbols of France and clichéd souvenirs. For this collection, Alexis Rom Estudio used a patchwork technique. Like an earlier series designed for Grandi Magazzini Milano, the outlandish comparisons and connections create playful and poetic images. The graphic designers used an array of collage and cutouts of black-and-white printed paper, juxtaposed with the colours of the French flag. The techniques they use are far from digital: the letters are painted with a brush, written in heavy lithograph pencil or made out of paper. Some of the characters are reminiscent of Banco type designed by Roger Escoffon in the 1950s. A-SC httP://alEXisRomEstudio.Eu
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Les graphiquants (France) GOLD _ Annual report
CNAP Annual Report Data display becomes like plastic in the hands of Les Graphiquants. Typography, Caroline Fabès. (cf é : 188 )
ED Awards
Les graphiquants (France) GOLD _ Artistic Catalogues
Catalogue for the “Chef d’œuvre ?” exhibition
The 2011 ED awards ceremony took place on 14th May in Vilnius and for the first time the “Agency of the Year” award went to a French studio, Les Graphiquants, who also won the gold medal in the “Annual Report” and the Artistic Catalogues categories. Each year the European Design Awards are made for quality graphic art at European level. Here’s a quick rundown of the shortlist and the winners…
Photo: Les Graphiquants at the award ceremony. 34
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Like the cover, the chapters of the “Chef d’œuvre ?” exhibition catalogue opens with images oscillating between volume and plan view. These compositions echo the purpose of the book: museum architectures (inaugural exhibition at the Pompidou Centre in Metz) (cf é : 188 )
Bleed (Norway) GOLD _ Corporate illustration
Myspace An Internet space for sharing that seeks to be a unique experience for its users, Myspace fits in with the idea of a “global culture” that gives programmers, artists and consumers the tools to discover, publish and exchange views on shared interests. Recently endowed with a new logo and a new website, the Myspace management invited Bleed to design the rest of the company’s visual identity. Based on the promotional slogan “program, create, celebrate”, the Norwegian studio devised illustrations that combine each of the three notions with an image, to be found on all communications media, both printed and online, including office stationery. IM WWW.BLEED.COM
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Ruddigkeit (Germnay) BRONZE _ Brand implementation
Transmédiale Une ligne, un point, voilà la communication A line, a point: that sums up the communication for the 11th edition of the multimedia arts festival Transmediale. Raban Ruddigkeit has cleverly boiled down his graphic preparation so as to keep only the active principle. A binary code ensures it is in keeping with the theme of this year’s event: “response: ability”… This matter of interfaces between man and computer finds its source in the primordial element of each party, namely DNA and computer programming. But the formula’s effectiveness doubtless lies in its despotic application to the typography, poster, booklet and flyers, where it is brilliantly renewed each time. CB WWW.RUDDIGKEIT.DE
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Christian Busse (Germnay) GOLD _ Student project
Facts+patterns : Infografische Muster im Alltag A graduate project for the communications department of the HTW, the applied arts school of Berlin, Christian Busse’s work combines everyday objects with work on data display focusing on common topics. They highlight the possible association of informational content with an aesthetic form. Each illustration is adaptable and deals with a topical matter confronting the object and its functionality in the western world to a major humanitarian issue; the plates show poverty in the world, the shower curtain addresses water shortages, the dress takes in the problem of child labour and the textile industry. IM
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Florian Mewes (Netherlands) GOLD _ Posters series
Net Echt (Life Like) Working together on an event from October 2010 to January 2011, three of Amsterdam’s largest institutions, the Van Gogh Museum, the Foam Photography Museum and the EYE Film Institute, inquired into Naturalism, an art movement that is relatively little covered by art history or photography. Entrusted to Florian Mewes firm the Dutch Gotoflo studio, the poster campaign is accompanied by an online platform “Net Echt” (Life Like) that handles and presents certain aspects of the movement through specific themes. IM WWW.GOTOFLO.EU WWW.GROOTMEWES.COM
Thonik (Netherlands) ED AWARDS SHORTLIST
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Céline Lamée (Netherlands) ED AWARDS SHORTLIST
Tape Located in Arnhem, Tape is a bar that is turned at convenient moments into an exhibition area or a theatre stage. In response to the convertibility of the space, Céline Lamée, a member of the Dutch agency Lava, seeks to design an amusing modular identity based on the letter A in the word “Tape”. Simplified by an easily disguised triangle, the letter becomes a pointed hat, a cocktail glass or a snowy peak. The separation into two fields is effectively applied both in the two-colour scheme and the confronting of flat tints and images.CB WWW.CELINELAMEE.COM
NRC A Dutch daily newspaper, the “NRC Handesblad” is famous for its very highbrow news coverage. The Thonik team based its identity on the chevron quotation mark, a symbol of writing and quoting, a flexible, dynamic sign that in one direction recalls the “play” button, or fast forward when double, or again the mathematical sign “greater than”. The newspaper’s communication plays on the sign’s multiple meanings and combinations, whether it collides with a photographic subject or is self-sufficient, a manifesto for a strong identity. CB WWW.THONIK.COM
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Stockholm Design Lab
What are the different trades represented? Artistic directors, designers, accounting directors, marketing directors, production directors. We share our offices with the co-founder, Thomas Eriksson, with whom we set up an architecture agency with over 35 staff. The two agencies work together on a number of projects. Industrial design and graphic design are an integral part of Sweden’s cultural history. How is this heritage expressed in your work? I think that Sweden enjoyed success and won recognition through the creation of brand identities that followed on from a smart distribution principle combining smallscale logistics and production. Large firms like H&M or Ikea used design as a force for development only much later on. H&M moved from being a clothing supplier to a fashion brand during the 1990s. Ikea, with whom we have worked for over 15 years, introduced original Scandinavian design in the late 1990s with a project called Ikea PS which we had the pleasure of launching, very successfully, at the Milan Furniture Fair.
The Ericsson brand also realized later on that the design was the part of the product with the greatest impact. Why is design so important in the Scandinavian cultures? I am not sure it is that important, but I would say that it is part of the culture. More so in Denmark than in any other country. Is there such a thing as Swedish graphic design? I am sure that every country can see that in their own culture. At SDL, we use our Scandinavian cultural background by emphasizing simplicity and functionality, but most of all simplicity, which we combine with influences from all over the globe. If you listen to Swedish music, you find a similar approach, with Jan Johanson, The Embassy, Robyn. Ikea, Hemtex, H&M, airlines. You work with multinationals and very big companies. How did this come about? It was a luxury not having to choose or not having to focus on one particular type of business. Large or small. We always launch into a new project with great relish and try to learn as much as we can each time. For instance, on the petroleum industry, chocolate, skis, energy, the
art of Alexander Calder or the director Tomas Alfredson. All different, but their work process is the same: come up with a bright idea and give it concrete form in the best way possible. We usually like to develop the overall project in-house so as to be able to hire and help freelance workers. Ninety per cent of projects on product sales, architecture and design involve joint work with TEA (Thomas Eriksson Architects). What experience have you gained from this joint work? Client relations? Our first assignment was SAS, Scandinavian Airlines. The project called for input from many specialists. At one stage, there were more than 60 of us working on various aspects of the overall design: uniforms, drawings of aircraft, cutlery, photographs of destinations, lounge concepts, a single typeface, etc. Over 2,500 different applications were needed. Scandinavian Airlines knew exactly what they were looking for and claimed that design was the key to standing apart from other airlines. With an extremely tight schedule and a very strict design concept, we somehow managed to see it through. The team was exhausted, but this project was very satisfying and it taught us a great deal.
What is your approach when working on a global identity? Where do you start? We ask ourselves what? and what for? The answer lies in the third question, how? We use this approach for all our commissions, whether domestic or international. Do you ever work with other studios? Yes, Stockholm Design Lab has already worked with Henrik Nygren, Greger Ulf Nilson (Moderna Museet), 1.2.3 (Biennale di Venezia). Jasper Morrison (Üstra Stadtbahn), Acne (SAS), Gert Wingårdh (Filippa K Ease), La Mosca (Velux), Johan Prag (Filippa K). And also with several advertising agencies. Is there any financial backing for graphic design in Sweden (for small studios for instance)? A development policy? No.
Stockholm Design Lab
How many people work at the Stockholm Design Lab? Fifteen.
A magical place, city or architecture? The Villa Malaparte on the island of Capri.
STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN • STUDIO SET UP IN 1998 BJÖRN KUSOFFSKY [INTERVIEW] (AGE 46), THOMAS ERIKSSON (AGE 52), GÖRAN LAGERSTRÖM (AGE 72) • WWW.STOCKHOLMDESIGNLAB.SE
And how do you see SDL shaping up in the future? Like the lyrics in the Daft Punk single that came out on the 13 October 2001: Harder, better, faster, stronger.
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Stockholm Design Lab
Your preference, paper or digital? Both.
Stadium. Development of the global identity and the seat design for an international chain of sports shops. A joint production with the Thomas Eriksson architects agency. Autumn 2005.
Centre left: Ikea Food. Identity and packaging concept to bring together the brand’s various food products under a single label. Left and above: Ikea Packaging. Identity and new packaging range for over 8,000 products distributed worldwide. SDL designs the packs in line with Ikea values and creates an identity system including pictograms, symbols, and typography.
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One or more Swedes who have influenced you? The Melin-ร sterlin team and their incredible work for the Moderna Museet in the 1960s.
Stockholm Design Lab
Hemtex. Global identity and store design for the group dedicated to textiles and household linen, 2009.
Ohmine Shuzo. Global identity and packaging for a line of three sakis produced by the Japanese Takeshi Akiyama. H&M. Packaging and research for the H&M stores cosmetics line. Rรถstrand Glass. Packaging of a new range of wine glasses for Rรถstrand, a Swedish porcelain makers active since 1726.
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Stockholm Design Lab
One of your projects that meant something special to you? Brända Ord, an installation produced jointly with Bigert & Bergström.
Venice Biennale. Creation of a new identity for the 53rd edition of the Venice Biennale (Italy) curated by Daniel Birnbaum. Based on the “making worlds” concept. SDL developed a language based on abstract forms, in relation to the different regions of the world and the notion of universality – national flags – while creating something new.
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Filippa K Underneath. Packaging and sales concepts for reusable nylon bags, developed by the Swedish fashion label. Bottom right-hand page. Filippa K Ease. Creation of a logotype and a visual based on a flower base for one of the label’s collections. Produced jointly with the electronic music producer Mokira.
Artist or graphic artists whose work you like? Ed Ruscha, John Baldessari, Wolfgang Tillmans, Ai Weiwei, Peter Saville, Anothermountainman. fostering ties between the community and the cultural, economic, scientific networks of each country.
Stockholm Design Lab
Swedish Cultural Institute. Identity of the Swedish Cultural Centres around the world aimed at
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A book? At the moment, Kaddish, Christian Boltanski’s book.
Stockholm Design Lab 56
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Above: Scandinavian Airlines. Global identity of the Swedish airline (SAS Group) under development since 1998.
Below: Ăœstra. Public transport identity, map and signs (bus, tram, stations) for the city of Hanover in Germany. The graphic
programme is part of TW2000, a city development plan with tramways that uses the system developed in 1997 by Jasper Morrison.
If you were not a designer, what would you like to be? Film director.
on the identity of the brand products by working on the packaging with a simple, playful, colourful line.
Stockholm Design Lab
Askul. Identity and packaging for the products of a Japanese mail order firm. SDL focused
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Music Notation space-time sign systems Gérald Venturi looks back at the function and evolution of western music notation in the 20th century, and examines some examples of graphic exploration that highlight structural and compositional aspects reflecting the evolution of music itself. By Gérald Venturi
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Music and its notation system have often received great attention from visual artists, and the 20th century witnessed many experiments in this field. The advent and development of music graphics raises the issue of whether this medium is a means of communication or an end goal. The score is a visual medium, an interface. Music notation is a type of writing with its own sign system: notes, keys, articulation marks. Music notation serves both as a memory and a means of communication and transmission. According to the composer György Ligeti, “notation is neither the representation of musical facts nor the ‘image’ of movements or actions that lead to the production of music, although part of notation can apply to this kind of action. It is, however, a system of signs and a system of relationships between these signs.” Although the most common form of western music notation – the score – does not represent musical facts, it displays certain types of space-time relationships and ratios: the spatiality of the registers (from low to high) is notated vertically, while the position in time is notated horizontally. The sequence is read from left to right, and simultaneousness from bottom to top or from top to bottom. All music implies a more or less heterogeneous sonic organization of time. Perceived and memorized musical time is arranged in space. In its relationship with reality, it is comparable to dreaming: musical time is an imaginary space that is revealed and evolves throughout the listening experience, but a complete “image” of it can only be obtained retrospectively, after the last sound is heard, in a holistic memory of the music.
As part of their respective investigations, Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee visually transcribed excerpts of music scores. These analytical works enable eyes unversed in music notation to read many of a composition’s structural, quantitative and qualitative aspects. Paul Klee invented a form of transcription that featured in a series of classes he gave at the Bauhaus in January 1922. He addressed the question of “structural formatting, and measuring and weighing, as creative processes and processes for measuring time and length… I will now move on to the field of music. Here, fundamental structure is represented by rhythm. To the ear, the bar exists in a latent state, one might say; but it is muffled as a network that serves as the backdrop to the quantities and qualities of the musical ideas occurring in it.” The work of Klee and Kandinsky1 proposes a simplified reading of music, through a graphic interpretation of its structural elements. Their transcriptions – by symbolizing lines, the pathways of lines, vocal inflections, succession and simultaneousness – help the eye to discern music’s fundamental parameters. On reading the score, one notices that these same parameters, though less obvious, are often already legible. The two painters educate the eye – whether familiar with music theory or not – to read movement in notation. “Movement cannot be reproduced by a succession of positions in space,” explains philosopher Gilles Deleuze regarding a thesis of Henri Bergson.2 This is what resonates in the painters’ work: the general direction and the curves of the lines are relationships with space, ranging from the general to the specific. Kandinsky and Klee represent the general
Above: Graphic representation by Paul Klee of a three-voice movement by JS Bach. At the start of an excerpt of the music movement, the scheme (here, two voices) shows a reading grid. The semi-tones are arranged vertically. The horizontal plane divides the time into fractions of equal duration. The duration chosen as the unit of division is the quaver. The thickness of the line – its weight – symbolizes the intensity or quality of the tone. The graphic interface X-rays the music in order to reveal its quantitative and qualitative structural elements: number, proportion, melodic aspect, repetition, variation, the movement of the voices, and their degree of independence or interdependence. © Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern.
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Above: Laia Clos. SisTeMu. Lesquatrestacions. “Primavera” (“Spring”) poster, from a series of four. © Laia Clos, 2009-2010.
movement by the overall look of the line, and the specific melodic movement by its singular curves, segmentations and qualities. For his graphic transcription of scratch music, graphic designer and musician Laurent Burte3 devised a typographic system and a typeface based on the hand’s movement on the turntables: it is a kind of action notation. The project, a 2003 collaboration with French electronic-music band Birdy Nam Nam, yielded a collection of ideograms that fuse gestural information into a single form. Today, there is still extensive research into the visual transcription of music notation. Recently, in the SisTeMu project, graphic designer Laia Clos created a graphic interpretation of the amplitudes, rhythm and intensity of articulations and ornaments in the score of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons: it is a transcription of the first-violin part, and somewhat reminiscent of a Klee diagram.4
Relationships and ratios
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In art, numbers are an intriguing subject, for what they represent or hide. Numerous musicology papers have attributed diverse and often mystical meanings to them. They represent a symbol, a mark of affiliation, or the composer’s signature. The hidden number has a structural function in composition: it is an item of quantitative information or a ratio – proportion, for example. Quantitative ratios are literally taken into account by unconscious listening and memorization. In 1712, Leibniz wrote: “Music is an occult exercise in the arithmetic of the soul, which does not know it is counting.” Paul Klee, in his work on music, already devised quantitative cat-
egories: bar and meter, weight and density. His work showed that notation made it possible to read the structural ratios present in music composition. The painter also demonstrated that quantity and quality always acted in a relative interrelationship: weight depends on both surface (quantitative) and colour (qualitative). The question of symmetry, for example, is considered in a very similar ways in imagery and music. In the painter’s opinion, “the wobbly curiosities of the five-beat bar or the seven-beat bar correspond to two-beat bars subject to unequal loads: 2+3 or 3+2 (five), 3+4 or 4+3 (seven)”. The quantitative is always closely linked to the qualitative: the unequal loads of the bar confer its “wobbliness”. Klee also discussed the conditions for achieving the asymmetrical balance of an image, i.e. a hidden symmetry, invisible yet present. Mozart’s musical phrases are known for their evident asymmetry: divided into two parts, they reveal an “offset centre”. Formal balance is maintained by other means, for example the number of notes – a hidden use of symmetry. Formal balance depends on the organization and regulation of all quantitative ratios and qualitative relationships.
Form Regarding form, Ligeti wrote: “The syntactic relationships between the various musical elements are […] translated by our imagination into a virtual space, in which all the musical entries – fragments, motifs, figures, parts, etc. – act like places or objects, whereas the musical progression looks like architecture in space.5 Music estab-
Baby scratch
Forward scratch
Reverse
Bubble
Tear
Uzi
lishes spatial ratios of various natures in our imagination. There is depth of field, from near to far; the space of pitch, from low to high; and the “harmonic space”. Traditional notation – as used in western music scores – does not depict this virtual spatialization. Consequently, it does not represent the form of music; rather, it conveys the information that enables the knowledgeable reader to mentally construct a formal synthesis.
New notations Music – and its composition – can be considered as a living organ that undergoes developments, blendings and transformations. Music notation is not a closed system: it has constantly evolved, reformed and diversified in order to meet new needs. The notation system is not exempt from defects or internal contradictions, but these shortcomings or lacunae are often what prompt musicians to renew or enrich it. Such innovations are driven both by organological evolution and by specific needs to do with communicating and transmitting music that poses new challenges. The search for improved legibility may involve adding new signs, changing or replacing others, or simplifying the existing sign system. In 1923, the composer Arnold Schönberg wrote in his book Style and Idea: “I believe that when notating music, one should say as little as possible with letters, or even words, and maximize the use of signs.” To replace textual indications on ways of playing bowed string instruments (pizzicato, col legno, spiccato, sul ponticello, etc.), the composer developed a complete set of picture-signs. The follow-
Chirp
Flare
Transform
Zig zag
ing year, he published a detailed explanation of his new 12-tone notation. This was a radically innovative system that replaced the five-line stave by a three-line stave. It has hardly ever been used (even by its inventor) but it fits perfectly into the progression of Schönberg’s research. His music led to the dissolution of tonality. As a result, substantial use of alteration signs (sharp, flat, natural) tended to overload scores. It is noteworthy that during the same period, composers used these signs according to differing conventions. Schönberg sought to lighten the existing notation system, in order to resolve a problem posed by the evolution of music grammar.6 During the 20th century, especially its latter half, music notation diversified intensely with the evolution and multiplication of musical aesthetics and practices to which notation was attached. Most prominent was the emergence of so-called “graphic” notation systems. As long as it remained notation, it was not really graphic art – these new systems were functional, not aesthetic, in purpose. Once one masters a new system, the graphic aspect acquires secondary importance, and gives way to the semantic aspect. On this topic, Ligeti distinguished several new notation categories: “result notation, which conveys the music in utmost detail and meets the requirements of a determined musical form. For musical texts that leave room for greater formal indeterminism, execution notation is to be preferred. In this case, there are two possibilities: firstly, action notation – one notates what the performer must do to make the music, and not what one hears – and prescriptive notation.”
Above: Laurent Burte. System of graphic and typographic transcription of scratch music, in collaboration with the Birdy Nam Nam band. Each ideogram is a combination of several items of information given by manual movements. © Laurent Burte. Pyramyd, 2003.
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Above: Cornelius Cardew. Treatise. 193-page graphic score. The graphic figures should be freely interpreted. © Cornelius Cardew, 1963-67.
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Music graphics Music and imagery share a lexical field: form, colour, material, texture, motif, line, movement, harmony, stress, rhythm, etc. Theodor Adorno noted in the work of Debussy, Stravinsky and Wagner a closeness between painting and music that he described as “pseudo-morphosis into painting”. In Adorno’s opinion, “the ear has to be re-educated to listen properly to Debussy’s music […] as end-to-end colours and surfaces, as in a picture. The succession merely presents what, depending on the meaning, is simultaneous: thus does the gaze move over the canvas.”7 He emphasized the qualitative evolution of time by describing a feeling of static juxtaposition. This statism first directs the ear to the depth of field, almost causing it to forget the temporal progression of the music. The listener is consequently directed to colour, texture, and planes. This whole is similar to visual perception, a quasi-mutation of time into space, which is especially striking in György Ligeti’s piece Atmosphères. In the case of graphic notation, what we have is no longer notation but an autonomous image. The scores produced by musicians Cornelius Cardew, Sylvano Bussotti and Earle Brown are graphic compositions in their own right. The images are not prescriptive and do not communicate the music. The function of the graphics is to inspire the performer’s interpretation of the music. Treatise by Cornelius Cardew is a 193-page graphic score practically devoid of music notation. It consists of entangled geometric figures, and is crossed by a horizontal line that provides a point of reference
throughout reading. The instrumentation and orchestra size are for the performers to decide. The goal is to evaluate the ratios between the graphic figures. The elongated character of the score and the horizontal line, which crosses each plate, invites a leftto-right reading. Besides the sporadic presence of signs inherited from music notation, the direction of reading is the only point of commonality with a traditional score. Even so, there is a double stave under each image for the notation of a few bearings. The score does not prescribe conventions. These, however, may arise from the musicians’ choices, in relation with the musical context they develop. The composer felt that performers least familiar with music would produce the most interesting renderings of his work. With a view to prompting a situation of collective invention, the formal indeterminism of the music thus becomes a key issue. Sylvano Bussotti’s graphic art is on show in one of his Five Pieces for David Tudor. Bussotti used music-writing elements but eliminated their significant function. The stave, for example, is multiplied almost ad infinitum and no longer acts as a bearing for the reader. This type of medium profoundly questions the role of the performer, who must convert the image by association in order to produce a musical form: he must be able to fulfil the dual role of performer and composer. In Earle Brown’s December 1952, the image can be hung on the wall like a picture; playing it is not necessary. This perhaps marked the height of music’s pseudomorphosis into painting: Brown’s music potentially exists through the image only.
Music and the visual arts are often informed by two-way research and experimentation, conducted by artists from both disciplines. Schönberg’s painting explorations, for instance, are well known. The composer did not claim to be a painter, however; he said the practice let him approach the problems he encountered in music differently. Ligeti showed how a Paul Klee engraving enabled him to find a solution for the formalization of an intuition, a musical vision, that was bothering him. Renaud Huberland, a graphic designer at the Salut Public studio and a teacher at the Belgian art school ERG, gets his students to investigate the problems developed by Paul Klee in his classes in Weimar, and explores the resonance between music and graphic design in his own work. To reframe and decontextualize problems by considering another context, which may be that of another discipline, provides a detached perspective and offers additional pathways into reflective practice. In this respect, it is of fundamental importance that places of artistic education, whose purpose is to train artists and not just artworkers, musicians and graphic designers, should be places of research, experimentation and cross-disciplinary creation.
1. Wassily Kandinsky, Point et ligne sur plan. Éditions Gallimard, collection “Folio Essais”, Paris, 1991. 2. Henri Bergson, Matière et mémoire. Essai sur la relation du corps à l’esprit, Coll. Bibliothèque de philosophie contemporaine. Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 1939. 3. Laurent Burte, Scratch graphique. Éditions Pyramyd, 2003.
Above: Earle Brown. December 1952, excerpt from FOLIO (1952-53) and 4 SYSTEMS (1954). © 1961 by Associated Music Publishers. Print courtesy The Earle Brown Music Foundation.
References : Zentrum Paul Klee: www.paulkleezentrum.ch Laia Clos: www.motstudio.com Laurent Burte: http://laurentburt.wordpress.com The Earle Brown Music Foundation: www.earle-brown.org Bibibliothèque Publique d’Information: www.bpi.fr Centre Georges Pompidou: www.centrepompidou.fr With assistance from the Earle Brown Music Foundation, the Zentrum Paul Klee, the Bibliothèque Publique d’Information, the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM) and the Centre Georges Pompidou.
4. Paul Klee, Écrits sur l’art. La Pensée créatrice. Éditions Dessain et Tolra, Paris, 1980. 5. György Ligeti, Neuf essais sur la musique. Éditions Contrechamps, Paris. 6. Arnold Schönberg, Le Style et l’Idée. Éditions Buchet-Chastel, Paris, 2002. 7. Theodor Adorno, Philosophie de la nouvelle musique. Éditions Gallimard, Paris, 1948.
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posters
by raquel pelta
Goodbye Posters? In a 1937 text, La función social del cartel, which marked the history of Spanish posters, Josep Renau questioned the possibilities of this means of expression in Spain. He saw a new artistic discipline able to stimulate more interest among artists and the general public than most sculpture events being held at museums at that time.
For Renau, posters enjoyed this support because deprived of “that halo of mystery that surrounds a painting and because, in its expression, so humble, so unpretentious, it had no need to pose to be a work of art.” Its significance goes beyond that which it manifestly publicizes, “beyond its function as notice, the plastic use of its colours and abstract laws of its forms,” he declared, indirectly alluding to its documentary and social value. But he was also referring to an unbreakable bond between the history of the poster and the rise of capitalism, which he mentioned in these terms: “When positive experiences – technical and functional – of advertising forms find the highest expression of their servitude in the social needs of the new era, the first step of the poster as expression of capitalism, from its early romantic stammerings to the great and latest creations, will constitute an enthralling chapter in the history of the evolution of our society.”
From commercial function to socio-cultural function
Andreu Balius, 2008. One poster, two functions: serving as advertisement and as presentation of a specimen of the Pradell font, designed by the graphic artist between 2001 and 2003. 132
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More than 70 years have passed since this text was published, but as far as the Spanish poster, at least, is concerned, it is perhaps only now that Renau’s essay has acquired its full meaning, now that the poster has progressively lost its commercial function and instead gained from a social and cultural point of view. It might be that Joan Costa is indeed right when he affirms that the poster has been replaced by other and more sophisticated, more powerful media, that it is submitted to the “dictatorship of the quantitative” and relegated to the background within the framework of some advertising campaign launched beforehand on television. It is nevertheless worth pointing out that this comment speaks above all of commercial posters, which fell into disgrace in the last third of the 20th century. But has the death knell truly tolled for the poster, as some maintain? Is it really a means of communication suffering an identity crisis in a world saturated with messages, in which advertising fights to attract the attention of consumers who are increasingly hostile to classic stratagems? So it would seem, if we consider advertising investment in Spain, for example. According to the InfoAdex study of 2009, investment has tumbled pretty much everywhere, including traditional media like radio and outdoor advertising but except for the Internet, the only medium in which there is strong growth. Indeed, there are plenty of advertising executives who are themselves convinced of the obsolescence of conventional
media given the advent of the new channels bearing Internet and digital media, which are more flexible, have no constraints of space or time and are open to interactivity. Their development corresponds also to a search for personalized positioning defining more and more, and better and better, a targeted public in order to measure the effectiveness of a campaign immediately. Which is the opposite of what a poster did a few decades ago. It was about this that Angharad Lewis wrote in her book, Street Talk: The Rise and Fall of the Poster, declaring that poster could not discriminate at all, that it was impartial and democratic, given that “its message was addressed to all passers-by”. Everywhere, including in the context of exterior advertising, posters have a relatively small importance, compared to billboards, printed awnings stretched over buildings, buses and banners, which are increasingly common in large towns. But they still have a place in street furniture, which is the most commonly used advertising medium, and which in the first six months of 2010 represented 44 per cent of the investment made in exterior advertising. Of course, posters will never be able to rival far more spectacular offerings, such as olfactory postings and electronic advertising, which offer possibilities of video projection and interactivity. Nor can they compare with guerrilla marketing, or with ambient media or electronic word-of-mouth. In a certain way, one might even say that posters, more than ever today, are that “expression, so humble, so unpretentious” of which Renau spoke. Nevertheless, on top of the competition from the new media, one has to bear in mind that in Spain as in many other countries, posters are the victims of increasingly strict regulations governing their use in a public space. For instance, it is forbidden to place posters alongside roads, and every municipality has its own bylaws as regards dimensions and positioning of luminous hoardings, advertising panels and posters on its territory. These bylaws, which can vary from one town to the next, forbid and punish unauthorized posting, amongst other things, requiring prior authorization for posting on boards in public space. Display of posters is therefore limited to street furniture within public or private spaces. Thus it is that the poster, in some way freed of the laws of competition, has been able to preserve less “marketable” territories, such as shows and – especially independent – music production, art and cultural exhibitions, together with social and political militantism. Paradoxically, while the poster emerged from the rise of capitalism and has served to encourage consumerism, it has today become a critical instrument for those seeking alternatives.
Creative and spectacular
Top: David Torrents, 2006. The font and colour give an idea of circus in this poster for the exhibition held at the Barcelona Contemporary Culture Centre on modern-day Catalan circus and the art of risk.
Bottom left: Alex Trochut, 2007. A personal project for the “Psicotipográfico” exhibition (Madrid, 2007). This is a good example of a “drawn letter” that is both text and image at one and the same time.
Bottom right: Daniel Nebot, 2007. This simple line drawing evokes the theme of shoes for an exhibition of 30 leading Spanish brands, which brought together the work of prestigious graphic designers.
The Spanish poster can boast a remarkable tradition, with roots back to the heart of the 18th century. It enjoyed a period of splendour in the first third of the 20th century and a flourishing period in the 1960s, followed by a progressive recession with recovery of activity during some years, as in the 1980s, reflecting the boom of Spanish design. In this sense, its history runs parallel to that of the poster in other European countries, with all the nuances resulting from the individual social and cultural context, and the preoccupations of our designers resemble those of designers throughout the world. Thus, while recognizing that the poster is no longer what it was, most designers refuse to accept its disappearance. On the contrary, they believe that it poses some interesting challenges, as much for its past splendour as for its widespread exposure to the public or, despite everything, because it has remained a medium for mass communication enjoying a respectable tradition. For many, the poster even represents one of their favourite formats. David Torrents, for example, who is an unconditional fan of the poster and one of the most sought
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after for his skills as poster designer, declared in an interview, “I don’t know how other people see it but for me anyway, the poster is at the centre of things. Each time there’s a poster in a project, that’s what matters most to me.” From Andreu Balius: “Designing a poster is a fantastic exercise that presupposes a series of skills ranging from colour to fonts, and including page layout. Of all the supports available to graphic designers and those who have things to say, whether it’s a personal project or a commission, the poster is the means of communication par excellence, that closest to people, that which gives the graphic designer the most freedom and brings him closest to the fine arts. It’s a spectacular instrument and graphic designers adore its format.” For Eric Olivares, “The poster is the advertising standard of the 20th century, one of the most interesting and most creative exercises in the graphic arts.” The poster is thus perceived as an opportunity to demonstrate one’s talent, as it calls into play the mastery of the graphic language and tools, including the ability to synthesize and communicate. Some, like Gabriel Martínez, member of the Un Mundo Feliz collective, avow that even if it is possible to go further with the Internet, they have a soft spot for the poster. “It retains a part of our memory and gives us pleasure when we design it, when we print it and stick it up. Its format is pleasing and we have noted that it’s also liked by the students who come to our studios. Perhaps there’s a little romanticism in all this, because we’re aware that it has lost its power, probably because you can’t stick a poster up in the road anymore.”
Displaced This is the opinion also of Balius, who claims that posters “have lost their raison d’être, given that in large towns, no one knows where they can pin them up. The boards that were once available have vanished and with them [goes] the popular dimension of the poster. Today unless you go via an agency, you can’t do anything, to the point that the poster has ended up resembling a sort of advertising ticket; in other words, without the impact it had before the digital age, it’s no longer really a poster.” This situation worries Torrents, who in a conference recently stressed that the places in which it is still possible to place a poster are monopolized by municipalities or private companies. “Why,” he asks, “can’t everything that happens on the Internet also happen in the street?” In a text written for the occasion, he rightly added, “Why is there no better regulated, more democratic way to show a good poster to everyone? Why aren’t there more panels? Why is the only support we have in this country a kiosk or column on which one poster covers the next, without any temporal logic, with squadrons of young people sent deliberately on their mopeds to change them every half-hour, thus depriving the posters of the possibility of having some meaning or spending some time in the road without having to pay for private or public panels? Adieu posters! We’ll meet up in art galleries! Or in books!”
From the street to the art gallery Top: Dídac Ballester, 2004. Experimental typographical project based on the Helvetica font and a text by Joan Brossa on the poetic value of letters. The experiment included an exhibition and poster.
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Bottom left: Iban Ramon, 2008. In summer, the festivals in Benidorm offer varied programmes of music, dance and theatre. The graphic designer has succeeded in suggesting the variety by making use of forms that can be read as letters.
Bottom right: Miquel Polidano, 2007. Poster announcing a series of four matinée performances of concerts by stars of the 1960s. The graphic design uses only type, in a nod to posters of the past.
This declaration by Torrents expresses a common regret, the nostalgia for the street with which the poster was closely associated from the outset; we should not forget that it was the urban character that best defined it. Gabriel Martinez, for his part, declares himself to be less sad but just as aware of what its disappearance from the street and its admission into art galleries means: “I think that today, the poster belongs more to the artistic world of exhibitions than to that of advertising.” That it has progressively changed from being a means of mass communication to an exhibition piece closer to a picture is a fact that seems to agree with the large number of exhibitions organized in Spain in recent years in line with the following
principle: after launching an appeal for a project on a given subject, the best works of the participating graphic designers are reproduced just for the occasion and published in limited editions. This is what Cajamadrid does for its annual competition – generally on a social theme – followed by a travelling exhibition of the works chosen by the jury and the publication of a catalogue. Metamorphosed into a unique – or almost – item, or restricted to the artistic sphere, the poster will probably never again be that museum in the street that so fascinated its fans at the beginning of the 20th century. We shall regret its ability to educate the public’s eye and that capacity to present aesthetic innovations to the observer that could not have been seen otherwise.
New perspectives
Top: Germinal, 2003. This poster expresses the spontaneity and values of a flamenco festival aiming to promote young talent aged between 15 and 32.
Bottom: Oyer Corazón, 1997. The iconography of the fallen angel against a fiery background evokes the theme of one of the Goethe’s most famous works, Faust, performed in this case in a Madrid theatre.
But not all is negative in these transformations. The poster has largely freed itself of the constraints of creativity imposed by its commercial considerations, and there are numerous graphic designers to design and approach them practically as though they were works of art. The growth in the number of posters created that are not the fruits of commissions shows this clearly. These graphic designers produce them to publicize themselves (as with Balius and his typographical works for his Typerepublic foundry), send their best wishes to clients and friends, celebrate or commemorate an event or directly to sell themselves, as in the case of Alex Trochut on his website or Vasava in his Vallery gallery. The Toormix workshop, another example worth quoting, has recently published a collection of 101 typographical posters to celebrate its tenth anniversary. For others, like Iban Ramón and Dídac Ballester, the poster is perfect for all sorts of experiments. The former was responsible for “Básicos” (2008), a reflection on images and the meaning we arbitrarily give them, presented in a limited edition of four posters, and more recently, his “We Love Geometry,” a proposal for a playful initiation to geometry, formed of a box containing a series of cards and unfolding posters. We may also mention Dídac Ballester’s “Helvética sobre negro,” a visual research into the Helvetica font that included an exhibition, a book and a poster. It can also happen that graphic designers make use of posters to pass on a message, support a charity cause or express political engagement. And it is exactly this direction that is adopted in the works of Eric Olivares, Isidro Ferrer and Un Mundo Feliz, a collective that has taken a stance on such serious issues as the war in Iraq, violence against women, terrorism and the 11 March bombs, together with ecological catastrophes, and which was also set to support Haiti in the wake of the January 2010 earthquake, for example. Quite clearly, the poster is a powerful ally of graphic militancy. They are generally intended to be spread through the Internet and printed at home, as in 2003 in the middle of the Gulf War. The posters published on this occasion responded to an international appeal that depended on the mobilization of numerous Spanish graphic designers, a participation that is habitually acquired for major causes, as in 2002 after the ecological disaster caused by the sinking of the Prestige oil tanker off the coast of Galicia. We are thus in a sort of graphic do-it-yourself period in which the designers handle both creation and production. Perhaps the cause is a reduction in client commissions, such as those from the largest consumer of social and cultural posters in Spain, the public sector. Producing a poster becomes in practice a militant act in favour of a species facing extinction and is at the same time an opportunity to express one’s opinions and add one’s personal brick to the social structure.
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I Love Type 01 – Futura, I Love Type 02 – Avant Garde Edited by TwoPoints.Net Victionary 160 pages – 16 x 23 cm English – € 32 The product of a collaboration bet ween publisher Victionary and Barcelona studio TwoPoints.net, I love Type 01 – Futura and I love Type 02 – Avant Garde are the first two books in a collection about type. Through images, they survey recent instances of two typefaces in an international selection of high-quality graphic-design work. The preface explains that the two faces had a common history: they were victims of the success, torn between the technical constraints
of their age – lead and Letraset – and the need to be exported. They also had common form and inspiration, both descending from the Bauhaus. Herb Lubalin cited the influence of Futura (1927, Paul Renner) when he created Avant Garde in 1970. Flexible to use and timelessly simple, these two faces fit every aesthetic and are easy to customise. No surprises here, then. Let’s hope the next titles in the collection are more boldly ambitious. CB
the country’s leading printmaking firms, the book makes a highly focused selection of artists and authors, with three avenues of exploration: new forms of printed art (Silvia Buonvicini’s pyrograved carpet prints, for instance), media hybridisation that challenges the limits of
printmaking (Fabrizio Giannini’s canvases) and the series production of prints. The uncluttered page design, by the Gavillet & Rust studio, is enhanced by numerous colour reproductions and photographs. IM
L’art imprimé en Suisse – 2007-2010 Stéphanie Guex Éditions du Musée des Beaux-arts Le Locle 320 pages – 21,7 x 28 cm French/English – € 29 This catalogue for the Triennial Exhibition of Contemporary Art, edited by its two curators Stéphanie Guex and Laurence Schmidlin, reviews Swiss output in the discipline from 2007 to 2010. Although the purpose of the event is to bring together representatives of
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BOOKS
Back Cover #4
Designers’ Identities
Sagmeister : Another Book…
Publisher: Éditions B42 Distributor: Les Belles Lettres 53 pages – 19,5 x 28 cm French /English – € 9,50
Liz Farrely Laurence King Publishing 271 pages – 21 x 29 cm English – £ 24,95
Stefan Sagmeister, Chantal Prod’Hom and Martin Woodtli Éditions Pyramyd - 176 pages – 17 x 24 cm French / English – € 29,90
The recently-published fourth issue of Back Cover begins with a conversation between Karel Martens and English author Robert Kinross: a highcalibre discussion on the binding of Printed Matter, a book about the Dutch graphic designer’s work, and on the ties between architecture and graphic design. The latter concern connects with those of Catherine de Smet in an article on architecture books as a space for deploying graphic design; and those of Jost Hochuli on the notion of the system. A forum for analysing and reflecting on graphic-design and typographic practices, Back Cover #4 contains seven articles; the position of each piece places in perspective its link with those before and after. Through carefully-chosen authors, editorial directors Alexandre Dimos and Gaël Étienne address themes such as code, teaching and the history of typography, always relative to the discipline and its current evolution. With Robert Kinross, Karel Martens, Metahaven, Roland Früh, Jost Hochuli, Stéphanie Vilayphiou and Alexandre Leray, and Wim Crouwel. IM
Seventy-six international designers. Seventysix graphic identities. From business cards to websites to envelopes to newsletters, a studio’s identity ensures graphic consistency and coherence across their own branding. Designers’ Identities compiles about 1,050 colour illustrations. Each profile starts with a business card and runs through a collection of identity adaptations. From Akatre’s experiments to Dada type by deValence to black-on-black print collateral by Qube Konstrukt to the old-school motifs of Eight Hour Day, the selection by design critic Liz Farrelly demonstrates the care taken by graphic designers with their own materials. Although the graphic designers presented here produce visual language that fits their professional activities, the book explores the value of graphic work done outside the scope of commissions. RRT
Through 13 March 2011, Stefan Sagmeister was the 11th carte blanche guest of MUDAC in Lausanne. New York-based for 17 years, the Austrian graphic designer showed only recent work: CD covers, posters, catalogues, graphic projects, furniture, and advertisements. This was a big statement for Sagmeister, who in recent years has been committed to commissions (both public and private), which underscores the notably different professional status that graphic designers enjoy across the Atlantic. Prefaced by MUDAC’s director, who also curated the event, Another Book about Promotion and Sales Material, the exhibition catalogue, benefited from a top-notch art director: Zurich-based Martin Woodtli, an acute connoisseur of Sagmeister and his former business partner. The publication, different from the first two, which staged the man himself, focuses on previously-unpublished projects, and should feed the Sagmeister myth for a long time to come. IM
Latino Grafico Edited by TwoPoints.Net Gestalten 224 pages – 24,3 x 28,7 cm Spanish/English – € 45 Latin America is not only a geographic region. The continent has a strong cultural footprint, explains Cristian Jofre in his preface, that abounds with stereotypical images and references from our common imagination: Latin lovers, Speedy Gonzales, salsa and tango dancers, Mayas and Incas, Tony Montana, Che Guevara, the Rio carnival. Edited by Martin Lopez and Lupi Asensio, the founders of Barcelona studio TwoPoints.net, the book is an acutely pertinent attempt to carve out a new face for graphic
design in South America: that of a people who are redefining their own visual language and displaying growing creative dynamism, despite a resonant artistic and cultural legacy. Latino Grafico shows a selection of work by designers, illustrators and typographers that reflects the blend of habits and customs of a land in the throes of economic development – spanning African folk, Christian symbolism, neo-punk and the imported American lifestyle. IM
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