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Dokumentart Visual Identity by Amanda-Li Kollberg |
Home > Winners > Design #45646 >Interview |
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FS: What is the main principle, idea and inspiration behind your design?
AK: When beginning our research it was clear that this was a brave, experimental and flexible festival, that has survived for soon 25 years. It is simultaneously deeply rooted in the town of Neubrandenburg, and has an impressive international outlook. Within the frame of the almost-round medieval ring wall, the festival fills the town with life, culture, events, workshops etc. Our identity concept was to mimic this town wall as a frame or a stage where anything can happen. The green layer is simply the solid, remaining, while the black layer is the action, the magic, the unexpected.
FS: What has been your main focus in designing this work? Especially what did you want to achieve?
AK: Over the years the festival posters and logo has change constantly, only the name remaining the same.By now they want to have a more solid profile while still being able to make each year distinct. The idea was to create a bang, and then remain very continuous, yet playful and experimental and challenge each media, each theme, each year while still not loosing recognizability.
FS: What are your future plans for this award winning design?
AK: We are lucky that the festival board what to keep us along! We have just started planning for the 25th anniversary of the festival and looking at how this years themes and topics will reflect in the identity. With the black layer we are free to do absolutely anything. We have a lot of sketches and will continue to develop the concept each year and hope to create a more solid story and profile for the festival.
FS: How long did it take you to design this particular concept?
AK: Actually, the initial workshop lasted three days. Two days for relaxed research and getting to know the festival, and then we made our visual concept in one day, hardly pausing for food. After finding our our project was to be realized, we took a full weekend to lock ourselves in an apartment and fine tune and test out the concept in every way we could think of. We had never done a project together before so it was lucky that we had the "work chemistry" required for such bit project. The main part of then execution have been happening mainly online as we live in different countries, something we hope to change for the upcoming year.
FS: Why did you design this particular concept? Was this design commissioned or did you decide to pursuit an inspiration?
AK: It started as a university workshop at the Kunsthochschule Weißensee where Lorenz studied and Amanda-Li was on exchange. A lot of offers and concepts were made and the DokumentArt board later selected or work to be carried out in "real life". Since then our relationship has been professional with them as our client.
FS: Is your design being produced or used by another company, or do you plan to sell or lease the production rights or do you intent to produce your work yourself?
AK: The design concept is solely made for use by the DokumentArt festival and it's related activities.
FS: What made you design this particular type of work?
AK: We are both passionate about culture, concept development and visual identity, so the festival, as a client was right up our alley.
FS: Where there any other designs and/or designers that helped the influence the design of your work?
AK: In a way, as our design concept will exist in a context of big german and international film festivals, so we did look at what others were doing in that field. We wanted to stand out, let the personality and attitude of this small but courageous festival shine through.
FS: Who is the target customer for his design?
AK: In a way it's divided. It's the typical festival-goers, lovers of documentary film and cultural experience in the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern area and in Germany as a whole. But it's also the citizens of Neubrandenburg. We needed them to feel that this was theirs, not an alien force taking over the town, but a product of the town, made for them. Many of the events are small and local, like films shown on the walls of concrete buildings, workshops, tastings and gatherings involving local schools and businesses.
FS: What sets this design apart from other similar or resembling concepts?
AK: It's playfulness and flexibility perhaps? Visually, it's more about the festival spirit then about documentary film, which was our goal from the start.
FS: How did you come up with the name for this design? What does it mean?
AK: The name of the design is the name of the festival, DokumentArt. The unofficial name, however, is The Blob. We initially called it that in private but somehow it spread and the blob has become a thing in itself, and one of the interns of the festival even made his own little photo series with a green lump of clay exploring the festival. We also produced postcards inviting people to draw on the green blob shape and it became a huge collection of inventive illustrations. We are happy to see the concept break out of it's frame like this and get its own life in the minds of others.
FS: Which design tools did you use when you were working on this project?
AK: The Adobe Creative Suite along with sketches, dummies, photos etc.
FS: What is the most unique aspect of your design?
AK: The plan for its development further on, how it can grow and change.
FS: Who did you collaborate with for this design? Did you work with people with technical / specialized skills?
AK: We have worked with a programmer that made out website design come to life, as well as with printers, the catalogue editor and proof reader.
FS: What is the role of technology in this particular design?
AK: Technology has played a big role. Just being able to work from two different countries using video-chat, cloud-storage, document sharing and so on, is the reason this project exists.
FS: Is your design influenced by data or analytical research in any way? What kind of research did you conduct for making this design?
AK: Our research involved investigation of the visual and practical history of the festival, as well as the historical context of the venues and the town. We spent time in Neubrandenburg at the beginning of the process to get to know it and see how the town and the storytelling could support each other.
FS: What are some of the challenges you faced during the design/realization of your concept?
AK: The execution process did suffer from the natural effects of a team working together for the first time. We have several things considering work-flow, document structure, internal communication, organization of material and responsibilities etc. that we want to improve for next year, but that is to be expected from a maiden voyage like this.
FS: How did you decide to submit your design to an international design competition?
AK: Amanda-Li had heard of the competition from colleagues in the field and we decided to look deeper into it. The frame of the competition seems to fit for our project.
FS: What did you learn or how did you improve yourself during the designing of this work?
AK: We have learned a lot about the logistics of a project like this. Also every time a concept need sot be adapted to so many different formats and medias, it's an exercise in creativity and overview.
FS: Thank you for providing us with this opportunity to interview you.
A' Design Award and Competitions grants rights to press members and bloggers to use parts of this interview. This interview is provided as it is; DesignPRWire and A' Design Award and Competitions cannot be held responsible for the answers given by participating designers.
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