The history of jews in Europe is long and rich, however many of their religious simbols carry the burden of history, with bitter connotations and memories. So how do you represent a Center for jewish cultural heritage with several hundred years of history, intertwined with the city of Maribor? We approached it by expressing the connection between the culture and the city. Language, at the core of cultural identity, provided us with a solution in a logotype. Using both the latin and the hebrew script, one being written left-to-right, the other right-to-left, we superimposed the name of the institution, in a short and full-length variant. We chose carefully the typefaces used, so that the scripts would act contemporary and complement each other in form, proportions, spacing and weight. Having been sliced in an alternating method, an optical fusion of the scripts took place; the fusion of culture and the city. As we applied the solution to the printed matter, we used a double-sided approach: one side for latin script, with latin part emphasized in the logotype, and vice-versa. Hence, the communication between the cultures is not just possible, but is encouraged and educating.
Niko Kralj is more, than a mere industrial designer. He did more, than just the well-known products. His legacy extends over the fields of theory, education and practice. When we gain access to it as a whole, it surprizes us; how much of his work we knew, but never knew, it was his. This surprise was at the core of our project. To represent Niko Kralj as a whole, it was nescessary to stray away from the usual, obvious representation of him and his work and find a different way of communicating his words and products. The book is not one about him, but of him, a reader of selected texts he wrote, organised in five chapters, five aspects of Niko Kralj. His drawings and plans were used as a source to develop an ilustration for each chapter, and used for the book's 5 different covers. As such, we gain an integrated representation of Niko Kralj, with all aspect equal, mutating in application, in all of the printed matter of his exhibition in the Musem of architecture and design. This is in accordance with his philosophy of "evolution and mutation". It, as well as his engineering knowledge, can be seen in highly rational, ergonomic and bare-bone products he developed. We applied this approach to the book's finish, creating a product in modular pica scale, with a bare spine, exposing the book's manufacturing process, and a back-glued cover, to wrap arround the book's block as is laminate arround the plywood in products of Niko Kralj. This effect is further emphasised with use of color tones for the chapters' pages, so in commbination with their respected illustrations, they reveal themselves just by looking at the closed book.
Thanks to Aljaž Vindiš for help on the project. Photo by Klemen Ilovar
An exhibition presenting the work of the world-renowned Slovenian industrial designer Niko Kralj, focusing on his work and the role he played in the history of Slovenian design. “Niko Kralj: The Unknown Famous Designer” will showcase Kralj’s archives, sketches, photographs, prototypes and more. Considered the founder of the Slovenian industrial design, he is also among the most important 20th century industrial designers in the world, Rex having been included in the collection of the New York Museum of Modern Art (MOMA). Apart from designing products and programmes that marked late 20th century design, his work includes attempts at streamlining production. Kralj moreover founded the Design Institute at the Ljubljana Faculty of Architecture, devoting his efforts to developing a theory of design.
Thanks to Aljaž Vindiš for help on the project. Photo by Klemen Ilovar
...our associate Aljaž Vindiš and magazine Tribuna Crew for design of student magazine Tribuna. Congratulations!
For Museum of Architecture and Design Caffé we designed Posters. Handmade design focusing on presenting this content through history "feeling" of Slovenian Architecture and Design.
Together with VBG we designed a website for Maribor Art Gallery. A modern and clean design focusing on presenting modern art... www.ugm.si
We designed New Identity for Festival Maribor. www.festivalmaribor.si
LAND(E)SCAPE.
Contemporary visual art from Slovenia.
Seven international acclaimed young Slovene artists have their own agenda what world of art is all about. I made catalog for them.
In Stefan Sagmeister studio in NYC I worked on a project for Guggenheim Museum Berlin. Douglas Gordon's entire exhibition "The Vanity of Allegory" at the Guggenheim Museum in Berlin is packaged as postcards into a portable box. The cover incorporates a slanted mirror thus creating vain, reflected typography.
I was one of the winners of 3rd Biennial of Slovene Visual Comunication. I get the price for the best book cover.
Comment of the jury: Beautifully executed example of hand lettering and simple form, resulting in a single symbol of a heart, made up of balanced, carefully considered typographic elements. Both the hardback white-on-black and the paperback black-on-white versions succeed as readable.
Bryant Park by Ulrich Peltzer &
Absurdistan by Gary Shteyngart received two high quality recommendations at 4th Biennial of Slovene Visual Communication.
When I was in Sagmeister studio I also worked with him and Matthias Engelsberger on Seed Media Group new identity.
Seed Media group is a scientific publisher of magazines, books and films. As we worked on the identity it became clear that the end result should constitute a visualization of science and media. Science is culture, it surrounds us, it is part of everything we do. We were looking for something open ended and flexible, a vessel we could fill with new meanings as they developed.
Formally the identity is based on phyllotaxis, a form found everywhere from Seashells to Greek architecture, from pineapples to the Sydney opera house, horns of Gazelles to the optimum curve a highway turns.
Looking at the world through this scientific lens of the phyllotaxis, we developed an identity like a chameleon, it always takes on the form of the medium it is put on. So for example on the business cards it shows a version of the portrait of the bearer or in the logo in the magazine has the colors of the months cover.
As the logo has to be changing whenever it is applied we build a web-based logo generator. You can upload an image, the colors are analyzed and a vector, ready-to-print file is exported.
text by Sagmeister Inc.
