Marian Bantjes @ OFFF 2011 (Episode 2)
Today I want to talk about how Marian Bantjes inspired me deeply. Her lecture at the OFFF 2011 was Friday, June 10th in the ROOTS space.
For me she was unknown, I hadn’t seen any of her works before but I still went due to the importance a lot of the attendees to the OFFF festival told me she had. So I got my self a pretty good seat and prepared to be Inspired! She began her lecture by letting us all know how great her new shoes were! I can’t comment on that because I’m not much of an expert!
She introduced herself, and explained some of the works she was most known for. The first one was the Saks fith avenue “Want it!” campaign which you can find all about in her web (by clicking the photograph)
It was very interesting the concept that she developed, making the typographic work of creating the shape of the fashion item the word was evoking. You can see it in this other capture of her work:
One of the other works she showed (and was pretty proud of) was a poster she did for a band called “The National”. This work received the first ovation from the assistants to the lecture.
This poster is ment to be seen in three conditions of light. The first one is how it looks in daylight, the second one is how it looks in black light, and the last one is how it looks in total darkness (It glows in the dark basically!). I have to say that it’s a pretty darn cool poster!!!! So thumbs up from this end.
She talked about other projects but she finally ended up talking about a book she created. It is called “I wonder”. Written, designed and typeset by her (this last, due to her extensive 10-year background as a typesetter). It was inspired in the early illminated manuscripts , and her fascination for them.
For me this book is a work of art in itself. It’s full of detail and very carefully design to encompass the articles written in them. The articles are some re-written previos articles for a blog she wrote for and some are completely new. Each one of them personalized with it’s own theme. This is the cover :
What fascinated me about the book was all the work and thought that was put in it. Every page is carefully and specially designed by Marian for this book. Instead of doing some recompilation of previous works she designs a whole new collection of amazing and intricate designs. You can read all about this beautiful piece of art by clicking the image of the book. I got myself a copy because it’s one of those books that it’s a must have in my opinion.
Well that is about it! I was really lucky to get to see this lecture and discover this amazing designer from whom I knew nothing about before this festival! So thumbs up for this reason!
See you tomorrow in the next episode of my experiences at the OFFF 2011 in barcelona!
