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.

Grafikmagazin 06.21 – Information Design

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 and categories, but selects focus themes for each issue like »Information Design«. 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 sixth issue, French illustrator Pierre-Emmanuel Lyet and the Amsterdam based Radio-Garden-founder Jonathan Puckey were 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.

The Horn of Plenty

How do we define or measure luxury? Not with money or time, but diversity. Yet contemporary modes of living luxuriously have lost sight of this reality. This is why theory is needed to provide a course correction. As in evolution, luxury drives both diversity and a variety of forms in the history of individualism, too. In the same way that natural luxury breeds biodiversity, human luxury breeds ego diversity. Without natural luxury, individual luxury, too, will die out.

The book traces the history of luxury parallel to the evolution of subjectivism and individualism from the 14th century to date.

Hello Amsterdam

Journalist and photographer Harriet Dohmeyer went to Amsterdam for a month. Her mission: To produce a lovingly made compilation of hand picked-places. In the 128 pages of Hello Amsterdam, she showcases a city full of surprises.
Harriet interviewed coffee enthusiasts, young restaurant founders and stylish shop owners. She also got answers of her questions about secret recipes and special canal routes. And the Hamburg native went on a tour of exploration of rough warehouses and famous museums.
The book harmonises form and content: generously sized photos and detailed, in-depth texts are designed in a fresh layout.

fortytwomagazine #5—space

Where does the universe begin, where does it end? Imagining these dimensions is no easy task. However, the fortytwomagazine #5 tries to figure that out, because the universe does not only offer place for speculations about extraterrestrial life or romantic dreams with the view into the starlit sky. Even if it feels far away, it has a direct influence on our lives. As in every issue, they also illuminate ten different disciplines and thus ten perspectives.

Among other things, the magazine deals with the problem of space debris, the role of government space agencies and the question of what it is like to live some 400 kilometers above the earth and to master everyday life in the International Space Station ISS in the most confined space. The works of the artist Protey Temen form an exciting interplay with the interesting interviews.

For this fifth issue, the fortytwo-team has not only ventured into space in terms of content, but has also broken new ground here on Earth: fortytwomagazine is now distributed by Slanted Publishers, an internationally oriented publishing house based in Germany, which is also responsible for the issue’s new design.

The interview magazine for those who wonder!

Design Shifts – Talks, Discourse, Typo–/Graphic Posters

The book “Design Shifts – Talks, Discourse, Typo–/Graphic Posters” documents 10 years of various talks in the Media Design programme at DHBW Ravensburg, Germany.

On 248 pages, the publication presents more than 100 event posters and graphic experiments for international guest lectures. As a visual response to each talk, design professor Klaus Birk and committed students, lecturers and alumni designed individual typographic posters for the respective events.

The poster compilation is supplemented by short descriptions of all lectures, as well as five contemporary essays by selected former speakers: Sarah Boris, Nina Juric, Sarah Owens, Florian Pfeffer, Roland Stieger.

Forward Magazine — Reconnect Issue

Forward Magazine “Reconnect Issue” is the Issue No. 4 of the Forward Magazine of the Forward Festival 2021
We’re proudly presenting the fourth edition of the Forward Print Magazine: the Reconnect Issue. Within 146 pages there are 11 interviews with artists like Christoph Niemann, Felipe Pantone or Martha Cooper. The magazine focuses on re-connecting creatives, as well as the challenges and opportunities of the last 18 months and their impact on creativity, design & art.
The blurry times we still live in are reflected not only in the featured articles and interviews but in the whole look and feel of the magazine. The cover, therefore, has a shiny rub surface indicating to always stay curious and think big; inside the magazine, transparent pages give the reader the feeling of blurriness.

The Error Is Regretted / Wir entschuldigen uns für diesen Fehler

The Error is Regretted is the 20-year anniversary publication of Anita Di Bianco’s project Corrections and Clarifications. Next to a new 96-page newspaper edition, that reflects the current news, the book contains text contributions by Anita Di Bianco, Anna Bromley, Francesco Gagliardi and Florian Wüst.

Corrections and Clarifications is an ongoing newsprint project, an edited compilation of daily revisions, retractions, re-wordings, distinctions and apologies to print and online news from September 2001 to the present. A catalog of lapses in naming and classification, of tangled catchphrases, patterns of mis-speech and inflection, connotation and enumeration. An intermittent newspaper without headlines, a distillation of the predictive patterns and algorithmic amplifications of the last two decades, from fake news to the attention economy.

Previous volumes of Corrections and Clarifications have been produced, exhibited, and distributed in numerous cities, languages, and art institutions since 2001, including KW Berlin, Kunsthaus Zürich, Kunsthalle Nürnberg, STUK, Camberwell College London, Springerin Magazin, Extra City, collectorspace Istanbul, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago.

Distributed by Printed Matter, New York; held in the archival collection of Sammlung KIOSK Kunstbibliothek Staatliche Museen zu Berlin and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
The publication includes text contributions by Anita Di Bianco, Anna Bromley, Francesco Gagliardi and Florian Wüst.
The book is published at the occasion of the exhibition at A—Z Presents in Berlin, 11/11–7/12/2021

New Grammar of Ornament

In New Grammar of Ornament, Thomas Weil compares current ornamental objects with the results of archaeological research on ornamental artifacts and concludes that there is an anthropological constant. From the recurring arrangements of stripes, rectangles, triangles and dots and the frequency of the forms of floral ornaments used, he derives a new “grammar of ornament.”
Ornaments are omnipresent—they can be found on buildings, fabrics, jewelry, tiles, ceramics and wallpaper. Scorned at the beginning of the modern age, ornament has long since returned to architecture and influences design drafts as much as tattoo motifs.
More than 160 years after Owen Jones’ influential publication, New Grammar of Ornament is a new standard work. It categorizes the variety of ornamental forms used worldwide and for the first time places them in a major art and cultural-historical context.

Hallo Kopenhagen

In this book author and photographer Harriet Dohmeyer takes us by the hand and shows us highlights of the Scandinavian metropolis. The smallest hotel in the world and the story of four friends who have made a big name for themselves in the city with excellent coffee – these are just two samples.
The book is the perfect travel companion for anyone who wants to make their own lanes through the Danish capital instead of just swimming in the tourist stream. For the updated 2nd edition, author and photographer Harriet visited the city again, found new places and interviewed even more exciting founders. Look forward to the new Nordic cuisine, special coffee places and hidden highlights in quiet side streets!
Overview of all featured recommendations – illustrated as a map by Amsterdam artist Saskia Rasink.
Locally and climate neutrally printed in Hamburg, St. Pauli

Mix & Stir – New Outlooks on Contemporary Art from Global Perspectives

Mix & Stir, this book’s aim is an endeavour to understand art as being a panhuman phenomenon of all times and cultures; to steer away from the persistent Eurocentric/Western-centric viewpoint towards a transcultural and transnational interconnected model of exchange and processes of interculturalization.
Mix & Stir wants to expand this landscape by bringing to the fore new, recalcitrant, queer, idiosyncratic practices and discourses, theories and topics, methods and concerns that open up ways to approach art from a global perspective.

Analogous to a cookery book filled with recipes and instruction, Mix & Stir explores new outlooks on contemporary art from global perspectives. It intends to encourage studying art beyond national constraints, cultural dominances, and hierarchies: a voyage similar to that of culinary discovery. The book brings a variety of tastes and flavours to the table, and breaks new ground by allowing innovative, contrary, queer, idiosyncratic practices and discourses, theories and topics, methods, and concerns to access art in its global dimensions.

Researchers, curators and artists with a special interest in this topical issue were invited to present, develop, outline, and contemplate compelling frames of reference, both theoretical and artistic, in order to arrive at a true ‘world art studies’. Their contributions are structured in seven thematic fields: Undecidability and Spectatorship, Collectives, Circulations, Exhibitions, Artists at Work, Postcolonial Perspectives, and Deep Art History.
The reader is invited to explore the vast supply of dishes, to taste and test the aromas and to feast.

Illustrated with various black and white images
Contributions: Thomas J. Berghuis, Elisabeth de Bièvre, John Clark, Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, Parisa Damandan, Wilfried van Damme, Sophie Ernst, Angèle Etoundi Essamba. Paul Faber, Claire Farago, Anne Gerritsen, Jacqueline Hoàng Nguyễn, Isabel Hoving, Stijn Huijts, Joo Yun Lee, Nancy Jouwe, Remy Jungerman, Sonja van Kerkhoff, Meta Knol, Frans-Willem Korsten, Katja Kwastek, Sybille Lammes, Charl Landvreugd, Gregor Langfeld, Chris Lee, Christa-Maria Lerm Hayes, Virginia MacKenny, Sarat Maharaj, Tirzo Martha, Kyveli Mavrokordopoulou, Larissa Mendoza Straffon, Ni Haifeng, Stéphanie Noach, Anja Novak, John Onians, Rob Perrée, Georges Petitjean, Rosalien van der Poel, Jennifer Pranolo, Lize van Robbroeck, Pippa Skotnes, Henk Slager, Rudi Struik, Eva-Maria Troelenberg, Leonor Veiga, Leon Wainwright, James Webb, Janneke Wesseling, Helen Westgeest, Carine Zaayman, Kitty Zijlmans, Robert Zwijnenberg
2021, Valiz with support of Mondriaan Fonds, Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA), University of the Arts, The Hague / Faculty of Humanities, Leiden University.

Curating Digital Art – From Presenting and Collecting Digital Art to Networked Co-curation

What is the role of the curator when organizing digital art exhibitions in offline and online spaces? This book focuses on how the experiments of curators, artists and designers have opened the possibility to reconfigure traditional models and methods of presenting and accessing digital art.
In the process, it addresses how web-based practices challenge certain established museological values and precipitate alternative ways of understanding art’s stewardship, curatorial responsibility, public access and art history. Through more than twenty interviews with artists and curators in the course of the last ten years, and flanked by an extensive timeline, the reader of this publication is given an insight into the discourse on digital art and its curation today.

Annet Dekker is a curator and researcher. She is Assistant Professor Media Studies: Archival and Information Studies at the University of Amsterdam and Visiting Professor and co-director of the Centre for the Study of the Networked Image at London South Bank University. She has previously been Researcher Digital Preservation at Tate, London, core tutor at Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam and Fellow at Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam. She has published in numerous collections and journals and is the editor of several volumes, including Lost and Living [in] Archives. Collectively Shaping New Memories (2017, Valiz)

Contributors: Pita Arreola-Burns, Evelyn Austin, LaTurbo Avedon, Paul Barsch, Livia Benedetti, Bob Bicknell-Knight, Elliott Burns, Tom Clark, Marco De Mutiis, Constant Dullaart, Madja Edelstein-Gomez, Amber van den Eeden, Rebecca Edwards, Rózsa Farkas, Marialaura Ghidini, Manique Hendricks, Tilman Hornig, Florian Kuhlmann, Kalle Mattsson, Anika Meier, Marie Meixnerová, Laura Mousavi, Katja Novitskova, Domenico Quaranta, Stefan Riebel, Ryder Ripps, Sakrowski, Katrina Sluis, Lilian Stolk, Systaime a.k.a. Michaël Borras, Gaia Tedone, Jon Uriarte, Miyö Van Stenis, Nimrod Vardi, Marcela Vieira, ZHANG Ga

2021, Valiz supported by Creative Industries Fund NL, Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds NL.

Burning Images – A History of Effigy Protests

Effigy hanging and burning, a specific theatrical form of political protest, has become increasingly visible in the news media, particularly in protests against United States military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, in US domestic politics, and in the Arab Spring. Taking these events as points of departure, Göttke investigates the conditions of this visual genre of protest, its roots and genealogies in a number of countries, its aesthetics and politics.

Effigy protests communicate communal outrage over perceived injustice. Hanging and burning effigies is an archaic and ritualistic form of protest, yet it is effectively communicated through global news media and social media, mediated, and used trans-nationally. The book contains two interacting narratives: text (seven chapters) and a parallel montage of images. It delves deeply into the different practices, iconologies, rituals, protest and media strategies, as well as into politics and concludes with a reflection on how the effigy protests act as a symptom of fundamental conflicts at the limits of contemporary liberal democracy.

With many images from the United States, Iraq, Egypt, Iran, Afghanistan, and many other areas.

Florian Göttke is a visual artist, researcher, and writer based in Amsterdam. He combines visual modes of research (collecting, close reading, and image montage) with academic research to investigate the functioning of public images and their relationship to social memory and politics. Göttke has exhibited internationally, has written articles for academic journals and art publications. His book Toppled, an iconological study of the toppled statues of Saddam Hussein, was nominated for the Dutch Doc Award 2011.

September 2021, Valiz with support of Mondriaan Fonds, Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds

Letterform Variations

Grab one of the last copies!

692 pages containing 19,840 letters, all derived from one framework. Letterform Variations is a playful study into letterform construction using basic grid and shape based systems, and its potential to generate vast amounts of varying alphabetical outcomes.

Letterform Variations is the product of Nigel Cottier’s methodology for developing letterforms that are based partly on visual transformations generated by algorithmic functions, such as constraints, rules, grids, and modules, and partly on designerly judgements about composition, balance and visual dynamics. Cottier’s modular systems are built within expansive design spaces that facilitate the production of an almost infinite range of outputs, but what distinguishes them is the considered choices he makes subsequently, categorizing, and editing his results as competent and handsome representations of alphabetic forms. This connection between impartial geometric shapes and the alphabetic code brings to mind Paul Elliman’s contention that the boundaries between typography, typology and topography are never distinct.

Awarded with Type Directors Club New York.

Grafikmagazin 01.21 – “The Digital Museum”

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 and categories, but selects focus themes for each issue, like “The Digital Museum”. 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 first issue, typographer Marta Bernstein and graphic icon Paula Scher were 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.

Grafikmagazin 02.21 – “Corporate Communication”

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 and categories, but selects focus themes for each issue like “Corporate 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 second issue Grafikmagazin 02.21 – “Corporate Communication”, versatile creative director Linda van Deursen and the communication agency Bedow were 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.