Today is the last day of Design Walk 2010: The Design Walk consists of studios opening their doors to visitors, inviting them to follow a walk that brings them closer to the most functional and everyday applied art. The initiative was started by a small team of graphic designers that spotted the opportunity to trigger a profound dialogue between the graphic design studios of that particular neighborhood and the public. The Design Walk is in conjunction with the Greek Graphic Designers Association. The walk now attracts thousands of visitors each year.
Bios
The walk takes place in the vibrant area of the city next to the Acropolis, leading the visitor between cult shops and hip bars to discover works by award-winning graphic designers, in one of the most inspiring neighbourhoods in Europe, where ancient Greece, West, East, yesterday and tomorrow meet. For the 2010 walk, double decker, the London-based curating agency, is challenging 13 Graphic Design Studios to create a piece of work inspired by the contradictions / oppositions with which every designer has to deal, and which arise from fundamental questions in design methodology. The resulting exhibition, POLES APART, will give a unique visual insight into the creative process – as well as its curious contradictions.
g
Participating designers will create a piece of work based on the following dichotomies:
1. Void vs. fullness 2. Noise vs. silence 3. Beauty vs. Ugliness 4. Interesting vs. boring 5. Thin vs. bold 6. Word vs. image 7. Symbolic vs. literal 8. Landscape vs. portrait 9. Positive vs. negative 10. Anarchy vs. order 11. Digital vs. analogue 12. Foreground vs. background 13. Original vs. copy
I AM Design
Instead of settling for just one side of the dichotomy, the designers will incorporate both into their work and use them as creative fuel, with no restrictions on medium or scale. Visitors will be further engaged by talks, screenings and educational activities.
Unfortunately I could not be there this year but will have photographs and a report in the next days!
Taking the InterCity Express train to Athens last Friday afternoon, I was overwhelmed with the thought of a great weekend approaching: meeting friends that I had not seen for a while, going around the creative design studios in Psyrri and around to see their new ideas, experiencing once again the Athenian nightlife - once more, like last year, I was going to be Design Walking! And as I arrived in Athens a little before midnight, I had to postpone the walk for Saturday. Instead we went out to Grand Dame and Hoxton, the first a major disappointment (Kolonaki crowd transplanted to Gazi with 90s music, expensive drinks and rude service), the second a classic choice for the area with good music and interesting mixed crowd.
So, after a strong coffee to wake me up, I took my host to down town Athens to shop some ribbons (sometimes it feels weird to know more shops in Athens then the locals) and we were ready to start walking! So our "boots" took us first to Designpark and their Lettair concept.
What am I doing in the photo? Trying to design something with light into thin air, so that a camera can capture it and project it onto the wall right next to it. The Designpark team had made four fonts in this way, which they had printed onto black posters and shared them with us, along with others printed with words made with the fonts. Needless to say I picked the "bad" word out of them to take back home!
We then headed off to Design Insane. The name prepared us for something crazy: instead we discovered a cosy office space painted in bold colours and decorated with inspired posters about changing the world, which was their motto. The guys had moved into this space almost less than a month ago and warmly welcomed us into their office. We talked a while about the current situation in design in Greece and they invited us to a party that night with the famous Cast-A-Blast cooperative. We said we might come and left with their beautifully designed leaflet, which opened becomes a poster with their motto.
The mural decorating the main space of the Design Insane offices - impressive.
Do you agree with the quote above? I surely do!!!! This is written on the stair wall going up to 3 In A Box offices - one of the most beautifully designed spaces we visited (and one I had not been able to visit last year). Their concept was Homopictographicus - presenting, through pictograms, the evolution of mankind's history from pictopithecus to homopictographicus sapiens. Fun and simple but it felt like going to a museum.
Then we visited MNP. Under the Observation concept, they had us all sketching in freehand as it is one of the major ways of observing what is around you (one which my friend Richard Haines makes so elegantly in his blog). When we visited, our model was a belly dancer, resplendent in her red embroidered outfit.
Of course, when I see blank paper and pencils, crayons, pens and brushes around, no one can stop me drawing - so that is what I did!
Thankfully our model was very obliging and posed wonderfully, while oriental music filled the air. More people joined me as I was advancing with my work.
Here you can see the almost finished sketch - I decided to let it unfinished as it looked better to me - the guys from MNP posted it on the wall along with the other sketches by their visitors - this is a photo of it I found in Facebook, taken by Michalis Baboussis:
I was eager to visit G's offices: last year, their Cog concept about collaboration was so much fun and I had made my own art there. This time, their "Glows In The Dark" concept transformed their almost white space into a black hole (actually half of their office space was covered in black). With a black light and lots of day-glo markers, they encouraged us to let out our creativity onto their walls, floor, furniture, ourselves - you name it!
It was a bit difficult to find empty space to write, even at the ceiling!
Slowly getting used to normal light again, we headed off to Sereal Designers and their Jukecity. 50 buildings, 2053 inhabitants (all with song lyrics in word balloons), a Godzilla, 300 policemen, a group of aliens, seven dancing queens, numerous records, thousands of notes and cables... a dream scape was painstakingly created into their studio, drawing admiration shouts from everyone visiting - but their impressive eye-aquarium was the piece de resistance!
The buildings had even air conditioning units incorporated! The advertising billboards on the terraces were sometimes very inspired, like the one with Madonna advertising "Magdalena's Sex Shop"!
The guy above is singing (?) Moby...
Where the streets have no name...
The aquarium from the back - you can see the goldfish swimming!
The flock of doves being fed by a granny - how many hours did this take to make?
We then moved right around the corner to see the videos made by the Play team. Their Loop concept had seven people making one single video, each one taking over from the last frame of the previous creator, making an unusual film. The small clips shown on other screens in the studio were very entertaining too! The gallery SCAN2ER is beside the Π6 studio which was next in our route. Achilleas Fakiolas makes incredible lighting fixtures from Plexiglas, that are more art objects then utilitarian stuff. I could not make up my mind which one was more beautiful, they all were very impressive. Below you can see his work "The Prayer":
This group below is based on various blue artistic interpretations: the films Betty Blue, The Big Blue and Blue Velvet, Claude Debussy's De L'Aube a Midi Sur la Mer.
Our next stop was Π6. And suddenly we found ourselves in a playground: the concept "Ready Or Not, Here I come" or "Ftou Kai Vgaino" in Greek, allowed them to fill their studio with games for us to play: board games, life games, politics games, love games, street games, solitary games, team games, memory games and many more, drawing parallels between actual games and things that we do in reality.
We finally arrive at our friends, Poordesigners, exhausted but also filled with that sense of elation when you meet creative people and see their work displayed for you. We knew their concept beforehand, having seen small previews online some days ago, but the full force of it was overwhelming: the team created a company called NoProb, that makes objects to relieve the stress that engulfs people in their everyday mundane life. The result was a series of hilarious videos as advertisements for the objects they made, all in bright pink of course and the objects themselves displayed on their podiums:
The Internet loss kit displayed below should be a staple in every house!
What is this guy doing to my dear friend? Watch out!!!
After spending lots of time there drinking the InstantZen shots from test tubes and eating InstanZen cookies and candy (in multicolors of course), and getting an amazing set of coasters (illustrated by T-Drom and printed by Giota - thanks guys!) we made the trip two floors usptairs to Design Shop, one of the three studios that started Design Walk three years back.
At seeing lace doilies hanging on walls and from the ceiling, at first I thought my mother had gone through there the day before - then their concept became more apparent as we saw the banners made with repeating patterns.
Step And Repeat: that was the concept here, everything displayed was made with that process, mathematical patterns and motifs found in nature and repeated in art, architecture, design and music. They even had a computer where one could make his own pattern and see it instantly repeated infinitely onto another screen:
Here is the pattern my friend did, finished:
At that point we decided to call it a day, regarding design walking, and the hour was a bit after the normal closing time for the creative studios - they have to rest too!!! We did not have many places left to go, so we went for diner at Kouti, a lovely restaurant in Adrianou street. Excellent food (I recommend the chicken with orange and sesame seeds and also the orange pie) and very interesting decoration with angels:
We headed for home satiated, rested a while and went out into the night - first stop was the brilliant Pop, where they make amazing cocktails (Zombie is a smash), play great music and one can see many interesting people gather into its minute space. Thanks to my friends for taking me there, I had a blast (and thanks to Vassilis the barman!). The skies starter raining cats and dogs then and I barely made it to Hoxton again, soaking wet...
Sunday started sunny and warm: I went with friends for a coffee at Urban in Glazi, where I had to wait one hour to have a waitress come and take our order and another hour for her to bring it. Of course she made a mistake: instead of a double cappucino, she brought me two cups of cappucino... I then went to visit an architecural show at Benaki Museum at Pireaus street, about the Greek Residence from the 20th to the 21st century - interesting buildings, boring display. After having rakomela and dakos at Pseirra in Psyrri (of course) we headed to Typical Mutations and their Origami project: in three seperate videos they taught us how to make three different origami objects. The visitors then were videotaped and made part of a digital video to be uploaded online after the end of Design Walk. Their project of last year was much more creative and intriguing, but the guys are so likeable you forgive them everything - and the origami stuff rocks!
That was the end of our Design Walk this year. My opinion is that apart from a few teams, the overall inspiration was not as good as last year's, an opinion shared by many others that I talked to these days. Not all projects made people actively participate and some seemed hastily made to justify their participation. Of course all of them have their day to day projects to work on also, but I think that if they all had made the effort they had last year, everything would have been that much better. The feeling of camaraderie and friendship that permeated everyone was there this year too, we saw lots of friends, met others for the first time and promise to come back next year for more!!!
P.S. I did not have the time to see The Switch Design Agency and their OFF.ICE project as well as the collective exhibition in Bios from studios not situated in the Design Walk area - what I heard from other people who did visit was very positive. I hope I can see everyone next year!
Tomorrow starts one of the biggest annual events in Greek design, Design Walk. Although it is a walk we are used to taking, nobody would call it a usual walk. In the course of three days, Design Walk allows us to familiarize ourselves with the graphic design scene of Athens (particularly the studios located around Psyrri area) through a series of exhibitions and happenings. The events hosted in the studios attempt to discuss and showcase the various aspects of design.
The idea emerged three years ago when three design studios (pi6, g and the design shop) were striving to stir things up a bit in the local design scene and has ever since gained through its innovative spirit an overwhelming and ever increasing response from a diverse audience.
Every year the city centre is filled with people wandering around, holding maps, and drawing their routes between the creative studios. You can download the map here.
Design Walk has become an essential part of the beginning of the year calendar. The 13 participating studios are members of a new generation of graphic designers who, having become aware of the role of design as an expanded platform of communication, invite a wide variety of people to take part in a dynamic and productive dialogue. The main aim is to challenge standard preconceptions about design and provide with the ground for exploration in a field that is becoming more and more essential to our everyday life. Lets not forget that through design we communicate, get informed, learn, find or lose our way.
The original idea was conceived, as many good ideas usually are, between friends over lunch at Thission. Three creative offices, talking about the Psyrri area of Athens, design and the teams gathered in that area and its surroundings. An idea that became a reality in January 2007 for the very first time. All participating offices would open their doors to visitors for three days. People from every strata of society could see their work, their surroundings and ideas and projects, talk with them and find out about creative people and their way to work! Showing projects created especially for this event, they could give their very best and have no limit to their creativity. I could not experience it that first time (and was so jealous of those who did), but this year I made it.
As the concept was collaboration, each participating office could bring one or more collaborators from Greece or abroad and make a common project. This proved to be a genius idea, as it allowed creative people from outside of Psyrri and Greece in particular, to participate. Secondly it gave everyone the chance to do their very best, proving that a great collaboration can yield excellent results far easier than one mind working alone.
Our first stop was at the Typical Mutations offices. They had Makebelieve as their partner in crime... and yes, it was a crime that we, the visitors, were asked to solve: Maria Roussou from Makebelieve was a suspect of killing Panagiotis Chatzidakis from Typical Mutations.
We had a briefing and then inspected the cleverly designed crime scene.
Then we were given some clues:
With the use of technological novelties such as mixed and augmented reality installations alongside visual and traditional techniques, we had to decide whether Maria was guilty or not.
Using a cell phone to identify a pattern
Checking a fabric weave
The results of the collective investigation were published the very next day in a specially designed web site. One of the most original and funny presentations!
Then we were on for another treat: the collaboration between Poor Designers and Dimitris Arvanitis, one of the pioneers of Greek graphic design.
Dimitris Arvanitis
Their theme was centered around a visual commentary, in a highly creative way, of Society and Hypocrisy. It was the most (if not the only) political work presented in the studios I visited.
The messages were strong and clear, usually infused with irony. The atmosphere was great and you felt you were in the company of old friends (in fact we met a couple of friends there!).
One of the highlights must have been the visit of Freddie Karabott and Michalis Kantzourakis, two living legends of Greek Graphic design. Surely a day to remember! (Their exhibition, Design Routes, curated by Dimitris Arvanitis, will be presented in another post).
Michalis Kantzourakis with Dimitris Kanellopoulos (from Poor Designers) and Dimitris Arvanitis
And the photo below to give you an idea of the crowds inside the office:
Then it was on to Design Shop, two floors below. The team here collaborated with French graphic designer Xavier Antin.
"The experience of being human" was presented by a non-linear, graphic installation, activating visitors' participation, providing them with clues, asking them to "connect the dots", in order to get the meaning.
Voting by placing stamps in the appropriate line...
This installation dealt with basic issues that define human identity, such as friendship, companionship, sexuality, vanity etc. I also found the surroundigs great! Kudos!
This team recently moved their offices from the second floor of the building they were in, to the third. This left an empty space that could be used in a number of ways. What could these be? The collaboration resulted in the concept USP (Useful Spaces in Psyrri).
The alternative uses of the space aim to contribute to the quality of life in the centre of Athens, taking under consideration the cultural elements, the urban environment and the current state of the Psyrri area.
The result was ten concepts for using the space, while at the same time visitors could vote for their favourite concept AND also propose new ones! It was an amazing idea, with great execution in pristine white surroundings with a touch of black and green.
Then on to a collaboration of graphics and fashion: Sereal Designers and fashion designers WALM, set up an iconoclastic game, starting with the forms that emerge from the counterpoint between the human body and its surroundings.
Setting up the Amazing Humanoid Circus, they recreated their forms in 3d, in a way that dilutes the sense of reality, uniting graphics and fashion in a changing project, aiming to give shape and essence to the (non-)existing.
It was great fun seeing all the colourful graphics created with the fashions as inspiration (and usually being part of them). A huge circular aquarium occupied the centre of the space, doubling as a fantastically big magnifying lens. The magnetic paper dolls provided hours of entertainment!
All three involve themselves with graphic design as well as audiovisual projects. The result was the combination of them in various forms, presented at B Station, the transmission space for all three teams.
The space was like a makeshift club, with people being asked to make their own posters with various typographic methods, while they were being filmed.
The film was projected live on the windows of the building, making the experience go out to the streets of Psyrri.
I loved the raw feel of the space, the amazing desks and the energy in everyone while making great art to take home with them! The music was great too (Nektarios at the decks below).
Our final destination was the offices of G, collaborting with Company from the UK. The concept here was very concise: The cogs. Cogs of a cogwheel, positioned parallel, tilted or t an angle to each other. They ensure safe function, correct gear ratio, ability to withstand the pressure of overloading, long shelf life and therefore offer a great degree of satisfaction!
Yours truly, making my poster...
To make the idea of cogs and collaboration a little bit more concrete, there was a great table in the middle of the room, with lots of blank pages ready to be transformed by the visitors into works of art, custom-made posters for the event itself. Using stencil cogs and coloured pencils and markers, people drew and drew and drew, having fun and collaborating!
I am really sorry we did not have the time to visit the rest of the participating teams. I hope next year I can make it to all of them. But here is the list of those we did not have the time to see:
The poster advertising the parallel events to Design Walk
A very big and heartfelt thank you to all participating teams and artists: we had a great time, opening our eyes and minds to new ideas , concepts, people, and filled up our batteries with lots of creative energy. See you next year!
Photos by Maria Roussou, Dimitrios Kanellopoulos, Design Shop, The Switch Design Agency, Bend, Rena Nikolaidou.
