étapes: international #26

design and visual culture

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n° 26IMAGES & QUICK HITS

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WANG2MU

MICHAEL HANSMEYER

IRIS VAN HERPEN

P12 DOMAN TAKEO

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ROMAIN ALBERTINI

AMON TOBIN

BUROLOCO

KADAWITTFELDARCHI-TEKTUR & BÜRO UEBELE

EEM

STUDIO OUTPUT

BUREAU BRUNEAU

Cover: Marcel Mariën, L’Introuvable(The Unfi ndable), 1937.(Brussels, Royal Library of Belgium, Archives & Musée de la Littérature, M. Mariën archive, coll. Sylvio Perlstein)© adagp, 2011.

SCHAFFTER SAHLI

BART DE BAETS AND SANDRA KASSENAAR

A CLOSER LOOK

Caroline Bouige is a journalist on the editorial staff at étapes: magazine.



P30 BY ROMUALDROUDIER THERON

Romuald Roudier Theron is an independent exhibition curator and cultural project manager.

OLIVIAGRANDPERRIN

LOVEEIGHTRELATION

SHIP

P34 BYCAROLINE BOUIGE

MARTINNICOLAUSSON

MUSEUMSTUDIO

P46 BY CAROLINE BOUIGE

P40 BYCAROLINE BOUIGE

UNDERWARE

P50 BYSTÉPHANE DARRICAU

Stéphane Darricau teaches visual communication in Montreuil and London. He writes articles and books on graphic design and typography.

CUBAREVOLUTIONARYPOSTERS

P60 BYRÉGIS LÉGER

Graduate of the École Estienne, the Gobelins and ISDI, Régis Léger began his research project on contemporary Cuban graphic design in 2009.

design and visual culture

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26

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OPINION2011 GRADUATES

WWW.ETAPES.COM/ENGLISH

P140 BOOKS

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P129 BY STÉPHANE DARRICAU

BY LINDA KUDRNOVSKÁ

ADVERTISINGCOLLABORATION

P68 BY CLARE MCNALLY

Former advertising copywriter at TBWA, she graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in graphic design and is now a journalist and editor.

P86 BY Y. ZAPPATERRA AND F. LEHÉRISSIER

Yolanda teaches graphics at Central Saint Martins and writes for Design Week and Grafik. Graphic designer and typographer, François works for URDLA (Centre international estampes et livres).

PICTOPLASMA

P78

P98

BY VANINA PINTER

BY ANNELYS DE VET

ESAD MARION FAYOLLE

ESAABKÉVIN BRAY

ECALJAN ABELLAN

ESAG-PENNINGHENMATHILDE HURON

DUPERRETHÉO MONGOURDIN

MARYSE ELOYARTHUR REMACLE

ESADMAYUMI OTERO

ENSADM. MAIONE & T. MAILLET

BOULLEROBIN DE MOURAT

DU VALAISDAVID SCHUPBACH

WEISSENSEE KHLÉO FAVIER

ESADALBAN-PAUL VALMARY

ECALMÉLANIE LUCIE GRIN

Vanina Pinter teaches history of graphic design at ESAD, Le Havre.

LAURENT

FETIS

MAIJUIN 2009

SUPERPITCHERRIVA STARRMIKE MILLS

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THE EX FACTOR

TYPOBERLIN

Linda Kudrnovská is editor of Typo Magazine, a design theorist and art historian.

THE AVANT-GARDEOF THE NEW EMERGINGGENERATION OF DESIGNERS

Stéphane Darricau teaches visual communication in Montreuil and London. He writes articles and books on graphic design and typography.

Graphic designer Annelys de Vet is head of the Design Department at the Sandberg Instituut, Amsterdam.

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Japan TodayLast summer, the design agency Costume 3 pièces invited the étapes editorial team to be part of the jury for an illustration contest organized by the Japanese magazine Illustration File (Genko-sha publications). As a result, designer Takeo Doman was awarded the étapes first prize. He was singled out for his individual style of drawing, whose vibrant black lines palpably hum. Urban noise and the turmoil of overcrowded Japanese cities are portrayed here. All the colour of the scene centres on the figures, who seem to move in impenetrable spaces. CB www.genkosha.co.jp/il / www.costume3pieces.com/fr

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Glass SlipperDesigned by the architectural practice Kadawittfeldarchitektur for the Adidas brand in Herzogenaurach, Laces is a massive complex. The building consists of a number of platforms connected by footbridges, the arrangement of which suggests the laces in a pair of trainers. Covering an area of approximately 62,000 square metres, the monumental space can house about 1,700 workstations. The brand development centre is also home to engineering and marketing departments. To prevent people from getting lost in such an environment, the signage had to be impeccable. It was this element that Büro Uebele, a visual communications agency based in Stuttgart, worked on. The contract was won through an international competition with a clear brief: create an image consistent with the brand and the building, while optimizing orientation and information. The interior’s palette is relatively sober, being entirely black and white so as not to distract attention from the main areas on show. Meeting room names appear on the glass walkways which lends a sense of movement to the atmosphere. The choice of typography creates dynamism and pace using the Adihaus font, a variation of FF Din, with its horizontal and vertical repetition of characters. The arrows and letters of each word have a distinctive edge to help to identify any point in the atrium. The project stands out due to the harmony of its architecture, signage and logo. CL

www.uebele.com / www.kadawittfeldarchitektur.de

© christian richters and werner huthmacher

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Magnitude 10.5Bureau Bruneau have created a new visual identity for the Norwegian fi lm studio, Lavafi lm. The new logo, a pictographic representation of a working factory, The Lava Factory, conjures up industrial overtones connected with the cinema industry. The small company, used to working in fashion and the contemporary arts, cock a snook at the way this sector has become very commercial. To help document the company’s communications, the designer Ludvig Bruneau Rossow, in collaboration with Henrik Wold Kraglund, has given birth to a typography “in progress”, Lava Sans Avec, a mixture of serif and grotesque versions of Futura and Times New Roman. The font is, like our planet, constantly evolving. Each letter exists in several versions, each one gradually getting more elaborate as if fully exploring variations of the same font. The designer admits being inspired by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. The name of the sponsor, Lavafi lm, already suggests the idea of magma about to make walls move. The vibration shakes both the characters and the layout in which they are displayed on various communication media (cards, web pages, bags, fl yers...). Each symbol is subjected to a series of natural disasters caused by Bureau Bruneau, creator of identities. CG (with CB).

WWW.BUREAUBRUNEAU.COM

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Lavafi lm logo.

Examples of Lava Sans Avec typeface.

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Photo credit of women’s portraits: Richard Eriksen.

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UnderwareHelsinki, tHe Hague and amsterdam

studio founded in 1999

sami kortemÄki [interVieW], akiem Helmling, Bas JacoBs

WWW.underWare.nl

By Caroline Bouige

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What did you do before you started up Underware?sami kortemäki: i admired my sister’s pencil sketches and designed some typefaces with pixels on my c64. Pagemaker 1.0 was cool when i was a student. i designed the layout for a monastic magazine with WordPerfect and a photocopier, worked for a publisher, did a little freelance work, a stint at a new media agency, dyed my hair black and went to study typography in the netherlands. i met akiem Helmling and Bas Jacobs at the royal academy of arts the Hague (kaBk) and we started working together on a few projects.

Why Underware?i’m probably going to sound like an old man spinning his favourite yarn who’s actually forgotten all the real details now. When we were students at the kaBk, we started calling ourselves underground typestudio. it sounded like the name of an amateur band from the eighties who try hard to be cool but with little success. it was also a reaction against the very serious names in the type business and serious type foundry names. We wanted to get away from all that. to test the effectiveness of our brand name we even printed underground typestudio t-shirts with an early version of sauna Black italic. after

a while the name didn’t feel right any more, we wanted something shorter. a friend and type designer, Joan carles casasin, dropped in to see us one day in the Hague. He had started up a type foundry called typerware. at a party one night we decided to merge the two groups together. We needed a name so that we could sign an “offi cial contract,” so we combined underground typestudio and typerware and came up with our new name. We still like our name, even if a google search brings up an endless list of gay sites.

You stayed in Helsinki and Akiem Helmling and Bas Jacobs live in the Netherlands.We all live in three different cities. this way of working requires a lot of trust and initiative, even if we’re pretty much in constant contact. i wouldn’t recommend this way of working for everybody, but it works for us.

Do you have any rules?give it your all, right to the end. stay sitting in your chair until you’re totally fi nished. then, heat up the sauna and invite your friends over.

Who’s your mentor in typography?i admire a lot of type designers. You absolutely can’t ignore the dutch typographer gerrit noordzij’s theories on writing and calligraphy; he’s the

father of type design. i’m also inspired by William addison dwiggins’ shapes and rely on adam twardoch’s extensive technological knowledge base. But our most important source of inspiration and our driving force is still our own work.

In terms of shapes and processes, do you recognize any infl uences of Dutch or Finnish type design in your work? not really. We are three individuals, infl uenced by people and cultures from all over the world. our personal vision doesn’t correspond with a national vision. We only get out the fl ags for football matches.

The Underware website shows a number of designs that other people have made using your fonts… a typeface only comes alive when it’s in use. it’s crucial to see them being used in different ways.

In a graphic design project, how much importance do you place on typography (as a percentage)? the wrong typeface choice can completely destroy your credibility: so one hundred per cent, always.

Bello, Liza and Fakir seem to have a few things in common – they’re all balanced and friendly… We wanted the Bello font to

be eye-catching, sexy and meticulously designed. fakir and liza also have these characteristics, but in their own way. it’s interesting that you consider fakir to be a friendly typeface. type design shouldn’t always be friendly. We should let them express the full range of human emotions!

What do you regret about type design today? the illegal use of typefaces. dear reader, i will give you some generous advice now, go quickly to www.underware.nl and buy an offi cial licence if you are illegally using our typefaces for commercial purposes. it’s never too late. ;-)

In your opinion, what is your biggest success? that the company is still running after ten years… that we’re still friends! that we can live off our type design.

With Underware you started up Typeradio, run workshops and often collaborate with other designers… what about the future?it’s an opportunity to meet people, communicate, inspire and be inspired! the future? We don’t really plan our lives; we follow our instincts. We’ll soon see what life has in store for us…

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Left-hand page and left:De Illusie 1991-2006.A book celebrating fifteen years in the life of The Hague’s cultural and artistic squat, De Illusie. Design: BuroLamp & Underware

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ooBello Pro Regular 180 pts

Bello Pro Regular 16 pts

Bello Words Solo 16 pts

Bello Pro Regular 16 pts

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abcdefghijkl

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

Sauna alphabet. The first of the studio’s success stories after starting Underware.

Sauna Black 180 pts

Sauna Bold 18 pts

Sauna Roman 18 pts

Sauna Black Italic Swash 18 pts

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abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz a

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Alphabet Bello Pro. Automatic ligatures. “After numerous sketches, we decided

to give Bello two principal styles: script and small caps.”

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Alphabet Liza Pro.“Liza Pro is a living script. Thanks to its OpenType architecture, it is also as similar to handwriting as possible. Liza Pro analyses text and uses the most appropriate combinationof characters from a base of 4,000 hand-written letters.”

ahahLisa Text Pro Regular 252 pts

Lisa Text Pro Regular 26 pts

Lisa Caps Pro Regular 26 pts

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Left:Underware’s Typeradio truck.

Above and right:Posters made with fluorescent ink.

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Above:Magazine showing photos taken by paparazzi as they track “Dolly” and her friends.

Left: Online sample(PDF download).

Design:Underware.

Dolly Roman. 180 pts

Dolly Italic 18 pts

Dolly Roman 18 pts

Dolly Bold 16 pts


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ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ yAlphabet Dolly. A thoroughly researched typeface designed to be legible even with a very small body size.

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Above:Book of War, Mortification and Love. An essay on voluntary suffering written by

Fakir Display Regular 20 pts

Fakir Display Black 20 pts

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Fakir Italic 20 pts

Fakir Black 20 pts

Fakir Regular 20 pts




Fakir Display Regular 217 pts

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Alphabet Fakir.“We wanted to give our generation a contemporary Gothic typeface.

Ruud Linssen that served as the type specimen for Fakir.

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The Malecón, Havana.Photograph: Natalie Seisser.

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The origins of the poster in Cuba stretch to well before the Revolution of 1959. In the 19th century, the island’s main resources lay in its trade of sugar cane and tobacco. The most important and sophisticated graphic production was that of the packaging labels for bottles of rum, cigars and beer. Even before the Spanish, Cubans made use of lithographic printing. Until 1959 and the arrival of Fidel Castro to power, the Americans used the island as a field for experiments. For a time, Cuba served as a test site for the launch of North American products and advertising messages. Under the Batista regime, there were up to 30 adver-tising agencies on the island, and the printing works made use of the very latest technology.The spread of screen-printing, or serigraphy, trans-formed the world of images in Cuba. Although its Japanese origins date back to the 17th century, screen-printing took several decades to evolve in form and establish itself in the advertising, lettering and graphic arts industries. In 1938 in New York, screen-printing left the industrial sector for the first time. The artistic Silk Screen Group association had as its aim the pro-motion of this form of printing in public spaces. The hub of North American trade, Cuba discovered this

process in August 1943 at the association’s exhibi-tion in Havana, entitled “Originales de Tamigrafía. Silk Screen Originals.” In 1953, Wilfredo Arcay, a young art-ist who graduated from the Havana fine arts school, took the first studio of artistic silkscreen-printing to Paris. There he printed the works of Léger, Arp, Vasarely, Sonia Delaunay, Kupka and others.The first Cuban screen prints were for the most part political posters. At the local elections between 1940 and 1950, amateur printing works flourished and many inhabitants of the islands improvised them-selves as printers. Each district was invaded by large silkscreen-printed posters presenting the candidate in line with a precise layout: face, name, party, and voting card number. Very few of these pasquíns, as specialists of the sector call them, survive. Only accounts and pho-tographs from the time evoke these images that were produced in millions.Cuban artists and intellectuals have often expressed doubts concerning screen-printing. While some made use of this printing technique for advertising, others judged it too evocative of mafia and political circles. The transition towards the artistic sector took place thanks to the cinema poster, which, culturally, still

What is left of Cuban graphic design? Of the poster school that developed during the great years of socialism? Of a country that in the 1950s was at the cutting edge of the graphic industry? Through his research project into the young generation of Cuban graphic designers, Régis Léger traces the eventful history of the island’s poster designers and observes the consequences. By Régis Léger

CubaRevolutionary Posters

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Cuban posters

before 1989

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Left:Fidel Castro, 26 de Julio. Eladio Rivadulla, 1959.

On 1 January 1959, even before Fidel Castro’s troops arrived in Havana, Eladio Rivadulla, on his own initiative, designed and printed this poster in his studio, showing the revolutionary leader as a guérillero. One hundred copies were printed on paper the

same size as the film posters of the time (90 x 70 cm).“Fidel Castro, 26 de Julio” was the first poster of the Cuban Revolution. Its designer, who died last March at the age of 88, is considered the precursor of Cuban post-revolutionary graphic arts, having effected a formal and conceptual break with the traditional poster of the period.

plays an important role in Cuban society today. From the 1940s, graphic designers produced many posters for American, Argentinian, Mexican and sometimes even European films for leading distribution agen-cies. Thanks to the cheaper costs and smaller distri-bution numbers in Cuba, screen-printing little by little replaced offset lithography.The victory of the Revolution marked a brutal change in the country’s graphic design history. The two-speed capitalist society gave way to socialism. The adver-tising agencies were nationalized and the commer-cial slogans replaced by political, social, educational and cultural messages. Che Guevara, then Minister of Trade, decreed the suppression of all advertis-ing in 1961. Three communications agencies were set up, including the Commission for Revolutionary Orientation (COR) in 1967, which would become one of the leading producers of posters, together with the Cuban Institute of Art and Film (ICAIC).

Graphic designers who had until then worked in adver-tising had to adapt to the newborn socialist society. Artists were mobilized for the creation of images for the people to inform them of the intentions and deci-sions from the revolutionary powers. Once taken over, the poster as medium could be used to reach remote populations with neither television nor radio.After a few years in the doldrums, the “golden age of the Cuban poster” blossomed. The images of the 1960s and 1970s announced the country’s great social and economic campaigns (elimination of illiteracy, health, agrarian reforms, production of sugar cane, etc.). Graphic designers were able to work and exper-iment in total freedom. Their powerful images burst with colour. It was in this effervescent environment that great designers like René Azcuy, Antonio Reboiro, Eduardo Muñoz Bachs and Raúl Martínez conceived the fi nest cinema posters of the period, and that Alfredo Rostgaard and Felix Beltran infl uenced the public with powerful political posters.In the middle of the 1970s, graphic production began to stagnate. The talented individuals exploited by the Cuban Revolution had for the most part studied in private schools before 1959 and had no successors. After some abortive attempts at setting up teaching programmes, no school offered Cubans training in this sector. The graphic maturity developed over the past decade ran out of puff and the poster struggled to fi nd new wind. Foreign infl uences were reduced by Cuba’s geographic situation. Even though there were some exchanges with Poland, these were nonetheless minimal: three graphic designers, including Hector Villaverde, went to study in Warsaw under Henryk Tomaszewski.In the 1980s, relations between graphic designers and institutions became more strained as the latter became more bureaucratic. Dialogue was increasingly diffi cult

Left-hand page, clockwise from top left:

Hasta la victoria siempre. Ñiko (Antonio Pérez), 1968, Casa de las Américas.

Todos a la plaza. Artist unknown, 1970, DOR.

Besos robados. René Azcuy, 1970, ICAIC.

Cine móvil ICAIC. Eduardo Muñoz Bachs, 1969, ICAIC.

Lucia. Raúl Martínez, 1968, ICAIC.

Canción protesta. Alfredo Rostgaard, 1967, Casa de las Américas.

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Cuban posters from 1989 to the present day

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and creativity had to come to terms with the lack of graphic design knowledge on the part of those tak-ing the decisions. The gap between the old and new generation of designers widened even more with the arrival of computers. Added to the absence of any form of teaching, the ease of execution offered by the computers in administrative centres caused a drop in the plastic and creative qualities of the poster. Only the cultural sector, and cinema especially, managed to evade this sterile period. As a result, Cuba saw a number of graphic designers leave for foreign lands. It was at this time that the country lost its leading lights in poster design.The year 1983 saw the founding of the René Porto-carrero screen-printing workshop in the former print-ing works of the Cuban communist party in the heart of Havana. Marta Arjona, heritage director at the Ministry of Culture, entrusted its creation and devel-opment to Antonia Sánchez, a young Spanish screen

printer. Since there were no private companies on the island, the studio belonged to the state and initially operated without budgetary constraints. And while the graphic designers abandoned it because of a lack of orders, artists moved in, taking advantage of a tech-nical training of a high quality.With the goal of injecting dynamism into the applied arts, the National Bureau of Design (ONDI) was founded in 1980. Its initial mission was the creation in 1984 of Cuba’s first higher school of design, the Instituto Superior de Diseño (ISDI), offering three courses: fash-ion, industrial design and graphic design. The team of professors was, with the exception of two graphic designers, essentially formed of architects. It would take several years before the art of posters would be taught, but from the very outset, a screen-print-ing workshop enabled students to print their images. However, due to the lack of material, it only functioned for a few years. It has since been abandoned.


Las reinas del trópico. Michele Miyares Hollands, 2009, ICAIC.

Above right:Concierto de Carlos Varela en el Carlos Marx.Nudo (Eduardo Marín/Vladimir Llaguno), 1990.

This alternative poster, which was very controversial when printed, was created for a Cuban singer of trova (lyrics accompanied by guitar), Carlos Varela, for his series of concerts at the Karl Marx theatre in Havana in 1990. The image refers to his song about William Tell, with lyrics containing a strong social critique

calling into question the state of society; the singer’s crossbow threatens Karl Marx, who holds an apple over his heart. Within a historical context that included perestroika in the USSR, Cuba too saw the emergence of questions about Marxist dogma. The reversible nature of the work – Marx side up, or Varela side up – has added significance in this context.

Photographs: Natalie Seisser/ Régis Léger.

Maestros de la pintura cubana. Nudo (Eduardo Marín / Vladimir Llaguno), 1991.

La Soga. Giselle Monzon, 2009, ICAIC.

Tango. Roberto Ramos Mori, 2010, Teatro El Público.

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66 :

Five years after the opening of the design school, the first graduates to emerge found themselves facing a double difficulty. The Soviet Union, which repre-sented 80 per cent of the island’s exchange in trade, was in the process of foundering, and graphic design suffered greatly as a result. Not only had the institu-tions lost the habit of working with the sector, but Cuba itself was going through an unprecedented eco-nomic crisis: the US economic blockade was still in place, while at the same time all aid from the Soviet Union vanished with the regime. The René Portocarrero studio was then a meeting point for graduates of the ISDI and the artists who for several years had provided for graphic design requirements as regards communi-cation and culture. This encounter brought a breath of fresh air to the poster as medium. Small groups began to form: Nudo, Arte Calle, Funcional, etc. These groups, including Next Generation, founded in 1993 by Pepe Menéndez, had the revival of the graphic sector

Cuban posters from 1989 to the present day

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In the past ten years, three private serigraphic work-shops have been set up in Havana in private apart-ments. The commercial production of printed material, still forbidden by law, has given rise to a parallel mar-ket. The latest proclamations promulgated by the Cuban communist party last April provide some hope that privatization may be allowed, which would be cer-tain to ensure growth for the local graphic arts.Today, the links between institutions and graphic designers have been forged anew. But being a graphic designer in Cuba remains a complicated affair. What with the dearth of materials in the printing shops and the lack of recognition of the discipline itself, one has to struggle to enable one’s images to see the light of day. Thanks to its geographical and political situation, Cuba shows very little openness to all that comes from abroad. With the average monthly wage being 17 euros, sending a roll of posters to biennales and international competitions is impossible. The eco-nomic blockade, still strictly enforced, restricts Internet access. In this situation, graphic designers know little of what happens abroad in their field, and their own work is little known outside the country. There is much talent, and the poster seems again to be flourishing. The production of the new generation bears significant and historic witness to the times. Between serigraphic traditions and new computer-based tools, the young have created a language expressing the joys and dif-ficulties of a people. Cuba is also a small territory in which culture is in constant effervescence and where the images are full of sunshine and smiles.

as their vocation. Competitions and exhibitions were launched with the aim of bringing institutions and population together.The 1990s saw the advent of the “special” period and an ideological turning point. The fall of the Soviet Union gave rise to an uncertain political future. The first generation not to have lived through the Revolution distanced itself from politics, and graphic designers wanted to work in sectors that gave more possibilities for experimentation. The cultural poster was a good intermediary for showing one’s ideas. With refinement and subtlety, it could also include political references, at risk of censorship. To avoid the administrative controls, screen printers and graphic designers would print at night. Some posters were destroyed. Screen-printing proved to be the best printing process for Cuban designers of this gener-ation. It made it possible to print a few copies and cover events on a local scale. Offset printing, which was more expensive and used in state printing works, was subject to closer control. Without screen-printing, the traditional poster would certainly have vanished through lack of use.In the face of an increased bureaucratization of the establishment and the systematic reproduction of the subjects treated in the state’s communications, the political image lost its power. The cinema poster, on the other hand, maintained the tradition and know-how supported by the ICAIC since 1959. The Cinema institute still has its own screen-printing workshop. The format of the paper is always the same (51 x 76 cm) and the printing technique is quite unique. The block-ade, which limits the import of materials, obliges the workshop to find new production techniques. The posters are printed with fine templates glued directly to the canvas and using acrylic inks made on the island. Their design techniques have developed thanks to the use of IT, but their production has remained unchanged for more than 50 years.

Below left:Printer at the René Portocarrero workshop.

Below right:Serigraphic workshop at the ICAIC.

Bottom left:Pot of paint in a tin of Tukola, the Cuban coke.

Photographs: Natalie Seisser / Régis Léger.


Gran final.Nelson Ponce and Eduardo Sarmiento, 2009. Proyecto Y – 10th Art Biennale of Havana.

Bachs, imágenes de cine. Fabián Muñoz Bachs, 2007. National Museum of Fine Arts, Havana.

Integración/Resistencia. Giselle Monzón and Luis Noa, 2009. Proyecto Y – 10th Art Biennale of Havana.

José Martí. Pepe Menéndez and Laura Llópiz Casal, 2003. Poster competition in tribute to the 150th anniversary of José Martí’s birth.

Lisanka. Mola (Edel Rodríguez Molano), 2009. ICAIC competition: “Ayer y hoy carteles cubanos de cine.”

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The location’s right. Bang in the heart of Berlin’s creative quarter on the border of Prenzlauer Berg and Mitte, opposite on-trend footwear store Zeha, in one of the numerous backyard buildings that house much of Berlin’s creative community. But the headquarters of Pictoplasma turn out to be a long way from what I’m expecting. For a company that for a decade has been documenting, research-ing and promoting “characters” and their design, through books, conferences, workshops, exhibi-tions, tours, DVDs and even dance lessons, the cluster of second-floor rooms is bereft of any signs of character-driven activity.

A flexible structure, and an unusual philosophyWhere you might expect to see plastic action fig-ures, piles of comics, the odd soft toy and perhaps the remnant of a giant, cardboard cut-out, or a dis-carded “walk-about” costume, there is nothing, except for a shelf of books. From such an office, it would be impossible to gather that the two men based here play many roles; curator, publisher, producer, archivist, researcher and artist. The pair, Peter Thaler and Lars Denicke, are equally enig-matic, at least on the surface. But in that sense, they, and their working space, are a perfect meta-phor for Pictoplasma; hard to define, hard to cat-egorize and, unlike many organizations working in or with character design, emphatically dealing with content rather than “surface”. “At the heart of everything we do, is seeing the characters as containers for a ‘found footage language’, an inter-national, visual, graphical language, compressed into a few pixels, and not for what they physically are,” says Thaler.From the start, ten years ago, Thaler and Denicke took their work with character design very seri-ously. For Thaler, an animation and film graduate, who had rejected what he saw as the narrative-driven, Disneyfication of characters in much of the animation around him, Pictoplasma grew from a

For more than 10 years, Peter Thaler and Lars Denicke have worked at the contemporary creation of figures within Pictoplasma in Berlin. We decode a dynamic structure and evolving festival, amid eclectic pro-grammes, conferences, performances, publishing activity, video-projections and meetings of all sorts.

By Yolanda Zappaterra and François Lehérissier


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Right-hand page:Pictarot. Illustrations by Amandine Urruty (The Empress) and Motomichi Nakamura (The Devil) for a customized deck of tarot cards. © 2010. Pictoplasma, Berlin.

Little Aaron – Me and My Friends.Hardbound children’s book by Aaron Stewart. The book shows the best spots in Kansas in which it was pleasant to live with one’s friends in the 1970s. © 2010. Pictoplasma, Berlin.

Below left:Pen to Paper. Illustrations from the Pen to Paper book published by Pictoplasma in 2010. The volume presents the work of artists who use various techniques (pencil, pen, collages) to create their characters. Shown here, Daniel Sparks, Kerozen and Allyson Mellberg Taylor. © 2010. Pictoplasma, Berlin.


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“silly little hobby”. “Characters were popping up all over the place, driven by the emerging Inter-net,” he recalls. He identifi ed these characters as part of a “global desire for communication. Lan-guage wouldn’t work, but here was a possibility of transporting and communicating complex ideas and emotions via characters that were by necessity simple, easy to recognize and with huge, anthro-pomorphic appeal.”For Thaler, the son of an Egyptologist, researching and documenting the development of this new language was important, but so too was under-standing the bigger picture and determining whether there was an underlying narration. Unlike in mainstream animation, Thaler was fascinated by “the Internet’s movement of reduction, and the harsher, graphic characters being transported via it. And the fact that it was being done by people who had no knowledge of how to animate, draw a classical character, or tell a story in a comic. They were coming from areas such as typography and graphic design, shifting from layouts and one form of visual language to a new form.”Meanwhile Denicke, a student of cultural studies and media theory at Humboldt University, Berlin, and a friend of Thaler’s, was following the emerg-ing form from the perspective of “the image”. “I was reading about picture theory, and was inter-ested in a movement called the Iconic Turn, which broadly regarded images as active entities, not passive containers. They explored the animistic qualities of images, the idea that something in them is always alive, which chimed with what Peter was looking into, so we began working together,” he recalls. Indeed, the name Picto-plasma incorporates this idea of life and image, being formed from pictogram – “an anti-narration character that doesn’t tell a story,” says Thaler – and plasma, “an image that has life”. “And we recently found out that ‘plasma’ means creature too, so it’s a ‘picture creature’, which makes perfect sense,” says Denicke.

An activity based on sharingAs the duo began connecting with character designers around the globe, from fl yer designers to illustrators, graphic designers and typogra-phers, they formed the idea of collating all that data. An archive quickly gathered pace, and a book was commissioned by DGV. It was very successful, but its collation and creation failed to address a nagging doubt that Thaler recounts. “What early character design promised was the possibility of communicating globally, but was it a fake promise, a graphical Esperanto? Were people really com-municating? I was worried that it was just thou-sands of people sitting in front of their computers looking at logos and emails and never meeting. So I devised a conference that would bring everyone together. It made so much sense, and made the whole idea look really beautiful.”That was in 2004, and, as conference novices, never having staged or attended anything simi-lar, the duo applied for and got cultural funding. They booked theatres, invited 15 speakers, and put together a programme that went beyond lec-tures and workshops to include exhibitions and unexpected events, like sewing sessions, VJ bat-tles, and a toast installation. That consisted of a board with numbers, onto which people could attach pieces of toast to create a huge “pixel” image created from different shades of toast. “It was very analogue, a real antidote to the vir-tual world most of us spent our time in. It was like a fl ow of art happenings, in a good sense, it was very playful and silly,” recalls Thaler. When selecting speakers they looked for artists who cre-ated “the characters that interested us most often, those with a personal, biographical quality, the fruit of a long and dedicated artistic process, rather than a simple, decorative image on a t-shirt,” explains Denicke.The conference not only sold out but attracted an audience largely from outside Germany. People worldwide, it seemed, were desperate to connect


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Right:Bimbo Recycled, by Boris Hoppek and Gordo de Doma, presented in “PictoOrphanage”. Project with costumes produced by Pictoplasma 2006.

Below:Characters at War. View of the installation during the 2004 exhibition. The modules depict 50 cardboard cut-outs of characters to incite the public to reflect on the notion of concept. © 2004. Pictoplasma, Berlin.


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and interact with one another. And what they were also desperate to do was introduce their characters to friends. “We wanted, and got, peo-ple who had a relationship with their characters, who were united by their ability to create a strong, iconic character full of emotional appeal. We found that these people were really crazy about their characters, and talked about them as if they were their children,” recalls Denicke. “Some were major commercial artists, others were nerdy upcoming artists, but they all had an incredible relationship with their work, which wasn’t about creating for a living, but creating for love,” continues Thaler. “What they’d put into the world was so much more than just a creature, it was almost themselves. And so the lectures would often be like a striptease act, very personal,” he adds. “And of course,” interjects Denicke, “it was all about sharing knowledge and inspiration.”This desire to share knowledge and inspiration had spilled into Thaler and Denicke’s vision too. Their aim was to make people think about the bigger picture, to dig beneath the individual characters and see what the sum total of their existence might mean. To this end, they devised Characters at War: “150 cardboard cut-outs of characters lined up on stage side by side, devoid of context. There was no way of knowing whether the character was commercial or per-sonal, they were on a level playing fi eld, battling for attention,” recalls Denicke. This was the beginning of the duo’s own development of creative expression, in the conferences and beyond. The following year, “we were keen to create something more corporeal, more body-driven, something that made the user physically connect with the characters,” says Thaler. The manifestation of that desire was a rodeo ride, a white bucking bronco, “like a little sperm, in an all-white, very sterile environment that was supposed to suggest laboratory conditions, policed by people dressed in white who helped

you onto the bronco. We liked the idea that no one would get it, but everyone would feel quite strange in this weird room with its trance-like music and ambience, and that it would be play-ful, but also irritating,” laughs Denicke.

Artistic exploration and research go hand in handUnderlying many of the installations Pictoplasma create are serious, thoughtful explorations of wider topics and far-reaching concerns. The “playful but irritating” bucking bronco, for exam-ple, is based on robotics research into the appeal of anthropomorphic characteristics, which found that the more realistic an object is, the happier we are to engage with it – but only up to a certain point. “The rodeo machine played with that. It had a simplistic design and looked friendly enough, but you could hear the mechanism underneath, and a vulgar motor driving it that could knock your head off,” explains Thaler. Another initiative, the PictoOrphanage project and exhibition, in which characters were made as costumes and travelled the globe, “their graphical perfection a little misplaced and out of context when you bump into them on your way to work or in the supermarket,” was intended to investigate “the promise of a utopian space where we humans can truly interact with the realm of perfect images,” recalls Denicke.Despite such works, Thaler and Denicke emphat-ically refute the “artist” tag, which I try to pin on them. “There’s some degree of art practice in what we do, but artists think about how to present what they do as art, and market it as such, and we don’t,” says Denicke. “Unlike an art-ist using people to bring their idea to life, we cre-ate collaborations, with artistic input from many different people, so it would be wrong to say we’re the artists. We’re happy for people to see us like Gilbert and George. If they want us to, we can put on a suit and smile, but it doesn’t make us artists,” insists Thaler. Plus of course, he adds,


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Works by: 1. Bronwen Marshall. Give Me Back My Name. RCA Graduate Collection, 2009. Photo © Kyriakos + Kolette.2. Riitta Ikonen. Snowflake. 2007. Photo © Anni Koponen © Riitta Ikonen.3. Andrea Crews. Integral. 2005. Photo © Yasmina Haddad4. Craig Green. Graduate Collection. 2010. 5. Photo © Sonia Melot, Recession Studio.6. Makoto Azuma. Men’s collection 2008. Photo: © Shunsuke Shiinoki.7. Boris Hoppek. Sushi – Ana. 2010. © 2011. Pictoplasma, Berlin.

Not A Toy. Fashioning Radical Characters. Book published by Atopos cvc and Vassilis Zidianakis on the notion of character in fashion and textile creativity. Distribution: Pictoplasma Publishing.© 2011. Pictoplasma, Berlin.

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“The installations are just one of the things we do; it’s part of the archiving, curating, editing and promotion of character creation and design: that’s what we do.” Denicke adds, “Our main job is to be curators, and while the installations and productions are a lot of fun and exciting, this aspect is very important.”

Pictoplasma in the futureAs the conferences grow, both in size and number, and are joined by tours, mini-conferences, exhibi-tions, the publication of DVDs, more books (including a second encyclopaedia), master classes, products such as Tarot cards, and events such as dance tours, do the duo worry about los-ing their enthusiasm, or going too mainstream? “We’re opening up more – this year’s conference had some designers of more old school, classical character design, and we can do that now because we have a strong profile. If we had started with the mainstream five years ago, we wouldn’t have any profile,” says Denicke. Devel-oping new projects keeps them “interested and excited”, he says. Currently, their research project on character and fashion design is incorporating the work of creative artists such as Issey Miyake and Leigh Bowery ; and the Pictarot card pack is being developed as an iPhone App. What there won’t be, insist Denicke and Thaler, are toys. “I understand the idea of translating something and making it accessible, but I don’t like the materiality of them. Many people have toys that they proudly customize, but that’s just ornamental patterns on the same surfaces,” says Denicke. “Plus, I don’t want to have them collect-ing dust on my shelf.” Thaler is more unequivo-cal. “We don’t like them,” he says emphatically. “It’s just another medium, and it’s a fashion, or a wave, particularly the plastic ones. And without naming names, 80 per cent of them are total kitsch.” They are less damning of the handmade toy movement, enthusing about the graphic qual-ity of early manifestations, and citing Nina Braun

as “someone who works in a really interesting way.” But even that holds little interest for them, “now that every stand you see at a craft market has them.”What is obviously still dear to them, and will hopefully continue to be, is the character. “It might not go on forever, but we’ve been graced with cultural support rather than industry sup-port, which means we have the total liberty to look at this pop trash, pro-consumerism topic and actually treat it as if it were precious; to look at this ‘found footage’ and treat it like a vocal lan-guage with a hidden message,” says Thaler. “Everything we do – the installations, the books, the conferences – we treat with honour. It’s prob-ably stupid to waste so much of the taxpayers’ money on such bullshit, but we do it with respect towards the topic,” he adds. “We don’t try to be on-trend or hip. A few years ago we could have gone the ‘street scene’ route, but we didn’t; we take a more serious approach, and do things such as collaborations with dancers or costume designers, who have a completely dif-ferent understanding of what a character is. Bringing together various vocabularies of charac-ter is exciting. And, as long as we keep finding new people to work with, it will remain exciting,” concludes Denicke.The cultural phenomenon that inspired Pictoplasma to create its archive and develop original methods for showcasing that archive, one that had genuine significance for the history of visual language, is arguably redundant now that entire movies may be shared online. However, Pictoplasma’s work is still, emphati-cally relevant. The tours may get bigger, the par-ticipants more mainstream, but at the heart of Pictoplasma is a genuine, undiminished passion for what underpins character design, and judging from their enthusiasm and dedication, that’s not about to change.

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PICTOPLASMA2011 eDiTion

1. Little Aaron – Me and My Friends. An image from the book.© Aaron Stewart © 2010. Pictoplasma Publishing, Berlin.2. and 3. The Papp robot by Norwegian engineers and designers Hilde andBård Tørdal. © 2011. Hilde & Bard Tordal.4.Reason is the Oracle by American artist A.J. Fosik at the Jonathan Levine Gallery, New York. Wood, paint, nails. © A.J. Fosik, Galerie L.J. Paris5. The Keepon robot by BeatBots. 6. A Pictoplasma lecture at the 2011 edition. 7. Cover of the Pictarot tarot deck. © 2011, Pictoplasma, Berlin.

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Berlin, 7 April 2011. The Pictoplasma festival opens its doors at the Babylon Kino cinema in Berlin. The festival provides the opportunity to see, touch and try what is being done in the contemporary creation of characters. The programme is attractive: 30 exhibitions, three days of screenings, conferences, workshops and concerts. At the rate of a cycle of screenings in the morning, followed by a cycle of confer-ences in the afternoon, the spectator is rapidly swept into a joyful whirlwind of colours and pixels, textures and worlds. It is an exercise for the spectator, who shifts from fascination (the incredible range of media used by Jeremyville is almost like a merchandising project) to wonder (the jewel-like work of illustrator and poster-designer Roman Klonek, using woodcuts to pro-duce lively, timeless images). The programme is eclectic, motley, protean. It is not an elitist festival, but rather a major illustration fair. Despite a string of styles, worlds and proposals, the pertinence of the programme becomes clear over the duration and in the form of the event. Because discerning a trend through an over-view of contemporary creation in the design of characters is a delicate exercise, or indeed quite simply perilous. It is this unusual approach that it is interesting to highlight: that of pre-senting the work of professionals outside the design of pure characters. And from this, it is but a step to considering their work with the same filters and through the same lens.

Keepon and Papp, transverse projectsPictoplasma seems to have taken this step by including Marek Michalowski in the cycle of conferences. A robotics engineer (he works espe-cially on the interactions between man and machine) and co-founder of BeatBots (beatbots.net), he is a member of a group of engineers who create robotic characters that are far from being simple “impersonal mechanical tools.” Beatbots’ flagship project, called Keepon, is a small robot resembling two tennis balls, one on top of the other. Keepon is fitted with two cameras and a microphone. Its complex artic-ulated skeleton enables it to move in all four directions on the basis of the signal received, be this a sound, tactile or visual. Perfected in 2003, the aim of the project is to study and encourage human social development, notably amongst autistic children. Therapists, paediatricians and parents use them as a tool to observe,

study behaviour and encourage social inter-action, capture attention or express emotions.In a register that is closer to toy design, Pictoplasma’s public was able to take advan-tage of the freshness of the offerings from art-ists and designers Hilde & Bård Tørdal (3753% Tørdal, Norway). The project they presented in the conference was a robot called Papp, which lies at the crossroads between product design, robotics and toy design. Papp is fearful, accord-ing to its creators, and from time to time “raises [its] box and starts to run to find a new corner in which to hide.” Moving in response to light, it appears in the form of a cubic cardboard box that can be customized by its owner, in terms of programming or as space for expression. The robot can then become the reflection of its user, an extrovert robot, provided that its formal outer form corresponds to its character.

Public response and developmentsSuch transverse projects clearly beg the ques-tion as to their reception by the public. In the case of Keepon, it is interesting to note that their principle of development (a scientific and therapeutic context) broadened after it was made known to the public, and its properties enabled it to explore new territories, such as dance and the reaction to music. In the same way, Papp, which was originally “a moving art object, or an interactive sculpture,” subse-quently became a veritable toy, infinitely cus-tomizable, ready to be taken in hand by other artists and designers and launched into a real market. It is clearly hard to establish the com-mon factors that have enabled these two small robots to step outside their original area of experimentation. But we have established three points in common: their interactivity with their user and, by extension, their public; their minimal design, leaving plenty of scope for the imagination and interpretation (all the more so in the case of Papp); their anthropomorphism, leaving scope for empathy and identification. This last point is especially strong and could almost be extended to all the works presented.

Distribution of the works and stakesOutside its publishing approach, one of the major rendezvous of Pictoplasma lies above all in its programme of exhibitions and work-shops of art practices. In parallel with about

30 partner locations, the programme pub-lished for the occasion (20,000 copies!) invites the spectator to participate in a mischievous paperchase between the Hackescher Markt, the Rosenthaler Platz and the Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz. By its very nature, the network formed perfectly embodies the notion of distribution, since Pictoplasma and the invited artists phys-ically occupy and infuse the local territory, weaving a strong bond between the exhibi-tions and the festival. The form is interesting: it also provokes situations that are at times close to being happenings in some interven-tions. That of the young Icelandic illustrator Siggi Eggertsson, for example, giving a surpris-ing conference presented by his virtual alter ego. This is the art of making use of his timidity to express himself in front of a public and form a creative work.Pictoplasma thus proposes the experience of a mediation through practice and exchange, adopting devices that develop, within some cultural institutions dedicated to contempo-rary art especially (Palais de Tokyo, the Lyons contemporary art museum, etc.). Apart from these devices, as in the case of some other fes-tivals, Pictoplasma still seems to count on the autonomy and independence of its public. A turning point appears this year, too, in the way of envisaging the design of characters, but also in its direct applications. In diversify-ing the means of distribution of the works and the possibility for the public of taking posses-sion of them, the structure displays the deep awareness of a dynamic of crafts, of a variety of proposals and contexts. The publishing activ-ity, seen early on as a necessary complement to the exhibitions, is a perfect example of the ephemeral and event-driven aspect that has to exist, and which is itself a necessity. And which confirms its desire to keep as close to the “con-temporary creation of characters”: an adapta-tion to the transformations of the crafts, public, media and times. A profound reflection and a step back that makes sense year after year.


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For the sixth year running, étapes has brought out a spe-cial October issue on the top design graduates. Year after year, their projects reflect a generation’s ideals, their concerns about tomorrow, or even changing teaching methods and image trends. Each degree year has its par-ticularities and preferred subjects, a surge of freshness comparable to a bracing sea spray. Popular imagery, col-lections and the future of publishing are questions recur-rently probed in the projects that we looked at for the special graduate feature on the étapes website or asked teachers and schools to submit. The functional purpose of these numerous projects was perhaps the most striking aspect that they had in common. A basic recurrent fea-ture that points the way to future development in graphic design, whether a specialized alphabet for text messag-ing, tableware for people with rheumatoid arthritis, an iPad application for the hearing-impaired, or an alter-native urban plan. What their projects all show is that these 2011 design graduates are well and truly anchored in today’s society.The notion of tools, dear to design, seems to be reliving its glory days with such functionally-minded projects. Whereas several sociologists and thinkers talk only of the growing individualism of today’s youth, this young generation of graphic artists and designers prove that they are listening to the society they live in. Down with beauty! In tandem, the aesthetic consideration stance prior to the project, as an atypical formal style, seems to have collapsed. So have intellectuals got it all wrong? Are these budding designers in fact far more open to the world than their predecessors? Perhaps we have under-estimated the collaborative potential of Web 3.0., i.e. the idea of networks and participatory action that underlie visual creative arts today. IM AND CB

2011 graduates

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BORN IN 1988

WWW.MATHILDEH.COM

SCHOOL: ESAG-PENNINGHEN, PARIS (FR)

DEGREE: MASTER 2

TEACHERS:

B. BAISSAIT, J.-L. BLOCH-LAINÉ

Mathilde Huron

Thanks to technology, we can now observe the brain at work and have a better understanding of the correlation between mental attitudes and activity in different areas of the brain. A whole array of biological reactions lies behind our emotions. Mathilde Huron explores the links between the central nervous system and our behaviour and asks herself whether our ever-increasing knowledge of the human brain will fi nally allow us to manipulate it.

Informed by the latest research, notably by neurobiologist Antonio Damasio, Huron redesigns images of brain areas and indicates their roles. Drawing inspiration from the shapes and colours of medical images, she reveals the complex beauty of the human thinking machine. The potentially pernicious use of technology and the media to control our minds is alluded to by way of images taken from the daily news. Altered in a “kinetic art” style – which

borrows its graphic elements from artists like Nicolas Schöffer and Brion Gysin – the images attempt to directly affect the observer’s brain. Her project questions the relationship between body and mind: our “personality.” Even if consciousness remains a mystery – as much for the philosopher as the neurologist – this project sheds light on some of the mechanisms that rule our actions and decisions. MP

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1. Brain areas being activated by an emotion.

2. Kinetic, labyrinthine illustration based on scientific documents (IRM showing areas of the brain activated by an emotion) superimposed over portraits to bring the human element back into the scientific data.

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Théo MongourdinBORN IN 1988

THEOMONGOURDIN.JIMDO.COM

SCHOOL: DUPERRÉ, PARIS (FR)

DEGREE: DSAA

TEACHERS: P. GINER,

M. ROCHUT, P. PRAQUIN

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For the MuseoGames exhibition at the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris, the co-curator and scenographer, Pierre Giner, invited Théo Mongourdin to create a line of scarves based on a video games theme. The student responded with humour and designed a series of head scarves printed with motifs from old video games with symmetrical and classic designs like those used by Hermès. High fashion meets popular culture head-on… The idea inspired Mongourdin’s graduation project and other fusions, such as traditional carpet patterns that conceal contemporary images propagated in digital media and television – Lolcats, dressed-up dogs, wrestlers, sports cars, etc. And while we’re teasing tradition, why not take a dive into the sacrosanct world of religion. Following Wim Delvoye’s example, Mongourdin turns his hand to stained-glass windows and replaces the coloured glass with stills from video games and the news, football matches and game shows. The result is double desecration: a visual icon mimicked by a coloured, luminous image – the religious by the vulgar. The project as a whole questions the graphic codes of the “chic,” the traditional and the sacred. CB

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1. Carpet with a twofold meaning. Motifs hidden in pixels are revealed as the viewer approaches.

2. Printed silk scarves/designs and prototype.

3. Videos: game shows, wrestling, football and TV news programmes/stained-glass window.

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Arthur Remacle’s project explores the similarities between graphic design and culinary art, two separate worlds that are linked together by an important artistic dimension. The similarities between them gave the student the idea of creating a special, customized language to translate recipes using graphic symbols, while avoiding all pre-established codes and rules. His initial research led him to abandon the actual shapes of foods, which ended up looking too much like illustration. To represent each dish in a minimalist style, he created an alphabet book that distinguishes the ingredients using colours and shapes. The seven food groups serve as his point of reference. Each group is symbolized by a different geometric shape and comes in many variations. The book contains 489 picto-grams for a total of 489 ingredients. A rack of lamb becomes a fuchsia octagon and vegetables orange triangles. In parallel, he has developed several recipes and packs that show just how perfect his graphic language is for packaging. CL

BORN IN 1988

WWW.ARTHURREMACLE.COM

SCHOOL: ÉCOLE D’ART MARYSE ELOY (FR)

DEGREE: DESIGNER

TEACHER:

A. DENASTAS

Arthur Remacle

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MEAT, FISH AND EGGS FRUIT AND VEGETABLES

FATS, SEASONINGS, CONDIMENTS, MUSTARDSSTARCHES, POTATOES, CEREALS

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1. Classification by food group. Each basic shape corresponds to a food group.

2. Posters contain the recipe title, an illustration and a caption listing all the dish’s ingredients.

3. Packaging is simple, with an illustration to indicate the contents.

4. A booklet contains all of the pictograms and explains the graphic system.

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The second graduate from the Icinori design duo (Strasbourg), Mayumi Otero has been feeding her imagination with old images and objects picked up on eBay and during her many travels: Indian engravings, Chinesedrawings, boxes of matches (some of which have travelled around the world and been completely reinterpreted). The student’s project is inspired by images that are often naïve and contain real printing errors: “Like a musical instrument adds its own particular timbre to a musical note, low-cost and traditional design techniques generate imperfections – a physical tonality.” While screen-printing is the common feature in work by Icinori, this illustrator’s personal

work tends to use a much wider range of processes. In Promenade au musée, a book commissioned by French museum publisher RMN (below and right), a line of black pencil and Photoshop colourization make it easier to control the fi nal print remotely. The limited choice of colours is reminiscent of Icinori’s screen prints but the frozen postures are distinctively Otero’s own: “I like to draw deliberately straight lines. The kind of hieratic straightness that one fi nds in ancient engravings, where the static pose signals drama and emphasizes the theatrical quality of the scene.” Combined with the illustrator’s delicate lines this quality produces an ethereal atmosphere which is ripe for her oneiric adventures. CB

BORN IN 1985

HTTP://MAYUMIOTERO.COM

SCHOOL: ESAD, STRASBOURG (FR)

DEGREE: DNSEP

TEACHER:

G. DÉGÉ

Mayumi Otero

Screen-printed pop-up book, published by Editions Icinori (limited edition of 70).

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typography

TYPO BerlinDo we really need new typefaces? In these times, Peter Bilak raises a topical matter that gained its full significance at the 2011 TYPO Berlin conference. At a time when graphic design is undergoing profound changes, Linda Kudrnovská examines the thoughts and latest creations on the subject by some designers of fonts. A conversation with Peter Bil’ak, Kris Sowersby and Pascal Zoghbi.

by linda kudrnovská

Certainly most designers understand that graphic design is cur-rently experiencing one of the most fundamental transitions in its entire history. In light of this, asking and speaking about the course design is taking is certainly warranted as one way or another, this shift is evident all around us: at school, at places where we look for information, in the tools we use at work and more. SHIFT was the topic of this year’s TYPO Berlin conference. Some speakers even stuck to the topic (which was really quite a shift) and used their own experience to attempt to predict or show by analogy what the future has in store for us. And a courageous few, perhaps accidentally or haphazardly, broached topics that the majority of typography designers must consider to be heresy, but which must have already occurred to those who stay at least somewhat abreast of what’s happening in graphic design and font design.Font design is closely tied to the transitions occurring in the entire field and is a highly visible barometer of change. Although

a number of technological barriers have fallen over the past two decades, the OpenType format has come into existence, Unicode has become standard and a designer can set website typefaces to whatever she pleases, designers still run up against several problems that are related to the public’s enormous interest in e-readers, smart phones and other PDAs. Several font designers who spoke at the conference understanda-bly presented their type foundries’ new releases. And when, with varying levels of persuasiveness, they tried to show the public just how invaluable their typefaces were, the same provocative question that Peter Bil’ak raised in his talk kept nagging me: Do we really still need new fonts? I decided to discuss this issue with three typographers from three different cultural and geo-graphical environments who spoke at this year’s TYPO Berlin.www.TYPOBerlIn.De

In your talk at TYPO Berlin you raised a question that I always ask myself whenever I visit a typography conference: So what’s the deal – do we really still need new fonts?we don’t need new fonts that bring noth-ing new. when an old typeface can be used equally well on a certain project, a new one is meaningless. Most of the typefaces released these days are unnecessary. But that’s noth-ing new, and that’s okay. It’s the same with the proliferation of stupid films and music. Very quickly they simply get tossed aside, and within just a short period you can’t bear looking at them or hearing them anymore, they’re useless. But this also opens the doors to new oppor-tunities. Creating typefaces is not just about creating infinite variations on a theme – you can also look at them in regard to new demands that the present creates. The clear-est example is fonts that are read on a screen. while 99 per cent of the available fonts are intended for print, we now have an unprec-

edented opportunity to work on specific fonts for the screen. So even though MyFonts sells 100,000 fonts, if a nine-point font has to be used in windows, the options are reduced to just a small handful. That’s where there’s a clear need for new typefaces.

Talking about small font sizes, your system Elementar is the most comprehensive concept for displaying fonts at small sizes. It is based on a font with rough, pixelated edges though. Weren’t you afraid users might not accept a return to pixelated fonts? The Elementar system is similar to our History project – the product of a long devel-opment process and personal fascination that goes against the tide. It’s still too early to speak about a public reac-tion to this project, but in History I found that if I focus on the project itself and see it through to my greatest satisfaction, then this is the most that we can do. History became our bestseller one year after it was released.

Peter Bil’ak (1973) is a type and graphic designer and the founder of the Typotheque type foundry based in The Hague, Netherlands. He is a lecturer for the Type & Media course at the Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague. In 2009 he co-founded Indian Type Foundry.

Peter Bil’ak

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Some typographers state that designers cannot design good quality fonts for a writing system they are not familiar with, that it’s not enough to master the shapes, one must also understand the cultural context. How do you deal with this problem?It is defi nitely more diffi cult to create a type-face for a language or a script the designer does not know, there’s no doubt about that. In projects like that we usually spend 70 per cent of our time just researching the issue. Only afterwards can we start to create and produce the typeface.In projects like this, we invite consultants/experts in the area that interests us. In the meantime we’ve also created a methodol-ogy on how to approach foreign alphabets. we always start with orientation and docu-mentation about what has already been cre-ated, looking not just for successful examples, but also examples that failed or could not be used. Often one can learn more from those than from stellar examples. we also try to

start from scratch (from handwriting, for example) in order to avoid making mistakes that arose, for example, as results of techno-logical development.

How do you feel in your role as a modern typographer-missionary who comes from a completely different cultural background to bring digitalized Devanagari to India?It is not all that different than when we offer a typeface for a language with which we are intimately familiar. we offer a tool that is cre-ated for readers, and they are able to make their own assessments. when working with Arabic or Indian lan-guages, though, the real need for new type-faces is much greater than for latin letters. There are languages which have very few fonts, and as we look at very specifi c uses – like newspaper layouts or use on the Internet at very small font sizes – there is a minimum of options for using existing fonts.

The “non-Latin” world is not exactly exemplary for respecting copyrights. Have your Devanagari or Arabic letters already been pirated? Of course, but that’s no reason for us to stop working on them. It’s also our responsibility to speak about the font creation process and why it’s important to create good quality fonts, and to create the conditions for using the fonts legally.

On the other hand, who is the typical client who offi cially orders a font from Indian Type Foundry?Until now these were mainly local companies and a couple of international fi rms we work for. Our fonts are quite popular on local tele-vision stations as well as in the print media. Outside of India, the clients were often uni-versities that needed to print out books in Indian languages.www.PeTerBIlAK.COM

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1. Peter Bil’ak. Gujarati, Indian foundry, 2011.2. Peter Bil’ak. Comparison of non-Latin typefaces.

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Peter Bil’ak raised an almost heretical question on the importance of creating new typefaces. What’s your view?It’s not a heretical question: I ask it of myself most days. And the answer, of course, is usu-ally “Yes”! I can’t speak for other typeface designers, but for me there are simply too many interest-ing genres and sub-genres to explore. I simply enjoy drawing typefaces.

Where do you fi nd inspiration? It doesn’t seem as though your work is suffering because you live in New Zealand, a 36-hour fl ight from all usual traditional examples of inspiration. I have acquired many good type specimen books over the years. I order them from online second-hand and antiquarian deal-ers. Sometimes I have recommendations, but mostly it’s guesswork. every specimen I get contains at least three good ideas for a new typeface family. Of course, that’s not really inspiration: it’s more research and reference. I suppose the real inspiration is seeing my typefaces used well by graphic designers.

Typefaces are tools, and even the best tools are totally useless when not used.

How would you deal with it if someone (a multinational corporation or extremist political party or ideology) whose activities or philosophy you truly do not condone would choose your font to promote itself? If it were to happen, there’s not a lot I can do about it, nor do I think that the choice of a typeface will fundamentally infl uence the practices of somebody like you mention above. It’s like companies that make kitchen chef knives – how do they cope with a mur-derer using their knives?

What would be the ideal use of your font then? It would be a design where the form and con-tent are harmonized so beautifully that it’s hard to separate one from the other.www.KlIM.CO.nZ

Kris Sowersby (1981) is a typeface designer and the founder of the Klim Type Foundry based in Wellington, New Zealand. He graduated from the Wanganui School of Design in 2003. He received Certifi cates of Excellence (Type Designers Club, New York, Serrano, Hardys) and was named an ADC Young Gun in 2010.

Kris Sowersby

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The situation on the Arabic font market is somewhat different, but nevertheless: do we still need new typefaces? Yes, the situation is different: in the Arabic type world there is still a lack of new fonts. Arabic designers have been stuck with the same hand-designed Arabic fonts for the last 20 years. Over the past five years there have been a number of new modern Arabic fonts that answer the needs of contemporary Arab graphic designers, but there is still great demand for a larger variety and diversity of Arabic fonts. As one of the contemporary Arabic type designers, in the past five years I have been creating Arab corporate fonts with exclusive rights. At present some of the exclusive rights are expiring and I am start-ing to publish my Arabic typefaces.

New technology that supports Arabic script and enables Arabic type designers to develop advanced Arabic fonts without compromising the aesthetics of the script is opening the door for a new era for Arabic fonts.with the advanced OpenType technol-ogy and other specialized Arabic tools like Tasmeem and others, Arabic typefaces are being designed nowadays with a true spirit of the traditional Arabic script, with no need to compromise the sense of meeting the limi-tations of old print and computer technology that has been present from the invention of movable type up to the creation of typewrit-ers and computers.

Multilingual families are highly popular among typeface designers. Have you ever designed a Latin alphabet typeface or multilingual family? recently I have designed an Arabic/latin cor-porate font for Mathaf, the Arab Museum of

Modern Art in Doha, Qatar. Multilingual type-faces are part of the globalized world we are living in. Most of the publications in the Arab world are bilingual or trilingual, with Arabic alongside one or two western languages, usu-ally english, French or German. Multilingual typefaces ease the task for graphic designers to match Arabic and western fonts in a given publication.

Apart for the shapes, what is the biggest difference between designing Latin and Arabic script? Do you have to bear any particular cultural differences in mind when designing these two?The script by itself makes all the difference. The Arabic script is based on the traditional calligraphic handwritten letters with flow-ing baselines and modulated letters, while latin is currently a structured letter system which moved on from the script and is based on vertical structures alongside curved pen strokes. In Arabic there are several different kinds of script styles (naskh, Diwani, Thuluth, ruqaa, Farsi, Kufi, etc.) that modern Arabic fonts are based on, while script is one of sev-eral styles in latin like sans serif, slab serif or modern serif. The typographic guidelines for designing Arabic fonts also differ drastically in com-parison to latin. The x-height in latin is replaced by loop-heights, eye-heights and tooth-heights. The ascender-height is replaced by two or three ascender-heights and respec-tively for the descender heights.

Is there demand for custom-made typefaces among companies active in the Arab market?International companies that need to open to the Arab market or have an Arab branch established in the Middle east need to develop

an Arabic corporate identity that mirrors their western identity. Hence there is a lot of demand for creating corporate Arabic type-faces to match existing corporate latin type-faces. In addition, some Arab nations legally oblige international companies and brands to create an Arabic version of their identity before allowing them to open and do business in their cities. Furthermore, corporate Arabic fonts are being developed for Arab companies that are expanding their business and seeking a wider Arab and international market.

What do you think is the future of Arabic typefaces in the coming decades? In which direction will it develop? The future of digital Arabic fonts is moving rapidly and benefiting from the advancing typographic technology which support the characteristics of Arabic script and do not limit or damage it, as was the case with early primitive typographic technology. new young Arabic type designers are emerging and new digital tools are being developed to support Arabic script to the fullest. www.29ArABICleTTerS.COM

Pascal Zoghbi (1980) is a type designer, typographer and the owner of the 29 Arabic Letters type foundry based in Beirut, Lebanon. In 2006 he graduated from the Type & Media course at the Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague, Netherlands. He has created contemporary Arabic fonts for leading Middle Eastern newspapers and has taught typography and type design at the Lebanese-American University and American University of Beirut since 2006. He recently co-authored and edited the book Arabic Graffiti, published by From Here To Fame in Berlin.

Pascal Zoghbi

3. Kris Sowersby, Klim Type Foundry. Founders Grotesk type family. In light, regular, medium, semi-bold and bold.

4. Kris Sowersby, Klim Type Foundry. Tiempos type family, in light, regular, medium, semi-bold and bold.

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Azimuts n°36 – Une anthologie / A Reader

Twice-yearly reviewÉdition Cité du design484 pages – 16.8 x 22.4 cm French and English – €25

Architecture & TypographieQuelques approches historiques

Jean-Marie Courant, Jérôme Saint-Loubert Bié, Catherine de SmetCo-published by B42, Ensba Lyons, EesaB Rennes58 pages – 23.5 x 33 cmFrench – €18

AFAA 2005-2010

P. Audart, M. Favaro and D. PoyetÉditions 205 128 pages – 17.5 x 23.3 cmFrench – €24.50

Twenty years on. The review Azimuts, which began under the direction of Jacques Bonnaval at the École des Beaux-arts de Saint-Étienne, cel-ebrates its birthday by publishing its thirty-sixth edition. A textbook on research and industrial design for the school since 1991, the latest edition comes as an anthology. It brings together a selection of arti-cles, published between 1991 and 2010, which are mainly devoted to theoretical texts, highlighting a reflection on design and its chal-lenges. Intended as a mouthpiece for the young, post-graduate, design researchers at Saint-Etienne, the review Azimuts aims to explore, expand and look at design through analytical thought, research and

creativity. This immediately raises other issues such as the teaching of design, its relationship to other disciplines, the evolution and future practices that it generates, going even as far as to rethink design as a cultural phenomenon, to pick up on the words of the former director of the school, Emmanuel Tibloux. And for this to happen, there is nowhere better than an art school, as it presents by far the best hot-bed for connections and emerging ideas, knowledge and creativity. The promise has been upheld, and the thirty plus issues so far published have proved to be, through their broad themes, truly forward-look-ing, educational and thought-pro-voking tools on the world of design

for professionals or students. The latest issues immediately spring to mind on their research or on their question of mobility, driven forward by Constance Rubini, editor-in-chief for the last five years. A tribute in many ways to Jacques Bonnaval, its instigator, and a look both at the rich editorial production and to the future, Azimuts 36 marks a turning point in the history of the magazine: with a renewal of the post-graduate organization, its layout, its sections and the management team, made up today by Claire Fayolle and Marc Monjou. And a renewal for the present editor-in-chief, Jean-Marie Courant, and for graphic design. A kind of new departure. All the best. IM

Created by Damien Gautier (graphic designer, author and former member of the collective, Trafi k) the publishers Two Hundred and Five (205, or CCV for fans of Roman numerals) saw the light of day in 2010. Wanting to make “beautiful” books and affi rm the role of paper in the digital era, the publisher is responsible for several books of photographs, architecture and town plan-ning. Veritable monograph of AFAA Architecture (the agency that brings together architects Philippe Audart, Marc Favaro and Dominique Poyet), AFAA 2005-2010 offers plans, photographs, 3-D models and precise descrip-tions that provide an excellent view of projects from this Lyons-based outift. The Rhone city is also given pride of place in Lyon, architecture(s) urbaine(s), produced in collaboration with communications agency In media res. The publication, sum total of a decade of buildings, gives a voice to designer Olivia Putman, the fi lm-maker Diane Kurys and even the psychiatrist Jean-Hervé Bouleau, who provide the reader with a series of refl ections on the subject of urban landscapes. For these two reference books, the publishers Two-Hundred-and-Five offer an attractive typographical system, a rigorous layout, based on a play of colours. This is an opportunity to grasp with one glance the major issues facing architecture today. CG

The outcome of conference proceedings at a workshop conducted in two French art schools (Lyons and Rennes), this review conducted by Jean-Marie Courant, Jérôme Saint-Loubert Bié, and Catherine de Smet, examines the relationship between architecture and typography whether in the space of a book or an urban space, in the scale of a page, or a monument or a city. Exploration of the architectural model for formatting text and the drawing of a letter, of the typographical model for epigraphy, of architectural forms invented and disseminated using graphical means or the symbolic competi-tion which is played out in the public arena between that which is written and that which is built, Architecture & Typographie connects issues on the practice of graphic design with questions of aesthetics, anthropology and politics developed by urban and architectural theory, often considered simi-lar in the past (from the Renaissance to the 20th-century avant-garde). IM

Lyon, architecture(s) urbaine(s)

Gilles Buna, Frédérique MartinentÉditions 205208 pages – 23 x 30 cmFrench – €36

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books

The contributions of Emile Robert Deodaat Oxenaar (aka Ootje) will be remembered. Graphic designer, artist, artistic adviser to the PTT (Dutch Post and Telegraph Offi ce), curator, head of department at the Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague, this man was always able to build and reinvent his work and stature. He worked to orders coming out of the field of culture, creat-ing advertising. He designed Dutch banknotes and then, once at the PTT, decided to bring in other designers: Jan Van Toorn, Gert Dumbar, Wim Crouwel and Gerrit Noordzij, to name a few. If his status as sponsor may have damaged the distribution of Ootje Oxenaar’s personal work, in this book 010 Publishers address this memory loss. In its pages, we discover the variety of meth-ods and aesthetics he employed. With discretion and with disarming ease, he sails between design processes, composition and graphical forms. His sketchbook is amazing, funny, and his stroke and techniques appear to renew themselves con-stantly. On reading this book, we understand how and why Oxenaar understood design for the masses. A very nice surprise. CB

Ootje Oxenaar. Designer and Commissioner

Els Kuijpers010 Publishers128 pages – 27 x 21 cm – English – €29.50

In this book by Laura Meseguer, nothing is left to chance. The selection of magazines and journals here presented speaks volumes about contempo-rary type design in terms of printed works. We rediscover the Back Cover from the publishers B42, Ink by Superscript, the architecture maga-zine Mark, the Swiss journal dedicated to tattoo-ing and photography, Sang bleu, the Londoners’ Little White Lies, the Spanish d(x)i, NewWork mag-azine or even Slanted, the German magazine ded-icated to type creation. French journals are well represented, making you wonder why there is such interest in this type of medium. Each edito-rial project offers insights into art direction and

a typographic bias which, in most cases results in relevant and compelling final outcomes. However, the focus is confi ned to print without addressing the continuity of this area in digital media. However, in the space of 192 illustrated pages, the author, herself a graphic designer and typographer from Barcelona, makes a successful analysis of the use of typography in the realms of layouts, and studiously surveys issues of editorial identity. IM

Typography in Magazines

Laura MeseguerBis Publishers192 pages – 24 x 17 cm – English – €19.90

Edited by Daniel Navarro, Alex Trochut – More is more is a fine paperback comprising three parts and as many types of paper to present the infl uences, projects and approach of Barcelona-based designer, Alex Trochut. Typographical adventures, generous curves and voluptuous shapes in his illustrations as well as fi ne detail in each typographic letter contribute to an eclec-tic world lying somewhere between op art, pop culture and graphic infl uences from the United States and the likes of Milton Glaser, Paul Rand and Herb Lubalin. The designer is also interested in Escher’s drawings and his way of deconstruct-ing things that ostensibly seem stable, a collec-tion that quickly leads him to consider the work of Vasarely and John Pound. Alex Trochut offers a world where elements are deformed, distorted, soft, resonant, fl owing, liquid. Page by page, his projects unfold with a natural consistency. Like a sweet, a marshmallow with a pale green exte-rior, this monograph provides the reader with an interesting dip into the work of the graphic designer and an opportunity to discover a variety of projects ranging from creative typography and illustrations through to identities or posters for advertising campaigns. IM

Alex Trochut – More is More

Daniel NavarroIndex Book288 pages – 24.5 x 30 cm – English – €48

Volume : Writing on Graphic Design, Music, Art and Culture

Kenneth FitzgeraldPrinceton Architectural Press256 pages – 15.2 x 22.9 cm – English – $24.95

How many design critics are there in France? Two? Three? In Britain and the United States, this discipline is more prevalent but not neces-sarily that widespread. Kenneth FitzGerald, artist, teacher and writer intends to reaffi rm this con-cept. In Volume, he proclaims his commitment to graphic design, which he compares to pop music. Like cinema or popular art, graphic design is a cul-tural product and should therefore be critiqued: with distinct views, compelling logic, rigour and laser-sharp scholarly thinking. A chapter on the existence of social classes in graphic communi-cations, a defi nition of the elitism of the image, a review of teaching and the status of the graphic design teacher, he provides a matrix by which to evaluate the discipline. The topics are numer-ous. By mixing together critiques of different art forms, the author seeks to address the general public. And why not? His knowledge of literature far exceeds anyone else’s in the world of graphic design. Among those cited, David Carson rubs shoulders with Marshall McLuhan, Guy Debord and Salinger. Evidence that an uncompromising evaluation of the profession can also provide its best opportunity for recognition. CB

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