HELOHOLO says » ICOGRADA

Design for Sitting

HELOHOLO — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 13:49:02 +0000

Another exhibition from ICOGRADA Beijing was about sitting in public places. I must say that most of exhibits are not just curious and good looking but pretty comfortable which I checked personally.

To see more photos from the exhibition visit it’s Flickr set.

Chinese Type Design Competition

HELOHOLO — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 09:43:32 +0000

As for me one of the most interesting and inspirational events of this ICOGRADA congress was an exhibition of the best fonts of Chinese Type Design Competition. I’m sure that even people who are not got used to Chinese characters can appreciate the beauty of this fonts and find inspiration there. And I feel that basic rules and principles are the same for Latin and Chinese type design.

To showcase the font designers use chosen poem with all different characters. They do not make all existing characters for the competition. Well, this is not just 26 letters of alphabet and obviously would take one person years and years to design font with thousands of characters. Usually this is a project for a design team.

Well, this are just a few fonts I liked. But much more images you may find at Flickr set.

ICOGRADA Beijing: China Academy of Fine Arts

HELOHOLO — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 02:42:01 +0000

I feel like I had to start with this general post about ICOGRADA event in Beijing.

The last week of October ICOGRADA and Chinese authorities organized international design congress. It was a huge event that attracted designers from all over the world. The big kick to promote China and Beijing in the world and design in China. There were many intersting exhebitions, lectures by prominent international and Chinese designers, workshops, performances and so on.

The main venue of the event was CAFA (China Academy of Fina Arts). This beautiful building is the new CAFA Art Museum, designed by Japanese architect Arata Isozaki.

And this is the logotype of the event, stylized Chinese character “XIN”…

And further I’m going to write what it’s all about…

So here’s the deal…

「Xin-信」
Literally meaning “message” or “letter,”「Xin-信」represents a primitive means of communication. Today, however, it encompasses many more dimensions than ever before, as illustrated by words such as Xin-xi (information); Xin-nian (vision); Xin-ren (trust); Xin-yong (creditability) and Xin-xin (faith).

The logo is build of black envelopes that form Latin and Chinese name of event (in two separate forms that were animated to change one into another). The style is pretty simple, black and white with occasional drops of colors. And everything was made of this envelopes.

The other big thing is the campus of CAFA. Official mouth says:

CAFA is the only national arts education establishment in China directly under the Ministry of Education and exclusively dedicated to fine arts, design, architecture and art history. It has established a strong reputation as an institution that allows culture, history and art to flourish, and enjoys some of the best arts resources in China.

And shows the picture.

But I’d say that this is a beautiful place made of grey bricks, full of art and magic. And it was particularly beautiful in the middle of the autumn.

And also it’s full of all kind of weird pieces of art.

And pretty nice announcement boards covered with posters and scraps of poster.

Much more photos from the exhibition at Flickr set.

Exhibition: Beijing Typography 2009

HELOHOLO — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 16:40:42 +0000

Another interesting exhibition featured by ICOGRADA in Beijing was Beijing Typography Exhibition 2009. It showcases typographic works of international and Chinese designers (mostly posters, but also books, motion, light design etc.) in order to explore aproaches and trends in modern typography and embrase cultural diversity. You can read more about exhebition at Faces of Design. Personally, I discovered many interesting Southern Korean designers. Probably need to do some research on this country’s design.

Much more photos from the exhibition at Flickr set.

Chinese Graphic Design in the 20th Century: A Documentary

HELOHOLO — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 07:29:22 +0000

Last week of October was huge for Beijing. ICOGRADA world design congress was held in the city. So interesting! Unfortunatelly it was hard to visit even a half of events, though I spent whole days at the congress. In next few post I will show some pictures from exhebitions I’ve visited.

Like this… “Chinese Graphic Design in the 20th Century: A Documentary”.

Actually it was limited mostly by posters of communist era and advertisments of the beginning of 20th century. But interesting anyway. Especially to compare exhibits with Russian comminist posters I’ve seen so many times.

Much more photos from the exhibition at Flickr set.