Coexistence means cooperation

Coexistence does not only mean living side by side. For us it is much more: working together, supporting each other, learning from each other. And so these designs are not just the expression of one designer. They are a cooperation. Created in a process, in respectful handling of each other’s work. A constant development of one’s own ideas through new perspectives. With a result that would not have been achieved by oneself.
Value recognize and appreciate each other!

Design by Lisa Panitz and Jonas Herfurth.

Coexist

A poster where fonts and shapes communicate the meaning of the work coexist.

Note: Printer marks are part of the design. If selected, please exclude bleed in publication.

FloodZone

FloodZone is my ongoing photographic project reflecting and responding to the problem of rising sea levels. The project began in 2016, when I moved to Miami, my first experience living in a coastal environment. It was the hottest summer on record. Soon after moving I began to realize how the city’s seductive tropical palette concealed the growing dissonance between its booming real-estate market and the ocean’s encroachment on its territory. Investors seem to turn a blind eye to the reality that places like Miami are steadily slipping underwater. Living in Miami is bittersweet: it looks and feels like a paradise, but the only secure roots belong to mangrove trees.

Görlitzer Park

Überfremdung is a word used by frightened citizens who fear for their German identity.
I stand in opposition, and just as I am sharpening my arguments, a friend of mine tells me she’s received a death threat from one of the dealers.
I look out the window and see raids and arrests. I see desperate, traumatized African men staggering around everywhere. Many are without a safe place to stay and sleep in the park at night. I see mothers, relaxed on the playground with their little children. I hear the enlightened, well-educated fathers talking about the security-problem for their wives and children, as they lie in the sun and inhale deeply.
The guy from Guinea still has the best stuff.

In the window

“He had found this picture in an envelope inside a hotel room. There was also a small piece of paper, it had been teared and the meaning got lost. It was sad in a way because the handwriting talked about memory. Something about being able to look through the window and see beyond our own reflections. He glanced at his face in the mirror and wondered if he had ever met the person who wrote this. They had both stayed in the same place after all. Only at a different time.”

During the lockdown, I took several photographs of portraits, plants and abstract shapes with a pinhole camera. I assembled them in this composition and then I imagined the small story above from what it evoked for me.

We ae one

The first step to make the transition to a more beautiful world is to recognize the opportunity for reinvention. Let’s break down boundaries and co-create a different system. Ultimately we need to change the narrative.

The Dance

This is an interpretation of a painting called “The Dance”, by Henri Matisse, created in 1910. This piece was created one day before WHO has officially declared the outbreak of COVID-19 a pandemic. Therefore, the whole situation has had a small influence on the final result of the image. Nevertheless, this illustration isn’t necessarily related to it, and primarily was intended to go further beyond this issue. It’s mainly about the some common struggle of young generations and the generation of millennials going through life and facing the uncertain future. But most importantly this is a picture representing collaboration as a main tool of solving any kind of problems we face.

Skytree

The Tokyo Skytree operates as a broadcasting tower for the Kantō Region. It replaced the Tokyo Tower due to the vast increase in development and high-rise buildings. With it also being the tallest tower in the world it can be seen to represent the exponential urbanisation absorbing our planet. Tokyo is the largest and most densely populated city I’ve visited but despite its size, everything runs extremely efficiently. It is a place where humans coexist with incredible balance with each other. A balance that is increasingly lost between the city and surrounding nature.

but.

Language and how we address and talk to others are crucial. A lot of the time people use certain phrases or words to praise or complement someone but in actuality they’re being racist, exclusive and inconsiderate. For example in Egypt, people might use phrases like “Christian but kind,” “dark-skinned but beautiful,” “low class but smart,” etc. while being completely unaware of how offensive they are.

The posters highlight the word “but” in Arabic because it’s the common problem with all the collected phrases. “buts” can appear healthy and shiny but really they’re rotten and ugly. The phrases can coexist without any “buts.”

but. posters were created in a workshop instructed by @engyakamel

(left to right, four titles) Whole 1. Whole 2. Whole 3. Snowing Violently.

I mainly draw. I have been trying to design/make something regularly, since the lock-down. The first three posters are explorations of a pattern, led by and to go with the Aristotle quote. I had not worked with patterns before, and it was quite an exercise! The poster with the most detail came of the shock that the graph in it caused me. I am fortunate to have come across this delightful haiku in my life, and more so, to pass it on. I have digitized an old unused illustration of mine and made a layout with it. As ever, I cease to be once the art is displayed and it’s just you so, nothing on what they mean or represent. I hope the works speak clearly and appeal to you in some way.

(untitled)

Sometimes facts and words speak to us more clearly than they usually do.
Here, on Earth, we all live together and in these unprecedented times we probably have to speak to each other more clearly and properly than we used to do.
It’s all about our own differences and identities and the importance of solidarity.
Our call, now, is to find new ways to co-exist.

Design: Nom de Plume, nomdeplume.it
Font: Union, radimpesko.com