Limited Special Edition Stockholm / Bucket Hat + Magazine

On occasion of the release of Slanted Magazine #39—Stockholm, we have once again teamed up with fashion brand Reell to produce a stylish bucket hat that is perfect for summer!

The Slanted × Reell Bucket Hat Ice Green is cut from a 6-wale corduroy and features a lettering of Slanted Publishers and the logo of Reell to emphasize the connection between the two parties. It is available with a circumference of 58 cm and a material composition of 90% polyester and 10% cotton. Join the slntd clb!

Slanted × Reell—A perfect fit!

Founded in 1997 with a simple idea, functional, well-designed pants, Reell is a pan-European brand on a mission to innovate. Well beyond simply being a pants specialist, their backbone remains quality products at honest prices. A passion for aesthetic and clean design makes what they are. The Reell family has grown with athletes, artists, and free spirits who manage to pursue their passion and remain true to themselves. These individuals represent who they are.

Publisher: Slanted Publishers
Brand: Reell
Release: April 2022
Material: 90% polyester and 10% cotton
Size: one size
Edition: 100 pieces

Slanted Magazine #39—Stockholm
Spring/Summer 2022

If you just think of IKEA, Greta, Abba, Sylvia, and Björn Borg or red wooden horses when you think of Sweden, you’re far off. In the summer of 2021, the Slanted team travelled to Stockholm to take a close look at the contemporary design scene.

Slanted meets internationally renowned legends, including Stockholm graphic designer Björn Kusoffsky of Stockholm Design Lab, David Eriksson, founder of teenage engineering, Magnus Gustafsson, founder of Paul & friends, award winning architect Andreas Martin-Löf and graphic designer Maja Kölqvist. In its 39th issue, Slanted gathers a selection of Stockholm’s most brilliant minds and provides deep insights into their work and values in numerous video interviews, which are available online for free. Illustrations, interviews, essays, and an extensive appendix with many useful tips and an overview with the best Swedish writings complete the issue thematically.

Publisher: Slanted Publishers
Release: April 2022
Volume: 240 pages
Format: 16 × 24 × 2 cm
Language: English
Printing: Offset printing, Stober
Cardboard Cover: Invercote G, 280 g/sm by Iggesund
Paper: Holmen TRND 2.0, 80 g/sm by Holmen
Workmanship: Swiss brochure, thread stitching, fine linen lamination
ISSN: 1867-6510

Hibiscus No.1

The Hibiscus No.1 Print with surreal surrounding comes as DIN A1 digital print on 250g/qm photo paper.
The Print is sold unframed.

Cercle Magazine #10—Parade

Listen to me, look at me!
It’s an order, I impose myself on your eyes. I exist and I want you to know this. I’m dressed to the nines. I’ve filled out with a few extra pages, I give myself in several languages to parade through your hands, throughout this new layout. I want to seduce you, to reclaim my identity, to be your chosen one and experience a moment of jubilation with you.
Without your gaze, without the attention of others, parades have no meaning. I build cities, States, I dance, march, charm, draw and adorn myself, I show myself. Can you see my social status, my power, my capacities? What is the point of this decorum without a witness? If such outer signs can mark an individuality, they are also the bearings of collective belonging and creators of social links. It’s what makes the complexity and beauty of the thing. Let’s parade happy and proud of existing together.
Let’s parade for each one of us to have their rightful citizenship.

Grafikmagazin 02.22 – Wissenschaft & Kommunikation

As the name indicates, Grafikmagazin is a print magazine focusing on all things graphic design. Primarily it’s aimed at professional creatives and design students from Germany, Austria, Switzerland and beyond. Every two months, Grafikmagazin presents outstanding work from the fields of graphic design, typography, illustration, photography, design theory, research, paper and printing.

The editorial team of Grafikmagazin created a variety of sections and categories, but selects focus themes for each issue like »Wissenschaft & Kommunikation« (Science & Communication). The topics portray how imaginative, eclectic and playful many aspects of graphic design can be, while also featuring successful branding concepts and niche ideas.
In the extensive »Showroom« section, readers can get to know other creatives and the stories behind design studios from around the world. In this issue Grafikmagazin 02.21 – »Wissenschaft & Kommunikation«, graphic design icon Otl Aicher was featured amongst others.

The »Design & Research« category presents interdisciplinary projects that show how science and research can benefit from creative solutions and play an active role in graphic design. In the »Production & Publishing« section everything revolves around the topic of print. Here you will find exquisite books, sophisticated annual reports and high-quality embossed greeting cards. Also, the cover artists of each issue are interviewed or get to highlight their ideas. Each cover is printed on a different paper and the design interprets the particular Grafik+ theme in a broader way or shares a fresh perspective on an individual design technique.

The Grafikmagazin team, its correspondents and freelancers are bound and driven by the strong belief that print is not dead at all. With the will to prove just how alive it is, and the motivation to start something fresh and yet deeply traditional, they strive for nothing less than to create another print magazine that makes history.

Monstera No.1

The Monstera No.1 Print with surreal surrounding comes as DIN A1 digital print on 250g/qm photo paper.
The Print is sold unframed.

WOCHENENDER – MECKLENBURG-SCHWERIN

Nordwestmecklenburg, Schwerin, Ludwigslust-Parchim: Dense forests, green meadows and lots of water! Between Hamburg and Berlin, between the Baltic Sea, Elbe and Müritz, there is a very special, somewhat forgotten region: Mecklenburg- Schwerin. Magnificent residences, manor houses and imposing avenues dominate the landscape around Schwerin. But nothing characterizes this region as much as water: In addition to all the small and large lakes, numerous rivers and canals meander through the partly unspoiled landscape. This has created a unique combination of nature and culture.
Whether on foot, by bike or on the water: Once you have been there, you will never forget Mecklenburg-Schwerin again!

ZUM BUNGALOWDORF 1 – A Nachtdigital Book

For 22 years, a far-flung corner in the heart of Saxony was the location of the Nachtdigital festival. It was one of the most internationally recognised festivals of the electronic music scene, but at the same time one of the smallest of its kind, with the number of tickets strictly limited to 3000. From 1988 to 2019, fans from all over the world assembled in the tiny Olganitz site – more specifically in Bungalowdorf 1 (Bungalow Village 1) – to dance, to lose themselves and to find a place of retreat.

This recently published collection captures the final four years of the festival in photographs and transports the viewer from the country lane and over stubbled fields to that province in Saxony, so colourfully and beautifully lit up.

Christian Rothe emphasises the suspense that these lights inspire not least by choosing to start the journey to Olganitz in black and white. Nicolas Oxen’s essay Region also provides a narration of the transit, reporting with great authority on the origins and unique features of the Nachtdigital. This is followed by first glimpses of the set-up weeks and the faces of the crew, then the high-spirited stage scenes and quiet peripheries of the party. In addition to these intimate portraits, the images that play with opacity/transparency are particularly striking. Will Lynch adds depth to these impressions with his sensitive reflection on the unique, “slightly surreal” summer days in Olganitz.

What comes next as the narrative reaches 2018 is nothing less than an enrapturing and superbly arranged ecstasy of images. Broken up with short quotations and testimonials, it is not least the sense of loving togetherness and hedonistic enthusiasm of the Nachtdigital actually materialising on the page that inspires the reader to look and to keep turning the page. The rapture of the rave is contagious! In his piece of the same name, Gabriel Geffert reflects on this theme from a culture-theoretical perspective, supplemented with historical knowledge. This ecstasy bridges the gap to 2019, recording in photographs the intensity of the previous summer. Ultimately, this would be the last Nachtdigital – the last technosummer in Bungalowdorf 1. Christian Rothe manages to capture the emotions of this huge farewell party in moving and euphoric images of moments. There is nothing monumental about them, instead they are sensitive and captivating. People are arm-in-arm, enjoying in their own varied ways the final sounds on the packed dancefloor. These images convey the fact that for many people, this was the end of something major. Shortly before the journey home, which wends its way back through the villages and fields in photographs, Franziska Winter’s essay again highlights What Remains once the echoes of the last set have faded away.

This volume is an analogue and emotional storage disc. The photos on its 268 pages contain a remembrance of the singular days and nights of the festival, the euphoria, the dust and lustre of midsummer Olganitz. It reflects the Nachtdigital not just in content but also in form by staying loyal to the festival’s noncommercial credo. “I always felt that for the aeendees and the crew, Nachtdigital was this one weekend a year – a place they longed for, the memories of which they carried with them all year, drawing them back. Friendship, ecstasy, freedom, musical infatuation… I am both overjoyed and grateful that we have been able to realise this book project together, and above all, to do so in such an uncompromising way,“ says Christian Rothe. – Christian Rothe, born in 1986, studied Visual Communication at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, graduating in 2014 with his thesis, Weil er er war, weil ich ich war (Because he was him, because I was me). Since then, he has been working as a photographer and graphic designer on independent and commercial projects. In 2015, the book version of his thesis was included in the Stiiung Buchkunst’s “best German book design” list. ZUM BUNGALOWDORF 1 is his second book to be published as a photographer.

Slow Reader – A Source for Design Thinking and Practice

Slow Reader consists of a collection of theoretical reflections and practical perspectives that offer a holistic vision of human activity in enduring, dynamic interaction with other living systems. Positioned as a ‘resource for design thinking and practice’, this book challenges the paths through which contemporary design practitioners operate, offering alternative perspectives and an expanded palette of tools for addressing the complex web of interdependencies.
The book is intended to inspire well beyond design fields, serving as a vehicle for reflection (re-)imagination and further investigation of ‘Slower’ approaches of living, individually and collectively, now and into the future.
Contributors: Yochai Benkler, Maria Blaisse, Chet Bowers, Siobhán K. Cronin, Olafur Eliasson, Eric Ellingsen, Emilio Fantin, Fernando Garcia-Dory, Lotte van Gelder, Jeanne van Heeswijk, the nanopolitics group, Jogi Panghaal, Eva Pfannes (Ooze Architects), Ana Paula Pais, Ann Pendleton-Julian, Alessandra Pomarico, Marjetica Potrč, Julian Raxworthy, Uzma Rizvi, Niels Schrader, Carolyn F. Strauss, Christina Werner.

Čatnosat – Indigenous Art, Knowledge and Sovereignty: The Sámi Pavilion

For the first time Sámi artists will present their art and worldvies at the Biennale Arte in Venice, 2022, as a sovereign call representing Sápmi, (Sámi homeland that spans Scandinavia and the Kola Peninsula).
The Sámi Pavilion is a Čatnosat (= connections, networks) project that revolves around three key elements: trans-generational relations, holistic Sámi knowledge, and learning and Sámi spiritual perspectives. This book serves as a project in its own right, to provide further reflections on Sámi art and knowledge, considering Sámi notions of non-linear time and the centrality of story-telling, sound and the spoken word.
The core of Čatnosat features the artworks of The Sámi Pavillion’s artists Pauliina Feodoroff, Máret Ánne Sara and Anders Sunna. Around this are two sections, neither beginnings nor ends. In one, we find an experimental short play and poems, as well as stories bringing political, and Sámi spiritual and philosophical perspectives. The other section includes a dialogue with the artists; an essay highlighting the centrality and span of Sámi knowledge creation across the ages, and a glossary of Sámi words pivotal to Sámi ways of being, doing, seeing and thinking, also highlighting the Sámi philosophical relationship to their language. The book is an exercise in Sámification that highlights the importance of Indigenous holidstic perspectives today, and that centres Sámi Indigenous wisdom in all fields of art and living.
Following the Sámi custom of learning from elders of the community, the artists received guidance of the following Samí elders: Pauliina Feodoroff by Sámi educator and professor emerita Asta M. Balto; Máret Ánne Sara by reindeer herder and Sámi knowledge bearer Káren E. M. Utsi; and Anders Sunna by Sámi professor of law and juoigi (practitioner of joik, the Sámi musical practice) Ánde Somby.
Editors: Liisa-Rávná Finbog, Katya García-Antón, Beaska Niillas, assisted by Liv Brissach, Raisa Porsanger.
Advisors: Brook Andrew, Wanda Nanibush.
Contributors: Brook Garru Andrew, Asta Mitkijá Balto, Liv Brissach, Pauliina Feodoroff, Liisa-Rávná Finbog, Katya García-Antón, Harald Gaski, Timimie Gassko Märak, Wanda Nanibush, Beaska Niillas, Raisa Porsanger, Máret Ánne Sara, Sigbjørn Skåden, Ánde Somby, Anders Sunna, Káren E. M. Utsi.
Support: Fritt Ord Foundation, Nordic Council of Ministers.

Queer Tattoo

In recent years, having received a considerable boost by social media, a young and dynamic scene has emerged that is dedicated to what has become known as queer tattooing. This special community, which is growing steadily, has been born out of a desire to break with the hierarchies and patriarchal structures of traditional tattoo art. It aims to create safe, tolerant, and inclusive spaces where queer, nonbinary, and trans people can experiment away from the mainstream and develop their own individual styles and techniques.
In their work, many tattoo artists break free from the destructive, heteronormative, and capitalist ideals of beauty, creating a visual language that subverts the long tradition of cultural appropriation which characterizes the traditional tattoo scene. Their designs reveal a unique creative flair for queer iconography.
This book is the first comprehensive introduction to this vibrant and diverse queer tattoo community. It presents 50 international tattoo artists with the help of extensive portraits, texts, and series of images.

further 03

The Fotobus Society is a network of photographers founded by Christoph Bangert. Its more than 800 members are studying at universities and photography schools across Germany and Europe and benefit from the association’s broad cultural and social program. At the heart of this community is a 30-year-old bus that acts as a mobile photography school and regularly takes members to photography festivals, symposia, and professional events.
This book is the third volume of a series that introduces selected works of the association’s members and offers a fascinating glimpse into the contemporary scene of young European photography. Telling stories about everyday life and the boundless excesses of our time, it features pictures that are marked by violence: directed against oneself, against others, and against the planet.
Other positions include poignant snapshots that reveal personal stories of individuals, groups, or communities who are grappling with ever new challenges. The photos show freedom, hope, and love – as well as their absence. They are doing what photography does best: opening spectators’ eyes to a world that would otherwise remain hidden from them.

HOMEBOUND—New Wave

HOMEBOUND–New Wave shows the collaborative works of designers, artists, and authors, answering and visualizing the influence of the pandemic on their attitudes and projects!

The HOMEBOUND project was born when the pandemic began to cause lockdowns worldwide and many designers and artists had to cancel commissions. Cihan Tamti, author of the book Breakout, took the chance to act and decided to create a publication that would present the free projects of his Instagram community created during this period to use up the extra time. The result was an incredibly beautiful documentation of that time and of work that would never have been produced under normal circumstances.

With the second wave of the pandemic, Cihan Tamti wanted to repeat the same process, with great success: the outcome is HOMEBOUND–New Wave, a publication that features the excellent work of 75 designers from 50 cities and 12 countries! The new waves of the pandemic brought a new aesthetic, a new voice and a great progress in networking and cohesion within the community. The influence on the designers’ attitudes and projects has been questioned, answered, and visualized in this publication.

With articles by Rafael Bernardo, Hugo Suissas, Daan Rietbergen, Sophia Brinkgerd, Leonhard, Laupichler, Marvin Loschelders, Jonas Diefenbach, Alexandra Breitenstein, Julien Fincker, and Lars Harmsen.

WOCHENENDER – LIEBLINGSORTE UM MÜNCHEN

Day tours and short trips: Only few places in this world have such a natural combination of nature and city as in Munich. Sometimes it only takes a short train ride to stand in the midst of a beautiful landscape. This WOCHENENDER – LIEBLINGSORTE UM MÜNCHEN catches the exciting mix of tradition and modernity of Upper Bavaria and gives extraordinary recommendations – from hikes in the Alps and canoe trips on the Amper to traditionalist beer gardens and elegant boutique hotel. With proven classics and real insider tips to recharge our batteries.

Hallo Hamburg: Ein Blick in die Stadt

“Hallo Hamburg” invites you for a walk through the city – it presents special places and tells stories of founders and creatives. Over 200 pages introduce more than 50 urban spaces of encounter – like the Oberhafen or the Grindel high rises. Established cultural institutions find their place beside fist clenching niche ideas. Along the way are restaurants, record stores and book shops.
This book invites you to a solidarity specialty coffee, raises a toast (with fine grapes) to St. Pauli and to life and knows that the b-location is always worth a visit. It asks 6 illustrators what Hamburg means to them and prints their replies into Die Illustrierte – the zine to the book.
“Hallo Hamburg” is a book somewhere between picture book, interview collection, art project and city guide – never willing to fit into a category. Just like the city’s people.

Grafikmagazin 01.22 – Illustration

As the name indicates, Grafikmagazin is a print magazine focusing on all things graphic design. Primarily it’s aimed at professional creatives and design students from Germany, Austria, Switzerland and beyond. Every two months, Grafikmagazin presents outstanding work from the fields of graphic design, typography, illustration, photography, design theory, research, paper and printing.

The editorial team of Grafikmagazin created a variety of sections and categories, but selects focus themes for each issue like “Illustration”. The topics portray how imaginative, eclectic and playful many aspects of graphic design can be, while also featuring successful branding concepts and niche ideas.

In the extensive “Showroom” section, readers can get to know other creatives and the stories behind design studios from around the world. In this issue Grafikmagazin 01.21 – “Illustration”, graphic design icon Félix Béltran was featured amongst others.
The “Design & Research” category presents interdisciplinary projects that show how science and research can benefit from creative solutions and play an active role in graphic design. 
In the “Production & Publishing” section everything revolves around the topic of print. Here you will find exquisite books, sophisticated annual reports and high-quality embossed greeting cards. Also, the cover artists of each issue are interviewed or get to highlight their ideas.
Each cover is printed on a different paper and the design interprets the particular Grafik+ theme in a broader way or shares a fresh perspective on an individual design technique.

The Grafikmagazin team, its correspondents and freelancers are bound and driven by the strong belief that print is not dead at all. With the will to prove just how alive it is, and the motivation to start something fresh and yet deeply traditional, they strive for nothing less than to create another print magazine that makes history.

Mono Moment—Monospace Type Design

Monospaced fonts are fascinating! Mono Moment is aimed at type designers typographers and designers, but also at people who are dealing with type design for the first time. The publication thus becomes a reference book and source of inspiration!

Friedrich Nietzsche was probably one of the first to feel the aesthetic appeal of monospaced typefaces. Since he started writing with a typewriter, typefaces, and punctuation have been important to him. In the meantime, we encounter monospaced typefaces regularly in everyday life: in design and in art, in coding, on tax records, or on our ID. If you take a closer look, you will encounter non-proportional typefaces more often than expected.

Monospaced typefaces are defined by their fixed, equal width for all characters. Every character, letter, and number occupies horizontally and vertically the same space. Proportional typefaces, in turn, have harmoniously balanced spaces with variable widths between their characters. The widths are not set proportional. That is why monospaced typefaces are also named non-proportional. What exactly is the attraction of typefaces, whose letters and characters each occupy an equally large space?

Due to the increase in typeface production over the past few decades, almost every well-developed font family also has a mono or semi-mono cut. When searching for the word “monospace” on the World Wide Web, countless entries can be found in addition to the results such as “I am looking for a beautiful monospaced font,” “Top Ten Monospace Fonts,” or “Best Monospace Fonts for Coding.” At a time when it has never been easier to design and publish typefaces, this book provides a good orientation to monospace!

Featured typefaces: Airport Mono, Andal  Mono, Anonymus Pro, AO Mono, Aperçu Mono, Atlas Typewriter, Base Mono, Basier Mono, Blue Mono, Calico Mono, Cindie D, Consolas, Courier, Cygnito Mono, Eureka Mono, GT Pressura Mono, IBM Plex Mono, Input Mono, Kettler, Letter Gothic, LTC Remington, Maison Mono, Monaco, Monoela, MonoLisa, Orator, Pica 10 Pitch, Pitch, Plastic, Platelet, Roboto Mono, Simon Mono Light, Sneak Mono, Source Code Pro, Space Mono, Splendid 66, Sudo, Suisse Int’l Mono, SYNO MONO, The Future Mono, TheSans Mono, Typist Code, Typist Slab, Ubuntu Mono, and Vulf Mono.

 

“‘Mono Moment’ Is a Monospace Typography Bible”
PRINT, Chloe Gordon

Frische Luft – Der Assoziations-Assistenz bei Kreativblockaden

Everybody, who is making a living having ideas, knows the fear of emptiness in the head, when nothing is going to happen and your creativity is blocked. No thought wants to connect to another and no picture wants to produce another one. Instead of being highly creative and bubbling over with ideas, there’s a blockade that prevents the thinking.

We all also know the inspiring effect of non-specific stimulations and associations as well as the power of coincidence. In these moments we often hear the words “Go out and breath some fresh air.” This is a good way for having new and valuable ideas again.

But sometimes we wish that the fresh air is coming to us, to our desk or atelier. And sometimes wishes come true … Frische Luft (transl. fresh air) helps to break down these blockades!

The author Sebastian Jung is going out for you. He is sketching everything that comes across his way. He is assembling things that don’t match with each other. And all but automatically the dissonance changes into creative energy so that in our head prevails a firework of associations. The stress disappears and we are able to build new connections in our brain.

During the first sight of Frische Luft you may think that it is a collection of incoherent sketches that provokes everyone who is loving organization and a logical structure. For what is this good for? But if you are getting into the assistant for associations from Sebastian Jung, the sketches will unfold their power and will build new constructs of ideas without the weight of logic. Your ideas will jump from one picture to another and will skip everything that does not inspire you in this moment. Only to see it the next time as the key for a booster of creativity.

Martin Eberle – Hi Schatz!

The photographs in Martin Eberle’s book “Hi Schatz!” were taken between 1997 and 2009. They document Berlin exactly as it actually was back then – beyond all official projections: unfinished, provisional, run-down, remaining, free, fantastic.
Above all, the public and semi-public spaces of the city at that time also function as  carriers of informal communication – slips of paper that someone hangs somewhere, a love letter that gets lost, flyers that are passed on, something someone sprays on a wall.
The everyday and no longer consciously perceived surface of the city becomes a foil for the most private mini-messages, idiosyncratic design solutions, or sheer insanity.
Much of it cannot be deciphered without insider knowledge – or, more exactly, without being art savvy or familiar with the social environment. Always obvious, however, is an untamed creative force that appropriates the urban landscape in terms of an own interpretation. Niches and empty spaces are occupied, altered, and utilized to convey one’s own message, or a joke.
The photographs of these appropriations resurrect the Berlin of those years and portray the city as personal, dirty, vulnerable, and emotional, showing its many niches and lost corners, and the whole craziness of it. Martin Eberle has already made a name for himself by dealing with a similar subject in his book “Temporary Spaces” (Gestalten Verlag).
“Hi Schatz!” is supplemented by Heinrich Dubel’s so-called psycholinguistic miniatures of everyday life, short texts that can be subsumed under the catchphrase “hearing voices.” They consist of text fragments and utterings seen or overheard in public places – and provide, written down from memory, a special “background noise” to Eberle‘s portrait of a big city.
The book comes with a flexi disc, which features an audio recording of Heinrich Dubel reading the eponymous letter “Hi Schatz!”.
Also, the book contains all the song lyrics of the Berlin band Jeans Team from 1996 to 2006, as well as additional photographs that were not included in the first edition, which is now out of print.

On the Necessity of Gardening – An ABC of Art, Botany and Cultivation

On the Necessity of Gardening tells the story of the garden as a rich source of inspiration. For centuries, the garden has been regarded as a mirror of society, a microcosm, in which the broader relationships between nature and culture are played out on small scale. From this long cultural tradition also raises a call for a new awareness of our relationship with the Earth.

Over the centuries, artists, writers, poets and thinkers have each described, depicted and designed the garden in different ways. In medieval art, the garden was a reflection of paradise, a place of harmony and fertility, shielded from worldly problems. However, the garden is not just a neutral place and intended solely for personal pastime, it is a place where the world manifests itself and where the relationship between culture and nature is expressed.

In the eighteenth century this image shifted: the garden became a symbol of worldly power and politics. The Anthropocene, the era in which man completely dominates nature with disastrous consequences, is forcing us to radically rethink the role we have given nature in recent decades.
There is a renewed interest in the theme of the garden among contemporary makers. It is not a romantic desire that drives them, but rather a call for a new awareness of our relationship with the earth, by connecting different fields of activity in landscape, art and culture.
Through many different essays and an extensive abecedarium, On the Necessity of Gardening reflects on the garden as a metaphor for society, through concepts such as botanomania and capitalocene, from guerrilla gardening to queer ecology and zen garden.

Editor: Laurie Cluitmans
Contributors: Maria Barnas, Jonny Bruce, Laurie Cluitmans, Thiëmo Heilbron, Liesbeth M. Helmus, Erik A. de Jong, René de Kam, Alhena Katsof, Jamaica Kincaid, Bart Rutten, Catriona Sandilands, Patricia de Vries
Design: Bart de Baets June 2021, Valiz in collaboration with Centraal Museum, Utrecht | supported by Creative Industries Fund NL, Stichting Jaap Harten Fonds, De Gijselaar-Hintzenfonds NL, dr. Hendrik Mullerfonds

Be Water My Friend—B.W.M.F.

Inspired by an interview with Bruce Lee, where he refers to an aspect of Taoist philosophy, that water can teach us “the way,” the graphic designer, creative activist, lecturer, author, and founder of the eponymous studio for branding communication Rafael Bernardo started to wonder whether he “was water” in his creative workflow. Now, five years later, he wrote and designed a book with 224 pages, which is divided 50/50 into the parts Roots and Wings.

Wings presents the graphic journey. Eleven of Bernardo’s favorite personal projects and collaborative works he did for example with Viva con Agua, the Forward Festival, or the porcelain factory Rosenthal. And then, there is a selection of eighty Be Water My Friend posters, created to practice and explore his visual voice. Clear compositions in black and white within a spectrum of typography, illustration, and infographics.

Part two, Roots, outlines the theoretic foundation of Rafael Bernardo’s experience. The introduction of the Be Water My Friend methodology. An analytic system that he developed after he found out, that water behaves like creativity works.

It describes the progress of development as a clockwork, divided into three levels. Context in the outside, motivation in the center, and process as the connecting part in-between. It is a tool to connect the way we think with the way we feel by examining how we shape and navigate our processes, projects, and routines.

Bernardo believes that everybody experiences creativity in a different way but that its structures and functionalities work similar for all of us. The first question is always whether you know what you want, if you love doing it, and if you are good at it. The second question is whether you know how to find the little hidden mistakes, that hold you back from getting better. This book wants to inspire creative performers to see mindset and intuition as team-players and shows how to connect and tune them to each other by reflecting on time, dreams, and potentials.

Since water runs in cycles and “nomen est omen,” the book will be printed on three different kinds of 100% recycled paper, used water-based colors, and chose a printer that compensates for its carbon-footprint. The format is 16 × 24 cm, the spot color is Pantone 032U, all fonts in the layout except from one that Bernardo made himself are designed by newglyph.

Awarded with German Design Award.

Color Proof I

The composition of shapes and colours is a six-colour risography. The Japanese stencil printing process is the little sister of classic screen printing. The ecological printing process is based on ink made from biodegradable soybean oil or rice waste.

Daniel Peter is a graphic designer from Bern, Switzerland. He develops and plans visual concepts and individual design solutions in the fields of art direction, typography and editorial, interaction and web design, object and exhibition design for culture, art, business and social issues. He likes to keep designs simple and loud and give them a touch of traditional Swiss accuracy.

Banana

The long banana is a composition printed with a risograph in three colours. The Japanese stencil printing process is the little sister of classic screen printing. The ecological printing process is based on ink made from biodegradable soybean oil or rice waste.

Daniel Peter is a graphic designer from Bern, Switzerland. He develops and plans visual concepts and individual design solutions in the fields of art direction, typography and editorial, interaction and web design, object and exhibition design for culture, art, business and social issues. He likes to keep designs simple and loud and give them a touch of traditional Swiss accuracy.

Analog total – Fotografie heute

Analog photography is enjoying a revival. Whereas digital photography is predominantly used for documentary and everyday purposes, its analog counterpart is becoming increasingly popular as an artistic and experimental medium.
This catalog showcases the wide variety of contemporary trends in analog photography as exemplified by individual and serial works, as well as photographic installations. Produced by twenty-four artists from German-speaking countries, the works are grouped into four thematic sections that illustrate different facets of this art form, all with a distinct focus on the material and experimental uses of light, chemical ingredients, and technique.
The publication highlights contemporary takes on photograms, chemigrams, and lumen printing, which all hark bark to the early days of photography. Silver daguerreotypes and ambrotypes of modern-day sceneries create a disturbing anachronistic effect. Yet other artists employ very different forms of photography that go beyond simple cameras.
The catalog also includes artistic positions that blur the boundaries between analog and digital photography, e.g., by interacting with artificial intelligence, collaborating with digital machines, and transposing digital images into analog pictures.
Including works by: Sylvia Ballhause, Eun Sun Cho, Günter Derleth, Jana Dillo, Tine Edel, Alexander Gehring, Spiros Hadjidjanos, Alexander Kadow, Georgia Krawiec, Martin Kreitl, Antje Kröger, Ute Lindner, Lilly Lulay, Harald Mairböck, Florian Merkel, Falk Messerschmidt, Elisabeth Moritz, Taiyo Onorato and Nico Krebs, Helena Petersen, René Schäffer, Karoline Schneider, Regina Stiegeler, Claus Stolz, Ria Wank.

nomad 10 — where to go

In our 10th issue, nomad focuses on ‘Nature’-from matters of ethics to matters of innovation. We asked ourselves what dimensions we need to look beyond in order to understand nature. How human beings can resume their position as part of the organism that is nature, instead of playing the role of its disruptive factor; and what we can learn from nature in order to preserve our existence as a species?

Prof. Michael Braungart, inventor of the cradle-to-cradle principle, says that today’s generation sees the environment as an issue of innovation.
Felix Austen reflects on climate change and looks at the knowledge between what we know and what we don’t know yet.
Read how Dutch artist and designer Christien Meindertsma uses artistic processes as a basis for developing new strategies to improve areas such as textile recycling.
Or get to know Sep Verboom, a Belgian designer who works with traditional craftspeople, village communities and social cooperatives in countries including Brazil, Indonesia and the Philippines.
Laura Luchtman and Ilfa Siebenhaar have developed a method of dyeing textiles using bacteria, thus eliminating the use of chemicals and cutting water consumption by around 90 per cent from its usual levels in the industry today.
New York-based Architect David Benjamin uses mycelium cultures, bacteria, luffa sponges and biowaste to create the biotecture of tomorrow in his multidisciplinary studio, ‘The Living’.
And Munich designer Stefan Diez recognises the need for classic product design to reinvent itself. He is increasingly aligning his work to his self-created code of 10 Circular Design Guidelines.
Lidewij Edelkoort, one of the greatest trend forecasters, speaks about timing of the really big shifts in the way we work and live, and how nature can help us.