Of Things and Men

“O Rzeczach i ludziach” (“Of Things and Men”) is an experimental book-object that explores relationships people develop with things. It is a collection of quotes from sociology to psychology and philosophy that try to explain the phenomenon of collecting and people’s obsession with objects. Book allows the reader to freely explore the ideas presented. Even though the text is divided in predefined categories, each presented in it’s own form, it gives the opportunity to interact with them in any chosen order. The idea behind this project was to find a way of presenting thoughts that would inspire to think about the problem holistically, juxtaposing different approaches to the same issue.

Reporting from the abyss

The ARD Bundesliga radio conference has fascinated millions of German listeners and soccer fans week after week for decades. The book “Vom Abgrund” (From the Abyss) is a graphic documentation of the last 30 minutes of the legendary radio conference from the 34th matchday of the 1998/99 German Bundesliga season. On 112 pages, an audio transcript tells the story of the most known German relegation drama in a graphically emphatic and emotional way especially using expressive typography. “Vom Abgrund” features an experimental and unconventional design approach that brings to life an event that is over 20 years old and makes it tangible in a magical way.

Isle

Isle combines one of Ali Mahmut Demirel’s early experimental video works with his latest “Post-Apocalyptic Utopias” series. The book was published on the occasion of the exhibition held at Arter between 16 March and 15 July 2018; it is presented in a special box with a front cover finished with a layer of copper. The package comprises, alongside the publication, a set of 30 postcards with video stills from the “Post-Apocalyptic Utopias” series.

Catamareum

In “Catamareum,” I explore the enigmatic world of cats’ dreams through a blend of photography, AI-generated imagery, and archival materials. Fascinated by feline behavior and the possibility of their dreams reflecting their domesticated yet wild nature, I construct surreal visuals that blur the line between human and cat, predator and prey. Inspired by observing the lives of my cats, the images merge dream states and primal forces. This body of work presents an imaginative exploration into the depths of cats’ subconscious and their connection to our own human existence.

I’m every woman – 999 songs about women throughout history.

Throughout history, music has served as a medium to express some of the most profound emotions from one individual to another. Some of the greatest hits have been dedicated to specific individuals to truly convey the song’s sentiments in a significant way. Although we may never meet “Billie Jean,” “Roxanne,” or “Mandy,” we know that Michael Jackson, Sting, and Barry Manilow expressed deep emotions for these three women through their lyrics. The book comprises an archive of songs that feature a female first name in their title. All songs are listed in alphabetical order and, in addition to the lyrics, provide the story behind the woman featured in the song.

31.05.13

Thesis Project for SVA MFA Design about the first two weeks of Gezi Park Protests in İstanbul, Turkey, that began in May of 2013. Encompassing the personal experiences of the author with audiovisual archives, it also serves as an object of remembrance. With an emphasis on storytelling, the book also aims to expand the limits of print by offering a personal experience.

Epigraphic findings

This is a magazine about the documentation of epigraphic findings. By forttage, inscriptions were collected in various parts of Germany. The collected letters originate from different places, times and materials. Some of the inscriptions shown are based on stencils of known typefaces, but show individual characteristics due to the manual process. Due to the predominantly manual production of inscriptions, the appearance of the glyphs is unique: each ‚a‘ differs minimally from the next. Moreover, the glyphs shown are stationary: unlike printed letters, the epigraphic letter can be found solely in its predetermined location. Often the letters even had to be produced at this very place.

Type & Feminisms

How can typography and type design convey feminist ideas and concepts? This question led us through the course »Type & Feminisms« during the winter semester 2020/21. Based on topics like gender-neutral language, cyberfeminism and queer feminism, type designs and posters were created by all students. More than „just“ showing off pretty typefaces, though, this publication presents the different feminist ideas behind them. It creates a start point for further learning and discussion. This publication created by by Hannah Röbisch, Lina Unger, Leoni Hommel, Emily Grawitter and Johanna Mehner celebrates diversity (and feminisms) like no other.

AA – Typeface design as a form of repetition

The book “AA – Typeface design as a from of repetition” examines 800 pixel fonts, using “A” as an example, to explore repetition in typeface design based on structure and black area. The Book uses one font and point size with 100% ink coverage. It forms a visual guidance through the opacity of the paper and different gray values by printing mirrored text/content on the back. The Investigations reveals 600 unique A’s and shows simultaneously potential for further design approaches. Perspectives, features 13 interviews with various type and graphic designers on the subject of repetition in type design. An announcement poster, also printed on both sides, serves as a dust jacket for the book.

RESONANT BODIES

RESONANT BODIES is a gate-fold publication that addresses the interplay between the acoustic vibrations produced by the United States’ military drone program and the trauma sustained by people on the ground who are subjected to chronic drone sonics on a prolonged basis. It investigates the perceptual shift that happens when systems of power are operating aerially and includes two books from different perspectives, one looking up and one looking down. The dual publications work in tandem to build a narrative on the topic.

Designer/Editor: Amy Henry
Bookbinding: Paperback
Volume: 128 pages
Format in cm: (w × h × d) 17,5 × 24
Language: English

Balla Dora | Ballatone

Balla Dora, Ballatone is a self published photobook. Ten years of perceptions and memories, a series of photographs taken from the surface of the waters, starting from the shores of Lake Balaton.
Edition of 300 | numbered and signed
Cover: open spine + hot foil printing

The Fountain Mémoire

The Fountain Mémoire is half exhibition catalog, half theory book on the exhibition of the same name by Prof. Rolf Bier. On the one hand, he took the 100th anniversary of Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain as an opportunity to invite artists to develop a contemporary position on the subject of the readymade, and on the other hand, to invite historians and philosophers to write about the urinal as a cultural object.

Voice Message to Pia

Long Covid describes various long-term symptoms persisting after the recovery of COVID-19. The symptoms can range from respiratory disorders & chronic fatigue, to cognitive dysfunctions such as memory lapses & aphasia. For this book, a personal voice message sent by Johanna after their COVID-19 recovery was transcribed; their persisting speech impediment visualized. While the transcript runs horizontally through the book, footnotes explaining the various speech errors run vertically. The main focus of the book was the experimental typesetting of the voice message. Words break off, letters flow into each other, a visual stutter. Long pauses to find the words keep entire pages blank.

stories/spaces

Laid out in portrait screen format the publication translates the dual narrative of the video exhibition by connecting two booklets in two layers by a special tiered binding. One brochure shows excerpts from the exhibition films, while the other presents the exhibition design itself.

How we used to inhabit

Recent processes of transformation of Zagreb neighborhoods, wild construction, construction entrepreneurship, as well as the conversion of apartments and buildings into daily rentals, have changed the market value of residential space and the architectural image of neighborhoods. Maja Marković’s book discusses the topic in an artistic manner through collages of material found in the streets, which are photographed and incorporated into newly constructed surrealist scenarios. The design reflects the author’s intention by intervening in the book block, cutting it into two parts, thus separating the text from the images and allowing the user to create their own content while browsing.

Black Friday

The “for BLACK INK ON WHITE PAPER” dedication in the 734-page BLACK FRIDAY (Troll Thread, 2012) book agitates to break an industrial, print on demand, printer. Taking “potentiality” to an “extreme,” says Library of Artistic Print on Demand’s Andreas Bülhoff and Annette Gilbert, “[t]here have been instances when [BF] could not be printed because, according to Lulu, the ‘source file contains errors that [prevent] it from being printed,’” wherein in the book is switched to “private access” until re-uploaded. Sophie Seita’s “Thinking the Unprintable” adds that BF “is an “imagined printedness” that is about “testing if and how poetry could actually, and not just metaphorically, break things.”

Every Day – Design for People

This book about design work in the realm of social and cultural communication is intended to encourage graphic designers to use everyday life as a pool and to understand design as a means of making scope for action visible, as a way of highlighting problems and of using communication design for better coexistence.
Finds, inserted by hand into different pages, make each book look a little different. The inserts, the stickers and the shape are reminiscent of a personal diary.

GLAUER

The flexible silk screened synthetic cover of the publication creates an unusual, technical yet soft feel that is deliberately different from the classic book and refers to the materiality in the artists work. Instead of one summarizing title, all 14 chapters are printed on the cover like a playlist, setting the tone and rhythm of the book. The single plates are set only on the left pages, channeling the reader’s perspective and encouraging to consciously browse through the book.

Fragments

Exploring the appeal of the unfinished by connecting sketches, intermediate states, building sites and materials to form a multi-layered time capsule of 2020, the first year of the pandemic. The irregular flow of uncoated natural and high-gloss paper creates an unpredictable haptic. Due to the high transparency of both papers, the layout of each page merges with the pages before and behind, dissolving clear divisions and sections and creating a flowing narrative thread from the cover to the back. Images overprinted with spot color and shortened single pages create further visual and haptical levels, allowing the images to create new references between them.

ALICE — All about Space, Vol. 1

The Invention of Space is the first book in a four-part series from EPFL’s School of Architecture, focusing on the innovative curriculum of Atelier de la Conception de l’Espace (ALICE). The book explores how ALICE prepares students for the practical challenges of architecture, including cultural, social, environmental, and physical concerns, and how it primes them to recognize the cultural practices embedded in the invention of space. Using a fictional narrative, essays, and more than 300 images, the book delves into the design process and how culture can be best translated in it. This book provides an opportunity to explore the exceptional learning environment ALICE offers.

Something in nothing — limited edition box set

The “box set” edition of Something in nothing: a custom, screen-printed 3-ring binder containing the complete series of five issues, featuring the photography of Adam Swift Lucas along with found images and text excerpts. Each issue was published bi-annually from 2019 to 2021. The booklets are spaces to archive ideas, sketches, and studies. The content is mostly observations and impressions of the everyday that attempt to spotlight the something in nothing.

https://specificideas.com/something-box-set

Euclid — Typeface Mystery No.1

Euclid — Typeface Mystery No.1 is a multidisclipinary triptych, constructed from three main components that are skillfully interwoven with each other: At the heart of the book is A Snippet of the Clear Night Sky, a mystery novel that Matthias Michel has authored specifically for this purpose. Hubertus Design brought in Matthieu Gafsou. The Franco-Swiss artist contributed Eerie Indeed, a series of photographs that augment the book with a rich pictorial layer. And then there’s the Euclid Typeface, which is used to set all text. The combined outcome is just as beautiful as it’s disturbing, and a creation that we find difficult to categorize.

The Crooked Times

Do you feel like every time you open the newspaper: information and images explode and punch your face – expressions of frustration, energy, aggression, movement and noise?

Artist book, “The Crooked Times” seeks a spin on the information overload of today, channelling newspaper visuals from ‘The Straits Times’ into a wicked wit and sense of humour – poking fun and your mind to see what it might not otherwise see.

Originally to be bound, an observation in the binding process included how shuffling the pages produced more accidental compositions with the photographs-giving the final book an interactive and unbound form for the reader to explore this humour simply with the element of chance.