EU vs Europa, Project by
MaMadesign & Hesselboms Universum
Nominated for Swedish designyear Award 2005!


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EU vs Europe. What happens with ”old” Europe as EU is taking shape? Is the ”old” culture disappearing, giving way for the new? Welcome to see 6 graphic designers from Poland and 6 from Sweden, and their reflections on this topic.

TIME: Wednesday Nov 16, 0630 pm. 2005.
PLACE: Polska institutet, Villagatan 2, Stockholm.


The Designers:

From Poland:
Andrzej Leraczyk
Ewa Pluta
Janek Bersz
Jerzy Skakun
Joanna Górska
Tomek Bierkowski

From Sweden:
Cecilia af Petersens (Essen)
Christoffer Wessel (Bon)
Gabor Palotai (Gabor Palotai design)
Marcus Gärde (MaMadesign)
Mats Kangebo (MaMadesign)
Ted Hesselbom (Hesselboms Universum)

Background

We need to open our borders and connect with designers from other countries and see how they look upon us and how they deal with their communication to their public.

As graphic designers we work with communication. Our goal is to become so clear in it that we, not unlike the composer, produce material that the viewer reacts to and find beauty in. If we would only listen to music made by Swedish artists our opinion about music would be very shallow, rather it is very clear that a musician collaborates with many countries – inspiration has no borders.

The Project

We wanted to reach out to countries that we have not heard much about and not eagerly exposed to media in comparison with countries like France, Great Britain or Holland. Poland has just become a new EU-member and it felt very natural to ask them how they looked upon this and we were very curious about their graphic design.

Thus our cultural background affect our communication and graphic style? Do we change our style of communication in regard to the public of that nation? Are there no universal thought of communication and graphic design? Or are there some truths that are universal that we know affect us in the strongest ways (like dynamic, contrasts, proportions and colours). That is why this exhibition gives the same topic to two countries not far away from each other, but with different backgrounds.

We had an idea that the artists should work with a limited amount of colours. The Polish designers chose a colour that they felt represented their history and culture. Its a deep red colour (Pantone 200U) and that colour is the only colour that the Swedish designers could work with. The Swedish designers chose a colour that is the mixture of our flags two colours. The blue and the yellow colour of the flag, when mixed, creates a grey colour with green tones. It´s like the Swedish people; modest, dull but inside there is warmth and joy. (Pantone 450U). The polish designers could only work with that colour.

Text by Marcus Gärde