During my time in Berlin I had two very useful and insightful talks from practitioners within the industry, the first being Chloë Gallea who is a graphic design graduate from LCA who is currently based in Berlin. Then the other talk was from Eps51, a graphic design studio who mainly work on cultural design with a strong focus on typography and bilingual design.
To start with Chloe who graduated from LCA in 2011, the talk was a relaxed experience as Chloe was invited along to the hostel to undertake the talk in the relaxed library setting. She started the talk by talking about life during the last months of university and how she contacted Pencil studio in Soho to set up a job straight after LCA. She briefly talked about the time after uni and her two years at Pencil but it was clear that the aim of the talk was to talk about the transition to Berlin and life over there as a designer. After two years in London Chloë boldly decided to move to Berlin, a decision she described as scary at the time as she was moving without the certainty of having a job upon arrival. She retained the hope that through Behance and existing clients in the UK that she'd be able to forge a career as a designer in Germany. And a number of years later and she's still in the capital, working three days a week at Cee Cee which is a weekly email newsletter with hand selected recommendations for the Berlin city life. The other two days of the working week she is doing freelance work but still working at the Cee Cee studio.
As Chloe continued to talk about her life in Berlin, one topic that kept arising was Brexit and whether or not it will affect her life as a British citizen living and working in Germany. She is currently unsure if it will affect her or not but she couldn't stress enough how much she is enjoying life in Berlin, the living rate is still cheap, compared to London it is far more laid back and everyone speaks English. She hopes to continue working in Berlin but keeps the door open to other cities such as Copenhagen and Barcelona. What I enjoyed from the talk was hearing about how she just decided to pack up and leave, this is a daunting task for anyone but it was reassuring and inspiring to know that is was from an alumni who once was in exact same position as me. At this stage moving abroad and finding a design path elsewhere isn't a priority of mine but nonetheless hearing Chloë's story was motivational.
Below is a piece of work Chloë has been involved with while at Cee Cee, its a neighborhood map from Cee Cee x Voo Store and discovers Berlin with the locals through 138 beautifully illustrated tips and 6 walking tours from in and around Kreuzberg & Neukoln. As I was planning on picking one of these maps up from Voo Store when in Kreuzberg but I was lucky enough to get a free copy from Chloë.
My main studio visit of the trip was to Eps51, the studio is an internationally active graphic design studio developing visual concepts with a strong focus on typography and bilingual design. Before the trip I had the choice of either Pentagram, P98a or Eps51 but I chose Eps51 as I believed the work the studio produces relates to my practice at the moment and once the talk came around I wasn't wrong. We were welcomed into the small studio space by Ben Wittner and Sascha Thoma who set the studio up together in 2008. As a group we gathered around a table of printed output from the studio then Ben delved straight into the duos story. They attended university together and during the final months of their degree they undertook a project named 'Arabesque', its a book that is about contemporary graphic design from the Arab world and Persia. With features of examples of recent innovative and groundbreaking design work that is inspired by the richness of the Middle East’s visual culture. After graduation they decided to further the book and continue to develop the idea, subsequently realising they had a strong and passionate interest in how the English and Arabic language can work together.
They showed a real passion for what they produce, especially the Arabic related design which they believe shows the the hidden side of the Middle East's visual culture. Both Ben and Sascha have links to the Middle East as they decided to pack up bags similar to Chloë Gallea and move to Egypt, they spent a number of years designing for cultural clients including an art gallery but after years of political strife in Egypt they had to leave. The majority of the projects they talked through were bilingual design which was great as I'm currently undertaking a D&AD brief in which I'm combining languages including Arabic. So to see and learn and how they mix languages was inspirational for my research for D&AD. Towards the end of the visit I had a chat with Sascha about my D&AD brief, informing him about what I'm doing and asked of the possibility of dropping him an email for possible research. He gave me a business card and was open to answer any questions and ease concerns about working with the Arabic language. Other things I took away from the talk was learning how the pair deal with clients, they boldly only give the client one option. Eps51 have full confidence in only one idea which is a brave option, but they hope the enthusiasm they show rubs off on the client. Overall I really enjoyed the visit and glad I chose Eps51, to see their projects and hear their stories was a great experience.
No comments:
Post a Comment