Migrate

warsaw PJATK — Wrexham

 

Yadzia Williams

& Adam Cooke

 

 

The theme of this workshop is migrate. Students must include the word migrate in their final image, in any language they choose. The theme is open to interpretation. The end result must communicate to an international audience. Students are introduced to the five point design process to follow for this project.

 

Limitations: Students investigate the possibilities of image making (poster design). They are limited to one typeface (thay can use any weights they wish). The size of the image (poster) they produce is 90×60 cm; portrait. Students can print only black/white and grey tones. Students aim to produce three images that will be displayed in various environments. They can be individual ideas or work as a triptych.

 

These sites should be active spaces and the images should rotate on a weekly basis. The typeface to be used is Activ by Daalton Mag. Students read about their trial license offer for students and academic work. The project is 5 days long. By the end of Day 3 we should have ideas finalized and have a crit. Day 4 we should have the artwork finished and printed for a final crit. On Day 5, for the final crit, the images can be printed 45×30 cm.

Immigrating Identities

warsaw PJATK — MAD

 

Ann Bessemans

& Johan Vandebosch

With the typographic workshop Immigrating Identities, Ann Bessemans and Johan Vandebosch
(pxl-mad) collaborated in the Social Design Course at the Polish Japanese Academy of Information Technologies in Warsaw, curated by Ewa Satalecka. Immigrating Identities was a workshop where the experience and influence of refugees and immigrants is visualised in typographic matter, and aimed at changing people's point of view about immigration.

 

Starting from Latin lowercase letters, firstly stencils were created, and then the students were asked to enrich the stencils with letters characteristic of Non-Latin script, thus creating new hybrids. In this way, two different cultures visually interacted with each other. During the

 

third phase, posters were designed with the stencils and the students had to translate, in an abstract manner, the immigration/refugee routes. In the final phase students were asked to design a flag,

using a transnational language with parts of their stencils, as a powerful symbol of new and

blended identities.

 

This workshop enhanced the typographic design skills and wanted to increase the students’ confidence in typography beyond their expectation.

Social Design

warsaw PJATK — helsinki AALTO

 

Marjatta Itkonen

The theme of this workshop is migrate. Students must include the word migrate in their final image,

in any language they choose. The theme is open to interpretation. The end result must communicate to an international audience. Students are introduced to the five point design process to follow for this project.

 

Limitations: Students investigate the possibilities of image making (poster design). They are limited

to one typeface (thay can use any weights they wish). The size of the image (poster) they produce

is 90×60 cm; portrait. Students can print only black/white and grey tones. Students aim to produce three images that will be displayed in various environments. They can be individual ideas or work

as a triptych. These sites should be active spaces and the images should rotate on a weekly basis.

The typeface to be used is Activ by Daalton Mag. Students read about their trial license offer for students and academic work. The project is 5 days long. By the end of Day 3 we should have ideas finalized and have a crit. Day 4 we should have the artwork finished and printed for a final crit.

On Day 5, for the final crit, the images can be printed 45×30 cm.

 

Graphic designers create a visual culture that makes ideas and information accessible and through visual communication we contribute to social well-being and justice. The amount of information

is greater than ever and visual communication is the tool to make that information understandable

and arouse discussion in society. Fear is provoking racism and an open dialogue is needed.

 

We organized many inspiring lectures during one whole week in order to give students as many points of view as possible. After the lectures, students applied creative design proposals in various formats and they were asked to work in teams. Four teams provided research, analyzed the information, created communication concepts and produced campaign proposals. The objective of this course

was to study how to communicate to different audiences, how to design a social campaign and visual communication of importance on a national level. Our task was to create dialogue between locals

and refugees in Poland, to get to know each other better to avoid fear. Fear is creating racism.

Object(ive)s

& Host)(ile

warsaw PJATK — TEI of Athens

 

Katerina Antonaki

& Rossetos Metzitakos

Designing a book based on a collection of objects. Empirical investigation through making

semantic connections. A displacement from theory to real objects. Using objects to simplify complex social issues.

 

Humans 'understand' life through its materiality, through the physical space, its apparatus and the semantic connections they make. Based on this simple thought, we could bring to consciousness and comprehend complex issues more easily; such as the refugee crisis through objects. The experiment was simple: What if we try to re-locate the refugee topic in physical space? The main instruction was the following: Try to find an ordinary object and link it in such a way with the refugee crisis that next time I see it, it will remind me of your idea. Students were asked, after reflecting on the lectures, their personal research and after a discussion in the classroom, to collect ordinary objects from the city and/or home, connect them to an issue related with the refugees crisis (i.e. history of immigration, notion of dis-location, uprooting, formation of new communities, mobility real or imaginative, threats to survival, causes of migration, notions of home, ethical issues involved) and explain their concept using a short text (a poem, an article, their personal opinion, sayings of refugees). Based on the ideas

of lost and found, message in a bottle, this photo-graph is a proof, students were asked to index their thoughts and choose one on which they would work thoroughly and design a book spread.

After choosing the object, they wrote a short text explaining their idea.

 

The students were also responsible for designing the book with the outcomes of the workshop:

think of its title, create meaningful concepts collectively, work with texts and images. By working both individually and in teams to produce the final design, they were able to, within a short time, analyse

a crucial social issue and reflect upon it. During the 5 days of the workshops, they managed to identify strong meanings and create powerful compositions. The final step included the design of posters, based on the ideas from the spreads, for the exhibition.

 

Special thanks to Aspasia Barda and Christos Makopoulos for their help with the photo shooting.

I also thank all the students of the two workshops for the great collaboration and the unexpected ideas.

Children refugees today = citizens of tomorrow

warsaw PJATK — TEI of Athens

 

Aspasia Voudouri

& Eleni Martini

The project is a campaign for child refugees, influenced by the poem “Kemal” by the Greek poet Nikos Gatsos. This is the story of foolish Prince Bass Fiddle and wise Jerry Kemal. As you remember, last time the Prince was found without a dime on the Ponce Valdez while Jerry watched from a tree... In the land of Ali Baba near the Sea of Babalee Lived a man who played the zither with a pronoun on his knee.

 

He would dance among the fuzzy trees and bring the birds to life And his name was Prince Bass Fiddle and he loved his ugly wife. He would sing the songs of Lutvee in his very special way And he puffed tea with his lumpy head and sleep all night and day. With his turban and his Leicester faced the thieves of Germany But beware great Prince Bass Fiddle, you’ll be hanging from a tree. Fifty days and nights they waited for a sign from old Ratan To pretend to wear the colours of the Emperor Charlie Chan. So they strolled into the forest with a song and energy

 

The title of this workshop is "children refugees today = citizens of tomorrow”. You must include the sentence in your final visual creation. This sentence must be translate to the language you choose to work with. Every word or sentence of the poem is open to your interpretation. Your end result must communicate to an international audience.

 

           • You can collaborate where is necessary.

 

           • No fixed rules.

 

           • You are also encouraged to develop skills and social awareness and improve the relation between the children of your country and the children refugees in your country after 10 years.

 

You can produce digital images, website, blog (use of open platform tumbir or wordpress), or magazine. Note that words expressed in transport, buses, metro and in daily routine demonstrate creative ideas too. The project is five days long for the brain story, storyboards and the final decisions. By the end of the fourth day we should have ideas finalized and had a critic on the fifth day. To find bay leaves in the cauldron of the mad witch Betty Lee. Came the answer from

a leaf top that was found upon the ground “Only time and Prince Bass Fiddle will repair your bellies round. Search the highlands search the lowlands, cruise the Sea of Babalee, But remember that your children need the food from filigree”. Then one day in Abalone came a messenger to say That onion-head Bass Fiddle broke in half, no more to play. Will we lose our land of Lutvee to the bearded men

of Cleaves? Only miracles cansave us and some tricks inside our sleeves. From the sky there was an answer to the question of the plebes “You will meet a tall dark stranger wearing black and blue cannives. Who is Lucy, who is Nestor? We should only be there now. Why, it’s Aphrodite Milton and

his keeper Prince Kemal. Goodnight, Kemal, goodnight'.

 

Work both individually and in teams, all students to produce a startup campaign for children refugees in common.