Author: Marko Rakic

Speaker: Ovidiu Hrin

Location: Timisoara, Romania

Website: www.synopsismedia.com

Case: Time & Design

The case is a CD cover & Booklet for Implant Pentru Refuz (trad. Implant For Denial) band. IPR is a rock band with a solid presence on the Cross-metal – Hardcore scene in Romania. Synopsis was invited to jump on board and direct all the production and design that went into their new album…Monolith.

Although we were given total freedom with this project and No deadline we’ve been through a series of eventful situations during this time worth mentioning and sharing.

The case will present (almost) all of the production steps we went through from the very beginning to the final delivery of the material … including the carrying and unpacking of a full cargo transport of 2000 CD’s in front of our studio… a scene that was coronated with a wrongly placed inner booklet…

Client: Implant Pentru refuz ( band); Monolith Recordings

Background

Synopsis is a small design studio located in Timisoara and founded in 2001 by Ovidiu Hrin. Mainly working on all sorts of design projects including posters, brochures, books, identity systems … and still loving it. Since 2004 we’re being published on different mediums continuously.

Speaker: Eirik Seu Stokkmo

Location: Oslo, Norway

Website: www.sdg.no

Background

Eirik Seu Stokkmo is a graphic designer of Italian and Norwegian origin, hailing from Oslo, Norway.

Before graduating in Graphic Design at NABA (Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti) in Milan, he worked for MTV Italia. Upon graduation, he returned to Oslo and has since worked for Virtual Garden, Bleed Designstudio and Scandinavian Design Group, where he is currently employed as Design Innovation Director. He also held courses at KHiB (Bergen National Academy of the Arts) and AHO (The Oslo School of Architecture and Design). Eirik has worked across a broad spectrum of media, including identity, packaging, print, web and TV. His client list includes Levi’s, Alu SPA, Telenor, SAS Eurobonus, NRK, Statoil Hydro, Sony Music, Ringnes and Øya Music Festival. He has won numerous awards, both in Norway and internationally, and his work has been featured in several publications and exhibitions.

In his spare time, Eirik tries to keep his personal showcase, teipu.net, up to date and also makes music under the name Pelifics.

Scandinavian Design Group is Norway’s largest design agency and was founded over 20 years ago. It is now part of McCann Worldgroup.
Scandinavian Design Group develops graphic profiles for major international brands, covering everything from corporate identities and packaging design to communication design for digital channels.

Speaker: Niklaus Troxler

Location: Willisau, Switzerland

Website: www.troxlerart.ch

Background

Born in Willisau/Switzerland in 1947. Studed Typography in Lucerne, then graphic design at the Art School of Lucerne. After studies Art Director in Paris. Own graphic design studio since 1973. Organizer of jazz concerts (since 1966) and an annual jazz festival (since 1975) in his home town Willisau.

His many awards include

• «Toulouse Lautrec-Gold Medal» from the Essen Poster Triennale (1987 and 1994)
• Grand Prizes and First Prizes at Chaumont Poster Festival (1992)
• Lahti Poster Biennale (1993)
• Helsinki Poster Biennale (1997)
• Trnava Poster Biennale (1997)
• Hongkong Poster Trienniale (2001)
• Rzseszow Theatre Poster Bienniale (1997)
• Hangzhou Poster Bienniale (2003)
• Moscow Golden Bee ( 2004, 2006, 2008)
• Colorado Invitational Poster Bienniale (2005)
• Taiwan International Poster Awards (2005)
• Ningbo International Poster Bienniale (2006)
• Zagreb ZGRAF Graphic Design Bienniale (2008)
• Silver Award at Brno Biennale (1992)
• Special Award at Warsaw Poster Biennale (1992)
• Silver Award at Chaumont Poster Festival (2007)
• Bronze Medals at Toyama Poster Triennale (1994)
• Chaumont Poster Festival (1999)
• among many others.

Niklaus Troxler got the Swiss Federation Design Award and his posters got awarded 22 times as «Swiss Poster of the year». He won 2 Gold, 17 Silver and 30 Bronze Awards from the Art Directors Club of Switzerland. He won the ADC (Switzerland) Special Award in 2000. Many ADC of New York Awards, for exemple Silver and distinctive Merit Awards 2001 and many awarded works in the Tokyo Type Directors Competitions.

His works are in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Hamburg Industrial Arts Museum, the Wilanow Poster Museum in Warsaw, the Ogaki Poster Museum, the Essen Poster Museum, the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, the Staedelijk Museum in Amsterdam among others.

Since 1998, he is professor at the State Academy of Art and Design in Stuttgart/Germany. He is a member of AGI (Alliance Graphique Internationale) since 1989.

Speaker: Lars Harmsen

Location: Karlsruhe, Germany

Websites: www.magmabranddesign.de,  www.melvilledesign.de, www.volcano-type.de, www.bastard-project.com, www.slanted.de

Case

The Sports Bible — Encyclopedia for Activewear, Outerwear, Streetwear & Sports Fashion. Each copy is one-of-a-kind

MAGMA Brand Design designed the Sports Bible, an in-depth fashion-based encyclopedia of sport and sport-inspired style for Sportswear International containing nearly 600 sports-fashion terms over 400 pages.

By using a new and very special printing technique every copy of the Sports Bible presents with a different color combination on the cover. No two books are the same.

Background

Lars Harmsen (1964)

Dipl. Graphic-Designer

MAGMA Brand Design GmbH & Co. KG, Karlsruhe

Melville Brand Design GmbH, München

Lars Harmsen is one of the two executive directors of the MAGMA Brand Design agency in Karlsruhe (founded in 1996 with Ulrich Weiss). The focal point of his work is corporate and editorial design. He is also partner and creative director for the Munich agency Melville Brand Design (associated office with MAGMA Brand Design.)

Lars founded the Volcano-Type font lable with Ulrich Weiss in 1996, which now distributes over 200 fonts. In 2004 he created the weblog Slanted. A Type-magazine with the same name has also been published since 2005.

From 2000 until 2007, Harmsen was also partner and creative director for the Starshot agency in Munich. With Starshot he edited biannualy the Useless Magazine, an independent sport and lifestyle publication. In 2008, a new branch was established in Munich: Melville Brand Design GmbH.

Harmsen is also the author of design and typography books. In 2004, the book Versus (DGV- Die Gestalten Verlag) came out and received numerous awards (red dot, most beautiful german books, Berlin Type). The book BASTARD – choose my identity (Actar Barcelona, www.bastard-project.com) was published in 2006, and examines cultural identities and the influence of globalization and web on culture and design. In 2007, the book “Wii love Arts” for Nintendo was released, for which Harmsen worked as creative director for the Starshot agency and Mr. Wolf. In 2008 the tear-off calender „Typodarium 2009“ came out at Verlag Hermann Schmidt Mainz. Lars Harmsen and Raban Ruddigkeit are the editor of this calender.

Lars Harmsen had also a university teaching position at the School of Design in Pforzheim and Karlsruhe. Furthermore, he is a solicited speaker for many conferences (Face-to-Face/Stuttgart, Typo Berlin, Heimatdesign/Essen, Colophon/Luxembourg, 3rd ICTVC Thessaloniki etc).

Speaker: Loïc Sattler

Location: Paris, France

Website: www.lysergid.com

Case

Case-Study for www.Sonacom.fr

(FWA awarded web project)

This web-based project has been built for a Parisian Sound Studio in Paris called Sonacom. I had to redo the online presence of the studio.  The initial brief was to create a simple site where you can only click on a sound and hear what they’ve produced.

Problem: we had to find a solution not to mention the clients, because some where competitors (like Vodafone VS Orange). Within my studio, I came to this creative solution, going in a total different direction of the initial brief.

It mixes the challenge of:

• letting you entertain with the site
• letting you discover the world (real & creative) of Sonacom
• creating within Sonacom’s universe
• letting you think Sonacom offers a personal work to you, just for you

It has also been built within my own graphical style.

During the conference, I plan to speak about the following:

1. Me, Loïc Sattler -> Studies, what I like, who I am, 5 minutes
2. Analysing my Graphical Style, 3/5 minutes
3. Sonacom : The client, 3 minutes
4. Sonacoms new site, initial brief & Prizes, 3 minutes
5. Ideas, envies, first draft, 3 minutes
6. Final Proposal : Sound Versus Color Versus Graphics, 4 minutes
7. Presenting the online site, 3 minutes
8. My Style in Sonacoms site, 3 minutes
9. Making the site come true – Technologies used, 4 minutes
10. Putting it online, was everything all right?, 4 minutes
11. Doing the buzz around the site and pushing it online, 2 minutes
12. Feedback of the market and the online communities, 3 minutes

Background

Loïc Sattler is a French Art Director experienced in web, multimedia, print collateral, clothes styling, and corporate identity. He studied Media Communication and Multimedia for 2 years at the university Louis Pasteur (France), as well as 2 years in multimedia creation / theory at the European Institute of Design (France). He then moved at the Merz Akademie Stuttgart (Germany) to study new-media theory for his European Media Masterof Arts, an MA diploma delivered in 6 schools throughout Europe, by the University of Portsmouth (UK). His Master thesis was curated by Pr. Olia Lialina and Pr. Dr. Helmut Draxler.

Loïc worked as a freelancer during his whole studies, doing print, web, styling and some 3D/motion works for French and German studios. In 2003, he launched his platform Lysergid.com into virtual orbit, where he showcases selected artistic and professional projects.

Loïc works with special emphasis on aesthetics, creative ideas and communication goals, with a very high attention to details. Inspired by everything, interested and enthusiastic, he is in love with visual creation. Known as efficient, he’s able to manage a creative crew and likes to have a global view on the projects he is working on.

Loïc is devoted to people who share his passion, by attending and organizing conferences, building-up design related events, teaching in schools and writing articles / interviews for communities and magazines. His aim is to be understood as an individual who wishes to take things further by empowering his profession to the best of his ability.

Speakers: Hannes Unt & Valter Kaleta

Location: Tallinn, Estonia

Website: www.loovvool.com

Case

Restaurant Kaerajaan visual identity.

Flavorsome trends from global cuisines combined with ethnic roots of local kitchen and all that in a well executed gourmet mixture. This is what the modern Estonian cuisine is about. It’s what restaurant Kaerajaan is about. LOOVVOOL was up for the twist when it came to giving it a visual impression.

Background

LOOVVOOL, founded in 2004 by creative director Hannes Unt, is a design and branding agency with premium and high-end market focus. Their core fundamental is a keen eye on creating distinctive brand experiences with high aesthetic value and visual appeal. The name LOOVVOOL is based on an Estonian palindromic worldplay in which loov means “creative” and vool is equivalent to “rush” or “flow”.

LOOVVOOL offers a complete range of creative services from brand strategy development to creation of design applications for all media platforms. Their style could be described as elegant and timeless, with surprising creative corners and edges.

LOOVVOOL has worked with numerous premium clients in the fields of hospitality, catering, finance and real estate. In 2008, LOOVVOOL notched up several Best of the Best Awards, an European Design Award, a Golden Egg, a Red Dot, a World Luxury Award and five Wolda Awards.

Speaker: Hugo van den Bos

Strategy director/partner Koeweiden Postma

Location: Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Website: www.koeweidenpostma.com

Case

HEMA rebranding

HEMA is the most popular retail chain in the Netherlands, since 2007 owned by Lion Capital. As a private label store with over 300 stores, HEMA is loved for its well designed products for daily use at an affordable price. HEMA makes ordinary things special and defines its brand essence as ‘special simplicity’.

In 1992 HEMA was a trendsetter in putting its logo, products and models against a white background in all communication. Fifteen years onwards, HEMA needed to adjust its identity, because research showed that consumer satisfaction was decreasing.

The new identity brings colour into HEMA’s visual communication. The colourful style of photography, based on Lomography, stages real people using HEMA products. The renewed logo can be used in thirteen different colours. This makes it more of a brand label, that can be integrated in all communication items. The old logo always needed an white background, whereas the new logolabel can be placed everywhere.

Furthermore the overall grid was simplified in such a way that it unifies the message sent across all communication elements, from instore visuals and pricing, brochures and advertising to front signing, fleet communication and the website.

The result of this brand revitalization is a colorful visual identity that is in line with both the organization and the expectation of the consumer. HEMA’s new visual identity is being implemented from September 2007 onwards.

Background

Hugo van den Bos is strategy director and partner of Koeweiden Postma, one of the leading Dutch design agencies. The agency was founded in 1987 by designers Jacques Koeweiden and Paul Postma and developed into into a creatively leading design company, currently consisting of 25 people. The portfolio of the agency nowadays ranges from book covers and cultural posters to major international identity operations.

Among its recent assignments are visual identities for the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, for the Judiciary system in the Netherlands, for employment services group USG People, and for Dutch retail chain HEMA. Currently the agency is working on identity assignments for major companies like telecom provider KPN, ICT-company Getronics, insurance holding Achmea/Eureko and energy company Eneco. Next to this, Koeweiden Postma recently launched Because, a separate operation for social design.

Hugo van den Bos joined the agency in 2002, after working for for several design and communications agencies, including TBWA and BBDO. He studied social sciences at the University of Groningen in the north of the Netherlands. He is a passionate advocate of the communicating possibilities of design. Apart from that he likes to ride his racing bicycle.

Speaker: Pascal Leroy

Location: Gent, Belgium

Website: www.group94.com

Case

Title: g94 behind the scenes

Offering an inside view of the group94 methodology, the session will be centered round the recent FWAPHOTO project. It will be a blend of storytelling and technical insights. Attendees will walk away with questions raised and/or answered and a feeling that things are not always what they seem.

Background

Group94 is a web design boutique that has a diverse and far-reaching client base and portfolio with national and international clients including the likes of Magnum Photos, Wieden+Kennedy, Mortierbrigade, EuroRSCG, Ubisoft, Nokia, Goodby Silverstein & partners, Getty Images, MoMA, EA Games, Fontshop…

G94 is at it’s best for portfolio sites and online campaigns. Mostly Flash and hybrid work, often database driven. A lot of photographer’s portfolio’s as well: LA-based Jill Greenberg, Magnum photographer Carl de Keyzer, Moofe and photographer’s agencies like Marge Casey and Schierke to name a few.

‘Assume nothing, question everything’. Group94 stands for highly tailored work. In an industry that tends to standardization, offering more of the same, it appears to be an approach that works. Indeed every project starts from a clean slate, the goal is to make it fresh and innovative yet well thought and usable, it must be fast and to the point and of a highest order from a technical point of view.

Group94’s highly acclaimed work covers all business sectors from arts, architecture, media, institutional, scientific, tourism and many more.

Speaker: Ginette Caron

Location: Milano, Italy

Website: www.ginettecaron.it

Case

Simplicity of Complexity/ Complexity of Simplicity

Knoll /WA furniture system identity

Background

Ginette Caron was born in Montreal where she graduated in Graphic Design/BFA at Concordia University. She opened her own studio in Milan in the early Nineties after a few years working in Montreal, Bologna and Venice.

Ginette Caron Communication Design studio specializes in corporate identity projects, branding, exhibit design and art books for international clients like Barilla, Bvlgari, Chase Manhattan Bank, Grand Theatre de Provence, Fondazione Prada, Knoll, Moleskine, Swatch and TV5. During her career, she also worked as in house Design Director for Prada Group and Benetton Group. For over ten years at Gregotti Associati International, she is responsible for the corporate image of Unifor (Compasso d’Oro 1995) and the all main Italian design furniture industries.

Ginette Caron is regularly invited to conduct workshops and lectures in Italy and abroad. She participated at different exhibitions; among them the Warsaw Poster Biennal, Milano Made in Design touring in Toronto/Tokyo/Shanghai/Beijing and Moleskine Detour at the Art Directors Club of New York.

During the years she received the Red Dot Design award, Graphis Gold awards, ADC Art Directors Club NY Merit award, EdAwards Finalist and Eulda awards. She has been jury member for Wolda and Mediastars Design Awards.

Speaker: Filip Blažek

Location: Prague, Czech Republic

Website: www.designiq.eu

Case

Where is my home?

Where is my home is a first verse of the Czech national anthem and the name of a book about the anthem, a recent project of Designiq studio for the Czech government and three partner institutions. The book cover is made out of real glass, which makes it an unique object. The talk will put the book in the context of visual presentation of the Czech Republic as a little contribution to an ongoing discussion about the identity of European countries, regions and cities.

Background

Designiq, graphic design studio of Filip Blažek was founded in 1997, and in 2003, its name has been changed to Designiq. Its focuses on two main fields of work—on creation of logotypes and corporate identity, and on promotion of bodies focusing on cultural work. The studio consists of three designers and two production managers.

Filip Blažek (1974) works as a full-time graphic designer since 1993. In 2000, he graduated from the Faculty of Arts at the Charles University in Prague. Apart from being a designer, he is a co-author of Praktická typografie (Typography in practice), ComputerPress, 2000, 2004. He regularly contributes to professional periodicals in the field of graphic design. He is a founder and a member of the editorial office of TYPO magazine, which focuses on typography, graphic design and visual communication. He is an owner of the Typo.cz server, dedicated to Czech and international graphic design. Since 1999, he lectures on type and corporate identity. He is the Czech deputy of the international organisation ATypI.

Website: www.thedesignersrepublic.com

Speaker: Claus Due

Location: Copenhagen, Denmark

Website: www.designbolaget.dk

Case

Working in the fields of fashion Designbolaget were told to do the campaign for the a large jewellery manufacturer Pilgrim – advertising their men’s jewellery. We decided to make a statement on the whole celebrity scene and to make a homage to the people behind it all – THE SECRETLY FAMOUS.

Working with people who – to the public are completely unknown – but have been an Oscar nominated screen-writer, musicians who are number 1 on the billboard chart for a motion picture soundtrack, the founder of the Copenhagen freetown Christiania, comic book writers, poets, writers etc.

The campaign gave a lot of attention from the press and gave the client a platform to leave the traditional fashion fairs and shopping areas – finding new areas and hide-outs for showing and selling their products.

Background

Established by Claus Due in the year of 2002, Designbolaget is a graphic design studio working primarily in the fields of art, music and fashion. The studio consists of three graphic designers and are based in the center of Copenhagen – sharing a building with fashion designers, illustrators and animators.

Designbolaget works with a wide selection of clients. From small galleries to the large art museums. Designing award-winning books and catalogues for museum, exhibition and artists directly. Visual identities for exhibitions, museums and fashion clients. Designbolaget has also done visual identity and campaigns for a numerous of fashion clients.

Speaker: Susanna Nygren Barrett

Location: Stockholm, Sweden

Website: www.bvd.se

Case

Blossa Annual Edition

A true success story. Blossa Annual Edition is a Swedish mulled wine that launches each Christmas season before the 1st Advent with a new taste and new packaging. The limited edition series began in 2003 and since then has gained enormous success, both with the consumer as well as in the design industry. The aim of the Annual Edition is to generate awareness of Blossa ahead of the mulled wine season and drive sales across the whole range. The custom design bottle form remains the same each year and the color and graphics change to suit the taste and spirit of the season. Despite an increase in volume each year, this product continues to sell out, this year over 700 000 bottles sold out within a few weeks time, it received over 600 press clippings, was featured on over 200 blogs and has won 7 design awards.

Background

Blidholm Vagnemark Design®

BVD is a design and branding bureau that works with strategic design projects for both small and large corporations, local as well as global, and within all fields of business. We view design as a strategic marketing tool above anything else and know that a successful project requires not only exceptional creative skills, but also in-depth knowledge of market conditions, business expertise and insightful analysis. Over the years we have carried out a number of successful projects for leading global brands with concrete and measurable results.

Susanna Nygren Barrett is a Creative Director and partner of BVD. With more than fifteen years experience working with strategic design Susanna has worked with all aspects of branding media from naming and identity design, packaging and print, retail concepts to in-store communication and web.

Her career started in a multidisciplinary design office in Vancouver, then she moved to New York in 1997 where she was the head of a 5 person design office and finally residing in Stockholm in 2001 when she joined BVD. Over the years, Susanna has won numerous design awards, held lectures in design schools in Vancouver, New York and Stockholm and her work has been published in many international books and publications.

Location: Thessaloniki, Greece

Website: www.beetroot.gr

Case

Title: Fashion design or design fashion

Background

Beetroot was founded on September of 2000, in Thessaloniki, Greece by Vagelis Liakos, Alexis Nikou and Yiannis Charalambopoulos. Today Beetroot counts 7 employees who have studied graphic design, new media, photography and marketing in Greece and Great Britain.

Beetroot Design Group is involved with projects in all kinds of media that graphic design can be applied (print, branding, new media such as web, cd-rom, video, tv or installations). Beetroot client list encompasses companies and organizations established in Greece and abroad.

The company has won prestigious distinctions in all competitions of EBGE awards (among its awards are the Grand EBGE 2008 and Grand EBGE 2006) in Greece, at EPICA (European Creative Awards 2004), at Ermis Awards and finally at European Design Awards 2007 and European Design Awards 2008 (Agency of the year).

Speaker: Alex Trochut

Location: Barcelona, Spain

Background

Alex Trochut’s illustrations, designs and typography take the modern notion of minimalism and flip it on its side. Trochut’s work philosophy is “More is more.” It is rich with elegant, brilliantly detailed executions that simultaneously convey indulgence and careful, restrained control. Trochut is driven by a desire to constantly evolve which can be seen in his eclectic body of work.

Renowned for his technically exquisite type creations and designs, Trochut attributes his special connection with typography to his grandfather Joan Trochut – a typographer and the creator of a modular typographic and ornament system built in the 40s. Alex Trochut’s client’s include Nike, The Rolling Stones, Nixon, British Airways, Coca-Cola, The Guardian, Non Format, Wieden + Kennedy, Saatchi and Saatchi, BBH, Fallon and Beautiful Decay.