blank

Posted on by blank_publication

The second issue of blank will shed light on crisis from many different angles, unstable and yet resilient. We find ourselves living in times of crisis. On a personal level, everyone experiences their own crisis and, at the same time, is being exposed to a collective crisis. Now, more than ever, the latter, a social crisis, has become synonymous with an omnipresent phenomenon.

The theme is approached by more than 60 students and young graduates from all around the world, who responded to the Open Call. Guided by David Gallo’s graphic design, which in itself is moving in and out of crisis, the team is experiencing various turning points: literary, visual, critical, artistic, personal, political, serious, and ironic. The new issue of blank is approaching, tackling, and contemplating the phenomenon of crisis. Already collected and selected in autumn 2019, the contributions do not deal with COVID-19, and yet they touch the pandemic.

blank is an international students publication, initiated by a group of students of the IKA, the Institute of Art and Architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Their annual publication series serves as a blank space for everyone’s ideas. It might be nothingness and emptiness, but it also is the potential to be filled by our imagination. They see it as a free space, as a start, perhaps a challenge—an opportunity for sure!

Slanted is giving away 5 × one issue of the magazine blank—Issue 2: crisis! To take part in the raffle, write an email with the subject “blank” and your postal address (for dispatch) to [email protected] by June 12th, 2020, 11 a.m. (UTC+1). The winners will be drawn after the deadline and contacted by email. Whoever takes part in the raffle agrees to receive news from Slanted and accepts the privacy policy. Legal recourse is excluded. We wish you good luck!

blank

Editorial Staff: Ella Felber, Stepan Nest, Sebastian Seib, Martin Sturz, Lisa Penz, Carla Veltman
Graphic Design: David Gallo
Publisher: Self-Published
Release Date: May 2020
Format: 170 × 240 × 10.7 mm
Volume: 160 pages, 3 kinds of paper
Language: German and English
Price: € 14.–
Buy

Instagram: @blank_publication

Ashes to Ashes; Dust to Dust

Posted on by slanted-api

We must not forget we are all born the same, and we will be gone in the same form.

“we are dust, and to dust we shall return”

For us to stand together to face climate change, political madness, religious wars, and other paradigm shifts, we must be together as one human species.

US

Posted on by slanted-api

As we sought to coexist we need to defer and dispel all notions of judgment and sense of differences. There’s no I, YOU, HE, SHE, THEY, THEM, etc, it’s US, we are in this together.

Questions to Europe by Paula Riek

Posted on by Laura Nadvornik

Nine selected book projects from the first Slanted × Kickstarter Mentoring & Publishing Program are now live and ready to be funded. We are happy to present you the individual projects in the upcoming days and weeks and hope you’ll support one, two, or all of them. 😉

In the project Questions to Europe, Design student Paula Riek introduces children aged 6 and over to Europe and the EU in a colourful book printed on a risograph. It consists of 12 questions about Europe and is supposed to give the reader an opportunity to participate in the idea of the European Union at a very early age.

Paula Riek, is a 23-years-old graphic design student based in Würzburg, Germany, with an emphasis on illustration and graphic design. In her illustrations she likes to experiment with shapes and colors.

We asked Paula a few questions about her project:

Your project was selected from nearly 100 submissions to be part of the Slanted × Kickstarter mentoring & publishing program. What did you learn, what helped you the most?
I have learned a lot about calculation and project management because I didn’t have contact with these things in my studies so far. It was a great experience to work together with professionals from Slanted and Kickstarter, but it was also very helpful to get so much support from my family and friends.

How did this project come about?
My illustration professor André Rösler offered a course where we could work on a self chosen topic. I have been interested in Europe and the European Union for a long time. For the illustration class I started to read a lot about EU politics and functions. It’s an incredibly complex topic so it was really difficult to find a suitable visual language for it and to bring it to al level suitable for kids. Although I wanted to educate children about Europe I found it important to give the illustrations a joyful look, because the way the EU communicates is often very stiff and cold.

Why do you think it is important to communicate the values of Europe to the younger generation?
Children are the future and I hope that they will handle some things in a better way. There are many great developments but also problems in Europe right now and I think we have to find a communication space where we can discuss these topics. My book is an invitation to start this conversation at a very early age.

Why should our readers support your project? How do you hope to continue with it?
The European Union is threatened these days. I think some national movements like the Brexit do also come from a lack of communication of the values of the EU. There is no children’s book about Europe available right now. But I think that it’s an important theme—also for children. For the future I would love to make more editions in further languages so that many children can participate in this topic.

Thanks a lot for the insides and we keep our fingers crossed that your project will be financed!

The Human Genome

Posted on by slanted-api

A depiction of the Human Genome with differing scale axis, creating the visual of a growing pixellated root.
We are all the same. Digital Communication brought us closer together and managed to create a network of communities, where colour and heritage doesn’t matter.

What they really feel?

Posted on by slanted-api

There is this quote: be kind to people, everyone fighting they own war.
This artwork is exactly about this, in our “smiling” society you rarely can see what people really feel, even if they are you’re co-workers, neighbours or even friends. The issue become even more serious with wealthy and bright-side mask of social media. I want to encourage people show they reel feeling and real self, I hope it will help our society become more empathetic.

Typeface of the Month: Slandic

Posted on by Clara Weinreich

We are presenting our Typeface of the Month: Slandic by the German typeface designer Philip Lammert and published by his recently founded type foundry Vibrant Types.

Headlines are transformed into clear-cut messages with the handwriting type family Slandic. Its robust appeal combines the elegance of script typefaces with the lightness of handwritten notes. Therefore it might rather be the italic of a humanist sans, which perfectly suits for exciting contrasting typography. It offers a wide range of six weights and also a variable font.

What makes the Slandic so playful is the synergy between the quite narrow lowercase letters and the wide uppercase letters. It testifies humanist style to the core, what you can tell from the geometric H and O, the sweeping legs of K and R, the extending crossbar of the e and the oldstyle default numerals. Now, if that doesn’t make beautiful words! This very distinct aesthetic is a reference to the 1980s script handwriting “The Icelandic Method” by calligrapher Briem that originates in 16th-century chancery cursive. You can see it very clearly in Slandic’s sharp upward angles and its long-limbed ascenders.

Slandic’s visual appeal sets a reliable tone. It makes anything but a softened brush impression. Vertical characters vary quite balanced to define metrics, always minding precision. Curves confidently shape angles. Contours define clear rather than decorative characters. Strokes end straight like in a sans-serif. The low stroke contrast forms solid words. The almost upright italic angle gives it its sincerity. Thus it easily combines with any sans-serif or serif, adding a personal note to your design without giving it a comic spin.

The fonts of the Slandic allow you to design straight to the point. Most handwritten and script typefaces offer one single weight for a limited purpose, whereas Slandic’s font family is broadly applicable. Between Thin and Black you will find the style that matches your design. OpenType features let you choose from various sets of figures. The all caps feature activates alternative characters for a more harmonious rhythm. A stylistic set makes these characters accessible for a more compact body text.

Slandic is the third typeface of Philip Lammert who designed the sans-serif Peter and the serif DIN Neue Roman, which is also featured in the Yearbook of Type 2019/20. Under the foundry name Vibrant Types, he now publishes this expressive handwritten style typeface. It is one of the first Latin handwritten and script variable fonts.

Typeface of the Month: Slandic

Foundry: Vibrant Types
Designer: Philip Lammert
Release: June 2020
Format: OTF, TTF, WOFF, WOFF2
Weights: Thin, Light, Regular, Medium, Bold, Black, Variable
Price: from 38.– Euro (net)
Buy

HIBER 1.0

Posted on by slanted-api

A reality post COVID-19 will be marked by a renewed sense of connection to our interior life. Our collective focus will now shift to the beauty of the essential: health, shelter, nutrition, love.
HIBER 1.0 offers 3 accessible tools of liberation: a bag to bring energy/seeds home, seeds to grow produce and well-being, and a bread baking form to generate food for the imagination.
HIBER 1.0 draws inspiration from the Whole Earth Catalog, Ursula K. Le Guin, Brian Wilson’s ‘Radiant Radish’ Health Food Store and The Diggers.
The project was developed by Oscar Salguero, in collaboration with the 433 Institute and MLF [Mark Lombardi Faction].

Error: We couldn’t verify you as a human being.

Posted on by slanted-api

Tell me what the future looks like and I’ll let you know who you are.

After all, has it always been our discipline to anticipate the future. In times of terrible prognosis we only want to turn around and not say or dare to say anything about what the future might hold. We only want to be human until the artificial intelligences deny our children their humanity and then leave. Not because they are less intelligent, more because we did not know how to survive. And that is all I can say about being human.

Coexistence Matters

Posted on by slanted-api

In light to the worldwide news we are facing between a pandemic, riots, revolutions, and unnoticed wars, this is a response that aims to revolt its own message of all lives matter, of all voices matter, of coexistence matters. It is merely a reminder, that we live in a world where there are bigger things than what we just see or experience around us that matter. Our existence is shaped by everything surrounding us including the new adoptions of different normals.

Coexist & Aesthetics

Posted on by slanted-api

Coexisting means order. To create an aesthetic and oderly future we must create parallel spaces and keep distances which respect the others yet still make us able to act. Design is a tool to show graphic elements coexist and live in a peacefully and calm correlation. It is now more important than ever to translate this shown cited vocabulary in our daily lives to create an aesthetic future.

Coexist & Aesthetics

Posted on by slanted-api

Coexisting means order. To create an aesthetic and orderly future we must create parallel spaces and keep distances which respect the others yet still make us able to act. Design is a tool to show graphic elements coexist and live in a peacefully and calm correlation. It is now more important than ever to translate this hereby cited vocabulary in our daily lives to create an aesthetic future.