“All languages are foreign.

The best books are found, not sought.

Peace, plenty, truth, and love.”

– We Have Photoshop 2017.

12/11/2017

Dear creators/members of We Have Photoshop,

First I will introduce myself; my name is Sterre, I am a Dutch student at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam.

For a design research assignment called ‘Books by Design’, I am analyzing the design of your book ‘Gilles Deleuze’s ABC primer.’ I found it at our school’s library and was immediately attracted to its playfulness. The only thing that bothers me is that there’s always a grand distance between the reader and the creator, I would love to let go of that distance by having a small talk with you, that would help me understand your way of decision making.

Does We Have Photoshop also have Skype? I would love to wake up in the middle of the night for a nice conversation with you!

Let me hear what you think about it and hopefully I’ll see you soon through my computer screen.

Kind regards,

Sterre Troquay

15/11/2017

Hi Sterre –

Nice to hear from you

and sorry about the delay in getting back to you.

I’d be happy to help with your project by having a chat on Skype.

I live in London so the time difference won’t be a big deal however,

I’m currently travelling between India and Russia

and won’t be back in London until the evening of the 19th.

I’m pretty busy during the day next week

but would be happy to chat after 7pm London-time

if that isn’t too late to be of use for your project.

Monday would work well for me

but it could be a different day if that isn’t good for you.

– Mike

17/11/2017

Hi Mike,

Thank you for responding!

Monday 7 pm London time is perfect!

My username on Skype is: Sterre…...

I’m looking forward to it!

Kind regards,

Sterre

20/11/2017

Skype video call

So, you work together with other designers within the studio called ‘We Have Photoshop, right?

Yes, that’s right.

Can you tell me a bit more about the genesis of the studio?

I started the studio together with my friends from collage.

We used to study at the Yale School of Art,

though the studio was never registered as an official company.

How do you work together? Do all of you work on each project, or ..

No, as soon as we graduated from art school,

most of us moved out of Brooklyn and the group scattered a bit.

Sebastian lives in Moscow, Rebecca in Chicago,

Andrew still lives in Brooklyn and I live in London.

The distance makes it hard to work together on projects,

that’s why the studio barely exists, most of us have other primary jobs now.

Whenever we work for a client,

one of us takes the job and we sometimes help each other completing the job.

Most of the time we consult via Skype, but I sometimes go for a visit.

You designed ‘Gilles Deleuze’s ABC Primer’. Was anyone else involved in the designing of the book and was there a client that had influence on the outcome?

I designed almost the whole book.

Only the title page isn’t my idea, Sebastian worked on that.

I think there’s a clear contrast between his work and the rest of the book,

you can tell it’s been designed by someone else.

This project really originates from my own interests, there’s no client involved.

It started about 8 or 9 years ago when I found videos

of a series of interviews according to the letters of the alphabet.

They were broadcasted on French television after Deleuze committed suïcide,

I believe This was one of his conditions for taking part in the interview in the first place.

My girlfriend at that time, now wife, speaks French quite well and also works as an academic, so this subject was very interesting for her as well.

We thought: if this book doesn’t exist already,

we could make an English translation of it.

We sent an email to ask for permission to translate the interviews,

 but they never responded,

so we figured that we could just do it since they’ve never said no.

My wife did the translations and the content and I did the design.

Did you know that the book was in the Rietveld library?

No, when you publish a book, you never get to know who buys it.

Nowadays that’s already different, now they do tell you in which country it’s been sold.

But we also never really wanted to publish it.

We wanted to make a translation to give it to our friends

because we thought they should read it as well.

….

I don’t really give clear answers to your questions, do I?

Yes you do .. But I also wouldn’t mind if you didn’t .. I just want to hear about everything you’ve got to say and at the end I’ll try to write a research in the same conversation-like style that the text of the book is written in. So, that’s why I’m also recording this ..

So, have you read the book then?

Yes, I’ve started on it and I really want to continue.

Yes, they have a pretty amazing conversation ..

That’s one of the reasons why we were attracted to doing this,

because the text is really good. I have read it a couple of times now,

but I can imagine it’s very hard to understand for someone

who’s not a specialist in theory.

It’s very dense, it’s very particular and specific.

They talk about a lot of different subjects as well.

Yes. The interview is structured by the letters of the alphabet,

but throughout the interview some ideas and subjects

return in the conversation they’re having.

I feel like the playful design of the book is really in contrast with its logical and chronological context. The cover of the book for instance: the letter ‘Z’ is on the front and the letter ‘A’ is on the back, shouldn’t it be the other way around? Is it a joke?

Yes, it’s definitely a joke.

But still the cover of the book makes sense: When you open it, and look at the cover,

the ‘A’ comes before the ‘Z’ and the spine serves as a space between the letters.

Can you tell me a bit more about the design of the book and the decisions you’ve made? I’m also interested in your working process.

Of course.

 The design of a book really depends on the content

and I always start on the structure.

But for me, it basically means: adding, adding, adding,

and afterwards scrapping things till almost nothing’s left

and then I’ve probably done enough ..

At the time I made the book I was very interested mapping one structure onto another.

The text is made the same way: by translating the French sentences into English,

 the text becomes a bit distorted at first.

The design of the book visually mirrors that.

You can see that very well on this double titled page.

Something that was also interesting for me is the running footer

which moves from ‘A’ to ‘Z’ across the bottom which makes it look like a small film.

The same thing happens with the structure of the chapters,

which are also divided by the letters of the alphabet.

What I really like about the book is that it looks very logical, but in fact it’s completely illogical. I don’t want it to be completely understandable, I like it to be a game.

Yes, that’s exactly what attracted me so much! We’re actually doing some bookbinding at school at the moment and I feel like this is very useful for my own book design as well. So, are you satisfied with the end result? Are there things you would have done differently?

Yes, I’m actually pleased with the physical design of the book.

Of course, there will always be things that you don’t like, but can’t do anything about.

The glue binding for instance:

the first version of the book was way more flexible than the latest version.

That’s because they used a lot more glue for the latest version.

I also prefer the paper of the first version, I’m not sure why they changed it ..

Thank you so much for your time and great help! I just have one more question: Would you like to take a selfie with me over Skype?

…

Gilles Deleuze’s ABC Primer, designer: We have Photoshop, Rietveld Library Cat. no: 157.3

A thick, soft bound minimal book. Deep wine red cover, blank, apart from the title- “Eva Hesse, Diaries”. From a side view, multiple black lines appear – opening the book up at one of such, the viewer discovers fully blacked out pages. Clearly a separation of some kind, and this is where the curiosity started – one of the reasons why I picked up this book to research on it.

To some extent reminiscent of a elderly and minimalist bible caused by colour and size, opening this book immediately provokes a certain curiosity; especially the confrontation with cutting through content and context sharply through a simple, basic idea – to separate each diary with coloured pages enforces the reader or viewer to get a rough insight to the actual content of Hesse’s Diaries already.

The 20 second intimacy that occurs to a person when looking at a book for the first time has always fascinated me somehow – the endless possibilities of reactions one might digest, from a deep attraction to complete indifference, and how the slightest change in design, especially typography can make the most significant change.

According, “Eva Hesse Diaries” reveals a very appealing approach typography wise.

Every new page usually starts with the date of the entry, which truly summons the feeling of physically opening up and reading through her original diaries.

Another attention catching factor supporting the previous are the visual irregularities in which layout and state pages are left, some being nearly blank and some completely filled, but always seemingly decisive.

As an example, turning the page to find one single sentence only may leave a vibrant impression on the viewer. For further underlining of importance, paragraphing has been used with a similar effect.

In the optic chaos one might expect reading a diary, this design makes us stumble upon aesthetically pleasing organization due to provision of the books typographic grid in which the manuscript pages had been divided into eight columns.

For stronger visual insurance of clarity the font size is standardized whereas uppercase, underlining and crossing outs are retained. As an extra insight content wise, some of the original materials of her diaries such as notes and loose pages have been added.

The design of this newly gathered selection of Eva Hesse’s diaries was awarded the bronze medal in “best book designs from all over the world 2017” and selected one of the “most beautiful Swiss books 2017” and was planned and mainly made by Johannes Breyer during his internship at the design company “NORM” in Zurich, led by Dmitri Bruni and Manuel Krebs.

To get an insight into Breyer’s approach in and understanding of design, we might want to look a bit closer at his persona itself.

He is a half German, half Chilean graphic designer currently based in Berlin who studied in Zurich whilst being occupied at NORM before he graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie.

http://www.norm.to

Nowadays he focuses mainly on printed matter such as books, and type design.

His interest in graphic design roots in a passion he found himself captured in during his youth where he claimed to have been an excessive gamer. Gaming led to him and his online friends stumbling upon web design which stuck to him as a field of interest so such an extent he decided to pursue this newly found passion – which leads us up until now.

Momentarily he runs a Swiss type design practice with the designer Fabian Harb called “DINAMO”, which produces typefaces and exclusive alphabets.

http://www.abcdinamo.com/about

Breyer is interested in creating and deducing the best system for each project and each product. From his perspective, it is better to hold personal preferences back, otherwise the content may be too easily forced into a form without relation to content or cause.

One of his beliefs include the fact that he thinks of passion and general curiosity as a more vital factor to success and progress rather than following an institutional education, although he’d rather work within a tight set of rules during the process of a project, claiming such set of rules to provide the necessary freedom to not run in circles with the same questions over and over again.

Overall, this design accurately depicts a visual insight into the artists personal life in an aesthetically pleasing format that certainly deserves the attention it has gotten. To achieve the effect of a reader entering the mind of a complete stranger could be described as a phenomena, considering the fact that in a social surrounding people interact on a mostly superficial basis – depending on the individually desired extent of social interactions. Exposing the raw content that makes up our persona, sharing every single vital thought, including angst and paranoia, socially unacceptable thoughts and processes in mind is something most people fear – but it also awakens a greater curiosity. To gather personal content together and deal with such sensible material in an appropriate manner could be considered an honorable task, anyhow this book is certainly worth giving it a look at.
Eva Hesse Diaries, designer: Johannes Breyer, Rietveld Library Cat. no: hes 9

I love books. Looking at books, or preferably full bookshelves, has always made me happy. It is not that I loved books because of the way they looked, but rather because of the knowledge that they represent. I’ve always seen books as a medium for information, as a source of knowledge, and because of that, I thought that the content was the most important part of a book.

When I started to make a book myself, I focused on the content, seeing the design as something ‘to worry about later’ or even, something ‘not to think about too much at all’. However, at the same time as making my own book, I did a research on a book designed by Irma Boom. Boom is a Dutch ‘bookmaker’, as she calls herself, who challenges the traditional formats of books. She doesn’t treat books as simple PdFs prints, but rather as architectonic objects. The shape, weight, and size become important aspects of the design because these aspects influence the experience of reading the book just like the content does.

To illustrate this, Boom has prove she could as much make a book that is 170 x 225 x 113mm height and weighs 3.5kg,  than a book smaller than the tip of your pinkie. The experience of handling these two ‘objects’ are completely different. While the first one is hard to hold because of the weight, the other one is hard to hold because there’s only a small surface to hold on to. The experience of these two books would have been the same if they both had been read on a computer.

Boom handling her smallest and biggest book. 

Another book made by Boom is Misfits. Misfits has an outstanding shape too, which spoke to me immediately. The book is bound in the simplest way, but it is an unusual way for a book so thick. It is bound by one thread that holds more than 300 pages together. Like Boom says herself, the book is essentially ‘just a pile of paper, stapled, folded and that is it’.

The middle of the book, where the thread binds the book and the pages come together, is also used as the center of the content. The works that are showing in the book come here together and are ordered in a catalogue. This is also useful when flipping through the book, because this is the place where the book will open naturally. Here, the way of binding influences the structure.

I like that the book is unusual, as well in the shape of the book as in the structure. This makes the book interesting to look through. The book is simple in the mechanism that is used to bind the pages, but it isn’t so straightforward in the mechanism to organize the pages. At the same time, the simple solutions that are used in the book connect the book to the work of Hella Jongerius, the artist whose designs are shown in the book. She tries to find easy solutions in her designs as well.

Another book designed by Boom in which the physical shape fits the content is Elements. Elements is a book, or rather a collection of books, that accompanied the exhibition ‘Elements in Architecture’ at the 2014 Venice Biennale. It is a sort of frame that beholds 15 smaller books, each representing another fundamental part of architecture, such as floor, wall, ceiling, balcony, elevator and ramp. The fact that the book is a collection of different parts, different elements, strengthens the content of the book.

The complete collection of Elements standing in a full shelf with other books designed by Irma Boom.

Elements and Misfits both are books with an unusual physical shape. These books got my attention because of their shape, not their content. For me, they where more ‘objects’ than ‘books’. Books are of course always objects, but when does a reader become aware that it is an object? When does a book become more than content, fitted in pages?

Boom’s books are often seen as works of art. I think that one of the reasons for this is their object-quality. They are interesting to look at as object and don’t necessarily need their content to be interesting. This makes them almost like autonomous works of art.

In my own project too, I’m trying to make the design of the book interesting and fitting for the content. I let myself be inspired by Boom’s book designs and made, like Boom did with Elements, a collection of smaller books. These books are bound in the same way as Misfits is bound. In the middle of the book I placed the most important pictures, like Boom used the center for a summary. This way I hope that when someone opens the book, the most important page is immediately visible.

Researching the way Boom uses the physical elements of a book to enhance the content made me aware that a book could be more than just printed out pages, bound together. I realized that books are objects too. I have my own copy of Misfits now, which is not standing in my bookshelf, but proudly on top of it. I haven’t read a page of it yet, but I’m in love with the book already.

Misfit, designer: Irma Boom, Rietveld Library Cat. no: jonger 2

What                 about

         a     paper      experience    ?

Texture      //////////////   Size///////////////////

////  Shape//////////////////////////////////Smell

—

Reading is normally the first motivation for buying a book right? But it isn’t always the case, at least not for me. There are so many different things that can bring you to this mysterious and incredible object: the book. One of them is the paper experience and since ages it is a full and really particular sensorial one.

In fact, only for this reason,  I spend hours and hours in book shops searching for something attractive. But what does it  « something attractive » mean? After spending four years studying Graphic Design in Switzerland, I have learned how to understand layouts, how to make them attractive, and how to manage different information to make them more accessible. But Furthermore I’ve learned that the base of all the work of a graphic designer is sensibility. How to play with visual and tactile senses. How to make you curious on a subject that you don’t really care about just by the shape of a book. The content of it, is for certain the most important thing but some people can look at a book in a totally different way.  For instance, when I buy books, pay attention to the layout or the paper, more than to the content.

Through the broad variety of books available in the Rietveld unique library, my eyes fell on a small and independent  magazine called « The YellowPress ». It was created by the St Lucas School of Arts of Antwerpen. This magazine’s particularity is that for each one of their periodical they gives the opportunity to all students, alumni, researchers and professors of the school to share their on-going research and/or output / results. This enables a diversity and an open-minded perspective of the magazine and creates the possibility to reinvent the layout’s atmosphere and dynamic. This explains the reason why each periodical has a completely different shape, typography and layout design.
I chose to focus my work on the first number of the periodical made by the graphic designer Ward Heirwegh who teaches graphic design at the St Lucas School of Arts.

More precisely, I’ve chosen to work on the Periodical #1 because at first sight it was the design of the cover that I noticed. Therefore, I focused only on the design of the magazine, not on the content. First of all, we can see how images are articulated with the text in a way that they interact with each other and play with the space of the page. The fact that they are using a card board for the cover but also for the Editorial and Colophon was at first something that I’ve found really playful and unusual. The cover is normally more straight than the content but in this case, they played with the same paper inside of the book and bring an other dynamic.

The back cover is also interesting because they played only with text elements and the size of the text, which gives a special interest to the pages because the integral empty space. That is one of the knowledge of a good designer to know how to manage the white space and make it interesting. As many Graphic Designers, they used only text and play with the idea that it can become an image.

The color of the cover has been something really intriguing because it is a fluorescent yellow. This choice gives a certain impact to the cover because it catches the reader’s eye. Among the four pictures on the cover, only one is in color and the others are only black and white. From my perspective,  this gives a tension to the way that it is framed because of the repartition of the space.

Moreover, the dynamic is followed by the utilization of all different kinds of paper for each edition. As I have mentioned previously the cover and the Editorial are printed on a card board and the four projects are presented on different papers. By this simple act, they created a different atmosphere for each periodical and gave another dynamic to the work. One of the first things that I usually like to look at when I’m discovering a book is the choice of paper. This simple fact allows you to give a whole sensibility to your object. Furthermore, what differentiates a printed book from a digital book is precisely the choice of the material and also the images can be really different depending on the paper and the quality of the printing. The paper is the real contact with the object and therefore a full sensorial experience. The magazine’s choice to change the paper for each project gives a different feeling to each work and invites the reader to discover/ experience something new every time . From my point of view, this is one of the most important characteristic.

By conducting my research, I saw that The YellowPress is variable for each project. I liked the fact that they have found different dynamics, playing with the space and the different typographies. They have chosen to use different typographies for the different parts of the magazine and by this means, we can distinguish the different parts of the magazine: for example, the Editorial, the introduction to a work, the information of the pages, etc. The fact that they mix different kinds of typography shows that they care about each shape and dynamic of the typography and about what experience they could create on the ready. It is a subtle way to play with the content.

On this periodical, one of the things that I’ve really liked was the bookbinding. They have work with a sew and stick binding and it gives something really attractive to the object. By the fact that the layoutis really clean and nice and you have this industrial binding which brings another dimension to the project, more experimental and practical.

After my analysis about the layout of this magazine, I think that in the first place I was actually more attracted by the choice of the different papers than about the layout itself. I still like how they  have constructed and organized the magazine but I’m really interested by the texture. What I’ve also really enjoyed about this magazine is that they didn’t respect the common codes that magazines usually follow. A magazine is usually based on a specific grill and respect certain typography and system for each periodical. In the YellowPress, they adapt and change every time every thing.

 
We are at a time when the value of paper is being questioned and compared to digital. It is essential to see in this medium a real quality and sensory experience that I believe, can never be equaled by the digital. People crave for something real, a physical object that is unique and that you can hold in your hand and experience it.

The YellowPress Periodical #1, designer: Ward Heirwegh, Rietveld Library Cat. no: magazine

Hamburger Eyes. The Continuing Story of Life on Earth… Bizarre title aside- hamburger eyes? life on earth continues!!- what attracted me the most was the cover, more specifically its texture. The pleasant sensation of its grainy, bulky surface on my fingertips reminded me of snowy twitches of bad TV signal, or, perhaps more curiously, the thick, shiny, rough surface of the corridor walls in my primary school in Russia (a serious throwback!). A visuo-tactile experience. A tactile eye (a Hamburger Eye?)

The object-oriented appeal of this catalogue is emphasized by the cover’s minimal design: front- one black and white image, framed simply and straightforwardly, no text; back- modest typeface (and size) of the title, another black and white shot, Kunstverein München. The Continuing Story of Life on Earth is the sixth installment in Kunstverein München’s Companion series, produced in collaboration with Roma Publications since April 2015,  and was released on the occasion of the exhibition by Hamburger Eyes at Kunstverein München. I’m still not entirely sure what Companion series is all about, other than quietly beautiful, tactile books; book-objects. They are artist/exhibition books primarily, all clad in that leathery grain and defined by simple, sharp covers and minimalist layouts; images taking up full pages, and separated completely from text, which always has its own section. I have managed to get hold of two more publications from the series, You’ve got beautiful stairs, you know (artist book for/by la Vasiljeva), and Serving Compressed Energy with Vacuum (exhibition catalogue for Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven). Both have the same multi-sensory appeal of a well-designed object; as publications, they are direct in their materiality but somewhat elusive in their origin and intention: where did they come from? Who made them?

Companion is conceptualized and designed by Julie Peeters , a Brussels-based graphic designer, editor and educator. For the sake of this brief research we are going to conflate the series with the person behind them; she is credited under ‘identity’ as well as under graphic design. Companion is Julie Peeters.

Peeters deals primarily with exhibition-related printed matter- booklets, posters, catalogues; on her website you can find examples of ‘anthologies of installations’, exhibition designs, as well as credits for the identity of Lithuanian and Cyprus Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennial. Peeter’s signature minimalism, as seen in Companion, is consistent throughout her design practice: simple yet bold covers without titles (if possible), text relegated to its own section in the back, simple layouts that let images unfold, breath, softly assert themselves. A prime example of this is Julia’s design of Full Colour by Karel Martens, published on the occasion of an exhibition in Tokyo. Graphic, enigmatic cover; title humbly relegated to the spine ; images taking up the whole page, on every page. Never a literal representation, a book by Peeters is an autonomous object, which augments its origin (an exhibition, an artist’s practice), yet has a character of its own.

Upon closer inspection the book’s identity unfolds; The Continuing Story of Life on Earth is not just Peeters. Hamburger Eyes began as a small xeroxed zine, turned into a magazine, and has evolved into a publisher. Publishing since 2001, they have developed their own signature vision of photography-

‘Ray selects images for their almost unexplainable impact, for their ‘epic’ qualities that exceed understanding, that SURPASS LANGUAGE…’
very Peeters?…

and a self-assured design style-

‘the current format is black and white printing on matte stock, print run of 500 copies, 6 x 9 inches, 64 pages, with PERFECT bind’

The exhibition

which spawned this curious book (‘facsimiles of spreads from the back issues of Hamburger Eyes’) points to the mutually informative relationship between the design and the content. Each image was exhibited unframed and face up on tables, ‘as if a zine were being collated’. Hamburger Eyes promise to focus on the quality of a given image, rather than on the quality of its framing or installation ~ ~ ~ ~ The Continuing Story of Life on Earth has a very simple yet occasionally claustrophobic (two images stuck to one another on one page, with one blown up on the other) layout that recalls the intimate space of a zine. The book also houses an essay, that weaves throughout the whole book and is punctuated with tiny images- who made the choice when it comes to this punctuation? The publication is authored by Chris Fitzpatrick (editor?…), who also initiated the exhibition; one has to always consider the relationship between the designer and the author. The Continuing Story of Life on Earth is a collaborative effort shared between the two. Here content informs design, but also design informs design: from a zine to a photography magazine to an exhibition and back again trough the catalogue to our book.

Hanburger Eyes /The continuing story of life on earth, designed by Julie Peeters, Rietveld Library Catalog no: hamb 1

As a part of a research I focused on the design of a magazine. How a layout can interfere with a certain content ? and how a layout could be a good understanding of the content itself ? I started my research by choosing a magazine. A magazine which inspired me at the first look. Thought a mere book wasn’t interesting me. I chose to work on an edition magazine. I focused on the Flash art magazine issue 312.

At first, what’s Flash art magazine and why it is created ?

A little bit history about flash art magazine:
Flash Art is a bimonthly magazine focused on contemporary art. It was founded in Rome in 1967 by Italian publisher and art critic Giancarlo Politi. The magazine has been described as “the confident, international journal of European and North American contemporary art ». It is a magazine and publishing platform dedicated to thinking about contemporary art, exploring the evolving cultural landscape through the work of leading artists, writers, curators and others.

The next question following was why I chose this magazine? Why not an other one ?
—> Basic description and first look. How it’s look like ?

At first I chose this magazine for its cover. It attracted me by the colours of the artwork put in the middle of the page but also by the white square surrounding it. At first sight, the magazine looked minimal with a straight and regular layout. In the first pages of the magazine you have art and luxury adverts. After those pages you find a summary.

The magazine is separated in five parts : – Macro, – Features, -Time machine, -Micro and -Reviews. In those parts you have different topics, artworks and interviews presented.

In the middle of the magazine you can find different advertising and publicity about museums and artworks.
Concerning the layout, it is presented like one page of text, one image.

The text are laid out in columns. Often with three columns. The font is the same in all the magazine but the size changes for titles and subtitles. They used newspaper paper for the hole magazine. The cover is smooth, with a title in front and on the top, then an image of an artwork all over the page. On the right side you have the number of the magazine, the month of it’s publication and the price in the different countries.The binding is basic, a glued square which keeps the pages together.

After the description part of the design, let’s talk about the interference of it with the content:
First thing to say. I focused on the design of the magazine and not on the content.
We know the magazine is an art international magazine. The content then speaks of art and explains artworks. As I explained previously, the layout is quite simple and straight forward.That is why the design gave place to a good understanding of the content because it is clear. The texts are clear and the images printed big. Different layout for images and texts takes place in the magazine which differs depending on the content of the article. A question came to me about this straight and basic layout. Is it the same for all the number of the magazine ? Is it a choice to work with the same layout ?

By conducting my research, I saw that flash art have several designers for different number of the magazine. In one of the numbers that I chose, the designer Samuele Angellotti, has his proper label : Hansel Grotesque. A website was created since 2015 but nothing is online yet: http://www.hansel-grotesque.it/. His work is about identity and graphic design. It is really different compared to the layout in Flash art. I put the link of his personal blog:http://www.samueleanzellotti.it/ . It shows that Samuele Angellotti works with difference brands, for example Jin Jin Island. He was the art director and the graphic designer in 2015. The layout of his website is interesting and interactive for the viewer. The projects are well understood, represent by that ‘gif’ logo of the project on the black background.

Let’s see if I can say more about the layout and designers in different number of the magazine. I’ve made the choice to focus on three different numbers. In all of the three, the summary changes. They are more or less different categories, it obviously refers to the content itself. I noticed similarities in the layout.The advertising at the beginning in the magazine are the same, the font and the size of the text is the same. The review part is not changing. Indeed, in one magazine the layout change by adding different papers. In one we have scans of newspapers. A glossy paper is here to explain a project of an artist. The text has a different layout : a grey square surrounded the text.

For each artist presentation and article the design changes with colour of the square surrounding the text and the quality of the paper. In an other number, we have different colours of paper : light blue, light pink and light yellow. Two columns of text and the same font again. Sometimes the colour of the text changes to emphasize the content. The designer is again not the same than the two other. In this issue the graphic designer is Lilia Di Bella, who works as a graphic designer for the platform “Archive Books”. It is a platform for debates and cultural research located in Berlin. They are engaged on difference activities about publishing and exhibition making. http://www.archivebooks.org/. The design of the website is clear and clean. It shows artists publications. It is different compare the website of Flash art magazine:https://www.flashartonline.com/ which are more commercial and linear. In the principal page, artists projects are presented. It is possible to see the magazine of the month. Also find the previous number of the magazine and buy the current magazine.

I tried to search for an older version of flash art magazine to see if the layout was the same and if not what were the most important changes. I find one of 2006 and just on the cover we saw differences . I imagine the layout was different inside of the magazine.

After investigating about the layout of this magazine, I think that it was the cover of the magazine that attracted me more than the layout itself. The flash art magazine use the same graphic rhythm to have an entity and his own identity next to other popular magazines. The layouts are clear, I think the content is the most important thing. It is a straight pattern which is repeated monthly in these magazines. They wanted to achieve a universal identity with international content for an open reader.

Flash Art, designed by Samuele Angellotti, Rietveld Library Catalog no: magazine

The Sun and The YPP3

An issue of the Sun, or any other tabloid newspaper, is designed to grab your attention, and to stand out on shelves filled with newspapers and magazines. The tabloid newspaper uses bright colors, large bold typography, and shocking headlines next to eye-catching suggestive photos. The cover of the YellowPress periodical #3 does not share many of these features, and it does not use any of these visual tools in the same way, but the publication’s bright red cover with it’s abstract black shapes still managed to grab my attention. Sitting on the shelf in the library it was the first item that caught my eye, and it intrigued me enough to pick it up and have a further look.

The name YellowPress refers to yellow journalism or yellow press, a term used to describe what is more commonly known as tabloid or sensationalist newspapers, publications that focus on the amount of newspapers it can sell and not on actual journalism. The type of newspapers that will annoy you when you unintentionally encounter them in a shop or on a table in the hospital waiting room. Cheap, unprofessional and frequently unethical printed content. The YellowPress periodical is by contrast a publication platform for artistic research, based in the St Lucas School of arts in Antwerp, where the designer of the book (periodical) also teaches. The name is an allusion to this trivial form of journalism, that graphic designer Ward Heirwegh also refers to in the design of the publication.

When it comes to the front page, the only immediately recognizable feature shared by a tabloid newspaper and the YellowPress periodical #3 is the use of color. The use of red on the cover could be a reference to tabloid newspapers, as their titles are often surrounded by the vibrant color known to evoke emotion. The red on the dust jacket has an eye-grabbing effect, but it’s also used inside the book with one full red page introducing each of the four chapters. On the lightweight almost newspaper–thin pages the color has a different effect. The reflection of the full red pages on the white paper create the illusion that some pages are pink and the back of the red printed page appear to have a light pink tint. The last chapter of the book enhances this confusion by altering between red, pink and black text. The overall effect this has on the book is a soft glow of light red and pink throughout, creating continuous variation through an indirect use of the colors.

The bright red dust jacket embracing the white cover of the book features the YellowPress Periodical logo – an outline of the letters “YP” – as well as four elements referencing the content of the book. A black rectangle, a line with black dots reminiscent of a map drawing, a row of three digit numbers, and a set of horizontal and vertical lines with one line covered in three black ovals make up the design of the front cover. The graphic elements are distinctively individual, but they also work together as one illustration due to their differences in form and their similarity in color. Already on the cover a play between the content and design becomes apparent, and shows that this is an unusual book with a very specific design language. Ward Heirwegh (the designer) mainly works within the cultural and creative field, and besides teaching graphic design conducts research into alternative means of distributing information (and takes photos of his work on wooden floors).

The shapes are in fact abstractions of the issue’s contents. And they are all repeated continuously throughout their respective chapters. Calling the divisions in content “chapters” is perhaps not accurate enough as the YellowPress is a non-hierarchical publication where the contents are not arranged after importance or in the same way chapters would be arranged in a conventional publication, or how content is categorized in a tabloid newspaper. The black squares referenced on the cover are featured alongside typography pages that are an addition to first text, both by artists An Onghena and Hanne Van Dyck.

The use of graphic artworks is a major contrast to the tabloid newspapers use of offensive caricature drawings, but on a stripped down level they are in both cases illustrations supporting the written content. The black vertical line featured on the back cover under the dust jacket marks the margin for the pages, and is present throughout the book either alongside text or behind illustrations. It’s even there when it isn’t, as the text follows the same margin even when the line is not printed. In the second chapter the vertical line is replaced by a horizontal one, that separates text from illustration or other text.

The layout is so far removed from the commercially driven newspaper layout that attempting to compare the two does not make a lot of sense. The same can be said of the design and the content of this magazine, so integrated that I’m hesitant to describe them as singular elements. The experimental nature of the design and the publication itself is pushing boundaries and exploring the limits of publication design. The challenge of integrating artworks, texts and illustrations from different contributors has been solved in such a way that the design becomes the content.

Elements like the vertical line are one of many elements that are played with, and this playfulness of the design is probably the most attractive element to me. The book constantly presents rules and systems that it, after establishing them,  chooses to go beyond or disregard. A sense of humor is present in the references to yellow press for instance in the use of a serious and not so modern looking typeface or in the ironic nature of the publications name, when the YellowPress’ content is so far removed from that of the yellow press. While tabloid newspapers today are a major contributor to an unstable political situation, the YellowPress is a tool for academics and artistic researchers to inform and educate their readers. The YellowPress Periodical #3 uses some of the same tools as a yellow press newspaper, but by altering their intention – using them to inform and not to sell, to educate and not to frighten – the visual language changes from noisy and disturbing to something beautiful.

The YellowPress Periodical #3, designer: Ward Heirwegh, Rietveld Library Cat. no: magazine

A

Object

1. A material thing that can be seen and touched. (Oxford)

2. A thing external to the thinking mind or subject.(Oxford)

3. Something mental or physical toward which thought, feeling, or action is directed.(Merriam Webster)

Conversation

1. Exchange of sentiments, observations, opinions, or ideas (Merriam Webster)

2. Talk between two or more people in which thoughts, feelings, and ideas are expressed, questions are asked and answered, or news and information is exchanged (Cambridge, Oxford)

Recognition

1. Knowledge or feeling that someone or something present has been encountered before.(Merriam Webster)

Identification of someone or something or person from previous encounters or knowledge.(Oxford)

The fact of knowing someone or something because you have experienced it before.

2. Acknowledgement of the existence, validity, or legality of something. (Oxford)

Agreement that something is true or legal (Cambridge)

3. Appreciation or acclaim for an achievement, service, or ability. (Oxford)

Special notice or attention (Merriam Webster)

B

F.R DAVID is a biannual journal- founded, edited and typeset by Will Holder-concerned with ‘the organization of reading and writing in contemporary art practice’. It is chunky: a rectangular block. Like a brick. Or a novel: An object. This is what drew me initially to the Autumn 2017 edition- ‘Recognition’- and is illustrative of an important aspect of Will Holder’s work. His interest in the “thingness of words” is manifested physically, not only in the shape and feel of the journal (something which he plays with more explicitly in “Black my Story” an exhibition catalogue in novel disguise), but also in additional items that come with every edition- A book mark and a postcard- things that very much ask us to hold them in our hands. A specific rule defined at the founding of F.R DAVID stipulates that they are printed on the matte side of the card, the gloss side left blank (This is also true of the cover). Another, dictates that seemingly mysterious letters on the spine of each edition when placed together will eventually spell out F.R DAVID’s maxim ‘Words don’t come easy’. Of course, the 80s hit of French pop star, F.R. DAVID, whose name is appropriated hilariously as though it were the author’s on the cover of this intellectual, literary-art journal.)

This kind of inversion of commercial publishing convention is present throughout ‘Recognition’ (and the rest of Holder’s work): images are placed oddly on the page, sometimes even overlapping with the text; the typeface shifts incongruously to ‘American Typewriter’ for one text only; images of text are used at points rather than the typed words; footnotes expand uncontrollably to fill entire pages. By subverting our expectations, Holder makes us extremely aware of the materiality of every aspect of the publication- both literal/physical and linguistic. The event of publishing too becomes an object: Holder organizes performances with readings in strange, poetical formats with quite trance-like elements. Constantly he is reacting against the increasingly conventional, stream-lined nature of the graphic-design industry, a world of “branding agencies and viral strategy analysts”

C

Will Holder told me about the role of page space and layout in his work in allowing room for multiple meanings:
“My work allows all present to have a voice, and often uses the page to score this polyphony and dissonance.”
In particular, he is concerned with the reader’s contribution to the meaning of a text; his work is conceived of as a collaborative exercise between author and audience and designer and printer and publisher and all who have played a role in producing it. The ongoing, dialogical qualities of book design become increasingly important with the modern explosion of information sharing. In an era very much preoccupied with notions like ‘fake news’ and ‘post-truth’ we need to find ways to re-legitimise published opinions.
“We could say that given today’s onslaught of information and multiple views, reading is an exercise in comparison, in order to distill one’s own position; and not regurgitate what others want you to”

F.R. DAVID being a journal, has to accommodate multiple voices more actively even than a publication with a single author. Each text is subject to the “inflection of [its] neighbours”. In catering to this and in embracing it, Holder intersperses separate texts in the ‘Recognition’ issue, using two different style sheets: While some typographical and formal limits are imposed for continuity, there is diversity within these limits, informed by the content. The original typesetting of articles has been maintained where Holder deems it relevant. And in all of these decisions he acknowledges the subjectivity of his own voice, pointing out “that relevance is dictated to me by my reading of the material”.

F.R. DAVID as well as many of Holder’s other publications uses primarily ‘The Doves type’, steeped, appropriately, in conversation and history and mystery: Its origins are in The Doves Press, founded in 1900 in London (since when it has been banished for almost a century to depths of the River Thames and then dramatically rediscovered). Its celebrated fount of metal type was designed with the intention of ensuring that it did not distract the reader from ideas within the text itself, ‘the thing intended to be conveyed’. The significance of this sentiment in relation to Will Holder’s intentions is apparent. So too is a playful irony: He is strongly conscious of the agendas of typefaces and the impossibility of one that obediently serves content, rebelling, in fact, in ‘the non-linguistic or extra-linguistic qualities of language’.

Mischievous subversion of a devise like this epitomizes Holder-style. He leaves questions- about the nature of the publication (a mysterious new magazine, ‘Staples’ with very minimal and odd content, for example, is entirely unexplained); the route we should take in reading it; and the boundaries between earnestness and farce, unanswered. We must surrender to the ambiguity of the work.

F.R.David, designed by Will Holder, Rietveld Academie library catalog no: magazine

YELLOW

kraft

   kraft

RED

  kraft

BLUE

kraft

  RED

       kraft

              kraft

           kraft

eorihgeoirgh

size : 190 x 254

9 jaar stedelijk museum amsterdam

1954 – ’54

voorjaar 1954 tentoonstellingen

stedelijk museum amsterdam van abbe-museum eindhoven

collectie philippe dotremont

cat. 116

stedelijk museum amsterdam 4.7 – 28.9’59

50 jaar verkenningen

in de beeldende kunst

uit de eigen verzameling

en uit bevriende particuliere collecties in nederland

cat.212

stedelijk museum amsterdam 11 jan. – 18 febr. ’63

francis bacon

cat. 326

19.10.2017

Look what I found, this old and cheap looking dark Bacon catalogue! So small but yet so distinct. 5 pages folded together, with only two staples to bind them into one unified object. Kraft paper next to coated paper. Primary red next to brown. Full page picture on the cover and on the inside. These are combinations that catch my attention. They oddly fit together. The design is so particular, and yet I cannot find the name of a designer on the inside.
Why?
It turned out to be obvious. The catalogue was made at a time that Willem Sandberg was director of the Stedelijk Museum. And almost all the catalogues that were made then were his design.

From 1945 to 1963, Jonkheer Willem Jacob Henri Berend Sandberg, better known as Willem Sandberg, was a Dutch typographer and museum curator, born on the 24.10.1897 and died at 9.04.1984, was the director of the famous Amsterdam modern art museum: the Stedelijk.

Taking over the direction of the museum after World War II, he put all his energy and ingenuity into changing the face of art in the Netherlands, starting by changing the face of the Stedelijk, physically and spiritually. He enabled the museum to a far more prominent place in society. Sandberg was a very resourceful man and faced these changes from many angles: posters, typography, architecture and of course also catalogues; he monitored all of these interfaces to the museum and actively involved in their production, creating by himself all that was linked to it. We can feel the influence of his vision until this very day. Looking at his catalogues today is looking into a life’s work of strong beliefs.
« I think that 328 catalogues were made under my auspices. I assume that around 275 were made by me and the rest by other people. Just guessing. »
Making art accessible to all, was one of Sandberg’s main goals. Envisioned the museum’s infrastructure in a perspective that would make it attractive to all and not only to serious bourgeois on a Sunday afternoon stroll.
« The background to my museum policy has always been that on the one hand I tried to encourage the staff to think of it as their museum, that they participate in it, and that on the other hand I wanted to give young people the feeling that it was their museum. »
One of Sandberg’s biggest aims was to change the relation of people to art institutions, making them more attractive. He even wanted the museum to come to the people, and make them spontaneously relate to the place. To accomplish this he promoted art among young people. Changing the status of art in society should begin by changing the status of art in the young people’s mind.

His work perfectly reflects this wider accessibility. Sandberg liked things to have simple and natural aspect. You could see it by the size of his catalogues, all pretty small and thin.

It is also one of the reasons he was drawn to wrapping paper and used kraft paper in much of his work, despite the critics he got about it.
« I could make catalogues the way I wanted. I was subjected to a lot of criticism, because of the packing paper I used in them. I wanted the pictures to be printed on the highest quality paper, but the text could easily be printed on packing paper or on normal newspaper. It didn’t have to be precisely right, just so. I am an anti-perfectionist. »

The bright primary colors he used inside of his catalogues, or on covers, mostly with his typography, where a legacy of the Bauhaus, a matter of taste, but also a choice to make the catalogues immediately attractive, their colors being absolutely eye catching.

Specific paper for specific content. The paper brings the content to life, makes it organic. It is what allows ink to exists: it gives birth to informations, narrations, visuals.

The paper’s choice plays with the reader senses. The touch, the looks, the sound, the smell. Surprisingly, as one can see in the Bacon catalogue, Sandberg’s choice of paper didn’t necessarily make the reader’s reading easy. The combination of kraft paper and the small Helvetica font even tend to make reading difficult.
A cover, hard or not, a content, thick paper, sometimes no cover. Content printed on the same paper, or similar paper that doesn’t draw attention to itself with a layout, pictures and colors. That is what readers are used to. I ran along the shelves of my bookcase but could not find any books that had a different choice of papers like Sandberg’s. Or only very few. Even though this choice can be partly understood because Sandberg had to innovate in times with little financial playing room. Therefore in the 40s and 50s this combination of cheap paper for text and coated paper for pictures was more common.
Sandberg’s signature can be found in his choice to make a wide contrast in his composition by putting kraft paper next to bright colours. When you put them together, obvious similarities appear between all of Sandberg’s catalogues. Yet they are all very different in a subtle way. Because of the choice of color, paper, or composition, that permanently changes. Sandberg’s design served the content and the artist that he was promoting. And even though he had his preferences, he would constantly innovate, like in the Léger Catalogue from 1957 where there is nearly no text to be found, but only this wonderful composition of pictures and ink in a well thought juxtaposition of several different kinds of paper.

« i believe

in warm printing

and i like vivid colors

in particular red and blue

sometimes yellow

i dislike violet and green

but for violent contrast

i rarely use brown

except

tobacco scrap iron

or wrapping paper »

When we think of books in general, we tend to think more about mind, intellect, and not about their physical presence in the world, with another purpose than to contain and to teach. Still the design of the book makes the difference from a simply nice object to contain with a purpose tending to share or propagate. Sandberg with his signature, made a difference.
Therefore I wish to leave you here with what I was left after diving into Sandberg’s work: the incapacity to unsee his signature, once it was seen.

Sources :

Willem Sandberg Portrait of an artist, Ank Leeuw Marcar, Valiz Amsterdam, Werkplaats Typografie Arnhem

Sandberg graphiste et directeur du Stedelijk Museum, Ad Petersen, Translation to french Daniel Cunin, Institut Néerlandais, Editions Xvier Barral

Rietveld Academie library catalog no: bac 12

64 pages bound between a red start page, a blue end page and slick grey canvas covers, held together by a yellow spine. Marite traced her finger over the slight dents of the lettering- “Topmotiviert” in a harmonious diagonal that fills the cover so effortlessly. The book felt molded to her, felt so comfortable and accessible.

Inside, colourful photos of the messy behind-the-scenes of a exhibition setup. One photograph per page, neatly cropped and centered, an orderly catalogue of obscure images. There is no text inside, not even on the start and end pages. The only text with the book is the title on the cover and brief publishing information on the back, as well as the library number: bill l 1. Mysterious, Top-secret. Marite’s curiosity is stirred, igniting her thirst.

The photos are taken by Linus Bill himself. His own works in a “state of limbo between being documentary and works themselves”, from the exhibition “Was nun?” at Photoforum Pasquart in 2011 in Biel, Switzerland. The book can be related to the rest of Bill’s works due to its manipulative relationship with size and form. Bill often creates small-scale graphic work such as screen prints, which he then blows up to large works. He has manipulated the size and context of his work in this book, minimizing large works to a small, delicate documentation. The enigmatic compilation is what intrigued Marite, a conundrum that doesn’t need to be solved. No questions asked. The book holds up autonomously without the backstory, becoming a new artwork. But she tried anyway, for the purpose of her project. Alas, she couldn’t live peacefully on with this simple affair.

A few days later, Marite is in class introducing her book to her peers. It doesn’t take long, her speech is straightforward like the publication and their practicality goes hand in hand. Her hand lay endearingly on the cover.

“You match the book, “ observes Henk, regarding the rhyme in the colour of the book and Marite’s grey sweater.

“Ha-ha,” she says, “grey and minimal on the outside, colorful on the inside” Quelle cliché. Is the title Topmotiviert also a reflection of her? A prophecy? What does this mean for her? A challenge perhaps? She ponders on her relationship with the book. They were subtly molding together, the book taking over and swallowing her. There’s a jitter somewhere inside her; how can 64 pages and two grey covers jolt her so jarringly?

When Marite got the chance to meet the publisher from Rollo Press, she had questions. She had studied the book and her affinity for the book grew stronger by the day. Her eyes had studied the immersive colors and her fingertips had studied the glossy, smooth, creamy-feeling paper, 200 grams at least. It pulled her in and she willingly floated into the depths of vibrant offset printed colors. Top-quality.

Hello nice to meet you thanks for meeting with me this won’t take long.

“So how did you come about publishing this book?” she started off general, studiously watching the publisher casually flick through it. He shrugged, “well Linus had some money left over from the institution for the exhibition and we had worked with him before so we thought why not.” Marite nodded seriously. Why not, she thought, it almost sounded like an invitation. The book was teasing her. Her heart jumped. Before her mind escaped to the clouds, she refocused on the interview.

“And this title, this diagonal, it’s so captivating,” she said, staring hungrily at the book.

“I just thought it would be kind of funny. It’s difficult to get a perfect diagonal so it’s pretty all over the place,” said Rollo. All its curves and edges, its perfect imperfections.

Marite’s chin quivered, “and the typeface? Is it…” she bit her lip, “is it… Helvetica?”

“Actually it’s a typeface made by a guy who teaches at Rietveld. It’s a font he discovered in an old children’s book and it’s got these really nice perfect round Os and this little wave in the leg of the R.” By this time, beads of sweat had begun forming in the nape of Marite’s neck and in the back of her knees. Her blouse felt tight.

“Thank you so much, it was lovely talking to you, I must go.” She pulled the book close to her chest and dashed out; knees weak, head swimming.

Arriving home, dusk setting over the city, she laid the book on her bed. The pink shadow of sunset caressed its canvas bound surface. Marite lit a candle. “We have become one,” she dragged her cigarette, eyes burning with lust. Top-love.

Jacobus Johannes Pieter Oud is a dutch de stijl architect. In his early career he was mainly inspired by Berlage. Buildings he designed were really geometric, he used long staright walls, rounded corners, horizontal and vertical lines. And these elements would cover an open space inside. He was interested in using unexpensive building materials and on the buildings he didnt want a trace of human hand. He was also interested in how the light comes in the building, how clean and fresh does the building look and feel. In his sketches you can see how he also sketches the entrance of the light into the space. Between 1918-1933 he was Municipal Housing Architect of Rotterdam. During these times the country was getting a lot of labor so he worked on mass housing for the coming workers. He didn’t want to use the traditional way of using bricks. Other two examples of his known works would be: Vakantiehuis De Vonk, it was made for working women so they could spend their weekends outdoors and be involved with the countryside. What makes this building special are the tiles on the main hall. They were painted by Theo van Doesburg to include painting in architecture and they thought this would make people interested in art when they were staying there. The other example would be Cafe de Unie. It was not really liked when it was built. Outside of the building looks like a Mondriaan painting. With the use of these primary colors and illuminated signs they wanted to attract attention. The building was destroyed during the 1940 bombardment and was reconstructed later.

What I want to investigate further is the situation in Vakantiehuis De Vonk. Can we really make people interested in something by just putting it “there”?  Or did the answer to this question change in time? In one of Oud’s projects (Vakantiehuis De Vonk), they painted the floor tiles on different colors and it was designed by Theo van Doesburg. They wanted people who go into the building get into art by experiencing it. When I think about it, the purpose of commercials is the make the consumer interested in the product. Does this really work now in 2017 ? We have internet and social media. We are living in times that is extremely easy to reach people. So you would think that it would work amazingly because when you think about it a lot more people actually see the commercials now therefore the sales should go up right? Well, online commercials are everywhere but people are not seeing it. A personal example would be: when i am just scrolling through social media, I don’t stop scrolling until I see something that immediately grabs my attention. Let’s say an AD grabbed my attention, as soon as i realise that it is an AD I would just go back to my endless scrolling to the depths of the internet. More general example would be Adobe’s researches about ADBlocking. In the graphs they made as a result you can see that adblock users keep growing daily and in January 2015 monthly active users were 181 million. So in conclusion I would say in 2017 ads are definetely seen by a large group but it doesn’t interest people. The reason i am giving an example from online advertising is according to the research done by Nielsen(2013-2015) shows us that the most effective way of advertising is online. By these information I could say that these days placing something somewhere to make people interested in it doesn’t work really well.

So in the making of Vakantiehuis De Vonk, the artwork became a commercial and art became the product. But this is not the only way to use art. I think we can all agree on that in contemporary art doesn’t carry this purpose of making people interested in it but also we can’t deny that artists, sometimes in groups and sometimes indiviudually give art their own purpose. So I can say that art is subjective. Therefore, using art for a purpose would only work if the audience had the same ideas in art with the artist.

Photography: A Reproduction
Johannes Schwartz’ exhibition Blue, Turning Grey Over You at the Annet Gelink Gallery [x] shows photographs of photographs that Piet Mondrian took from his paintings. In other words, Schwartz’ works are ‘reproductions’ of reproductions. Nevertheless, one should note that Schwartz’ intention goes beyond documenting or copying art works. While Mondrian argues that photography is mainly suitable to imitate art works rather than to be an art form itself, Schwartz proves otherwise by depicting Mondrian’s reproductions, address book and records in photographs exhibited as autonomous art works. Hereby, Schwartz positions himself in a greater debate in the history of photography. The tension between photography as document and personal expressiveness has been the core discussion concerning the status of photography as art.

Nowadays it seems self-evident that photography is seen as art form. This, however, has not always been the case. There was already disagreement on the artistic potential of photography in the 19^th century, when the medium was introduced. Nevertheless, it had by far the same recognition as painting. Moreover, photography was often considered a mechanical – rather than an artistic – practice. A century later the distinction between technology and art was put in question. The Bauhaus artists had a multi-disciplinary approach and aimed to integrate design, art and modern daily life. This questioned the position of photography and lead, particularly in Germany, to a highly topical debate during the 1920s. The Bauhaus artists considered photography, as product of modernity, suitable to depict this Modern Era. This was also stressed out in the article “Painting and Photography” (1927) by Ernst Kállai, editor of the Bauhaus Journal i10. Even though Kállai admitted that painting was a higher form of art, the Bauhaus’ approach on photography was still quiet controversial at the time. The Frankfurter School theorist, Walter Benjamin, claimed that art works have a certain authenticity or aura which photographs –whether a mechanical reproduction of a landscape or an artwork – do not have (1935). Mondrian wrote a few lines about photography that comment on and contradict Kállai’s article (1927)[x]. He considers the medium, as Benjamin, a mechanical practice suitable to imitate or reproduce objectivity. He did not value the creative or artistic potential of photography. Mondrian made reproductions for albums that enable him to show and explain his paintings. After that it was no longer necessary to explain the development of his work in his studio. This allowed him to show only his latest painting. Hence, photography was not used as an artistic expression, but as a tool to establish himself as an artist. Interesting is to add that there were only black and white photography at the time, which forced Mondrian to describe the colour composition of his work in the albums as well.

Johannes Schwartz PM #2, 2017

Johannes Schwartz saw Mondrian’s albums along with other personal belongings at the Netherlands Institute for Art History (RDK), when he was asked to document them for a magazine. This gave him the opportunity to see objects that are normally are not publicly accessible. Schwartz was particularly fascinated by the albums, which demonstrated the motivation and working drive of the artist. Mondrian took great effort in making high quality reproductions and describing the paintings carefully. The limitations of the medium at the time – e.g. being in black and white – did not seem to bother him and instead he found ways to overcome them. Schwartz got interested in creating a possibility in which more people would see Mondrian’s work attitude. However, his goal goes beyond documenting the objects for an exhibition. Instead, he plays with the (re)presentation of them. Mondrian’s reproductions, for instance, are photographed in colour and put on a wooden shelf with a blue-grey wall in the background. In one work different ‘reproductions’ are grouped in one line, noticeably build up from different pictures photoshopped next to each other. All these characteristics remind the viewer that the photographer took different decisions and actions in the making process. The latter raises questions that refer back to the central debate. It also doubts Mondrian’s position [x]… Do reproductions have the capacity to imitate or reproduce objectivity? Can photography in itself be objective or do the choices of the photographer inevitably evoke subjectivity? Does the intention of the photographer decide whether it is a document or an artwork? These questions, from the many one could ask, put the earlier mentioned discussion in a contemporary context. The visual aspects of the photographs add a conceptual level to the works, which differentiates them from reproductions that are merely meant as a copy. His work aims to intellectually activate the viewer and invite him/her to make associations, reflect and take a position in the debate. One can also go a step further and state that the works themselves provide an attitude towards photography. The exhibition shows that throughout the centuries, photography has developed to be part of the visual arts and that a conceptual level allows reproductions of reproductions to be autonomous works of art.

A video reproduction of reproductions of reproductions
When visiting the exhibition, I started to think about the role of photography in general and the fact that the medium has never been as accessible as it is today. Everyone can take pictures and videos with their phones and share them globally. This consequently raises new questions about the relation between photography and art. In this train of thought, I filmed my gallery visit on my Iphone. The voice-over is a fragmented reproduction of a conversation I had with Johannes Schwartz about this exhibition.

“A seperate seat for one person, typically with a back and four legs.”

The result of google-searching what is a chair?

Donald Judd started making furniture when he moved with his family to a remote town in Texas in 1973. No desirable furniture available in his surrounding area, he got to work himself and began making furniture with the only material at hand, lumberyard-cut pine.

Judd thought a chair had to show the function of the object, as well as the image. To sit on it, and a chair. Separating his art from his furniture, he decided he wanted to make “well functioning” furniture, not an “artist’s furniture”. Now, in his opinion a “well functioning” was determined by the following;

“The art of a chair is not its resemblance to art, but partly its reasonableness,                                       usefulness and scale as a chair.”                                       (Donald Judd from “It’s Hard to Find a Good Lamp” 1993)

Besides that he pointed out that if one was to embark on both the path of furniture making as well as art, that there will be consistent similarities in the interests in form.

I had the choice between either doing theoretical research or practical, research for the essay. For the sake of my own enjoyment and an end result where I  have heart for, I choose the latter. Making the chair and experiencing it Now, here my task started. Figuring out how to make a “well functioning” chair, and keeping in check with Judd’s minimalist aesthetic. Truth be told I was quite excited!

For more information on Judd and his furniture I have the following link;

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 (click the yellow dot to click the link)

Step one, gather the materials. 

For me I wanted to put myself a bit in Judd’s situation. To gather from the materials to my disposal. I could’ve chosen to let wood be custom cut for me, but I liked the idea of having to find pieces among the leftovers a lot better. And so I found the pieces of wood that could be used as the parts of my chair.

Step two, measuring. 

With this I had to keep in mind design as well as function. The width of seating had to be comfortable, but not look off-balance compared to the rest of the chair. The height of the seating was the same case. As for the back of the chair, I decided to make it about shoulder height when sitting down. This was because I have the tendency to hunch my shoulders too much while working on projects. And honestly, if I was making a chair anyways, why not make one that would function for more than just another chair in the classroom? Why not make one that would help with my posture as well? Same thing for the smaller compartment under the seating, great for storing materials in case my desk gets too crowded.

Step three, cutting. 

Please be careful when cutting the wood! It is easy to forget to adjust the size, and if you cut one piece entirely or even slightly off, you’re a long way from home. Precision is essential with making a chair as simplistic as the ones by Judd. One centimeter off, and the whole work falls apart. Sometimes even literally.

Step four, figuring out how Judd even kept his works together. 

This was easily the hardest part. I love the form of Judd’s chairs, but it was quite complicated to figure out how the wooden chairs remained chairs without any visible nails or use of dovetail joint. I was lucky to receive some help by one of the employees of the wood-workshop. She explained to me that I could make little slits within the wood, to then make one on the other piece of wood which would touch it at the same point. A small oval piece of wood would then be put between the two slits and keep them connected. Kind of like a puzzle piece!

Step five, actually putting it together. 

For someone that has the concentration level of a fruit-fly, this task was a challenge. You have to make sure that all the slits connect perfectly, align perfectly, and that the width between the slits and where the wood is supposed the end, are the same on both pieces.

Then, you try it out. Put it together to make sure that every puzzle piece connects. Ensuring you did it correctly through and through.

Step six, keep it together.

Besides the slits and wooden pieces, you should add glue to keep the chair a chair. Keep pressure on the points where the joints need to be as tight possible, so it can carry the weight of the average person. Preferably a bit more than that.

Let it dry overnight.

Step seven, place it within school. 

The reason I did this, was because the assignment I had gotten was to explore the similarities within Judd’s furniture and de Stijl. And as Judd had said, if one makes both art, furniture and architecture at the same time, there will be consistent similarities of form within all of these. And Gerrit Rietveld, influential artist within de Stijl, happened to do two of these.  My chair standing there, I saw their shapes came together quite nicely. The same geometrical forms, same practicality.

Now if you are interested in finding out more about the combination of these two things, de Stijl and Judd, please click the yellow square!

Step eight, enjoy your work

Sit on it, drag it around to sit on it in different places, store things within the compartment and revel in the fact you actually made something you can use.

I found a few other enjoyable examples of chairs made from things in your surrounding area.

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[click the yellow dot , it will lead you to a fun and educational video]

What i know about social design and how i have engaged with social design

What is social design to me?

Social design is about creating with or for a community. It’s about creating design through dialogue where ideas, beliefs and rituals should be discussed in order to design a solution or an object that benefits or helps a group of people. The designer should be able to connect with a community in a way, where the designer fully understand the community’s request(s) and need for change or a smarter solution. Social design is about humans, not the society.

From my personal experience, i have learned about the importance of social design, from working at an institution for disabled children, throughout and after my years in highschool. The residents at the institution called Tjørringhus are all multi-handicapped children between 4 and 18 years old. They need constant support, including personal hygiene, feeding, getting in clothes, brushing teeth etc. In order to help the child through its daily chores, as easily as possible, my coworkers and i, where deeply dependent on the resources and tool remedy’s we had. The same were the residents! Those resources were specially designed, to make daily life as convenient for both staff and residents, such as the childrens adjustable wheelchairs and lifts to move the child around and special designed cars, where wheelchairs would fit in perfectly, and could be secured safely. All of these indispensable resources have been made in close cooperation with designers, who have visited the institution, met the residents, experienced their daily needs, talked with the childrens parents, had talks and discussions with the staff at Tjørringhus. From those talks and experiences, the designers have been able to make the best possible solutions for both the residents and the staff working for and with the children.

The institution were at one point, over a period of one year where i was working full-time, involved with a danish design school, who made a project about social design and designing social relations. The aim of the project was to give the residents at Tjørringhus more and better relationships with the surrounding community. Neighbors, family, friends, and volunteers should be involved in the project and inspired and well dressed to take co-responsibility for their fellow citizens, at Tjørringhus. So in that way it was not only the public represented by the employees on the institution, who should be responsible for the citizens’ social relations.

The result of the project, was a great success. In fact the residents at Tjørringhus, now got more relationships, in the form of volunteers, taking the residents to activities and arranging activities in the home. In this way the institution has become a part of society and society a part of the institution. The more volunteers have also given the employees of Tjørringhus more time, which they can use on residents who need extra support. I felt it myself, while working on Tjørringhus. It was a huge opportunity for us, as employees to have more time with an individual child and get to give the child caring attention while doing activities.

The methodes that were used by the designers, that i understood, and the other staff got to know, while the project was ongoing was;

–       Empathize, where the designers create understanding for the user.

–       Define where the designer formulate insights and find an understanding of recognized and unrecognized needs and longings.

–       Idea where the designer draw up as many ideas and suggestions as possible in several different directions.

–       Prototype, where the designer build a model or kind of tale of the change they want to introduce.

–       Test where the model is put into a context and evaluated by the users.

As part of the process, the designers completed field studies at Tjørringhus. Through a month, citizens and employees attended the home to gain knowledge and gain an understanding of their respective situations, challenges, wishes and needs. Based on field studies, the designers developed a number of so-called “social prototypes”; ideas for social relations with the residents and ways to create them. The prototypes were tested on stakeholders and further developed into the unifying concept: “Guest Bud” – How do you receive guests and how will you be a good guest at Tjørringhus?

With the “Guest Bud” as a starting point, the designers developed three solutions:

–       A communication tool for Ipad for the children on Tjørringhus. The tool allows the residents to present and tell about themselves. The residens at Tjørringhus have no language and therefore can not present themselves in a “normal” way. The ipad can always be used by the resident and they can then start an interaction – and a relationship. A tool we ended up having great use of at Tjørringhus. It gave the children the opportunity to explain themselves in a way, that haven’t been possible for the children before.

–       An activity tool for employees and guests at Tjørringhus, which shows what activities and forms of interaction that are meaningful for relatives and outsiders to involve the resident. The child’s handicaps require that you as a guest find ways to be with the them in addition to the usual ‘everyday talk’. Lots of volunteers who, as mentioned, involved the residents in activities in society and involve society in activities with the children at Tjørringhus. The designers found several ways to do this, but what we ended up using the most was a simple solution with ideas for activities in a big box, that were special made, in colaboration with the designers, and some pedagogues working at Tjørringhus.

Another new social design project, that my previous head of department at Tjørringhus made me aware of is `Medicine dosed with design` – a collaboration between TEKO Design School and the municipality of Ikast-Brande that will reduce medication errors.

A very large proportion of the unintended incidents, which are reported to the municipality of Ikast-Brande, are about emergency medicine. It is especially in the municipality’s nursing home, in home care and on housing that the problem arises. In the nursing home, ‘medication not given’ represents 63% of all reported events. In home care, it is 52%, and at residential facilities it is 46%.

This is why the special unit for Quality and Innovation under the Elderly and Disability Administration in Ikast-Brande Municipality has entered into a partnership agreement with TEKO Design School. The primary aim of the agreement is to get the designers’ help to find a new solution that can reduce the number of errors in the delivery of medicines in the elderly sector.

The partnership means that a group of employees at selected care centers conducts a design process under the leadership of TEKO’s professional designers and developers.

The key to the designer is to identify and solve challenges and problems in a way that makes sense for the employees, residents and any relatives who are included in the handling of medicine. This means that users can connect with the solutions – emotionally, functionally, socially and culturally.

Designers solutions seem intuitively attractive because they are created in a tension between the creativity and vision of the designer, on the one hand, and the users’ own experiences and ideas. It creates a balance between innovation – the surprising – and the users’ need for recognition. This avoids “waste” in the form of products that never reach the market or public service, which neither users nor staff find attractive and therefore easily turn their backs.

There’s still yet no concrete solutions, for what this social design project will lead to, but it does show the constant need for specialized designers, who can design responsible solutions for societies.

The experience of being a part of the project at Tjørringhus, or at least be able to stand on the sideline, observing how the project evolved and included both residents, staff at Tjørringhus and volunteers showed me the importance of social design and designing for and with people to improve their life quality.

   Spending an afternoon using an old letterpress I experienced what it would have been like to create printed text in the early 20th century until offset printing took over almost completely. This was a nice way to immerse myself into the subject of De Stijl and its relation to type design.

The Stijl movement which was founded in 1917 consisted of artists and architects who started building a new world, presumably as a result of the war that was just coming to an end. They literally started constructing their ideal world out of furniture, buildings and artwork. It seems to me that they tried to clear up the mess they saw around them by creating perfect straight lines and rigid blocks. Using primary colours, black and white, strict rules and useful functions they began portraying a ‘perfect’ world. In a way, they brought everything back to the basics while simultaneously making basic things more complex.
When researching De Stijl’s typeface design the first thing that comes to mind is the magazine published by Theo van Doesburg. The front cover, designed by Vilmos Huszar particularly caught my attention. Specifically the way the same exact rectangles create both the image and the type.
It seems to me like a practical method to create text, why not use the same structures used to create image, kill two birds with one stone kind of thing, and seeing as the spacers of the letterpress are perfect rectangles why not use those…? The Doesberg type shows this use of the letterpress spacers particularly well. One can see exactly where the spacers have been placed to create the alphabet.

The same goes for Vilmos Huszar’s use of ‘building blocks’ to create both the text and image of the Stijl magazine cover. Or the logo he made for  ‘Miss Blanche Cigarettes’, again the same shapes are used to create the text and the image.

This theme of using the same ‘building blocks’ to create image and text alike began to be a recurring subject in my research on de stijl’s type design. The line between image and text seems to blur and they both become the same thing, both showing information to the viewer.

Another fine example of this, is the 1941 publication of the fairy tale Het Vlas (The Flax) written by Hans Christian Andersen and illustrated by Bart Van Der Leck. The entire book is constructed out of straight lines, both the text and the images. One can see the strict guidelines that Van Der Leck stuck to precisely. This idea of having strict rules interests me, I find myself doing this at times with my own work, for example not letting the pen lift off the page. Although it makes sense to create these guidelines at times, I do get to a point where I’m thinking ‘I could create a more satisfying outcome if I didn’t have these self imposed rules’. Perhaps I am experiencing a similar thought to that of Van Der Leck when after disagreements with other members of the movement he decided to depart from De Stijl and create more abstract works with diagonal lines and other shapes and colours. Here is an early piece by Van Der Leck from his time with De Stijl and then one of his later works where you can see his departure from the strict guidelines.
 

 
Abstract Composition, 1927 / Compositie no. 3 (Leaving the Factory), 1917

Going back to when he did use straight lines to illustrate the images and text for the fairytale, it seems as if this rigid rule was almost created as a challenge… To push further into the non obvious, the non default way of drawing things, the strictly abstract and to also challenge the viewer. In the literal sense as well: the text in this book is not necessarily easy to read.

Lets not forget who the audience of this book was supposed to be. If I imagine coming across this book as a child, lying among all the other softly illustrated fairy tales it would definitely stand out, I would have had to focus extra hard on each letter for it to make sense and watch as the lines constructing the letters merge into the ones creating the images. This principle, the way the image and the text is created in the same way, out of the same blocks is what stands out most about the typefaces designed by De Stijl. To take this one step further, it could be said that it is all the same, all the creation made by these artists is the same, for they use the same rules and guidelines.

The buildings, the furniture, the paintings, the typeface, all a creation from the same lines, forms, shapes and colours. This element is what I tried to explore in this little animation, the way the same ‘building blocks’ can create image and type. The seemingly rigid forms shift and transform around the page and merge into each other. Where is the line between image and text? I tried to play with this concept by letting the ‘building blocks’ move around the page and shift from image to text and then back again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMQ5cDpzgyg

Furniture has a specific relationship to the individuals it is used by and to the space in which it resides. The space in which we live is determined by the shapes which fill the negative space.

When put under a micro-lens it becomes clear that furniture is a response to the time in which it was created.

Understanding this concept allowed me to begin to understand Gerrit Rietveld’s furniture. I first saw them as purely aesthetic objects, created for a specific class of artists that could admire them as pieces of art, rather than functional pieces of furniture. After some research; I realized that his intentions were actually the opposite, he actually intended for his furniture to be reproduced and used. I realized in order to better understand Rietveld’s furniture I needed to understand his motivations and relationship to his own work. I did this by attempting to understand other people’s relationships to his work. I interviewed people who own Rietveld furniture and asked why they have it, where they got it from and the role it plays in their space…

Henk Groenendijjk

Henk: This red and blue chair came from my father, he bought it in 1963. He got this just in time to brand it an original Rietveld chair (Rietveld †1964). The models he made, you could say, were almost prototypes, he just tried out all sorts of things. He made a few for the houses in that time and these are considered very original (vintage) and are now very expensive, most of them are in museums.

Me: So, this exact chair could be in a museum?

Henk: Yes, because everything is considered real on it. It is his design, made by his carpenter.

Me: Do you know why your dad wanted to buy it?

Henk: Ja, because he was fascinated by it. He was a very good friend of the director of the Stedelijk at the time and they probably talked about it. He was a dentist and an art collector.

Me: But did he use it, as a chair?

Henk: Yes, he always sat it in it. He had it in the corner of his study and always sat in it when he was reading. You can see it it is used. He said it was very comfortable. But now I have it, and I hesitate. I’m just more careful with it.

Me: Maybe also because it comes from your father, and it is such a collectors’ item now.

Henk: Yes, I think so. I don’t know. I don’t really dare to sit in it. But maybe if I had a bigger house or more space, less children I would. But yes, that’s it. It’s nice no?

It’s really special to have something that’s so original.

Ben Zegers

Ben: At home I have the so called Steltman chair. And it was made here (Gerrit Rietveld Acadmie) by Eve, and she also makes these zig-zag chairs…Rietveld of course, was very interested in simple constructions. But most of all he was interested, not so much in the object, but in the space, and how the material defines space. A chair is often symmetrical, this Steltman chair is not.

Me: Where do you have the chair in your home?

Ben: He draws a map, and points to a room… Sometimes I’ll put it in the middle of the room… Rietveld doesn’t care about sitting at all, if he did he would have done it completely differently I guess. But what’s important is the size, because that’s what relates to our body and it’s an easy way to deal with space in a limited site. But what is so interesting about this chair being nonsymmetrical is the way it connects to the floor. Like many of his other pieces, it’s all done from the same piece of wood as it were. Its cut up in different lengths and put together in a certain way. But it’s all describing space as it were; up, down, around, through, etc. Originally for Steltman Jeweler it was hollow, but I have a solid version.

Me: And do you ever sit on yours at home?

Ben: Yes, I do. Because it’s quite low, and it’s not a big chair. But it’s not very comfortable to sit in for long, it’s a good one to make a phone call. I can imagine it being next to a phone, an old-fashioned phone which no body has anymore.

What is most important in this Steltman chair, is the void, the space. There is a big difference between the chairs, the Crate chair is especially made so that everyone can make it. You don’t need anything, just a few screws.

Frans Oosterhof

Me: So, this is your red and blue Rietveld chair.

Frans: Yes, and it’s a perfect chair for reading a book. Because somehow if you’re reading here (on a sofa) you slip away, but on the Rietveld, you remain somehow a little bit more alert.

Me: Where did you get it from?

Frans: I knew Groenekan (†1994) the carpenter of Rietveld, and he gave me the drawings and then another carpenter made it.

Me: Why is it important for you to be surrounded by this style of furniture?

Frans: It is open, it is light, you can look through it. It’s not an obstacle. Its rather comfortable, but you still remain a little active. And for the eye. This is why I like the Rietveld chair, the construction is so visible. So, you see how it has been constructed… (The word) design to me has a little bit a bad connotation. All the design that you see now is all edelkitsch. And what to me is very important, and what to Rietveld was very important, is this visibility, openness, and that you can see the construction. Now design is very much decorative.

Me: It’s about the relationship between form and content.

Frans: Exactly, never divided.

Through these dialogues and conversations, I came to a critical understanding about Gerrit Rietveld; his furniture is a visual representation of his ideology. Space, light, and visible structures were meant to bring a working class of people into a better, brighter way of life. His forms reflected and supported his content; his ideals. And this relationship between form and content is the underlying support system in Rietveld’s work. The way his furniture is perceived today is an intrinsic paradox; a paradox anyone can see if they only ask the right questions.

Excerpts from "How to Construct Rietveld Furniture", written by Peter Drijver and Johannes Niemeijer. To be found in the Rietveld Library Catalog no: rie 15d

Adolf Loos was an Austrian and Czech architect and an influential European theorist of modern architecture. One of his famous buildings, Looshaus, is now one of the most representative architectures of the modernist movement, although at the time it was established it had received great opposition and contempt.

The industrial revolution, the sudden accumulated wealth, and the people who longed for the appearance of the nobleman came to the city to compete with the idea that they should be more splendid than anyone else and it is natural that such people despised Looshaus. Anyhow, Loos was established with his opinion, he believed that the ornaments were not beauty, but more as a self-display and that if an artist made commodities for aesthetic purpose, it would not reflect the way people live and would not have the necessary function. The ornaments were a crime for Adolf Loos, a waste of the craftsman’s time, they were made for the main purpose of aesthetic pursuit and must be eliminated from architecture and design. He said that if an artist produces household items for aesthetic purpose, it does not reflect the way people live and it is a crime to make the worker spend so much time on such a useless thing. Therefore, he can not be called extreme functionalist, rather, his ideals were to produce household goods and to build buildings by reflecting the people’s real life at the time. Alfred Loos want to send his message to people who are captivated only by their splendid ornament and life and who are trying to forget their past without being true.

Hansje van Halem is an Amsterdam based graphic designer, she is mainly interested in typography, book design and other printing techniques but she also experiments with computer processed graphic patterns and drawings. Her work is centred on “exquisite” typography, it is a fusion of ornamental patterns and letters which become more then letter-forms, they are ornaments wth a specific function, they are meant to be read.

There are 100 years between the idea that Adolf Loos had about the use of ornament and the way Hansje van Halem is using it today, and it is very interesting to see how, although their point of view regarding it is so distant from each other, there’s still a big connection between two, both indeed are giving great importance to the “function” of their work, Loos eliminates the ornament because there is no function in it and van Halem on the other hand gives a function to it though the use of typography.

But how are the contemporary artists and architects actually reacting to the Adolf Loos’s ideas nowadays ? There are different manifestations of the ornament’s resistance in the contemporary architecture, The London-based FAT (Fashion Architecture Taste) for instance consider ornaments as an important and indispensable part of architecture, Charles Holland, partner of the FAT says in an article from the Financial Times: “The Loos argument is very interesting. As I understand it, he was saying that ornamentation was a waste of labour, effort and craft. With contemporary techniques and manufacturing it is possible to achieve a lot of complexity and intricacy with very little effort, so there’s a weird reversal of his argument. We regard ornament less as a guilty pleasure and more as a communicative tool. There is traditionally a kind of puritanism in the UK, a rather macho approach in which engineering and high-tech appliqué is OK. It can all be justified in practical terms but I think we can look more critically now at a modernism in which the motifs of industry were applied to architecture to make it look modern, which in itself is a kind of ornamentation.”

The current computer technologies are also playing a big role in the contemporary w  orld, this modelling and manufacturing technologies has allowed the mass production of the most complex forms and ideas. Evan Douglis is using this technologies to create new strange, forms which recall baroque and rococo decoration in their own new digital world, he also says: “The technology and the software at our disposal now gives us enormous control over form, equations can become a material presence. We’re interested in that intricacy between pragmatism and retinal exuberance – it’s something that bridges the disciplines, from architecture to furniture, interiors and product.”

This new digital tools are helping designers and artist in their work as never before in our history and are also an easy way to experiment with forms, letters and of course ornaments, it makes the whole procedure more interesting and exiting, this is how Loos’s position, after a century, is slightly starting to become invalid, and the ornament on the other hand is on it’s way to decriminalisation.

a cooperative research by Yuriy Krupey & Eun Seo Lee