Hasta La Ideas

A Practice for Everyday Life (APFEL) has worked with architectural studio Carmody Groarke on the exhibition design for Bauhaus: Art as Life which opened at the Barbican Art Gallery this week in London…

The show, which runs until August 12, contains over 400 works from the most prestigious and extensive Bauhaus collections in the world and looks to provide and in-depth exploration of the school’s 14 year history, focusing on the lives of its students and staff and the community they created.

Together Carmody Groarke and APFEL have, they say, designed “an architectural installation of elemental forms that both compliments and enhances the exhibition’s contents.” As a result, the Barbican Art Gallery has been physically rearranged to create a bespoke viewing experience for its visitors.

Graphically, the show’s design has been informed by Bauhaus principles of colour, structure and typography, with brightly coloured walls, bold panels and super graphics conspiring to draw together exhibits, themes and ideas. The typeface used throughout the exhibition, FF Bau (designed by Christian Schwartz and commissioned by Erik Spiekermann), is a contemporary revival of Breite Grotesk, a letterpress face largely used within the Bauhaus itself.

“Designing an exhibition about the Bauhaus is every graphic designer’s dream, but it’s also a daunting challenge,” APFEL’s Kirsty Carter told us of the project. “It already holds such a vivid visual presence in the public consciousness, and this makes it very difficult to design for a Bauhaus exhibition and create something that feels original,” she continues. “Our approach was to start with a really intensive research project, looking into all aspects of the Bauhaus and its rules, and then reinterpreting them in an exhibition context – aiming for a design that felt true to the spirit of the school without resorting to pastiche or parody.

“We have looked to the Bauhaus’ wall painting workshops in choosing the exhibition colour scheme, studied its principles of typography when designing titles, labels and captions, and taken cues from its exhibition design work when designing the structure of the show itself. The Bauhaus: Art as Life exhibition is as much about celebrating the Bauhaus’s occupants and their community as it is the iconic works they created, and we have tried to provide a similar sense of human context and character through the exhibition design.”

APFEL has also designed the accompanying hardback catalogue, cover below (and top of this post). Here’s a look inside:

Bauhaus: Art as Life runs at Barbican Art Gallery until August 12. More info at barbican.org.uk

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ArtLebedev ha pensato questa essenziale quanto pratica USB flash drive. Credo sia ancora un concept, o mi sbaglio?

Trasforma il tuo iPhone in un mini-flipper. Grazie al pin connector, interagirà con il case permettendovi di giocare a Pinball Magic.
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Scriveteci quello che volete! Lo trovate qui.

U. of L. ID students and…what appears to be British action star Jason Statham and UFC commentator Joe Rogan?

Last week we mentioned the pRecycle, a human-powered, aluminum can crushing machine designed by a group of industrial design students at the University of Louisiana Lafayette. This week we’ve heard back from Ben Bush, their professor, who has provided images, video and an explanation of how Louisiana’s local culture has informed the project.

Core77: Tell us about “pRecycling,” and the impetus behind the pRecycle.
Ben Bush: “pREcycling” is a term that we use to describe the sorting of recyclables before they are sent to a reclaiming facility. We have been seeking ways to recycle aluminum, plastics, and in the future paper. Food and drink contamination along with improper sorting are a few of our biggest issues. Special vessels and the can crusher are our latest rendtion of “pREcycling efforts.”

The initial driving force behind “pREcycling” was to create a business venture out of recycling. Louisiana has a giant festival culture and for good reason—it’s the best food in the world! Louisiana has more than 400 festivals a year, [with most involving] food or drink. A local business owner heavily encouraged us to create concepts that would be more proficient for recycling at festivals.

Essentially, if we can get patrons to sort their goods, we won’t have to send a conglomerate of recyclables to a sorting facility. Most cities like Lafayette and New Orleans send their recyclables to Baton Rouge for processing. Baton Rouge is an hour from both Lafayette and New Orleans and we know that keeping the service local would have less impact on the environment.

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