2010年5月28日 星期五

設計大師:荷蘭設計-Karel Martens


Karel Martens

Karel Martens is a Dutch designer and teacher. After training at the school of art in Arnhem, he has worked as a freelance graphic designer, specializing in typography. Alongside this, he has always made free (non-commissioned) graphic and three-dimensional work. His design work ranges widely, from postage stamps, to books, to signs on buildings. All this work is documented and celebrated in the books Karel Martens: drukwerk / printed matter and Karel Martens: counterprint. Martens has taught graphic design since 1977. His first appointment was at the school of art at Arnhem (until 1994). He was then attached to the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht (1994–9). From 1997 he has been a visiting lecturer in the graphic design department at the School of Art, Yale University. In that year, together with Wigger Bierma, he started a pioneering school of postgraduate education within the ArtEZ, Arnhem – theWerkplaats Typografie – where he still teaches.

·藤斯 / Karel Martens
·藤斯是荷兰现的奠基人之一,功能主的代表人物。Jan van Eyck院、阿院教授,美院客座教授。自2070年代起,卡·藤斯就尝试板、金板和其他一些手拈的物体上制作非商的印刷,在简单地把网看成印刷技的成像手段,他细节的惊人美,那是一个类下的世界,每个画面元素都很简单,但不同合之后形成不同的生命世界。同,他有机的成果用到了更大的建筑外。卡?藤斯的中并有矩的那种漠人性和性价值的意味,相反,你被他那儿童般的真所感。他出版的人著作《Print Matter》、《CounterPrint》德世界上最美的、荷鹿特丹计奖DrA.H.HeinekenH.N.Werkman计奖。他还创建了著名的版式研究所。

Books by Karel Martens

Karel Martens: Counterprint
Karel Martens with Paul Elliman & Carel Kuitenbrouwer
Now that stocks of Karel Martens: printed matter are exhausted, we have published a short book that shows some of the uncommissioned printed work of Martens, with an essay on ‘The world as a printing surface’ by Elliman. This is very much an object-book, in which the work is not so much reproduced as bodied forth.

Karel Martens: printed matter/ drukwerk
作者:Princeton Arch Staff Robin Kinross
推薦原因:這是荷蘭設計師Karel Martens的攝影作品,同時他也是全世界十分著名的設計師,我買這本書有兩個目的:第一是他的作品向來很有趣;第二是這本書編得非常有趣,他的頁碼設計在書頁的邊緣,還代表三種不同的意義,既大膽又精細。

Karel Martens, graphic designer

I
n his work, Karel Martens embraces both freedom and order. He finds inspiration in the limitations of the profession and turns obstacles into challenges. OASE, a Dutch architectural journal, is an illustration of how designer can maneuver in the narrow field of graphic design production. OASE balances between book and a magazine and each new issue reinvents its forms to surprise its readers. Karel Martens gave OASE a clear direction and convincingly makes a magazine that is both modest and luxurious, making one believe that a low-budget publication is in fact a precious object to be collected. A grid became a fascinating element for Karel Martens. The most basic element in graphic design is given an active role that reflects the tone of the magazine. Karel is the founder of Werkplaats Typografie in Arnhem.
When did you start working on OASE magazine?
The first issue that I did was in 1990. Before it was a magazine of a different format, A4 size.
Did you suggested a new size?
Yes. The magazine has quite a theoretical approach, so used this book format. Before was just loose papers, where students would hand their type-written essays. It looked very nice, I liked it, but it was a bit problematic to continue this way, so I decided to change it.
And the change was using a book format rather then using a conventional magazine format?
There was a lot of text, and not so many images. It was easier to read in a new format.
What is the size of the OASE magazine? It is related to the maximum size of the sheet?
Yes, 24×17 cm it is the most economical size for the 50×70cm presses in the Netherlands. It is very economical, however, you cannot bleed on all sides. I have to adjust the design to this as well, so we move all the images up on the sheet.
When you started working on OASE did you design a fixed grid for the future issues?
For me the grid is an instrument that allows me to work with books. Very often it is a flexible grid so I am not too constrained, I still have to take decisions about placing text and images.
Has the grid changed since the first issue? How was the grid evolving as the magazine was growing up?
Yes, The 6×2 mm grid changed. When the production of OASE changed, and now we are doing it fully in-house, the grid changed. Now it is made completely on the Macintosh and this offers much more opportunities to play with columns, type and the margins.
I spent some time looking at OASE trying to follow the internal structure of the magazine. I had an impression that the grid is changing with every issue, as well as paper and typefaces. But those changes are so subtle that you don’t see them from issue to issue, you need to see a series them to compare the first one and the latest one and only then can one see the changes.
That’s true. As basic typefaces I am trying to stick with Monotype Grotesque and Janson, but there are exceptions. The grid is also changing when the format is changing [an issue on poetry and architecture has a different size]. The grid, and the division of the grid, depends on the complexity of the issue. The last two issues are bilingual, so I had to adapt the grid to accommodate more text. We are now doing an issue of OASE [issue 49] and we made the Dutch and the English text equal. This requires a change in grid too.
Did you add more pages when OASE became bilingual?
No, and that was the problem. The editor wanted to have the English translation, and asked me to put it in the back of the magazine. However, for me it was a nice opportunity to combine both languages, but they did not offer me more pages. The type was getting smaller and smaller.
So there is twice as much text now, but the same amount of pages?
[laughs] ...exactly...
It seems that you turn all the technical constrains and limitations to an advantage, and there is no visible aesthetic compromise in OASE, all the issues work well with all these limitations.
Limitations are an important thing in design in general because they offer solutions.
You seem to almost enjoy those limitations.
It’s not that I would ask for them, but I am always trying to find my space when working on a project. There are not so many limitations as in the past, I feel more flexible, and it is easier. OASE is a very low-budget publication, and I know that if I change the paper, I will probable be able to add one more colour on the cover, or if I reduce the size I could add more pages. For me, from the beginning, it was important to realise that it is always the same audience that reads OASE, and they don’t really want to have always the same magazine with just a different cover. It is the same as if I would have invited a guest to my house and prepare a wonderful meal. They enjoy it, but if they come next time, I cannot prepare the same meal again. It is more respectful to the public to always prepare something unique. They look forward for the next issue.
How did OASE change when you worked on it with your students? Before it was much more of your individual job, now, the latest issue you designed together with Stuart Bailey and Patrick Coppens. How did it affect the process?
There is not much difference. Of course now the work is much more of a dialogue, Stuart and Patrick have different visions, and this is their contribution to the magazine, but essentially there is not a big change. We are trying to make it a game. We are not doing these kind of commissions for money. As I mentioned it is very low-budget magazine. So my honorarium has to come from a nice result. For me it is important to be involved with architecture, a field that is very close to design, I enjoy reading all the articles. It is a free time job. I let the content decide how the magazine is going to look.
You’ve been working on OASE for 8 years. Do you see a direction in which the magazine is going, or is it hard to predict because it is so much driven by its content?
I don’t know. I approach it differently every time. You can see it on the OASE logos. There isn’t one. Each issue is treated individually. I am completely free in designing the magazine, it is an issue of trust between the publisher and us.
How much are you involved in making the editorial decisions?
Not so much, I am not as intellectual as the other people involved in the magazine...
... but you were very influential for the magazine, you always propose the covers, you suggested the bilingual solutions, you discuss the articles...
... of course, I read all the articles and talk about them,
I choose the visuals, but I am not active in deciding about the future of OASE, this is not my worry.
When I saw OASE for the first time I thought it looked very Dutch. When I’ve seen later issues this feeling was only reaffirmed. What do you think makes it look and feel so Dutch?
That’s funny, I would also like to know...
Maybe it is the diversity of forms, this plurality that allows you to decide each time individually...
... yeah, perhaps... perhaps it is the flexibility of a small country. In big countries I see more constrains than here in the Netherlands. I don’t know.
OK, the last thing I’d like to ask, is a thing that all the people that know you want to ask but they don’t dare, and that’s the origin of your famous chinese-indigo blue jacket. Where does it come from?
[laughs] That’s not so special... I bought it first 15 years ago, I like it for all the pockets it has, and it is so light. I now buy them in Paris, last time I bought 3 of them...

沒有留言:

張貼留言