Attention, Serious Art Theory!
The intersection between unity and permeation of artistic sphere is stripped down to their identity and corporate ideology. The ambigous range of forms presented alongside one another has a mesmerizing effect on the viewer.
A hinzkunst pillow is the perfect companion that makes you feel like being on cloud nine.
Support Independent Type—the New Culture of Type Specimens
Support Independent Type is a book about the new culture of type specimens, their impact on design and typographic culture at large. It’s a manifesto for independent type foundries showcasing their work in an effort to promote freshly designed fonts, and why we should support them. An exhibit of over 400 of today’s most adventurous typography labels and designers, showcasing their physical and digital type specimens! The carefully selected collection gives a glimpse into the adventurous shift of this creative industry.
The authors believe that “independent type design reflects culture in its ambition to build an exciting alternative to the monolithic corporate font giants. In that spirit, we put together a collection of the most trendsetting, forward-thinking and provocative type specimens produced in the last decade.”
A manifesto for independent type foundries and a visual firework!
Awarded with ADC Award Germany (Silver), Type Directors Club New York, and Tokyo TDC Award.
Coffee Table ”XYZ” – white
The sculptural shape of our “XYZ” Coffee Table takes on a new appearance of form and typography, revealing the letters X, Y and Z from a variety of angles. “XYZ” is a functional and expressive side table, well suited for your living space.
Each product is especially handcrafted for you, so please allow 2-4 weeks for production.
TEATRIP – eine faszinierende Reise durch das Reich der Mitte
For this book tea friends from the German-speaking countries waited long: TEATRIP is a fascinating journey by the realm of the center. It points the whole variety out of the Chinese tea culture in breath-taking pictures and accompanying stories.
– Understand the differences & characteristics of China’s most famous tea cultivation areas.
– Learn exciting details about the cultivation, processing and preparation of China’s six major tea varieties: Oolong, white, green, yellow, black, and Pu-Erh tea.
– Learn to read the taste pictures of China’s best tea varieties correctly.
The plain truth behind China’s tea culture: China keeps the best varieties for itself! Only little is known in this country about the Chinese tea growing areas and the variety of flavors of the countless tea varieties.
Christian Beck is author of the book TEATRIP. He has been trading with the best teas from China, Taiwan and Japan for over ten years. On his annual tea trips, he has become acquainted with the top tea growing areas and top players in Chinese tea culture.
Stefan Braun, one of the best food photographers in Germany, accompanied Christian for several weeks on his travels throughout China.
In the book TEATRIP, the authors tell the stories from over ten years of tea shopping in China. The book takes you on a fascinating journey, which you can experience first hand thanks to sensational photos.
The authors present unique humans and show on the basis first-class pictures like cultivation, processing, and tea benefit in China really lived.
In the focus of the book are handmade teas from small family businesses from ecological and wild tea gardens. Their journey roams the most important cultivation areas from Zhejiang over Fujian, Taiwan, Guangdong, and into China’s deep south, to Yunnan into the world of Pu-Erh tea.
Cover motif: Freshly picked Assamica tea leaves on the Ailao Shan in Yunnan
Back cover: Master Wu tasting a Wuyishan Oolong tea
Awarded with Deutscher Fotobuchpreis (Gold).
Spring! Der Traum vom erfolgreichen eigenen Atelier – und der sichere Weg dorthin
Guide to independence!
In their studies and the first years of their careers, creative people learn a lot about crafts and techniques, they develop their style, discover their talent. What hardly comes up is the economic aspect of the creative life. They live for their ideas, but how they make a living from them remains a book with seven seals.
As an employed designer you get a more or less transparent salary, more or less insight into the figures. Rather less. And because numbers remind you of math, you also shy away from them. So you stay, change agencies, are more or less satisfied–but you’re afraid of the big leap into self-employment. It’s too dangerous. Too risky.
This book changes that!
Martina Flor has dared to do it. She enjoys the freedom to decide for herself which jobs she wants to take and which she doesn’t. When she works and what. She is her own boss and she likes to be that. She teaches and networks, travels and gives lectures. And she can make a living out of it. Even more: Every day she proves that children and career are not mutually exclusive if you plan and live your independence solidly. She knows about the stumbling blocks and pitfalls in the everyday life of freelancers. And she tells you how to avoid them or how to master them. She knows the advantages of a self-determined life. And she knows how to secure your independence in the long run.
Martina Flor has the gift of sharing her experience and knowledge in such a way that her energy and zest for life are contagious. Just like you, she loves what she does. Only she does it in her own rhythm. Sets her own priorities. And she describes all this with such infectious enthusiasm that you will want to follow her lead. At the same time, she gives you the tools that will make you a successful entrepreneur. Because you are nothing else than a freelancer. And that sounds very appealing, doesn’t it?
You can dream of your own studio for the rest of your life–or you can take advantage of the times when everything changes anyway–and jump!
You are already self-employed, but things are not going well at the moment? Even then you can benefit from Martina Flor’s experience. She speaks openly about pricing and proposal preparation, about limiting and extending usage rights, about financial management and time planning and all those things that sound dry but ultimately decide whether you are satisfied with your creative routine or not. Seldom do founders speak so openly about their experiences; often money and reputation are considered company secrets. Not so with Martina Flor. She shares her knowledge generously. And at a retail price that is no obstacle, especially as it is tax deductible.
Forward Magazine “The Odd One Out”
Issue No. 2 of the Forward Magazine “The Odd One Out” of the Forward Festival 2019
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The motto of the fifth anniversary of Forward Festival was dedicated to all creatives who can
not be forced into social norms. “At the Forward Festival, we want to encourage them to celebrate
their otherness,” explains Othmar Handl the background to the campaign.
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Including interviews with Mirko Borsche, Eike König, Max Siedentopf, Anthony Burrill and much more!
Now, please follow me – Eine kritische Designforschung
Critical design is a form of design research in which the designer has a fundamentally critical attitude towards society as well as with regards to his or her own discipline. The resulting design objects are supposed to stimulate reflection and create a critical awareness, but also corresponding changes in current social practices are intended. Critical design is able to solve social problems instead of just aestheticizing or reflecting on them. That this critical attitude is necessary is shown by the designer Susan Karrais on the basis of information graphics in their function of general knowledge transfer. Information is omnipresent, so information graphics are an indispensable instrument to process the flood of data in the contemporary “knowledge society.” The previously often unpopular task among designers has become a real trend in recent years. However, this only rarely led to a real qualitative improvement. Besides the still mostly missing theoretical reference framework, the conventional approach to simplification is the main criticism.
“Now, please follow me – Eine kritische Designforschung” (Eng. Now, please follow me – A critical design research) equally pursues the questions of orientation in the complexity of the world and its representability. In terms of critical design, the goal is not to find solutions but the identification of problems.
Marginalia
“Marginalia” draws our attention to the overlooked elements that coexist in carefully designed books. Removing the text and images from a selection of art books designed by Anja Lutz in close collaboration with the individual artists reveals the nondescript details: the margins, the edges, the backgrounds, the spaces between the lines …
Each book is unique in its choice of format, material, layout, composition, and rhythm. The selected pages underwent a process of transformation in which Lutz dissected them with surgical precision, layer by layer, removing their vital parts and revealing their skeletons–the actual support of the content. The results are filigree grids, fragments of images, and traces of the layout that form intricately layered compositions of voids, exposing the hidden relationships between the pages.
“Marginalia” is an investigation into the anatomy of books–the physical object, its materiality, and inner structure. It is an attempt at mediating the emptiness. The quiet and yet eloquent remaining spaces seem to have their own language–that of an abstract visual poetry of books.
“Marginalia” is a personal interpretation of the books designed by Anja Lutz with and for the following artists: Kader Attia, Sonia Boyce, Angela Bulloch, Jeanne van Heeswijk, Christine Hill, Hannah Höch, Hella Jongerius, Loriot, J. Mayer H., Laercio Redondo, Julian Rosefeldt, Lawrence Weiner amongst many more.
For more information about “Marginalia” please visit the Marginalia facebook page.
DON’T SAY IT. SPRAY IT.
DON’T SAY IT. SPRAY IT. – The fight of critical artists for communication.
A photographic journey of designer Judika Zerrer through the streets of Kairo during the Arabic Spring.
If art is the daughter of liberty, then what does streetart mean in a country like egypt, where a dissident thought can be life-threatening? Since the Arabic Spring the walls in the cities of egypt noticeably become wall newspapers of the revolution. On site collected photographies, facts and impressions tell the historical origin of the revolutional graffiti. During interviews acitivists and artists get a chance to speak, who (with the intention to enlighten the people) temporarily circumvent the media-censorship; following the principle: Don’t say it. Spray it.
Leafy House Plants
The cultivation of house plants does not always prove to be easy. With many plants there are special peculiarities that should be considered.
In 1899, the German botanist Udo Dammer wrote down his knowledge of the ins and outs of different houseplants and published the book ‘Zimmerblattpflanzen’ with 46 detailed plant illustrations.
120 years later, Benjamin Wurster accidentally came across a copy of this encyclopedia and now presents a new modern version of this book, including every plant illustration as well as the original German texts translated into English for the first time.
A must for every plant lover!
Kurt Weidemann – Biografische Gespräche
The graphic artist, typographer, teacher and communicator Kurt Weidemann created something unique – public images that have found their way into the collective memory, whether signets for Coop, Deutsche Bahn and Berliner Bank or typefaces for the Bible and Daimler Benz.
On the occasion of his 85th birthday, merz&solitude published the book Kurt Weidemann: Biografische Gespräche [Kurt Weidemann: Biographical Conversations], which documents his eventful life through conversations and photographs in an intensive, imaginative and also uncompromising way–a book full of vitality.
“Auffällig sein ist leichter als gut sein” [“Being conspicuous is easier than being good”]
Kurt Weidemann lived up until his death in 2011 an incredible life: This includes his poor childhood in Lübeck, his experience on the Eastern Front during World War II, five years imprisonment in a Russian camp, his apprenticeship as a typesetter after the war, his studies at the Stuttgart Art Academy, his work as a font and character developer, as an active participant in the 68 movement as a highly demanded expert in questions of design and life, as a teacher, as a Daimler service provider, as a committed university developer–the list could be continued almost indefinitely.
Since the form of conversation is the adequate form of presentation for Kurt Weidemann (except for writing and signs), the only biography of Kurt Weidemann to date appears in direct speech. It is obvious that he himself was responsible for the design of the volume. The conversations document 30 hours of intensity, fantasy, humour, uncompromising and pure vitality–a book full of entertainment, but no light entertainment. In addition, the historical and current photographs show Kurt Weidemann as a bag full of surprises.
You’re Hard to Get – Michael Jackson im Licht der Spektakeltheorie von Guy Debord
In You’re Hard to Get the designer Hannah Horst confronts two artists with each other, whose works and biographies could not be more different: Michael Jackson, the “King of Pop”, and Guy Debord, the French author, artist and revolutionary. She sees the point of connection of their confrontation in the concept of the spectacle. Jackson, who lost general recognition due to his lifestyle, especially at the end of his career, was a servant of the “society of the spectacle” all his life. Debord being one of its harshest critics. The book offers Jackson, Debord and the spectacle the framework to get in touch with each other in a creative way. Here it is important to the author not to show a finished picture of the protagonists; rather she wants to leave open what the reader associates.
You’re Hard to Get speaks especially to designers whose guiding principle is self-reflected authorship, but it is also equally readable for those who can show empathy for the ultimately tragic figure of Jackson, as well as for those who want to approach Debord from an unfamiliar perspective.
Kunstgebunden – Metamorphosen des Künstlerbuches
The term “Künstlerbuch” (artist‘s book) first came up in the 1960’s. Not a book about art or artists is meant, nor is this usually a work with literary claims (the poet-artist …). Rather the visual artist goes through such a book to the public and thus leaves the art-immanent space. In short, the book becomes the sole medium of an artistic statement, as an independent work. But how do books arise from the thoughts, images, and visions of artists?
And what actually causes a visual artist to publish books? How has the genre developed since the media expansion of art in the 1960’s? The only thing that is clear is that the (visual) artist functions in the artist book as author, designer, editor and often as printer. Artists’ books are in any case today often available in specialist bookstores in immense diversity. In “Kunstgebunden – Metamorphosen des Künstlerbuches,” Nadine Thimm first tries to clarify the term: What is an artist book, and how is it defined by art historians? Which variants are there? How can the borders to related forms of publication be drawn today and how can the many borderline cases be classified?
Awarded by the Stiftung Buchkunst “The most beautiful German books Shortlist 2014”.
Blumen sind geil
Say it through the flower–who last said it in all seriousness? The language of flowers seems to be a final code of civilizing innocence. Why outsource feelings to plants? How to outsource our doubts to words? Flowers are out, soon we will need them again. They are remnants of a colorful nature and irritate with their reproductive openness. They are products of globalized trade and are everywhere where people celebrate, praise, seduce, and mourn. Which flowers are suitable for divorce? Which wreath do we wish to place on our own grave?
Flowers are beautiful–and simple: explosions in slow motion, and cut flowers continue to grow in the vase. Flowers are cool (“Blumen sind geil”) because they accompany our cultural codes. They traditionally convey very specific meanings according to the language of flowers. In the book “Blumen sind geil”, literary short texts come together with a photographic image series of stagings that complement, disturb and distort each other. A pretty-unheard book.
Der erste Eindruck zählt
Der erste Eindruck zählt (“First impression counts”)! And type matters! Understanding and applying the craft of typography.
Typography is the transformation of language into writing. Typography thus gives language a form. And this form interprets texts. Regardless of whether you want it to or not. No matter whether you do it consciously or not. You can’t not design in the selection and application of font. Better you know the basics of the craft of typography.
“Typesetter” used to be a profession that required training, but today, as a first-year student and aspiring design professional, you are expected to do your typesetting “on the side”. But because no one was born with this knowledge, this book is a kind of type-setting apprenticeship in fast-forward mode.
You get a feeling for letter and word spacing, you understand the correlation between line length and line spacing. Ligatures, small caps and special characters become close confidants and white space your sovereign helper in layout questions. Texts designed by you become more readable–and a pleasure to read. And thanks to a few tips and tricks, you will become more efficient and confident in handling fonts and layout.
A practical workshop on typography that is both well-founded and easy to understand! Sabrina Öttl will introduce you to the effects of type and how to use it in a competent and practical way. She will impart know-how on legibility and readability, guide you through the font jungle, sensitize you for subtle differences and provide you with selection criteria.
Cheat sheets and other little saviors in need bring efficiency and security to your everyday design work–and once sensitized, bad typography will be a thorn in your side forever …
Slanted Magazine #36—Coexist
Coexist—to live or exist together, in peace, at the same time, or in the same place. The first time in our lives the world is changing fundamentally. We need to rethink what all this is about. Higher, faster, and further at the expense of others cannot point the way to the future. We need to question ourselves, how we want to coexist, show consideration, and take a step back.
In summer 2020 Slanted initiated a global call for submissions questioning topics such as climate change, political power, human rights, freedom of speech, wars, and many other global issues.
More than 450 designers, illustrators, photographers, writers and artists from all over the world contributed to this extra thick issue (almost 100 pages extra—352 instead of 256)
The magazine comes along with a limited special edition which contains a high-quality shirt from Reell with a design by the AGI member Andrew Ashton.
Awarded with ADC Award Germany (Silver).
Limited Coexist Special Edition / Magazine + Shirt
On occasion of the release of Slanted Magazine #36—Coexist, a limited special edition has been published which is exclusively available in the Slanted Shop. The edition contains a high-quality shirt from Reell with a design by the AGI member Andrew Ashton + Slanted Magazine #36—Coexist. Show your love!
Coexist–One and all, me and we
Born in 1969, Andrew Ashton grew up in between the leafy suburbs of Sydney, and rural life in the Blue Mountains, Australia. Ashton works as a graphic designer, image-maker, strategic communicator, educator, writer, gardener and parent. His creative practice is paradoxical; a meeting of artful and strategy, research and inquiry, people, and place, clients renowned and modest.
In September 2020 Ashton explained “All living things, including people are facing incredible changes and adaptations (as they have for eons), and yet have to get on with the business of living. I wanted to make a motif that spirited Coexist, that could be understood with little explanation, as a semiotic. I questioned our senses and Coexist in the context of a black and white poster image. Can Coexist be an emotion? Can Coexist be an action? How do you see Coexist? Can Coexist be simply defined? The dictionary defines Coexist–as an attitude of existing together or at the same time. In my poetic brain I responded with a line of copy: Coexist–One and all, me and we. Everything fell into place from that notion.”
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.
The shirt is available in a unisex size of S–XL. To find the right size, please check Reell’s size chart online.
Photos by Reell
Coexist: Atlas of Circles
In the context of the open call for submissions for Slanted Magazine #36—COEXIST, République Studio from Paris designed this wonderful poster entitled “Atlas of Circles”: »From natural elements to invented objects, solid or liquid, huge or microscopic, things that makes us strong or vulnerable, scared or joyful, this way of depicting the links between nature and culture is based on the Mnémosyne Atlas of Aby Warburg. By playing with scales and circles, it reinforces the uniformity and the connection than can happen between items that compose our day-to-day life. Because everything is in constant dialogue, we need to re-evaluate our relationship with the planet and with others.«
Designhelps
Those who have power also have responsibility. The power of designers is to decide about function, material and production methods, to inform and to create needs. Therein lies also a cultural, social and ecological responsibility. This is the starting point for Bjørn Küenzlen’s “Designhelps” to analyze the tension between design and responsibility over the last 150 years, which shows that design – despite growing consumer criticism – is still primarily a tool of industry. But there are promising approaches and pioneers for a new understanding of design characterised by responsibility. What distinguishes this global design? Where are its opportunities? In which areas is it already being successfully practiced? In “Designhelps,” Küenzlen presents possible applications, especially in ecologically and socially effective areas that have been neglected in design until now, but which open up new, meaningful challenges for committed designers.
Bjørn Küenzlen, born 1981 in Bietigheim, studied communication design at Merz Akademie Stuttgart and graduated in 2006 with a Master of Arts in European Media.
To Destroy is to Create / To Create is to Order
Designers are reluctant to comply with the demand to destroy their work. Even in everyday life, acts of destruction are seen as the exact opposite of a creative process. Destroy something in which you have put your heart and soul? Never! In “To Destroy is to Create / To Create is to Order,” Sabine Kost shows us that there are definitely possibilities to understand destruction not only as something purely destructive but to use it conceptually in the creative process. By recognizing conscious acts of dissolution of material or abstract orders as a creative method, paralyzing habits and logics in the creative process can be called into question. This path of the unplanned and spontaneous ultimately enables innovation.
The book “To Destroy is to Create / To Create is to Order” analyses the relationship between chaos and order and highlights the role of destruction in the creative process by using works by well-known artists and designers such as Duchamp, Arp, Tinguely, Burroughs, Rainer, Carson and Gehry. At the same time, Sabine Kost with her innovative book design provides an example of her method: forget everything you know and work with what is revealed to you in chaos.
Sabine Kost, born 1983, studied communication design at Merz Akademie Stuttgart.
Should the Artist Become a Man of the World?
The traditional (Kantian) concept of the lonely, “wage-free” artistic genius seems to have disappeared in modernity. The traditional artist subject is currently fading away; it is increasingly being replaced by a kind of manager figure. The artist’s name functions as a brand (label), behind which the associated artistic work–not to mention its craftsmanship–almost completely recedes. This new type of artist, for whom ideal-typical current high-flyers of the business such as Hirst or Eliasson can stand, lets people work and works in a team. As a kind of “idea machine” in the background, he seeks to optimize the production volume of his art factory for the market as much as possible, creates networks, conducts public relations work and cooperates with companies. He himself appears as a curator or critic in his own cause and routinely stages his person.
In “Should the Artist Become a Man of the World?,” Kamil Doronyai takes a stroll along the unwieldiness of the traditional concept of the artist; especially with the help of key figures such as Warhol and Koons, this peculiar transformation of being an artist, including the resulting repercussions on the artistic production methods, will be made clear. Is art fully embedded in the market?
Kamil Doronyai, born 1983, studied communication design at the Merz Akademie Stuttgart. He lives and works in Stuttgart.
Von der Subkultur zur Kulturindustrie
In nine analyses, Claß outlines in “Von der Subkultur zur Kulturindustrie” the theory of the “culture industry” and shows how global players adapt the protest messages and subversion strategies of critics and integrate them into their advertising in the sense of an ironically self-referential “anti-marketing”: from revolution to aesthetic subversion. While the Situationists still put Marx quotes into the mouths of advertising girls as a subversion strategy, Che Guevara has long since become a pop idol. Baader-Meinhof has become Prada-Meinhof, Nike advertises with street art, and Diesel uses historical images in ironic campaigns for successful living. “Von der Subkultur zur Kulturindustrie” has been recognized by the Stiftung Buchkunst in 2006.
Jörg-Steffen Claß, born in 1976, Merz Akademie graduate 2004, is founder and managing director of designdealer/agentur für kommunikation in Stuttgart.
“A wonderfully transversely conceived and visually non-streamlined designed book. Outstanding.” Uta Schneider, director of the Stiftung Buchkunst.
Perspektiven des Critical Design
Can design, as it is currently practiced, live up to the engineered environment? Is it still possible to provide our everyday objects with a real additional value? Does it forward usability? Or does it only exist to make products “sexy” in the consumer world, only serving as yet another reason to buy something? Is a connection between design and science necessary and if so, is it realizable? How has the design-process to change so that “Design” gets more seriously perceived as an academic discipline. And which additional value is then inherent in this kind of design?
Jana Thierfelder dedicates herself to those and similar questions by addressing the notion of “Critical Design” coined by Anthony Dunne in the nineties.
“Perspektiven des Critical Design” is her final project at the Merz Akademie, University of Design, Art and Media, Stuttgart.
Antimedien im digitalen Zeitalter
(Mass-) media communicate, and they are designed media-specifically in order to communicate optimally. This everyday view of the media is in many ways problematic. For example, it remains unclear what exactly “optimal” means: optimal in the sense of the recipients’ understanding of the information transmitted, or optimal in the sense of the best possible exploitation of capital?
What if, according to Brecht’s radio theory, mass media are usually not just communicating? Then optimal media design–in the sense of a dialogical, mutually open, “democratic” communication process–would mean that the structure of the existing media would first have to be reversed. In this sense Karl Kraus already spoke of an “anti-medium.”
Starting from this term, Jan Steinbach attempts a small theory of the anti-medium in “Antimedien im digitalen Zeitalter” (or in English: Anti-media in the digital age), taking up various art and media-critical approaches of the historical avant-garde but also referring to current movements of a self-proclaimed “communication guerilla.”
“Anti-medium” is a (mass-) medium, which in contrast to the dominant media activates the recipient instead of merely numbing him.
The booklet “Antimedien im digitalen Zeitalter” is looking for new communication strategies. It consists of a cultural-theoretical essay that deals with the abstract problem of the anti-medium. On the other hand, it offers an illustrated magazine that makes a creative attempt to be an anti-medium itself. The work is completed by an “anti-media-materialist manifesto,” which works as a kind of guide for the creation of an “anti-medium.”
Jan Steinbach, born 1983, studied communication design at the Merz Akademie Stuttgart.