POSTER WORKSHOP IN ALGIERS

From April 15-17, 2009 I had the opportunaty of spending a few days in the North African metropolis of Algiers. I was invited by the Goethe Institute there to give a short talk at the opening of an exhibition on the German graphic designer, type creator and first professor of advertising Lucian Bernhard.

The exhibition, which is taking place at the Musée national d’art moderne et contemporain d’Alger (MAMA), was organized by the ifa and the Goethe Institute and presents most of Bernhard’s important posters and commercial works.

I ran a two-day poster workshop at the École des Beaux Arts d’Alger to accompany the exhibition.
The building itself is just amazing: all of the studios look out onto the city and the sea!

The group was a balanced blend of first- to third-year students from the different creative departments. Our goal was to design a poster announcing a concert by the German-Moroccan-Algerian band DIWAN in Algiers in late May.

Depending on their different backgrounds, the students could opt to work completely analog or on computers.

I supplied them with several of my fonts in order to also maintain the idea of learning from me as a designer with specific design principles.

And so the students had to combine
1. Mr. Bernhard’s ideas,
2. my fonts and approaches to the medium “poster,” and
3. the music by DIWAN.

After only two days, we were all very happy with the results. And it was really refreshing to see how differently the students dealt with the task at hand: while some approached it in a very traditional or more contemporary way, others chose an approach situated somewhere between traditional and modern.

The winning poster

Thanks so much to all the students, the staff, and of course Alix Landgrebe from the Goethe Institute, who made all of this possible in the first place.

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SILKSCREEN WORKSHOP KATOWICE

In September 2008, I conducted a five-day poster workshop at the Academy of Fine Arts (ASP) in Katowice (Poland).

In teams of two to three, Polish and German students designed these large silkscreen posters for the city of Katowice. We spent two days doing research and developing concepts, and three days actually designing and printing the posters.

The workshop was accompanied by several lectures on silkscreen printing, poster design, and the history of Katowice. The lay-out sketches were for the most part produced without the aid of a computer.

Find out more on flickr.com.

Many thanks to Anna Machwic, Ewa Satalecka, Justyna Lauer, and the students from the ASP Katowice for their overwhelming hospitality.