It is on the day one year ago that I wrote about the book fair in Leipzig and also this year I saw a bunch of inspiring books there – content-wise as well as regarding the design and production.  I spent hours admiring the nominees and winners of the yearly award »Best Book Design From All Over The World« and the presentations of the students of different German book art study programmes, find some impressions in the pictures. Another highlight was the Korean Pavillon – every single book here could have won the best book award, in my opinion!
I concluded my weekend in Leipzig with a visit to »It’s a book, it’s a stage, it’s a public space«,  a meeting of small independent publishers, where I met friends who presented their cool project »Publishing as (part time) practice«. Check it out here, I heard they will come to Berlin with it, soon.

We love you too.

Thank you for the wonderful show at Volksbühne in Berlin yesterday night … all we are saying is give peace a chance!

Images top to bottom:
– 1969, Yoko Ono  | Clay Perry
– Yoko Ono und John Lennon – Bed-In for Peace, 1969. Hilton Hotel, Amsterdam, 25.-31. März 1969
– Unknown
– Yoko Ono, thewire.co.uk
– War is over | imago

Örnsbergsauktionen is the name of an artist operated auction house for studio produced, independent design and craft. Its creators, Fredrik Paulsen, Simon Klenell and Kristoffer Sundin, were missing a platform for contemporary, unique design in Stockholm so they initiated the first Örnsbergsauktionen during Stockholm Design Week 2012. The idea of the auction is to open up the process between idea and finished product and to reduce the distance between designer and client. Now time has come for the second edition – until February, 8th you can check out and bid on a range of beautiful and somewhat crazy objects, bypassing the commercial demands of mass production!

Sculpture by Sara Lundkvist | Glasses by Silo Studio |  Tray by August Sörenson | Necklace by Maria E Harrysson

Images: Viktor Sjödin

The team behind German typography and graphic design magazine Slanted discovered the amazing power of Cuban poster art and is planning on a special issue to give the Cuban artists an international voice. With 320 pages this Slanted issue will have an impressive coverage and exhibitions in Berlin, Leipzig and Paris will give deeper insights into Cuban design.
To make all these great plans reality, Slanted is dependent on the support of all you design enthusiasts out there: Via crowdfunding you can support the project by ordering copies in advance or buying hand-pressed prints signed by the artists. You can find the latest info on the project’s Facebook page.

When American publishing house Condé Nast opens its archives in New York, Paris, London and Milan for the first time you can be sure to see some of the world’s finest fashion photography! To be honest we even expected a more daring selection but nevertheless some real treasures could be found. Especially seeing the classic compositions of photography’s old masters such as Edward Steichen was truly amazing. In many images you see that fashion photography reflects the respective era, society and zeitgeist and does not just tell us about timeless beauty, as the exhibition’s title might suggest.

Like father, like son. Drew Tyndell, an artist working in Atlanta, Georgia, started out with graffiti, but his latest series of work clearly shows that growing up with an architect father has influenced him. Using different sized pieces of wood, Drew creates studies of beach and cabin homes. Impressive how the colours and structures add depth and a third dimension to the artworks. Check here for more variations!

What started out already in 1966 as a competition for the best posters in the GDR has become a dear recurring event: The exhibition »Die 100 besten Plakate des Jahres« (100 Best Posters of the Year) is once more on display at Kulturforum at Potsdamer Platz. 53 posters from Germany, 45 from Switzerland and 2 from Austria were awarded for their outstanding design, whereof 23 of the prize-winning entries are posters designed by students.
We were great fans of the posters by the following designers: Paula Troxler for a Moby Dick theater play, Valeria Gordeew for a masked ball at Udk Berlin, Markwald & Neusitzer for an exhibition of islandic artist erró, Björn-Christian Schiebe for the Museum of Natural Sciences.
Have a look at all winning posters here or check other dates of the travelling exhibition.

We went out to see Sarah Illenbergers exhibition at voo store in Kreuzberg. Some of the exhibits apparently were done just at the same day but a lot of her work was familiar. Nevertheless it was nice to see some of the originals and the beetroot diamonds, the pomegranate and the blonde apple just made us smile!

As sad as this sounds, as beautiful is the work of artist Nick Georgiou. And here‘s what he says about it: “My art is inspired by the death of the printed word. Books and newspapers are becoming artifacts of the 21st century. As a society we’re shifting away from print consumption and heading straight towards full digital lives. My sculptures are products of their environment —both literally and figuratively. As often as I can, I use local newspapers to add authenticity, and the form the sculpture takes is a reflection of the personal connection I feel to that particular city.”

Under this motto, the online art show »Buy Some Damn Art« every week brings a new hand-picked selection of independent original art directly to buyers. The initiator of the site, Kate Singleton, wants to offer art at affordable prices for a new generation of art buyers. Since the beginning of November, each Tuesday at noon a new show launches featuring six originals for sale from $200 to $500.

This week it is Rachel Sitkin’s turn. Her landscape paintings quite unexpectedly show surface coal and copper mines in West Virginia and Arizona.

Thanks to everybody who joined to celebrate the release of Π#2 at voo store. And a special thanks to the wonderful Almdudlerdern for yodeling along!

Photos: Christian Smirnow

The website we designed for one of our favourite Berlin fashion designers Sonia Boessert of Boessert/Schorn is now online! The design process was a little accidental: the grey patchwork-pattern in the background originally was composed to visualize a grid system we wanted to lay behind everything and fill with different content and images. It happend that Sonia liked it so much that she wanted it to actually be the design for her website. And as client is king we implemented this idea.

…and we gave it an outfit to get started on its way through Berlin’s nightlife.

Flyers and posters for the Grand Opening of the TGA party series have just arrived. The opening will take place on 2 of july, 2011:

19-22h Exclusive Barbecue Dinner on the Terrace of Bethanien
(rsvp: lamansarde@hotmail.de)
Pianoconcert by PETER LUDWIG BEIERLEIN, „All On Me“ Fashionperformance by KRIWO (Paris),
Magic Wood Visuals by MELLA OJEDA
Dancefloor: JUSTUS KÖHNKE, JULI HOLZ live, BONNIE, MS ELBE, BUGGY, TDAANCE

…and NO, we have not had enough of triangles yet!

This was long overdue: Berlin-based publishing house Gestalten finally opened a shop/exhibition space! But the waiting was worth the while: Situated in Sophie-Gips-Höfe in Mitte, »Gestalten Space« spreads over more than 300 square metres and offers all the great books by Gestalten, covering everything relevant in the international design scene. Besides, you can buy selected products by designers & artists who have been previously published by Gestalten. The gallery space is inaugerated with the exhibition »Cutters Edges« displaying contemporary collages by 50 international artists.

I didn’t see the Gregory Crewdson exhibit in Germany (it’s not so often I visit Baden-Baden…) but when I entered Stockholm’s Kul-turhuset this weekend I was lucky to discover that they had a big Gregory Crewdson show on display. Especially the images in his precisely choreographed and elaborately staged “Beneath the Roses” series were impressive. Additional images from the production process provided an insight into how much planning and orchestration is needed to achieve the final results.

This weekend, I visited the book fair in Leipzig. Besides presenting an overwhelming amount of literary novelties, the fair is also dedicated to book art. At the yearly exhibition »Best Book Design From All Over The World« arranged by Stiftung Buchkunst you can admire really beautiful books. Great layout, fantastic material choices (especially the Asian people know how to work with paper), sophisticated bindings and other extra details lifted my spirits. 14 books were rewarded, check out the winners here!

Panther Club is an independant publishing platform from London that produces limited print editions in collaboration with international artists and illustrators. Originally, they started out as a blog covering the field of Graphic Arts and illustration. The blog is a fun source for inspiration where you’ll find a mixture of works by new talents as well as interesting material from past decades.

1. Panther Clubs second print
series »Dionysus, The Ecstasy & Madness«
2+3. Collages by Virginia Echeverria

Together with more than 30 photographers, stylists, hair & make-up artists and models we were part of a fun project during the last weeks. We took care of the visual concept and layout of »Œ Magazine«, which is a new fashion magazine that focuses on Berlin’s fashion scene. The magazine is non-commercial and is in parts financed by crowdfunding. Check out the project’s campaign video here on WeFund and if you like it, feel free to support a good cause!

Contributing photographers: Amos Fricke, Dirk Merten, Lars Borges, Christoph Schemel, Andreas Lux, Jochen Arndt, Rachel de Joode, Clément Martz

Contributing stylists: Christian Stemmler, Christof Post, Rainer Metz, Åsa Lundström, Brenda Barr, Antje Gohlke, MAVEN, Julian Zigerli

Contributing hair & make-up artists: Alexander Soltermann, Henriette Höft, Manuela Kopp, Miriam Jochims

Funny electricity, serially numbered doors and beautiful floors: we´ll miss all that when c/o Fotogalerie has to move out of Postfuhramt and the place gets transformed into another shopping mall! Until the 27th of March you have the chance to see their last exhibition there, a Robert Mapplethorpe Retrospective.

This is just so lovely!

Wilde Dieren / Wild Animals from Rop van Mierlo on Vimeo.