Skip to content

Graphic design stopped looking like graphic design…

Sunday, November 6, 2011

“A Report from the Place Formerly Known as Graphic Design” is the title of an article by graphic design critic Rick Poynor featured in September 2011 issue of Print magazine. Worth reading.
Invited to participate in the final grad show at the Sandberg Institute’s MFA design course, directed by Annelys de Vet, and spurred by some obscure installations, Rick Poynor reflects on graphic design’s territory: «Graphic design stopped looking like graphic design, as we once knew it, several years ago».
Read the full article http://www.printmag.com/article/observer-a-report-from-the-place-formerly-known-as-graphic-design/

Filed in Art and Design, Critical Design, Curating, Exhibition, Exhibition Making, Installation, Netherlands, Protest, Reference, Resource, Schools, Visual | | Comments Off on Graphic design stopped looking like graphic design…

Archizines

Saturday, November 5, 2011

ARCHIZINES_Sue_Barr_2_640_london

Archizines
traveling exhibition, first held at the Architectural Association, London, November 5 – December 14 2011 (see schedule online)

Curator: Elias Redstone
Statement: «ARCHIZINES celebrates the resurgence of alternative and independent architectural publishing around the world.
The touring exhibition, curated by Elias Redstone and initiated in collaboration with the Architectural Association, features architecture magazines, fanzines and journals from over twenty countries that provide an alternative to the established architectural press. Edited by architects, artists and students, these publications provide new platforms for commentary, criticism and research into the spaces we inhabit and the practice of architecture. They make an important and often radical addition to architectural discourse and demonstrate a residual love for printed matter in the digital age.
The exhibition features titles from the collection alongside video interviews with their creators. Each publication has selected one issue to present in the exhibition and make available for visitors to read. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue, published by Bedford Press, and ARCHIZINES LIVE events, bringing ARCHIZINES editors together for debate and discussion.
The ARCHIZINES exhibition was launched at the Architectural Association, London, in November 2011. The project is currently touring internationally and has visited over 20 cities around the world.»

See also the catalogue, under the same title, Archizines, curated by Elias Redstone and published by Bedford Press.

Filed in Architecture, Books, Collection, Collective exhibitions, Contemporary, Curating, Dissemination, Ephemera, Europe, Event, Exhibit design, Exhibition, Exhibition Making, Galleries, Installation, Magazines, Products, Publication, Publishing, Reference, Thematic, Travelling exhibitions, USA | | Comments Off on Archizines

Graphic Design: Now In Production
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Graphic Design: Now In Production
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
October 22, 2011 – January 22, 2012 (traveling exhibition)

Curatorial Team:
Ian Albinson (artofthetitle.com), Andrew Blauvelt (Walker Art Center), Jeremy Leslie (magCulture.com), Ellen Lupton (Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution), Armin Vit and Bryony Gomez-Palacio (Brand New)

Graphic Design: Now in Production is co-organized by the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, and the Smithsonian Institution’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, New York.

Statement:
«This major international exhibition explores how graphic design has broadened its reach dramatically over the past decade, expanding from a specialized profession to a widely deployed tool. With the rise of user-generated content and new creative software, along with innovations in publishing and distribution systems, people outside the field are mobilizing the techniques and processes of design to create and publish visual media. At the same time, designers are becoming producers: authors, publishers, instigators, and entrepreneurs employing their creative skills as makers of content and shapers of experiences.
Featuring work produced since 2000 in the most vital sectors of communication design, Graphic Design: Now in Production explores design-driven magazines, newspapers, books, and posters as well as branding programs for corporations, subcultures, and nations. It also showcases a series of developments over the past decade, such as the entrepreneurial nature of designer-produced goods; the renaissance in digital typeface design; the storytelling potential of titling sequences for film and television; and the transformation of raw data into compelling information narratives.
Graphic Design: Now in Production is the largest museum exhibition on the subject since the Walker’s seminal 1989 exhibition Graphic Design in America: A Visual Language History, and the Cooper-Hewitt’s 1996 comprehensive survey, Mixing Messages: Graphic Design in Contemporary Culture. Appropriately, this exhibition is co-organized by the two institutions. A comprehensive, illustrated catalogue produced by the Walker accompanies the exhibition.»

Additional info, images, videos and texts available via the Walker Art Center’s blog.
Video of the Opening Day Talks available via youtube.

Travelling exhibition:

Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
October 22, 2011–January 22, 2012

Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Governors Island, New York
May 26–September 2, 2012
(The exhibition at Governors Island was designed by Project Projects with Leong Leong.)

Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
September 30, 2012–January 6, 2013

Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Texas
July 19–September 29, 2013

Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (SECCA), Winston-Salem, North Carolina
October 24, 2013–February 24, 2014

Filed in Collective exhibitions, Contemporary, Exhibit design, Exhibition, Travelling exhibitions, USA | | Comments Off on Graphic Design: Now In Production
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis

Redundancy: The Usefulness of Repetition
Experimenta Design, Lisbon

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Redundancy: The Usefulness of Repetition
Lisbon, PG (urban intervention on the occasion of EXD 2011)
September 29 — November 27 2011

Curators: Lizá Ramalho and Artur Rebelo (R2 Design)

Statement: «Lizá Ramalho and Artur Rebelo curated the series of urban interventions for EXD, 2011 in Lisbon. They invited five communication design studios to explore the possibilities of redundancy and questioned its usefulness.
Project description: We want to reflect on the usefulness and uselessness of things. In that context, redundancy is a concept that, at first glance, refers to unnecessary excess. However, confronted with an imperfect reality where errors and severances are inevitable, communication, be it oral, visual or written, often falls back on redundancy in order to secure its effectiveness.
In practice, the absence of redundancy is rare, and a design project seeks to find its right measure, determined by the designer’s position according to the contexts and contents in question.
Free from the constraints of everyday practice, five communication design studios explored the possibilities of redundancy and questioned its usefulness. Transgressing the bidimensionality to which they are usually confined, they have created urban interventions of an ephemeral nature, having the Praça da Figueira as the stage for an exploration on the possibilities of designing the message. The many meanings and angles of this notion are perceivable through the heterogeneity of the installations produced. Studios with various approaches, distinct languages, and their very own understanding of communication design were invited to participate. […]» (extract from the curators’ statement)

Participants: Luke Morgan + Morag Myerscough (UK), Frédéric Teschner (FR), Lust (NL), Conditional Design, Luna Maurer + Roel Wouters (NL), Sulki & Min (KR).

Filed in Collective exhibitions, Contemporary, Europe, Exhibition, Portugal | | Comments Off on Redundancy: The Usefulness of Repetition
Experimenta Design, Lisbon

Bruno Monguzzi: An exhibition of posters from the Tom Strong Collection

Friday, September 9, 2011


Bruno Monguzzi: An exhibition of posters from the Tom Strong Collection
Vignelli Center for Design Studies
Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY
September 9 – October 28, 2011

Statement: «Bruno Monguzzi is a Swiss graphic designer. He was born in Mendrisio, Switzerland in 1941. He later moved to Geneva with his family and attended the Graphic Design Course at the Ecole des Arts Decoratifs. In 1960 he travelled to London and attended Gestalt psychology, typography and photography courses at St Martin‘s School of Art (now the Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design) and the London College of Printing (now the London College of Communication). After working with Dennis Bailey in London and Charles Gagnon and James Volkus in Montreal, Monguzzi moved to Milan in 1968 to join the Studio Boggeri – at the time the leading design and advertising agency in Italy. From the early-seventies he worked independently from his atelier in Meride, a secluded village in the South of Switzerland. He received the Premio Bodoni in 1971 and was awarded the distinction Royal Designer for Industry by the Royal Society of Arts, London in 2003. Amongst his most significant projects: the visual identity of the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, the exhibition Mejerchold Majakowskij at Castello Sforzesco in Milan, and the posters for Museo Cantonale d‘Arte in Lugano.
Bruno Monguzzi visited RIT in October. During his visit, he interacted with students and provided more insight into his work with gallery talks and a Design Conversation lecture.»

Filed in Collection, Exhibition, Posters, USA | | Comments Off on Bruno Monguzzi: An exhibition of posters from the Tom Strong Collection

Le secret des anneaux de saturne
Maison d’Art Bernard Anthonioz, Nogent-sur Marne

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Le secret des anneaux de saturne
Maison d’Art Bernard Anthonioz, Nogent-sur Marne, FR
September 8 – October 23, 2011

Statement: «Le projet Le Secret des Anneaux de Saturne du graphiste français Frédéric Teschner explore les modalités de mise en place d’une exposition dont le matériau visuel et plastique est l’objet-livre.
Ainsi, Frédéric Teschner est allé à la découverte du fonds documentaire conservé à la bibliothèque de la maison d’art. En graphiste, il entendait moins y trouver un contenu littéraire ou théorique, qu’un contenu visuel. Il a glané, ici ou là, au gré des pages feuilletées, sur une couverture ou une carte postale, des images, des morceaux d’images avec lesquelles il composera d’autres images qui se déploient dans l’exposition.
Ces objets graphiques disséminés dans l’espace sont à la fois son contenu visuel et les supports de textes proposés par différents intervenants. En effet, toujours dans la poursuite de l’initiative de la fondation, Frédéric Teschner a voulu associer des auteurs, critiques, artistes, graphistes à la question du statut et du rôle du graphisme aujourd’hui. Leurs réactions sont disponibles pour le public dans le parcours d’exposition.
Enfin, Frédéric Teschner a souhaité montrer une sélection de ses travaux déjà réalisés. Celle-ci accompagne les productions créées pour l’exposition.»

Catalogue: Le Secret des Anneaux de Saturne,.

Filed in Contemporary, Europe, Exhibition, France, Publishing, Solo show | | Comments Off on Le secret des anneaux de saturne
Maison d’Art Bernard Anthonioz, Nogent-sur Marne

Everyday Graphics

Saturday, September 3, 2011

Everydaygraphics
MOTI Breda at
OBA Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam, NL
September 3 – December 17, 2011

Statement: «The satellite exhibition in the central Amsterdam public library is a cross-section of historic designs from the collection of the museum in relation to new and recently acquired work created in the 21st century. Everydaygraphics shows the diversity of graphic design in order to give a clear picture of broadness of the trade. The exhibition offers a variety of designs: from the stamps of Peter Struycken to work of the new generation of designers.»

Filed in Collection, Contemporary, Europe, Exhibition, History, Library, Museums, Netherlands | Tagged | Comments Off on Everyday Graphics

Graphic Detour: Crossing Borders in European Design

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Graphic Detour: Crossing Borders in European Design
Graphic Design Museum Breda, NL, June 11 – November 27, 2011
Direktorenhaus, Berlin, DE, December 16, 2011 – February 3, 2012

Curator: Erik Kessels (KesselsKramer)
Statement: «Graphic Design isn’t what it used to be. Whereas traditional graphic design was a clearly defined craft, now technology allows anyone to be a designer. Computer programs help us create almost anything imaginable, which means that a lack of crafts skills is no longer the issue: a lack of ideas is. Consequently, true graphic design today is less about getting your fingers inky, and more about thinking different. As doing becomes easier and easier, finding original approaches is harder than ever.
But help is at hand. The boundaries between disciplines like fashion, art, photography, architecture and advertising are also becoming increasingly porous. Because these disciplines are no longer clear cut, cross-fertilisation can occur. Artists now take regular detours into graphic design, and graphic designers touch upon art more frequently than ever.
This exhibition celebrates the diversity of an ever-shifting area of creative expression. Graphic Detour showcases the work of designers who go beyond design, talents who mix media as a matter of course, innovators whose ideas set them apart. And to push this new graphic design further, Graphic Detour has asked a series of companies to ‘blind date’ a creative thinker, matching artists with ceramic workshops, printers, woodworkers and even candy manufacturers.
The result is a series of detours that just might lead us to a new place entirely.»
Participants: Daniel Eatock – KEMO Models and Prototypes; Joachim Schmid – NPN Printers; Erik Steinbrecher – Sunday Morning/European Ceramic Workcentre; Tod Hanson – Vlisco; Koen Taselaar – Metaalplan; Marti Guixé – Kompak; FUEL – De Geus Woodworks; Damien Poulain – Jamin

Filed in Art and Design, Collective exhibitions, Contemporary, Europe, Exhibition, Exhibition Making, Museums, Netherlands, Thematic, Travelling exhibitions | | Comments Off on Graphic Detour: Crossing Borders in European Design

RISD Graphic Design MFA Thesis Show
Providence

Friday, May 20, 2011

RISD Graphic Design MFA Thesis Show
Rhode Island Convention Center, Providence, RI
May 20 – June 4, 2011

Statement: «This is the collective effort of 15 designers, the result of five months of research, conception, and production.
The Graphic Design Thesis Show is a group exhibition presented as part of the Rhode Island School of Design’s annual Graduate Thesis Exhibition. The Graduate Exhibition shows the work of Masters’ candidates from 16 disciplines in a temporary gallery space installed in the exhibition halls of the Rhode Island Convention Center.
Our work exists in three challenging contexts: in the space of the gallery; in the expanse of the convention center; and in relation to each other’s work and the work of other designers and artists. How do we show graphic design in the gallery setting, and how can we make a coherent show from the work of 15 designers?
Beginning in January, we met regularly as a class to develop the concept and content of the show. We pondered how our show could support the graduate exhibition by creating spaces for observation and dialogue. We experimented with ways to make the show interactive and distributive. We developed strategies to tackle the extreme scale of the convention hall. Throughout, we discussed how to exhibit our very different bodies of work as a single, collective gesture.
Fluid working groups developed ideas which were fully explored through research into precedents, physical models, digital renderings, materials research, and budget analysis. A studio led by critic Rob Giampietro offered a forum to critique concepts and discuss strategies around the exhibition of graphic design.
During the course of the studio, we talked with Jon Sueda (CCA/Wattis) and James Langdon (East Side Projects), two designers who have recently curated shows of graphic design in a fresh and critical manner. We drew inspiration from the course reading Support Structures, an investigation of platforms of interaction between art, design, institutions, and space. We were particularly drawn to Antoni Muntadas’s Exhibition which strips the display conventions of the gallery of content, reframing the gallery space and exposing it as a system of display.
The show draws further inspiration from other designers engaged in the critical exhibition of graphic design, including Peter Bil’ak’s Graphic Design in the White Cube (2006) and Julia Born’s Title of the Show (2009) as well as the cover of XTC’s Go 2 album by Hipgnosis (1978). In their work, these designers expose the systems of the conceptualization, production, exhibition, and distribution of graphic design.
This is the catalogue of the show, which is also the show. It is a collection of work from our individual thesis investigations; an index of the physical gallery space; and a record of our collaborative process. The show is a unified work that extends beyond the exhibition space and hinges on its distribution. The work is not complete until it enters circulation.
The 2011 RISD Graphic Design MFA Thesis Show exists on the walls of the gallery, in frames and on screen, on pedestals and under glass. It is in your hands and on the internet. Graphic design lives in all of these spaces, and it thrives in its distribution and circulation.»

Images illustrating the process of the exhibition’s concept and design are available online.

Filed in Collective exhibitions, Contemporary, Curating, Exhibit design, Exhibition, Schools, USA | | Comments Off on RISD Graphic Design MFA Thesis Show
Providence

Off the Wall
Yale MFA Graphic Design Grad Show 2010

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Off the Wall
Yale MFA Graphic Design Grad Show 2010
Green Hall Gallery of the School of Art, located at 1156 Chapel Street in New Haven, Connecticut
May 15-22, 2011

See also a review of the show at http://payamrajabi.com/, including images of the making of.

Off The Wall 1 from Yale GD 2010 on Vimeo.

Filed in Collective exhibitions, Contemporary, Exhibition, Exhibition Making, Schools, USA, Video | | Comments Off on Off the Wall
Yale MFA Graphic Design Grad Show 2010