Exposé by Martine Strøm

exposĂŠ Typography and posters of France

Editors note Hello dear readers! In this months issue of ExposĂŠ we have chosen to focus on french graphic designers who are masters of typography and posters. their work? do the French design the way they do because they are French for example. Is there any multi-cultural exchange within graphic design? Does people get inspired by other cultures and, if they do, how do they do it and why? During our search for awnsers, we found that easy access to media, internet, muisic and traveling have globalised artists and graphic designers work today. You canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t really tell from someones work which country thy are from, because we get inspiration from everywhere, across borders and seas. We have spoken to designers who get inspired by music from around the world, arists from america, danish papercraft, Hip-hop and grafitti culture, collage and so on. However, different countries may have different design trends at different times. We found out that typography and poster-art is very popular in France now, and therefore, that and fresh, new graphic designers are our main focus in this issue. The artists we have picked out have very varied style and uses different medi as, and we have tried to capture the essence and feeling of their work in our pages. have written about here, be inspired by their work, and remember their names! Enjoy!

Fredrik Stabenfeldt

Martine StrĂ¸m

Aleksander Schipper

Kristoffer Riis

Raymond Loewy

4-5-6-7

Sebastien Cuypers

8 - 9 - 10 -11 - 12 - 13 - 14 - 15

Zim & Zou

16 - 17 - 18 - 19 - 20 - 21

Emeric “Takeshi” Trahand

22 - 23 -24 - 25

Vincent Perrottet

26 - 27 - 28 - 29

SO ME Tabas

30 - 31 - 32 - 33 - 34 - 35 36 - 37 - 38 - 39

Contenu

Raymond Loewy Raymond Loewy is one of the most reknown industrial designers of all times. With clients such as Bell Aircrafts, Coca-Cola, I.B.M, Levis, KLM Airlines, NASA, SHELL and many many more. Loewy’s design focuses most on industrial design. But he also had a great spire for creativity regarding graphic design and a great talent for logo design. The Smithsonian spoke of Lowey as “The man who changed the face of industrial design” They also had a 4 month long exhibit dedicated to his design, this was in year 1975. Also Loewy designed the SHELL logo, and with great success. In 1962 the company chose to drop their name from their advertisements cause that everyone knew the logo. Loewy was born in Paris in 1893, and was the son of Maximillian Loewy. A early accomplishment was to design a model aircraft, which he won the James Gordon Bennet Cup in 1908. Ayrel was the name of this model aircraft. Raymond Loewy served in the French army during World War 1,

and got to the rank of captain. Loewy was wounded in combat, and received the Croix de Guerre. In 1919 he boarded a ship to America, with only his French officer’s uniform and 50 dollars in his pocket. Raymond Loewy quickly got in work. He was a window designer for department stores; also he was a fashion illustrator for Vogue and Harpers Bazaar. And in 1929 he received his first industrial design commission to contemporize the appearance of a duplicating machine by Gestetner. And there was more to come; in 1930 he opened a London office, which still is active. Raymond Loewy received many prices, and in 1938 he got the American Design Award for his S1 locomotive design in New York.

Graphic Design Raymond Loewy was one of the first professional Industrial Designers in the world. He pioneered the design of trains, cars and even airplanes and space stations. Apart from being a brilliant industrial designer working in three dimensions, Loewy was also a very talented graphic designer. Early 20th century he designed several logotypes that are still being used today. He always kept designs very clear and simple. In this way focusing on the essentials of the design. This probably also made his designs timeless. Loewy was not only creative, he also had a good instinct for business.. Because of his good business skills Loewy also succeeded in building a big internationally operating design firm: Raymond Loewy and Associates. It was one of the first full-service design companies in the world. They for example not only designed a new Greyhound bus, they also designed the new Greyhound logo. The company Raymond Loewy and Associates nowadays still exists and is still very strong at not only industrial design, but graphic design as well. When it comes to Loewyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s logo design, he is very clear in simple shape designs. Many of his logos are based on simple shapes, mostly circles. The Shell logo and Lucky Strike logo is a very good example. These logos are a symbol of a clean, strong company. Which they still are this day today, almost 100 years after they where made. Raymondâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s industrial design can be connected to his graphic work. With fine lines and strong colors. Many of his logo designs have a strong color of red in them. It works as a strong signal, and hits the consumers hard.

Death Raymond retired at the age of 87 in 1980, and then he returned to his native France. He died in his Monte Carlo residence in 1986. His second wife, Viola Loewy and British American Tobacco established the Raymond Loewy founation in Hamburg, Germany. This foundation was established to promote the discipline of industrial design internationally and preserve the memory of Raymond Loewy. An annual award of 50.000 euroâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s is granted to outstanding designers in recognition of their lifetime achievements. People who have won this award are names like; Philippe Starck and Dieter Rams. Philippe Starck is a French graphic / industrial designer. The legacy of Raymond Loewy still lives on, and he is truly one of the fathers in modern industrial and graphic design.

“ I t a ll m us t s t ar t wi t h a n i n s pi red , s p o nt a n eous i dea.” Raymond Loewy

Sebastien Cuypers Born in 1980 Paris, France Graphic designer,

Who is Cuypi? Cuypi is a graphic designer and illustrator whose work is highly recognizable for his special approach to character design and typography. He got used to drawing from early childhood, and is lucky

enough to make a living of it. today. The last six years he has been working as a graphic designer in an advertising agency, and in his sparetime he makes T-shirt designs, skateboard-designs and customized vinyl toys. He is most known for his typographic work. He handles letters like characters, allowing for their own and strong expression. He often adds typography to his drawings to complete a design, but it could also work as a standalone feature of the layout. Cuypi has a very positive view on life, something that shines through in all of his work.

Can you describe your working process? I search for an idea or sometimes the idea comes to me. Then I make some sketches, do research... and if the inspiration is with me, I start it. Sometimes I’m not sure about the result, so I stop and restart many months later, and often the result is better than I hoped for. I think the most ripe ideas are the most sucessful.

What and who inspires you? The most important source of inspiration for me is MUSIC. It’s the rythm of my life, and my life is the rythm of music. Before I start drawing an illustration,

I put my headphones on and choose a playlist which matches my mood. Then I try to translate feelings into images. I’m also influences by movies, comics, street culture, and artists like Alex Trochut, Zeloot, Jeff Soto, Jeremyville, Steven Harrington and many more.

There are often typographical elements in your designs – I like the way the design of the font is supporting the work as a whole. Yes me too, I really like typography - Alex Trochut is a master for me. It’s hard to find a good text to illustrate which works alone, so I often put drawings on my designs to support typography works.

“..It’s the rhythm of my life, and my life is the rhythm of my music.”

Zim & Zou is a french graphic design studio based in Nancy (France). Composed of Lucie Thomas and Thibault Zimmermann who studied graphic design in an art school. The studio proposes a contemporary approach of design thanks to a mix of different fields such as paper sculpture, installation, graphic design, illustration... Zim&Zouâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s strength is to be a complementary and polyvalent duo.

So what’s the ethos behind your company Zim & Zou?

Zim & Zou is a French graphic design studio based in Nancy, composed of Lucie Thomas and myself, Thibault Zimmermann. We studied graphic design in art school and the studio proposes a contemporary approach to design thanks to a mix of different fields such as paper sculpture, installation, graphic design, illustration, web design etc. We try to promote ‘real’ art in graphic design and advertising, highlighting the aspect of craftsmanship.

What do you think makes your partnership work so well?

Our strength is to be a complementary and polyvalent (Ed - Wow, Chemistry GCSE flashback) duo. At art school we worked on projects separately but when we started to work as freelancers it became more evident. I think it works pretty well because graphic design is more than our job, it’s our passion. As we’ve worked together over the years, we both know our strength and weakness.

What is it about paper that makes you feature it so heavily within your work? We decided to use paper in many of our projects because not only is it a basic material, accessible for everyone, but because it’s a way to show the balance of power between digital and paper production. When today you can read a book on a screen, we needed to create ‘real’ things. The aspect of craftsmanship is really important for us and paper gives us an infinite amount of possibilities.

“it’s a way to show the balance of power between digital and paper production” What inspires your work, and in particular the Back to Basics project?

We’ve made those papercrafts for several reasons. We tried not to influence people too much by giving keys to this project. A way to let people appropriate our work. Back to Basics has different aspects, at first sight it’s a tribute to vintage technologies which marked the technological evolution of the last years, and all the nostalgia of the memories that each have with them. By bringing those ‘dead’ objects back to life, we tried to highlight the very fast evolution of our everyday objects. The devices we use nowadays will, in a few years, be considered as relics too. We wanted to ask a question as well: where will this evolution lead us to? What inspired us personally for this project are the original objects themselves. Every day we use some of those objects, such as the Polaroid camera and we often play Tetris on the original grey Gameboy.

Your Back to Basics series reminds us of forgotten technologies in bold 80s colours, is there a link between this nostalgia and the fact that it’s all made out of paper? Paper is very important in this project. Nowadays, the use of paper for communication is less important than a few years ago. We are in a transition phase between print culture and electronic/digital culture. We wanted to confront those two medias.

You both must have a lot of patience, how long does it take to complete one object, for instance the Polaroid camera? What’s your process?

The whole project took about a year between client’s works. It’s pretty hard to say because sometimes we had to put this project on standby in order to work for commissions. For example the Polaroid camera was one of the hardest patterns to create because of its particular shape. We took about two full days without the details. Considering the whole object I think it took about two full weeks. About our process we’ve made a making of video (‘Behind the Scene’) with close-up shots on the creation process. We did everything by hand, limiting use of computers to the minimum.

Will you be adding to the series? Or are you starting a new project now?

We planned to create new objects for the Back to Basics series. But as we don’t want to lock ourselves in one particular project, we’ll continue to experiment other things before finishing this series totally. Our next objects will be slightly bigger.

Would you ever consider trying to make a workable paper object? We’ve thought about it, but we found that paper is so fragile that it can’t be manipulated without being damaged. For example we did a USB tape. And to be honest we found it more interesting the fact that the objects are not working, it places the user into a spectator position, a way to see the object out of its function.

Have you ever thought of selling kits and nets of your pieces for people to make at home?

As all the objects here are only made once we can’t sell them for the moment. And as we tried to use the computer as little as we could, we don’t have any papercraft kit. We wanted to turn an industrial object into a unique handmade craft. We took pictures before finalizing the objects, so it may help a bit if you want to create some homemade papercraft!

You use sustainable paper to make your creations, is this an important part of your business? What happens to the scraps of paper that are not used? Of course, it’s very important for us when using paper to be very careful about recycling and waste. That’s why since we started to work together we decided to keep all the scraps so later we’ll make an installation using all those different random shapes. A way to transform waste into art.

“We wanted to turn an industrial object into an unique handmade craft.”

EMERIC TRAHAND

n art director, graphic designer and illustrator, born in Saint Etienne in the region of Rhône-Alpes. Emeric Trahand didn’t start working in the industry before 2006 when he started off as a freelance illustrator in France. His reputition grew quickly, and he was rapidly getting more and more praise for his photo montage work with a surrealistic twist, as he himself likes to call it. The montage is his medium and preferred way of working, mainly through the use of Adobe Photoshop and his trusty Wacom Cintix drawing pad. Three years ago, he travelled across the Atlantic ocean to work in New York City for three months. He decided to stay, and is still working there today, steadily making his way up the steep latter of the graphic design industry.

words: Fredrik Stabenfeldt IMAGES: Emeric”Takeshi” Trahand

Since his start only five years ago, he has already worked with major international clients in both the music industry, giant corporate business firms, television companies, and lately also sportswear. Some are Sony BMG, Emi Music, Adidas, Asics, Toyota, Subway, popular television channels like Spike TV and VH1, game publisher Ubisoft, artists like the Cool Kids and Asher Roth, but also more classy clients with great legacies like English National Opera, GrandPrix de Montreal, and big banks like Société Générale and Bank of America. In a video interview from earlier this year, Trahand talks about how he chose the artist name Takeshi, after having been in love with Japanase culture for years. The name itself stems from reading a lot of books and watching many movies on samurais, and it is quite probable that he took it from the Japanase legendary actor and director Takeshi Kitano – himself known for his violent (often samurai- or yakuzarelated) action films («Zatoichi», 2003, is one), where he both stars and directs. In one of Trahands newer works, this time with Japanese shoe company Onit-

suka Tiger on their newly relaunched shoe The Limber Up Moscow shoe, he was really able to join his interest for Japanese culture with his work. The shoe was originally designed as a training shoe for Japanese athletes at the 1980 Moscow Olympics, and because of this, he thought of female athletes when creating the ad designs. He researched the old Japanese flower arrangement technique known as ikebana, and incorporated this into the montages. Here, flowers and organic elements help make the piece a lot more dynamic, playing on the balance between the shapes and textures on the shoe and the floral patterns. This also gives the ads a rather feminine, but powerful touch, which was an important focus. In terms of the look, he has tried to recreate some of the lighting, texture, colours and composition from old paintings from the 17- and 1800s. With this as a platform, he creates a sort of delicate and clean look to the pieces, hinting at old still life paintings of the great masters. It seems as if this style is being further developed, as it has already made it’s way into ads for other companies as well, such as a piece he did for Red Bull Music Academy.

this spread; from left to right; top to bottom: 1) Collaboration with Jeff Staple for Stpl Design. 2) Personal project. 3) Red Bull Music Academy. 4) Nike case-study.

in this spread: A small selection of some of his newer work, featuring the aforementioned floral arrangements, giving the pieces a very organic feel. One can also see that regardless of him using colours or creating something in sepia or black and white, does not seem to pose a problem for him â&#x20AC;&#x201C; he is able to create the same type of delicate and balanced feel to most of his designs either way. Above you can see one of the many designs he made for Onitsuka Tigerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s re-release of the Limber Up Moscow shoe in a rather feminine environment.

M. PERROTTET et LES AFFICHES Vincent Perrottet is a bit worried. With the advent of giant advertisement services like the ones JCDecaux and Clear Channel provides, with the advertisements rather embedded in the cities’ infrastructure, like furniture almost, in stead of fixed to walls with glue, Monsieur Perrottet sees it as important to preserve the old poster culture. France is, through the fabulous work of many great artists, graphic designers and illustrators, known for their beautiful poster design throughout the years. But with the new rotating, mechanical displays where glue is taken out of the equation and maximisation of profit is the main attraction, the design itself is no longer as valuable. Why should one rent out the advertising space to only one client, when you could easily earn three times the amount in ad money when the boards start spinning? Of course, this equals a shorter time to observe the actual ad, but according to studies, this shows no decrease in sales for the products displayed. In other words – the message comes across, but the actual beauty of the poster is forgotten, or has at least been downgraded as a less important part of the potential customer’s experience of the advertisement. So how is it then? Are the designers of the posters the only ones who care about the slow death of the poster art, or the actual posters for that matter? Is it just an age-old designer-centered exhibitionism that is barely keeping it alive? Either way Vincent Perrottet, as one of the organisers of the yearly International Chaumont poster competition, works hard to display the newest and best examples of poster art to the world. Apparently, the interest is huge, despite the gloomy outlooks of the art form. ‘It’s almost obscene,’ says Perrottet in an interview with Eye Magazine. ‘We received more than 2000 posters last year. It feels like the last hurrah, as if artists and printers, aware that posters are about to become anachronistic, are taking advantage of their know-how and equipment while they still can.’ In stead of its original function as an advertising tool, the poster is celebrated for its beauty through competitions, but also functions as art on people’s walls – bought through auctions that raise money for causes and draw attention towards issues. At least there still seems to be a large number of people that enjoy good poster design, even though some of the commercial values that used to be the focus now has been put aside and given room for more creativity and less pushing of products. Maybe this is the reason for the growing interest in the poster as a medium – maybe it has been set free.

in this spread: Perrottet’s posters are often showcased in very honest and real environments, as seen in almost all the pictures on his website. It seems his garden and his studio are shown the most in the pictures, often accompanied by his cat sleeping between some prints lying about. This makes him come off as a designer that is very comfortable with what he is doing. His playful use of colour and type is very characteristic for his style, and this selection really demonstrates this. Notice the illusion of depth that is created in his Relax posters through the text placement.