Applied arts and design / National Salon 2017

Paralell stories

In­ter­views with two rep­re­s­en­ta­ti­ves each of ten areas of app­li­ed and de­sing art on their own ca­re­ers and the cur­rent state of pro­fes­si­on | The ar­tists tal­ked to Hed­vig Dv­orsz­ky and Lász­ló At­ti­la Már­ton

- How did you find your way to the area in which you be­came a well-known and re­cogn­i­sed ar­tist?
- In which of your works do you think you succ­e­e­ded in re­al­ising the ob­jec­ti­ves you had set?
- What is the cur­rent si­tu­a­ti­on and the fu­tu­re of your pro­fes­si­on like? What are its op­por­tuni­ti­es?

István Orosz | graphic artist, animated film director

Gra­phic de­sign has un­der­gone major chan­ge, at least when we look at its tech­ni­cal backg­round. Tech­no­log­i­cal in­no­va­ti­on has cont­ri­bu­ted not only to the form but also to the cont­ent of the genre. This – bes­ides the changes that we can ce­le­b­ra­te – has un­for­tu­na­tely led to the ho­mo­gen­i­sa­ti­on of the pro­fes­si­on. Prin­ted ad­vert­ising ma­te­ri­als, logos, il­lustra­tions and stamps made in dif­fe­rent cor­ners of the world are dif­fi­cult to tell apart now, and the fact that there is a thing called a `pic­to­ri­al mo­ther ton­gue’ is tal­ked about less and less. The role of ad­ver­ti­se­ments has been taken over by fa­ster, more di­rectly tar­ge­ted and, most im­por­tantly, che­a­per me­di­ums. The `cent­ury of the pos­ter’, i.e. the twen­ti­eth, is gone, and the pos­ter has lost its pre­vi­o­usly oc­cu­pi­ed space – or street, to be acc­ura­te – and it is exi­led among the walls of ex­hi­bit­ion halls. Such ap­pe­aran­ces are no lon­ger a bonus op­por­tunity for gra­phic de­sign­ers, who can show their work at bi­en­na­les, joint ex­hi­bit­ions and solo shows at best, but not on ad­vert­ising co­lumns. There is one thing, tho­ugh, that might chan­ge this pes­si­mis­tic out­lo­ok. While being inc­re­a­singly side-lined among the media se­lec­ted to trans­fer in­for­ma­ti­on, the pos­ter has been strip­ped of a lot of bind­ing ex­pec­ta­tions. We are no lon­ger held ac­coun­tab­le if a play does not att­ract a big eno­ugh au­di­en­ce; we are not ex­pec­ted to fill the poc­kets of fashi­on dic­ta­tors; and per­haps po­li­ti­ci­ans no lon­ger give us a beat­ing if their par­ti­es fail at the el­ec­tions. The genre has be­co­me more ge­nui­ne, un­rest­ra­ined and fres­her.

In the past we be­li­eved, learnt and at times taught that a well-de­sign­ed and -drawn image is able to ins­tantly show cont­ent that would take much lon­ger to write and read. Pos­ters with texts feels like a kind of ad­mis­si­on on the part of the de­sign­er that he has run out of ideas. The es­sen­ce of the de­ve­lop­ment of pos­ter art is exactly that the pos­ter be­came inc­re­a­singly more in cont­rol of com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on th­ro­ugh, and only th­ro­ugh, ima­ges. I once expla­ined this at a stu­dent work­shop: if you want to make a pos­ter, for­mu­la­te the mes­sage you want to con­vey in a few simp­le lines, read the text, and you will feel that there are words, parts of sen­ten­ces or even en­ti­re sen­ten­ces that are re­dun­dant. Re­pe­at this pro­cess of re­read­ing and cros­sing out a few more times, and when you do not need a sing­le let­ter, then your pos­ter is ready.

In­ter­view con­duc­ted by Lász­ló At­ti­la Már­ton

Anna Farkas | graphic designer

The new logo and iden­tity de­sign for Mag­ve­tő Pub­lis­hers were de­sign­ed last year. It was a rest­ric­ted ten­der, an­no­un­ced by the new ma­nag­ement with the aim of ref­resh­ing the pub­lis­her’s ap­pe­arance. My con­cept won the com­pe­tit­ion, and I comp­le­ted the work, which, to our de­light, was awar­ded the Hun­ga­ri­an De­sign Award in 2016.

The pub­lis­her wan­ted an iden­tity de­sign that equ­ally ref­lects the value-ori­en­ted book pub­lish­ing prac­ti­ces of the com­pany, its openn­ess to new li­ter­ary trends as well as its highly pres­tigi­o­us po­sit­i­on in the do­m­es­tic and fo­rei­gn mar­kets. I found a very simp­le vi­su­al so­lu­ti­on for this. Since Mag­ve­tő is among Hun­gary’s li­ter­ary pub­lis­hers lo­o­king back on the grea­test tra­di­ti­on, I wan­ted to cap­tu­re this and rend­er it in the pu­rest lan­gu­age of ty­po­gra­phy. The hun­gar­um­laut – a do­ub­le sharp ac­cent – can only be found in the Hun­ga­ri­an alp­ha­bet; mo­re­o­ver, it is inc­lu­ded in the name of the pub­lis­her. I de­sign­ed a new cha­rac­ter by com­bi­ning the first and last let­ters of Mag­ve­tő. This is how a new let­ter came into being, which be­came the com­pany’s logo.

My pro­ject called Anap­tar (li­te­rally me­aning ‘the ca­len­dar’) is my own, comp­let­ely au­to­no­mous brand. It is the con­cep­tu­al de­ve­lop­ment and imp­le­men­ta­ti­on of a spe­ci­al lunar cycle ca­len­dar sys­tem. So far it has won six in­ter­na­ti­o­nal awards, inc­lu­ding the Red Dot De­sign Award. It is a spe­ci­al cyc­li­cal ca­len­dar with each of its vers­ions lin­ked to a given point on Earth. Its in­no­va­tive ele­ment is that I used a comp­let­ely new met­hod to disp­lay the ast­ro­no­mi­cal data pert­ain­ing to the Moon. This is a data vi­su­a­li­sa­ti­on sys­tem of the lunar cyc­les that no one else had done be­fo­re me and to which it pro­ba­bly owes its huge succ­ess at home and ab­road.

As far as I can see, there is a trend for gra­phic art, the vi­su­al pro­fes­sions and de­sign to be more tran­spa­rent. Per­haps this is ea­si­er to trace in the case of de­sign, be­ca­u­se you might have a su­perb ob­ject, but it will not be alive and mar­ke­tab­le wit­ho­ut the ne­ces­sary ‘trim­mings’, like vi­su­al and other forms of com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on. I be­li­eve that those wor­king in re­la­ted pro­fes­sions will have to join and work to­get­her in the fu­tu­re.

In­ter­view con­duc­ted by Lász­ló At­ti­la Már­ton