B-LA CONNECT

Posted on by Slanted editors

B-LA CONNECT is a platform for the promotion of cooperation and networking of the creative communities of the two partner cities Berlin and Los Angeles. In the next years a large exhibition and exchange project is to take place between project spaces operated by artists / curators and collectives from both cities: In June 2019, 20 art spaces from Los Angeles were be exhibited in 22 art spaces from Berlin. The interdisciplinary program includes art exhibitions, film screenings, performances, lectures, and more. In the following year, 2020, the Berliner Kunsträume will travel to LA for a return visit. Find the full program here.

B-LA CONNECT sees itself as an international cultural exchange at the grassroots level. It brings together members of different art spheres and scenes from both cities. New possibilities for interaction and interconnection are created and expanded locally within and across borders between the two cities.

In the sense of a positive globality B-LA CONNECT wants to advance the cultural partnership between Berlin and Los Angeles. B-LA CONNECT wants to celebrate urban variety and show presence. Berlin and Los Angeles share the urban self-image to be the world in the small, a place of cultural diversity and individual freedom. B-LA CONNECT wants to build bridges where other walls erect.

Direction, Coordination Berlin: Daniel Wiesenfeld
Co-Direction, Coordination LA: Carl Baratta (Tiger Strikes Asteroid), Max Presneill (Durden and Ray, Torrance Art Museum)
Design Concept: Visual Identity and Communication for B-LA CONNECT

A project in which new opportunities for interaction and networking between the two cities are created and expanded. Our approach was to create a reduced and modular design to give the galleries and spaces their space. The design plays with an aesthetics that makes the connection between the two cities clear, both in terms of colour and symbolism.

Typeface: Favorit by Dinamo
Design + Art Direction: Studio Last
FB: https://www.facebook.com/studiolast.berlin
IG: studio.last

Kommune

Posted on by LaicType

Kommune is a display typeface designed by Verena Gerlach and distributed by Laic: Type Foundry. It is inspired by the vernacular shop- and promotion letterings of Burkina Faso. Originally designed as a stencil typeface for the solo show and accompanying catalogue of Burkina Faso born Architect Francis Kéré (famous for his Laongo Opera Village and communal school buildings) at the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, it is now also available in a new version as a normal, non stencil typeface.

Kommune

Foundry: Laic: Type Foundry
Designer: Verena Gerlach
Release date: June 2019
Weights: 4
Heights: 2
Styles: 2
Test version available at: [email protected]
Prices: Single style: 20 Euro, family of 16 styles: 200 Euro
Buy

Annual Exhibition 2019

Posted on by Marelle

Traditionally at the end of the summer semester, the Muthesius Kunsthochschule opens its doors to its studios and ateliers from July 10th, 5 p.m. until Saturday, July 13th for the annual exhibition.

Annual Exhibition 2019 – Muthesius Kunsthochschule Kiel

When?
Opening:
July 10th, 5 p.m.
Exhibition:
July 11th–13th, 11 a.m.–8 p.m.

Where?
Muthesius Kunsthochschule Kiel
Legienstraße 35
24103 Kiel

parcours – Sommersemester 2019

Posted on by Clara Weinreich

Between restlessness and anticipation, short-sightedness and transparency, duty and passion—parcours is more than just an exhibition. Rich in contrast and versatile, sometimes contradictory, but always individual and special. parcours makes design tangible and creates direct access and exchange.

From July 19th to 21st, parcours cordially invites you to the final exhibition of all MSD Bachelor and Master graduates in summer semester 2019. They are looking forward to a very special weekend full of exciting impressions. Experience the course.

When?
Vernissage:
Friday, July 19th from 8 p.m. on
Exhibition: 
Saturday, July 20th from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. + from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. screen printing workshop with the Screen Printing Ninjas
Sunday, July 21st from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Where?
Münster School of Design
Leonardo Campus 6
48149 Münster

 

Slanted in Prague: Studio Marvil

Posted on by Slanted editors

When we took a look at the contemporary design scene in Prague in August 2018, we were allowed to visit Olga Benešová and Pavel Zelenka from Studio Marvil.

Studio Marvil devise logos and graphic design projects, and create complete visual identity systems for companies and projects. They are highly skilled at managing the entire design process, from the initial proposal through to production. Also, they are interested in content and always seek a solution specifically tailored to the client’s needs; a solution fully in line with the project plan.

The exciting works of Studio Marvil can be found in the Slanted Magazine #33—Prague, additionally we conducted a video interview with Pavel Zelenka about his attitude and work. Take a look at our new issue and the video platform to meet more creative people from Prague!

Photography: © Dirk Gebhardt, Slanted Publishers

Semester Exhibition FH Aachen

Posted on by Redakteur

Boxgraben 100 opens its doors: On Thursday, July 11th, 2019, the students of FH Aachen invite all potential applicants and design enthusiasts to their semester exhibition. The students present their projects in the fields of product and communication design to the public. They get an exclusive insight into fascinating projects of all semesters. The event offers prospective students the opportunity to broaden their horizons and gain inspiring insights into the broad spectrum of the design world.

When?
July 11th, 2019
2 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Where?
Boxgraben 100
52064 Aachen

 

Interview with Masha Manapov

Posted on by Slanted editors

In this series we introduce you to the most exciting Israeli creative minds in graphic design, animation and illustration. Last time we introduced the illustrator Assaf Benharroch more will follow. But now Masha Manapov.

Born in Baku, raised in Tel Aviv, Masha Manapov received her degree from the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem, with a major in illustration. She worked at a design and brand agency in Tel Aviv and as a graphic designer within the Haaretz newspaper group. She has since worked as an editorial illustrator for many magazines and newspapers worldwide: The Independent, Wired, The New York Times, Boston Globe and many more. She currently works at an interactive science centre in Bristol, UK, designing both in print and digital and for exhibitions.

From your education at Bezalel Academy, what do you remember most?

I remember being hungry, tired and more creative than I ever was. It was a big part of self-discovery both personal and professional as it might be for every other student at this very particular time in your life. It taught me a great deal, even if I didn’t acknowledge it at the time, about project research, intent, and honesty in my work, concept, originality and responsible design. Even though ever since, I was always extremely lucky to work in an amazing environment with brilliant, stimulating minds I never had the chance to share the same workspace with so many like-minded creative individuals again. I guess it is one of the hardships working as a freelancer or as an in-house designer in a non-design-based organization.

When working on assignments, when do you know you come close to your aims?

It varies, in some jobs I like the in-between phase of not knowing and testing different angles, textures, techniques, and colors. The search is a process of discovery that might not necessarily affect the job I’m working on at the moment but will always find its way into another work. If I’m enjoying it, it’s always a good sign, and If I come back a day or a couple of hours later and am still pleased with myself, it’s a winner.

How does a typical workday look like to you?

My week is shared between working from my home studio on freelance illustration projects to the work I do as a senior designer at the science centre. In both places, I sit by a giant 3-meter window overlooking a nice view and have the freedom to create my own schedule and at times initiate my own projects.

We The Curious is quite an unusual place where the day can start by stargazing in our 3D planetarium (of which I illustrated some of the constellations), then to participate in a user testing group in the prototype room, to designing a new card game for an activity and working on a new marketing campaign. It is never dull, and the whole place is buzzing with people from different disciplines and backgrounds. The work phase is quite fast which helps me focus much better.

When I’m freelancing from home, it’s more isolated and quieter, and I allow myself more flexibility with my time. Recently I started to have walks, to meet a friend or do house chores (which I find therapeutically) to give myself some time away from the monitor.

Tell us about the challenges of working on exhibition design and museum branding.

I like the reality of being part of an actual in-house design team where I’m quite often the client and designer at the same time. I have the privilege of knowing the brand and our offer inside out which allows me to be a vital voice in the decision-making process. About a year ago, the organization went through a massive rebrand which naturally affected my line of work.

The new brand is all about evoking curiosity, which is a very cool concept to have, yet, at times, it might be too broad to work with. While the brand is still new and needs nurturing, care and support, it does not forgive any flexibility. Which is where as a designer I need to draw the line and be the killjoy to all the eager enthusiasts. I usually don’t mind doing so. This is where my Russian upbringing kicks in.

As a charity organization, we often design with limited production budgets or on no budget at all. When I first started, it took me a couple of months to realize that my ideas are not feasible. Nowadays it’s always part of my brief. This format requires me to think differently, which brings more creative results. It makes it harder to “cheat” because no fancy technology and the light-sound-smoke machine will come to my rescue and cover up a poorly made work. The concept and the design are all I have to work and win with.

More about Masha Manapov here.

The World’s Writing Systems

Posted on by Slanted editors

When we first heard about decodeunicode, our typo hearts jumped a little higher—what a great idea to capture all the characters in the world in Unicode. Now Prof. Johannes Bergerhausen together with the Institut Designlabor Gutenberg (IDG), the Atelier National de Recherche Typographique, and the Script Encoding Initiative of the University of California has initiated the new project worldswritingsystems.org, which gives an overview of the 292 writing systems of the world! These writing systems can be sorted chronologically, alphabetically and geographically. You can also discover which writing systems are alive or extinct and how many have been included in the Unicode standard.

We asked Prof. Johannes Bergerhausen a few questions about the project:

How did this project come about?

At www.decodeunicode.org you can see all the Unicode characters, currently there are 137,374 characters. Every year new characters are added; meanwhile Unicode 12.0 covers 150 font systems. At some point the question arose: how many are still missing? That’s what I asked the linguist Dr. Deborah Anderson from Berkeley. After months of research, she presented a long list of 142 scripts that are not yet available on the computer. Then I was visiting professor at the ANRT in Nancy and suggested the joint project “Missing Scripts” to the director Thomas Huot-Marchand. For each font we researched a typical character and designed it in a characteristic style.

How can you imagine researching centuries-old systems? Where do you start searching?

In the relevant literature there are almost always experts somewhere in the world, mostly linguists or paleographers, who have been dealing with their obscure writing system for years. Often they are scripts that do not yet have a fixed typographic canon of forms. That’s what makes it so interesting. In the post master at the ANRT in Nancy, students can spend 18 months researching and designing one of these writing systems.

Which writing system do you particularly like and why?

Oh, there are many of them. I find the African scripts very interesting. Here it is often very difficult to find an expert. The writing system Bamum, for example, is very fresh and lively.

Thank you very much.

For the project, a typical character was researched and a glyph designed for each of the 292 writing systems during an 18-month post-master period. A four-color screen print now presents all glyphs on a poster.

The World’s Writing Systems Poster
Release: 2018
Edition: 600 copies
Format: 80 × 120 cm
Workmanship: 4-color screen printing
Print: Lézard Graphique, Brumath, France, 2018
Price: 22,– €
The poster is available here. 

Data: Dr. Deborah Anderson, Berkeley, USA
Type design: Johannes Bergerhausen, Arthur Francietta, Jérôme Knebusch, Morgane Pierson; ANRT, Nancy, France, 2016—2018
Design: Ilka Helmig, Johannes Bergerhausen, helmigbergerhausen.de, Cologne, 2018
Design/Coding/UX: wysiwyg*, Düsseldorf, 2018

Annual exhibition 2019—collective, collaborative, cooperative

Posted on by Julia Kahl

The Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design (HfG Karlsruhe) is proud to present its annual exhibition 2019. From July 18 to 21 the atriums, workshops, and rooms of HfG Karlsruhe become a vast exhibition space. Students from the fields of Exhibition Design and Scenography, Communication Design, Art Research and Media Philosophy, Media Art, and Product Design will give visitors insights into their artistic and theoretical work, products, designs, and concepts. The public will be confronted with the ideas of a new generation of artists and designers, curators, scenographers, philosophers, art historians, film directors, and photographers.

HfG Karlsruhe takes this year’s Annual Exhibition as an opportunity to address forms of cooperation in everyday student life and beyond. Under the motto “collective, collaborative, cooperative,” various collective methods of artistic practice are made tangible and discussed. What are the benefits of collaborative work and where can its limits be explored and negotiated time and again? The 2019 exhibition serves as a platform to initiate, inspire, and learn from each other.

Annual exhibition 2019—collective, collaborative, cooperative
18–21 July 2019
opening hours
19 July: 8 AM to 10 PM
20–21 July: 10 AM to 10 PM

Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design
Lorenzstraße 15
76135 Karlsruhe
For free for the entire duration

Program, 18 July
6 PM opening
8 PM party
19 July
2–3 PM public guided tour
3–6 PM talks and lectures
20 July
11 AM Instawalk
2–6 PM talks and lectures
6 PM public guided tour
21 July
2–3 PM public guided tour

hfg-karlsruhe.de

Master & Master

Posted on by Slanted editors

During our research for the Slanted Magazine—Prague we became aware of the Prague-based furniture manufactory Master & Master. The company was founded in 2012 by Ondřej Zita and Luděk Šteigl.

Master & Master are characterized by the production of simple and efficient furniture with minimalist forms and natural production techniques. They create furniture as a product of everyday life. They appreciate the heritage of everyday product design that is simple and uncomplicated to produce and use.

The furniture of Ondřej and Luděk is not only beautiful, but also practical, of high quality, and made of durable materials. Everything it needs to become an absolute classic!

masterandmaster.eu

Where creativity lives: 40% discount now available on Creative Cloud

Posted on by Julia Kahl

With inspiration, you can achieve great things. Show your creativity in all its shapes and colours by downloading the apps and tools from Adobe Creative Cloud, now for only €35.69 (incl. VAT) instead of €59.49 per month.

Every idea needs a home, a place to unfold. Artist Birgit Palma has built a whole city for her creativity. There’s a lot to discover: fantastic views, impressive perspectives and extraordinary buildings.

Birgit loves the unusual, playfully switching between perspectives and composing geometric colour surfaces in a very avant-garde way. Her artwork challenges the familiar. This mix of surrealism, op art and abstract geometry creates a fascinating effect.

In the Artist Spotlight, she talks about her work, her inspiration, coming trends and her favourite projects. Visit the Artist Spotlight!

What would your city of creativity look like? Would it be monochrome or colourful? Round or square? Ordered or chaotic? Try it out and secure Adobe Creative Cloud for only €35.69 (incl. VAT) instead of €59.49 per month only until 8 July.

Get started now!

Tino Pohlmann: New Works to Celebrate World’s Largest Arena

Posted on by Slanted editors

_a r e n a is the latest exhibition and book release from award-winning photographer Tino Pohlmann. Arena seeks to celebrate the beauty and grandeur of the Tour de France through its two great contributors: the harsh, rugged mountains of France and the hundreds of thousands of fans who transform this natural landscape into the world’s largest, open-air sporting venue. Pohlmann’s large format images make visible this unique fusion of nature and sport, and serve as an hommage to the spectators whose presence amid the colossal natural backdrop verify the true greatness of the Tour. _a r e n a is supported by longtime TPO partner Canyon Bicycles, as well as Phase One cameras of Denmark, makers of exclusive mid-format systems.

On June 27th, 2019, the public is invited to Heynstudios Berlin to join the opening and book launch set to coincide with the start of the 106th Tour de France. The exhibit will display stunning, large format Archival Pigment Prints certified according to the standard for museum quality and mounted on investment framing from Karo König/Berlin (National Gallery, Moma, Hamburger Bahnhof, Helmut Newton Foundation). The accompanying book, “_ a r e n a – Le colisée du Tour de France” will be released in a limited edition of 1,000 copies.

Concurrently, the exhibition will run at collected.photo, a new platform for photo editions developed by Düsseldorfer web agency Wysiwyg and Tino Pohlmann. Here users can browse galleries and purchase rare, museum-quality works online. Parts of the exhibition will also be traveling internationally, currently planned are Hamburg and Los Angeles starting from September.

When?
June 27th, 2019, 7 p.m.

Where?
Heynstudios
Heynstraße 15
13187 Berlin

Admission is free.

Slanted in Prag: 20YY Designers

Posted on by Slanted editors

When we took a look at the contemporary design scene in Prague in August 2018, we visited Robert Jansa and Petr Bosák from 20YY Designers in their studio.

20YY Designers is a graphic design studio founded in 2011 by Robert Jansa, Sébastien Bohner, Petr Bosák, and Adam Macháček. They are based in Lausanne, Prague and San Francisco and work mainly in the cultural field. Collaborations include, among others, Brno Biennial, California College of the Arts, Chronicle Books, Galerie Rudolfinum, Municipality of Montreux, Museum of Czech Literature, Museumsquartier Vienna, National Gallery in Prague, as well as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Take a look at our new issue and the video platform to meet more creative people from Prague!

Photography: © Dirk Gebhardt, Slanted Publishers

Pasto

Posted on by antipixel

Pasto is a fun and charming display type family of two styles and four weights each. The first one, Print, is a textured irregular stamp style, and Sharp is a straightforward soft-edged type with clean strokes.

As the name Pasto suggests (“Grass”), this typeface has natural shapes such as curves, curls, and confident but delicate lines, making it playful yet strong. Going from Thin to Bold and from Print to Sharp, Pasto takes the different sizes and textures in grass and translates them into different rhythms.

With developed OpenType Contextual Alternates, this type family provides three alternating alphabets that are automatically replaced in turn repeatedly to avoid the same letterforms and textures appearing next to each other, once more referring to its natural uniqueness inspiration. Ligatures are available for specific character combinations, to improve the overall look of the word or sentence.

Perfectly suited for graphic design and any display use, Pasto has very large language support allowing users to write in English, Spanish, Italian, French, German, Polish, Czech, Icelandic, among many others! Special characters and currency symbols are also available.

Pasto

Type foundry: Antipixel
Designer: Julia Martinez Diana
Release: May 2019
Weights: Thin, Light, Regular, Bold
Price: Style 11.99 Euro / Family 89.99 Euro (check the discounts on MyFonts)
Buy

Open Source Festival Congress 2019 – Komm raus. Denken!

Posted on by Slanted editors

After a successful premiere last year, the Open Source Festival Congress will take place on July 12th, 2019 under the motto “Come out. Think!” into the second round! The OSF Congress takes place during the Open Source Festivals, which this year for the 15th time offers a forum for pop music formats and creativity at the Horse Race Track Düsseldorf.

The main idea of the OSF Congress in 2019: How is one actually creative—in very different areas, industries and professions and which questions do we have to ask each other in order to shape a future worth living together? With international keynotes, investigative talks and cross-sector panels, the festival grounds will once again be used to create an extraordinary open-air projection surface for new ideas. Inspiration and input from the most innovative thinkers, leaders and doers of our time and the context of the global issues that move us today and tomorrow.

The speakers are available for touching and not as pure frontal sound. Every format gets its appropriate location, whether it’s a main stage with the greenest racecourse in the background, a cozy sofa for two to talk to each other or a discussion chair circle in an overseas container. The main thing is open air and lots of fresh air and swallow chirping to stimulate your thoughts.

At the OSF Congress 2019 these five topics in particular will be up for discussion: Communities, New Work, Digital Transformation, Sustainability and Urban Development. But as usual, there will be creative input from all imaginable areas and visitors can look forward to a colorful mix of lectures.

Slanted is giving away 1 × 2 tickets for the Open Source Festival Congress! To participate simply. To participate in the raffle, write an email with the subject “OSF Congress 2019” until June 28th, 2019, 11 am (UTC+1) to [email protected]. The winner 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 data protection regulations. The legal recourse is excluded. We wish you good luck!

OSF CONGRESS 2019
July 12th, 2019, 9 a.m–9 p.m.
Horse Race Track Düsseldorf-Grafenberg

Tickets
Congress + Festival: 195.– € / 75.– € (Junior)
(Admission to the OSF Congress on July 12th, 2019 with 25 international speakers in keynotes, talks, panels and beer garden and to the Open Source Festival on July 13th, 2019 with musical and artistic program of 30 international artists on four stages, dance floor and numerous exhibition areas.)
Congress only: 175.– € / 55.– € (Junior) (Admission to the OSF Congress on 12 July 2019 with around 25 international speakers in keynotes, talks, panels and beer gardens.)

The OSF Congress is sponsored by the Ministry of Economics, Innovation, Digitization and Energy of North Rhine-Westphalia and the innogy Foundation for Energy and Society and supported by Wacom and sipgate.

More information about the Congress on the Website, Facebook and Instagram!

CA Saygon

Posted on by Slanted editors

The CA Saygon font family consists of a display variant with three weights and a text variant with 7 weights plus italics.

It was originally designed for the pitch for the redesign of the Sprengel Museum Hannover. But when another agency won the pitch, the way was clear to further develop the font for a wider audience. In the beginning there was the striking display variant with its unmistakable appearance. It contains unexpected fractions in the design that lead in combination to a coherent appearance in practical use. Numerous alternative letter forms keep boredom away.

Its calmer counterpart is CA Saygon Text, which only came into being after the pitch phase. It picks up shapes and proportions of the display variant, but was created with the clear objective of a text font suitable for everyday use. The typeface does not deny its influences by fonts such as Akzidenz Grotesk, but develops the repertoire of forms further in a completely independent direction. In letters such as f, t, i and r, for example, there are striking accents on the horizontal. All in all, the font with its high x-height makes a robust but friendly impression. With four different Stylistic Sets, the character of the font can be changed with a single click. A special highlight is Set 3, “Cape Style,” in which the typeface combines a single-storey a with a three-storey g—something you can hardly find in any other typeface.

Both fonts are very well equipped—in addition to Latin Extended, Cyrillic and Vietnamese are also available as language support. In addition to arrows and other useful additional characters, various OpenType features round off the professional overall picture, such as superscript and subscript digits, fractions and proportional and table figures. Great emphasis was on a professional kerning, which was done by kerning specialist Igino Marini (iKern).

CA Saygon

Type Foundry: Cape Arcona Type Foundry
Designer: Stefan Claudius & Thomas Schostok
Release: April 2019
Format: OTF
Weights: Thin, Light, Regular, Medium, Semibold, Bold, Extrabold 
Price: 
Saygon Complete Family: 200.– € / 230.– $
Saygon Text Family: 175.– € / 200.– $
Saygon Display Family: 70.– / 80.– $
Weights: 35.– € / 40.– $

Questions? Looking for answers in the middle of somewhere

Posted on by Julia Kahl

This book is about asking and designing Questions. And beyond that, it has just received the Young Book Design Award from 109 submissions. An introduction by Juliane Hohlbaum:

When Prof. Sereina Rothenberger and Prof. David Bennewith invited graphic designers to give lectures at the University of Arts and Design in Karlsruhe, they noticed that there was a certain hesitation amongst students to ask questions. They were convinced that this was not out of a lack of curiosity, but more likely because they felt they might ask the ‘wrong’ questions. So Rothenberger and Bennewith came up with a seminar that was all about asking questions, which is also a valuable skill to have for a graphic designer. In May 2015, they invited Marietta Eugster, Elisabeth Klement and Laura Pappa, Vier5 and Honza Zamojski to an extended interview session at Otl Aicher’s ‘Institut für analoge Studien’ (Institute for analog studies) in Rotis (Germany). The seminar was repeated in November 2017, this time to meet and talk with Wayne Daly, Veronica Ditting, Manuel Krebs (Norm), Vinca Kruk (Metahaven) and Monika Maus.

Over two days, the invited designers were interviewed in a myriad of ways by groups of students, whose ­task it was to learn to conceive, ask, and design questions. Each text in the book was designed by the students who devised and conducted the respective interview. As a second part of the assignment the students had to design a typeface for their text, based on ‘Rotis’, a font released by Otl Aicher in 1989.

A team of students – Friederike Spielmannleitner, Simon Knebl and Béla Meiers – then collected the interviews of both seminars and designed the book. The varied content of the interviews is conspicuously structured into two sections, one for each visit to Rotis. The colours of the book represent the different seasonal atmospheres of the two seminars – a marshmallow in winter-purple and spring-yellow. They are also a homage to the colours the team discovered in Aicher’s work. The two sections are joined by a chapter of illustrative collages that give an atmospheric insight into the two trips to Rotis.

The work produced by students of all age groups is maybe the most contemporary insight you can have in the field of graphic design, since the work reflects their momentary curiosity and interests. It is interesting to question if and to what degree there is already visible differences between the designs made for the 2015 edition and those from 2017.

Friederike Spielmannleitner, Simon Knebl und Béla Meiers have answered a couple of questions on the book:

Why did you decide to publish the results of the seminars?
The invited designers brought a lot of time and interest to the project. This allowed the participating students to develop very free and experimental approaches to the interview format. These sometimes unconventional, but very intensive encounters with the guests, their creative practice and their positions as designers or artists led to highly diverse results. Especially the readiness to experiment, in the way the interviews were conducted, but also later when working on layout and text, makes the material interesting for an audience outside the school context as well. So, the idea of collecting the interview booklets from both seminars in a group publication came up quite early.

What was it like to be both authors and designers in this project? What were the advantages or difficulties?
Mostly, it was exciting for us to have this opportunity to look at the project from different perspectives. Since all three of us had a different relation to the project and the seminars, this double position enabled us to bring our own experiences to the later design process and to include different angles. It was also helpful to be able to relate to the positions of the other participants, to understand their approach and design better and to make this part of the book design as well. For us, there really was no disadvantage, some discussions became even more intense and in the end that led to stronger results.

Can you talk a little about these discussions and the decisions you made on how to deal with the “already existing” material? (The booklets the students made in the seminar)
At the beginning of the project, our discussions about how to incorporate the existing material were completely open. However, we quickly realized that the combination of so many authors and designers and the resulting mix of content and design positions was very valuable. On the one hand it shows how different designers work and on the other hand it is a very contemporary insight into the field of graphic design. Therefore, it was important for us not to change the design of the individual interviews, but to structure them in a way that makes it easier for readers to find their way around.

How did you decide what “extra” material to add?
Part of our work was certainly to bring all the material into one one – one object. This notion and the idea of restructuring already existing content also influenced our discussions and decisions regarding “extra” material. For example, we decided to draw our own font – based on a design by Otl Aicher – for cover, table of contents and foreword in order to frame the whole thing. We also designed a kind of stamp, which contains all important details of the interviews and separates them from each other. The book is divided into two parts, 2015 and 2017; those are complemented by a chapter of illustrative collages that give an atmospheric insight into the two trips to Rotis.

“Questions? – Looking for answers in the middle of somewhere” is now available at Spector Books. We raffle three copies of the book among our readers. To participate in the raffle, write an email with the subject “Questions?” and your postal address (for shipping) til July 1st, 2019, 11 a.m. (UTC+1) to [email protected]. The winner 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 data protection regulations. The legal recourse is excluded. We wish you good luck!

Questions?
Looking for answers in the middle of somewhere.

Authors: Massimiliano Audretsch, Lorena Castro, Timothée Charon, Adrian Dickhoff, Matthias Gieselmann, Laurine Haller, Johannes Hucht, Bruno Jacoby, Desiree Kabis, Rana Karan, Simon Knebl, Janosch Kratz, Calvin Kudufia, Béla Meiers, Yannick Nuss, Sun Young Oh, Tatjana Pfeiffer, Kathrin Rüll, Simon Schelsky, Henrik Schmitz, Ioanna Spanachi, Tatjana Stürmer, Marcel Strauß, Henriette Wehking, Hendrik Whelan, Jannis Zell, Roman Zimmermanns, Shuaitong Zong
Editors: David Bennewith & Sereina Rothenberger for the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design, Germany
Design: Béla Meiers, Simon Knebl, Friederike Spielmannleitner
Volume: 496
Language: English
Format: 120 × 190 mm
Publication date: February, 2019
Publisher: Spector Books
ISBN: 9783959052818

Buy here

Play Life—Neighbors in the Western Balkans

Posted on by Julia Kahl

We are super excited to publish the book Play Life—Neighbors in the Western Balkans with photographs by renowned photographer Dirk Gebhardt. He was hunting traces of nationalism in the Western Balkans for the past eight years, which are now visible in this limited, numbered, and signed publication!

People around the world define themselves again through an old phenomenon: nation states. The nation as a savior in a complex world. One’s own state is glorified and lowers other nations in an imaginary hierarchy. Historically, nation states are a young phenomenon. Only since the French Revolution have people sought identity in language, borders and nation. Before that, kings ruled over a multitude of countries and peoples. Many languages ​​were spoken in their territory and the population belonged to different religions. In absolutism, the king held the people together.

New political ideas and economic production approaches required new identification mechanisms. Language, race and border now formed a nation. National myths emerged that historically established this new definition of the state. The Germans used the war against France in 1871, a German king was proclaimed emperor—although in 1815 Germany still consisted of more than 39 states that united to form the German Confederation. The new states of the Western Balkans used similar approaches to define their national identity. Some built pseudo-historical buildings and sculptures to underline the historical existence of their nations, others used religion and reinterpretations of historical moments in the Balkans to substantiate their belief in the right to dominate other nations. Looked at from the outside, it looks like a mimicry of commonly used patterns for building nations—it looks like “Play Life.”

The Balkans have been multicultural for centuries. The different dynasties tolerated the mix of religions, languages ​​and traditions. The photographs in the book show seemingly casual everyday situations, but why 15 years after the Kosovo war is still the ruined Ministry of Defense in Belgrade? Why are over 2,000 new monuments in Skopje?

Only since the collapse of the Yugoslav Republic have nationalist forces established marginal differences as a pattern of separation. The most serious example of a nationalist reinterpretation is language. Serbo-Croatian has been a language with a grammatical system since the 18th century. Following the collapse of Yugoslavia, the successor states developed new names for politically motivated reasons: Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian and Montenegrin. These can not be defined linguistically as mutually independent languages. Rather, it is about slightly different realizations of a macro language and thus de facto the same language system—Serbo-Croat.

Publisher: Slanted Publishers
Design: Lars Harmsen
Photographer: Dirk Gebhardt
Publication: June 2019
Volume: 120 pages, 58 photographs
Format: 15 × 21.5 cm
Language: English
Edition: 500, numbered and signed
Execution: hardcover, rubber band
ISBN: 978-3-9818296-4-8
Price: 29,90 Euro

Buy here

Get Closer

Posted on by macrimiruna

Closer is a game, yet it’s anything but competition. The only thing you can win is time well spent together, new friends honest stories and occasional giggles.

At a time when everything is super-fast, super-shared and super-connected, let’s take a deep breath together and talk to each other. At a time defined by selfies, by me, me, me, myself and I, let’s talk about us.

While it looks merely like a game, Closer is designed to be much more than that—and the choice is entirely yours. Closer can be about your memories, your stories, your past, your aspirations, your future.

Closer is a connection booster: it’s like a paper book in the age of Kindles, it is like a green tree in a concrete parking lot, it is like a good heart to heart chat in a world full of emails. It will make you listen, laugh and love a little more.

Closer

Idea and Design: Lateral
Price: 45.– US$
Buy

DESIGN{H}ERS—A celebration of women in design today

Posted on by Julia Kahl

When we published Slanted Magazine #12—Beat That If You Can, we wanted to provide a platform for the great work of  women in the design field. Although there is still a long way to go until we reach true equality in the creative industry and beyond, the last few years have been encouraging for ladies all around the world. In celebrating the here and now, viction:ary is proud to present DESIGN(H)ERS— a stunning visual time capsule that captures the diversity and distinct aesthetics with which women make a special and lasting impression in their respective design fields today.

Featuring a foreword by Roanne Adams of RoAndCo Studio and cover stories on Jessica Walsh from Sagmeister & Walsh, Verònica Fuerte of HEY, Yah-Leng Yu of Foreign Design Policy Group, and renowned illustrator Hattie Stewart, the book inspires with intriguing glimpses into the portfolios and minds of 31 luminaries at the top of their game, as we aspire to a future where success is no longer defined by gender.

Interviews and work by Anna Kuts & Sevilya Nariman-qizi @ Razöm, Asuka Watanabe, AWATSUJI design, Beci Orpin, Birgit Palma, Camille Walala, Carolina Cantante & Catarina Carreiras @ Studio AH—HA, Charry Jeon @ CFC, Elaine Ramos @ UBU, Eva Dijkstra @ Design by Toko, Hattie Stewart, Jess Bonham, Jessica Hische, Jessica Walsh @ Sagmeister & Walsh, Leslie David, Leta Sobierajski, Lotta Nieminen, Louise Mertens, Lu Ihwa @ O.OO, Maricor/Maricar, Morag Myerscough, Olimpia Zagnoli, Roanne Adams @ RoAndCo, Shyama Golden, Susanna Nygren Barrett @ The Studio, Sylwana Zybura @ CROSSLUCID, Tina Touli, Vanessa Eckstein @ Blok Design, Verònica Fuerte @ Hey, Yu Qiongjie @ Transwhite Studio, Yu Yah-Leng @ Foreign Policy Design Group

Publisher: viction:ary
Curation, Design, Editing: Sauman Wong, YuetLin Lim, Katherine Wong, Leanne Lee
Concept and art direction: Victor Cheung
Release: March 2019
Volume: 272 pages
Format: 18.5 cm × 25 cm
Language: English ISBN: 978-988-79033-2-1
Price: EUR 33.79 / USD 39.95

We give away 4 books! To participate in the raffle, write an email with the subject “Design(h)ers” until June 25, 2019, 11 am (UTC+1) to [email protected]. The winner 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 data protection regulations. The legal recourse is excluded. We wish you good luck!

No Plastic Water

Posted on by Conquistadors

Everyone is talking about the plastification of the ocean, but no matter how many images, awareness campaigns are out there, people keeps buying products in plastic recipients, water in plastic bottles, food, etc.

No Plastic Water is a new water that starts the fight against plastic in the point of sale. A powerful message within the name of the product, that transforms the package into a sign of protest.

“When you see the cans amongst hundreds of branded plastic bottles at the supermarket, you realize that No Plastic Water is not only a product, but a clear call to action. The product itself is a medium of advertising,” says Mauricio Alarcon, ECD of Brooklyn-based agency Conquistadors. The message “No Plastic Water” is also engraved in morse code on the front of the can, as a sign of urgent help.

No Plastic Water, is a new mineral water created for ocean lovers. This 100% recycle can contains 100% pure, mineral water. Launched in Spain and France this month.

Aluminium recycles forever without losing properties. In fact, 74% of all aluminium produced in the world is still in use, versus 95% of all plastic. Plastic bottles can be recycled two or three times, no more. 80% of marine garbage is plastic. If this doesn’t stop, there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean by 2050.

“The ocean can’t wait. We need to dramatically reduce our plastic consumption,” says Santi Mier, CEO and Founder of Barcelona-based startup Ocean52, a company that has created a range of drinks with minerals from the deep ocean. The 52% of their profits are invested into ocean protection. The company encourages people to drink tap water, and offers the product only as an alternative in the case they can’t drink from the tap.

No Plastic Water

Client: Ocean52
Agency: Conquistadors, New York
Creative Director: Mauricio Alarcon
Designers: Simone Fabricius, Gabi Guiard, Frank Guzzone

Crossfit

Posted on by Julia Kahl

Crossfit is a condensed bold headline font family designed by Anita Jürgeleit. With its fresh and aesthetic appeal, it suits contemporary designs with a strong but friendly personality. Crossfit shows a charismatic variation between its thin and heavy styles, while each weight underscores an exciting composition that gives your design pure power.

The well-crafted styles are suitable for large sizes and titles such as big movie posters, advertisements or editorial headlines. Crossfit is designed to take your demanding designs about adventures, sports, blockbusters and challenges to the next level. Its determined stability transforms your creation into a indisputable design. Thanks to its rounded corners, it is also friendly and gives your creation an irresistable charme.

With 498 characters, Crossfit supports 90 latin languages. Crossfit comes with 7 weights from thin to heavy plus a free heavy italic style. Free demo versions are also available.

Single Styles: $24
Full Family: $95
50% Off until end of June.

Buy here!

SIGNALS

Posted on by Slanted editors

Production Type, the digital type design agency founded by Jean-Baptiste Levée in 2014, celebrates its fifth anniversary with an exhibition and several publications which underline the craft’s contemporaneity and its anchoring in the current design landscape. For Jean-Baptiste Levée, design is first and foremost about creating a social link.

With a yearly habit of gathering friends, collaborators, clients, contributors and typophiles around a new typeface or a new publication, this time he blends it all around 5 years of adventure, creation and collaboration in a place which welcome the team’s state of mind: Le Floréal Belleville. SIGNALS regroups the first monographic exhibition of the foundry as well as the presentation of Julien Lelièvre’s Art d’autoroute photographic project, in a single place.

Exhibition in co-production with Maison de la Culture Amiens, within the frame of their 2020 collaboration.

Typeface release
June 11th, 2019, 4 p.m.
Production Type’s latest typeface will be released on June 11th, 2019.

Book launch
June 14th, 2019, 6 p.m.
Art d’autoroute by Julien Lelièvre is the pinacle of a photographic census of highway art spanning over 10 years of survey. In presence of the artist.

Party
June 14th, 2019, 6 p.m.
There will be food, music and drinks. Bring your best self and celebrate with Production Type. Go to Facebook event page.

Type specimen launch
June 14th, 2019, 6 p.m.
As a bonus to the typeface release and the book launch, come and get a copy of a limited edition of latest type publication of Production Type.

When?
Exhibition: June 14th until July 4th, 2019

Where?
Floréal Belleville
43, rue des Couronnes
75020 Paris
France

 

 

Studio Simone Post: Colorful textile design for Vlisco

Posted on by Julia Kahl

In February we travelled to Rwanda for a special issue of Slanted Magazine to take a look at the burgeoning creative and fashion scene. The colourful fabrics from which the beautiful dresses and shirts of the Rwandans are made also caught our eye. At the market in Kigali you can see and buy hundreds of these fabrics—the textile industry is flourishing because the import of clothes from the West has been banned.

Many of the fabrics are made by a Dutch company called Vlisco, always inspired by Africa, made with an Indonesian batik technique, designed and produced in the Netherlands—a multicultural melting pot for beauty and industrial craftsmanship. Looking for an answer to the question of who designs such patterns, we came across Simone Post, a Dutch textile and product designer whose work is characterised by material experiments, intensive research and a love of colour, printing and craftsmanship. She has just published some interesting patterns for Vlisco and she gave us a few insights on how it came to that:

What is your background?

I am a textile and product designer, graduated with honors from the Design Academy Eindhoven in 2015. Directly after graduating I have set up my own studio. I work primarily in cooperation with companies, brands and industries, to find ways to turn their rejected, left-over or waste materials into new products with high quality standards.

My grandma (96) has always been making her own clothes. The Vlisco (1846) factory is close from where she lives and already knows the factory since she was a little girl. When I started working there, she visit the design department, which was really special, she was so proud and got a Vlisco textiles where she made her own dress off.

How did your cooperation with Vlisco start?

I did an internship at Vlisco as a print designer. For my graduation project I started to work with the rejected misprinted textiles of Vlisco, I designed carpets made of textiles that otherwise would have been destroyed. Ever since this project I have had a very close relationship with Vlisco, we started developing the carpets, but at the same time I have always kept on designing prints for them.

The process of learning to design patterns for Vlisco is very intense and meticulous. Because of the wax printing technique there are limitations in the drawing where you should be aware of, but also once you are more aware of that you will also get to see the possibilities and you can really use the quality of the wax in your designs. I remember when doin my internship for examples the first few weeks I was only doing tests how you could color an existing print in different ways. Because the process of printing the textiles is very expensive you will try to make many color variations on 1 print and try to make them all look very different.

What kind of patterns are you interested in?

Over the past years, I have been designing several wax prints for Vlisco, the Dutch manufacturer of distinctive fabrics that are made with time-honoured methods and materials and loved by African women ever since they were introduced to the African market in 1846. Although the patterns are designed in The Netherlands, they come to life in Africa where traders and costumers name them and give them special meanings. Therefore, the designer must ensure the pattern contains enough ingredients to create a story. New designs are produced each year alongside traditional classics. Vlisco’s highly expressive and creative customers transform the fabrics into fashionable looks, which are truly one of a kind.

For me It is always very important that there’s the print triggers imagination and has a story to it. For example the one with the Kauri shells: When I was looking at traditional arts and crafts from West-Africa I often saw cowry shells being used. I found out that Cowry shells have been an ancient means of payment in many parts of the world, including West-Africa. Vlisco is also know as the Prada of Africa. If you look closely you can see that this new Vlisco print is created entirely from entangled cowry shells. With these colorful patterns, you will be wearing a fortune.      

We raffle 2 fabrics from Vlisco, Vlisco Wax Cowry Print and Vlisco Wax Tweed Design, each 5.5 m long among our readers. To participate in the raffle, write an email with the subject “Vlisco Wax” and the desired fabric until June 19, 2019, 11 am (UTC+1) to [email protected]. The winner 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 data protection regulations. The legal recourse is excluded. We wish you good luck!

Vlisco Wax VLW4137 Cowry Print: Cowry shells have been an ancient means of payment in many parts of the world, including West-Africa. If you look closely you can see that this new Vlisco print is created entirely from entangled cowry shells. With these colourful patterns, you will be wearing a fortune. 

Vlisco Wax VLW1191.003 TWEED DESIGN: Two different patterns intertwine to resemble a hand-loom. They compose a timeless zigzag design inspired by ‘tweed’ which is as warm as it is elegant

At Vlisco online shop you can purchase the textiles directly.