This student from the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig shows a rare combination of typographic adventure and professional know-how in his exciting print-based work.
How would you describe your practice?
It's a mix of associative thoughts, theoretical input, imaginary reality and a highly technical-driven approach. Due to my background as an offset printer I never stopped experimenting with odd paper and different printing techniques like screen printing, xy-plotters and Riso. Apart from that, collaborations with people from different disciplines are important for my way of working.
You've spent the last few months in London working with A Practice for Everyday Life, how did you find the experience of a new city and working in the professional design world?
It was great. The team at APFEL gave me a warm welcome and the time which I spent there was really enriching. It wasn't the first time in a professional studio but it was nevertheless inspiring and I learned a lot about studio structure, exhibition design and, of course, British quirks.
London as a city is tough and amazing at the same time. I really enjoyed discovering a different culture with so many faces. The diverse architecture and the possibility to go into a museum for free whenever you want is a great thing. I highly recommend the Sir John Soane's Museum.
Can you tell us about a professional project you've worked on.
Recently Constanze Hein and I finished an artist book and exhibition catalogue for Philipp Schwalb, a Basel-based painter. It was great to work with Philipp, he was very open minded to our ideas and, at the same time, a great inspiration for us. We were able to develop the concept and the look of the book together. The book transfers Philipp’s ideas, which he expresses in his paintings, to the design realm. For example, the edges of the cover are 10mm bigger than the book block. This refers to the idea of the book as a house, an architectural structure for the content. You could describe it as a mix of minimalist Bauhaus design and Philipps own sense of visual and linguistic language. It will be published by Lubok, a fantastic Leipzig-based publisher.
You helped to design a book called The Visual Event, which was published by Spector Books recently and which contains a large amount of contributions from people on your course. Could you tell us a bit about how this came about and what you took from it?
The Visual Event is more of a starting point than a finished project. Oliver Klimpel and those of us in the System Design Class at the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig started to think about graphic design as a visual event and if it could be a practice beyond an object-centric approach, a practice beyond the conception and production of well-designed and printed artefacts? The outcome was several ‘visual events’ (movies, performances, lectures, etc.) from all class members. Afterwards we combined those events with numerous contributions by artists, academics, designers, and architects. It was quite challenging to find a proper way to bring this vast amount of different material together. But in the end this was one of the most interesting aspects of making this book: to create a structure, which doesn't look at first sight like a structure, but fulfils the needs of the book.
What are you working on now and what's next?
Right now I am working on a poster series for a project called Speculative Fiction Series III/IV. The project is an examination of speculative fiction narratives in experimental artist movies, initiated by Clemens von Wedemeyer (artist and professor at the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig) and Lena Brüggemann (artistic direction of the D21 Artspace in Leipzig). There will be seven screenings during the upcoming months for which we have created a ‘master poster’ which refers to the series as a unit and to the possibilities of speculative fiction. For each screening, we will create a unique second layer (screen printed on top of the master poster) which promotes the upcoming movie.
Up next, I will collaborate with Fraser Muggeridge studio on a two-week project at the Barbican from the end of June, which will be worth stopping by when it's on.
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