GREAT SUCCES!

it has taken some effort (as in; not sleeping for a couple of days, the usual breakdown, two packs of smokes a day and liters and liters of coffee) but I finished my book in time, and I graduated! ( well, kind of, still have to do my theoretical exams) and I actually pulled it off quite well, I got honors and all too. So I thank all of you. All the people I’ve met on the road, the supporters here at home, and of course most of all, my hosts. couldn’t have done it without all of you. So thanks!

GOOD TIMES! new roman.

Okay, I’m rather confused right now. After the comment Maarten gave me on the last post, I started fooling around with some no-go fonts, as there are: comic sans, papyrus, impact, and last but not least, the most commonly used font ever: Times New Roman. And I actually like it in this design. Surely this is all but a dream, and I’ll wake up in a minute, and we’ll all have a good laugh about it. RIGHT?

PLEASE KILL ME.

HOME SWEET HOME.

Okay, so there we are, 100 days later, back in Belgium. It was great, I’ve met amazing people on the way, but it feels good to be home again, too. No time to celebrate though, there’s work to be done! I’m currently working on the layout of the book, the following screenshots show some test-scenes i’ve made so far. Mind you, I’m still experimenting, but as always, feel free to comment.On with the work now.

MINOR SETBACK

Yesterday, I realised how lucky I’ve been so far. And why did I realise that only yesterday? Because yesterday, I was actually not that lucky.

the day before yesterday I took the train from Istanbul to Belgrade, which should have taken me about 22 hours. In the beginning, all was good, I even managed to get some proper sleep on the train and all, which is normally never the case. So, all went well, crossed Bulgaria, up to the Serbian border, and that’s when shit went awry. Apparently, Serbia decided I need an international passport to get in -which I don’t have, since I’m not leaving europe- since April. And yes, I know it’s absurd to travel without an international passport. Then again, people that know me would probably refer to this as “pulling a Sebbe”.

So, there I find myself, at the border, In the middle of nowhere, not very appealing, with the local elderly following my every move. So, I went to the trainstation, or whatever had to pass for that. Of course, No one spoke english, as I tried to explain to them that I needed to get back to Sofia. I had about 3 turkish lira left, which didn’t convince them, so I asked if I could pay with Visa. A firm “No”. If there was an ATM around. “No”. What the hell I should do then. “NO”. Well, this wasn’t going anywhere. So I ended up selling them my perfume for a ticket to Sofia, -“Da!”- which they were happy to take, since it was worth about 30 times the ticket, which was only 3 Levas. 3 levas, that’s 1.50 euro. So, back in Sofia, I found out that I would have to pay 240 euro to get my emergency passport, and then I would still miss the first 2 days of the Design week, so that’s definitely a no-go. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very passionate about design, and it would show my devotion and all, but this is just ridiculous.

So there I am, back in Sofia. And when I got there, about the first thing I noticed were these posters of the Sofia design week. It starts the 5th of june. like, 4 days after I have to be back in Belgium.

Anyways, the weather is good, so I’m happy. HA.

following is a totally unrelated pic I took in Istanbul.

SEBASTIAN NEEDS YOUR ADVICE!

Okay, I need your advice, I was asked if I wanted to interview any of the speakers at the Belgrade Design Week, and I don’t know which ones I should choose. So if you know any of them, or always wanted to ask them some question, post it, and I’ll ask!

FASCIDIOT.

I just woke up this morning, and this idea popped into my head. I apologise.

可愛い

I’ve met up with Mustafa Horasan, a great artist I’ve been following for some time now, in Istanbul, where he is also part-time teacher in graphic design. He showed me some of his pupils designs and made me show mine. Afterwards, I met up with them for an art-exhibition opening which was rather bad and uninspired, except for the works of the assistent at the university, who invited us. After that we went for some beers, and ended up discussing graphic design for the rest of the evening. You know you’re passionate about design if you’re still discussing typography after 4 beers.

I’ve also met up with Nakyung again, the illustrator I’ve met in London at the very beginning of my trip, so I guess the circle is completed. The funny thing is that we didn’t know about eachothers wereabouts untill 2 days before she arrived in Istanbul, so it was great to see her again.

From the 25th of may ’till the end of my trip, I’ll be in Belgrade, to report on the design week over there for VICE, and of course to try to meet some good designers, and ask them some questions concerning my trip and experiences. I’ll keep you updated on that.

I’m also still planning on meeting up with Tugce Ozocak, an friend of mine from Istanbul, and student at the fashion academy in Antwerp. She’ll be here working on her final collection here in Istanbul in the next few days, so I hope she’ll have some time for me. I’m also still planning on meeting Mustafa again in his workshop, and maybe do some work together with his students. We’ll see. So much to do, and so little time…

And Istanbul? Well, Istanbul, it’s amazing. Can’t grasp it yet at the moment, I think I will need some time to reflect before I can write about it.

iDea

I had a lot of people asking me to make an E-book version of my book, so I’ll probably do that. Also, the book will be published in English, which is not the easiest thing to do for me, but I’ll do my best, I  think it’s important that the people I’ve met so far are also able to read it. anyway, that’s it for today.

FASE-BOOK

Things are finally starting to take form. I’ve been working hard the last few days, and this is what came out. The book “100 days to become a better graphic designer” which is actually still a working title. I’ve always been kind of sceptic about manuals, “whatever-for-dummies” and guides, so I decided this book should be a satire on all that, since there are actually no real rules to graphic design for me, just my own meandering experience. -steal!- Part of it will be ironic, part will be telling about my own experiences and my views after 4 years of studying the subject, and part of it will be about the experiences with the people I met, all of this in this 100 spreads. The build-up will be based on different archetypes I’ve met on my trip, almost abstracting them to some kind of tarot characters, which I will also be making symbols for. The art critic, the conceptualist and the sculptress are some of the examples. these will be the main sections of the book, I’ll be categorising the tips/experiences into those, one spread per idea, documenting it with pictures and illustrations. anyway, here’s some of the first try-outs for an identity for my book, and the first pieces of text. I’ve got about 30 concepts for pages ready now, as you can see, it’s kind of a mess right now, but that’s the way I like to work…

And because I’m such a nice person, I’ll also give you a short excerpt from one of the pages.

“Real men don’t read manuals

Randomness is the best thing that ever happened to me.
Make mistakes and create errors, and lots of them. Try out functions you don’t know in the programs you work with.
If you get something new, experiment with it before you read the manual. And if possible, don’t read the manual at all. It might take you a little longer to learn, but hey, you’re a creative person, aren’t you? You’ll figure it out, and you’ll end up using the program in a way that nobody else does, and in ways even the developers didn’t think of. Make it your own.”

This would be the explanation, together with pictures, designs I’ve made in the past, and how the experience with the artist of that section has added to that. So next are some basic draw-outs for the book/cover.

Oh yeah, about the logo… (also still a working piece)

I’ve had this thing with prism forms all through my journey for some strange reason. I don’t know why, but they always kept coming back into my designs, I think it has something to do with itineraries. I had this thing when I was about 12 years old where I used to draw out dots, and then connect them all to eachother, creating this maze of lines, and I think it kind of returned to me when I was sketching out my itinerary. and the prism-forms come from the thought that this project is not moving in a forward in a single way, for me it’s more of a cluster of connections made by the traveling, less deterministic. this is also why I didn’t want to decide what exactly I wanted to do with it up ’till now. And yes, to me, this explanation makes perfect sense. Well, that, and procrastination.

So, in short, you’ll see the prisms returning all through the book.

DIRECTIONS.

Well, it was quite the hassle, but I finished the explanation of my project, and I think I’m quite happy with it. I’ve been giving it a lot of thought the last few days, discussing it with a lot of people, and it was good to get some different views on the subject. I only have it in dutch at the moment, but I’ll be translating it sometime this week for the english-speaking readers among you. I’ll also be posting some pictures soon, I know I haven’t been posting a lot lately, It’s been kind of hectic the last few days, not really the vacation I needed.

“Het project misplaatst/displacement handelt over het verliezen van controle. In de opleiding grafische vormgeving ligt de nadruk steeds op de persoonlijke vorming. het onderzoek in dit project ligt in de zoektocht hoe deze persoonlijke vorming in een stroomversnelling gebracht kan worden.

In de eerste plaats zou het project een 100 dagen durende reis doorheen Europa worden, om de geografische verschillen in de grafische vormgeving in kaart te brengen. Al snel bleek echter dat de introductie van het internet een revolutie teweeg heeft gebracht, wat maakt dat er geen sterke nationale stijlen meer zijn, eerder een kruisbestuiving. De nadruk verschoof dus al snel naar de vraag of het reizen een invloed heeft op de persoonlijke vorming.
In het reizen worden we verplicht om onze dagelijkse gebruiken en rituelen achter te laten, en meer open te staan voor nieuwe ervaringen. Belangrijk voor dit concept was het ontmoeten van en het verblijven bij artiesten, kunstcritici en vormgevers uit andere kunsttakken. Het hoofddoel werd de interactie en collaboratie met deze artiesten, om zo een breder beeld te krijgen en mezelf en mijn werk beter te kunnen plaatsen in de wereld.

Het grafische eindproduct van het project werd dus “how to become a better designer in 100 days”, een “reis-gids” voor de grafische vormgever. Deels zinspelend op de maatschappij waarin alles te koop is, anderzijds als zelfspot en ten derde in zekere mate een kritiek op het kunstonderwijs. In kunst en vormgeving bestaan er in se geen absoluut objectieve criteria als goed of slecht. Deze worden echter kunstmatig gegenereerd, de nadruk wordt gelegd op het vakmanschap, aangezien dit wel te quoteren valt, om deze studies conform te maken met andere studierichtingen.

Het uiteindelijke eindproduct is in feite echter vormeloos, het gaat enkel om de ervaringen van de protagonist in dit verhaal, een zekere Sébastien Greffe. Het product dat gepresenteerd wordt zal bestaan uit een abstrahering van de groei van onze protagonist, en natuurlijk ook een documentatie van de eigenlijke reis, alsook een selectie uit de projecten in interactie met artiesten, ontwerpers en critici.”