Studio Brief 01 - Berlin

The Hamburger Bahnhof - 

This was a very interesting collection of contemporary art, although this isn't really my thing it was cool to see the works on exhibit and the building itself was massive and slightly different to most art galleries that you can visit in the UK. 

Walking around - 

Walking around Berlin was fascinating, there is something new round every corner. For a designer it is great there is all sorts of typography, posters for techno events and great all round design in most areas. One of the craziest things that I saw was this car with graffiti covered all over it, I thought that this might have something to do with the fact that Berlin is a very controversial city so it was someone making a point about what sort of person might have owned the car...but we just thought it was really interesting to see that you wouldn't see that in London. 

As well as all the great typography and graphic design related stuff, there was great amount of awesome buildings which was really interesting to photograph, as there as a huge mixture of old and new. 

Exploring Mitte - 

Mitte was a great place, there was all sorts to explore. Cafes, design shops, CLOTHES shops, books stores everything and all within walking distance. Myself, Luke and Barney took the time to explore this area as we just wanted to look around and see what we could find while trying to find certain places that we had researched into before coming. We also took the time to check on the Ace and Tate - Antony Burrill installation which was really cool to see how they had collaborated and then put together the space using his work. It was cool to see a brand collaborating with an artist/designer as it helps to get more people aware of his work and the opposite way round.   

EPS 51 - 

EPS 51 is an internatio­nally active graphic design studio develo­ping visual concepts with a strong focus on typography and bilingual design. I did not know much about the studio before visiting but it was a very interesting visit and has been very influential to me since going there. Listening to them talk about how they work and their ethics for working was very interesting as I found myself empathising with a lot of what they said, prior to the trip I was not that interested in just typography in my design but since then I can see how it works so well and I want to start pushing my own practice in this direction. They also spoke a lot about why they do certain work for example they would much rather do work for a client that is within the similar industry as they feel they are able to do more work that they want to do, even though it may not pay as well as corporate jobs. I learnt a lot from this visit and I am very glad that I went here over Pentagram as I would not have not found out how much I do like type. 

Tom and I also spoke to one of the designers there about our current Monotype brief for D&AD as they spoke a lot about working with foreign type so we thought they might be able to help us, so he told us to email him for some feedback when we get home. 

Bauhaus Archive - 

The Bauhaus archive had been one of the things that we had been told about prior to the trip and it was meant to be very interesting for design students but I found the main exhibition very dull and it did not appeal to me as much as I thought it would, I think this was down to some of it being closed so there was not much to see. However the building itself was different and unlike anything I had seen before, so i took the opportunity to take many pictures of this. 

Getting around - 

We used the U-Barn to get around on the second day which was a great experience. A lot of the underground stations had different typography for the name of the destination which I found very cool and made sure to take pictures of as it something that you don't see much of in the UK. 

Kreuzberg -

Kreuzberg is a great area of Berlin, everything is happening here all sort of different things to do, from places to eat, galleries, clubs and shops. We spent the afternoon looking around the area which has so much to offer; my favourite by far was Voo Store which is another place that I a researched into before coming and was a must see on the list of things I wanted to check out. The store is full of high end fashion clothes but the main reason we went was to check out the space and see what they had to offer, its a very quirky place and they are a very design forward thinking business. These are things that I have been taking notice of as part of my cop research (seeing how businesses uses design). 

Sadly I was unable to go to The Barn coffee house as it was closed on the day, but we found another coffee shop around the corner, it had great interior design as well as use of design within the shop. It is places like these that I really appreciate as you feel like you fit it with the other people around as most have similar interests. 

Berlin was amazing. I was able to learn so much for just spending a few days in a different city I will 100% go back in the near future it has also shown me that I could even possibly get a job over there at some point I had not really considered working abroad but if it is in Berlin then I would love to! 

I have come away feeling a lot more inspired about design from this trip, as I have seen a different side of design to what I have been learning over the past year. I feel that this trip has given me what I needed to start learning more about the cultural/arty design so I will be interested to see what the impact the trip has had on my design going forward from now. 

What I am able to take away from the experience is how I am going to use typography from now on, I want it to become much more part of my practice and Berlin has been a big inspiration for this. It is clear that creatively is at the heart of this city and that inspires many that go there, the creative culture is a lot more common in Berlin from what I have seen and this means that there is a lot going on with all sort of people there to network with. Hopefully next time I visit Berlin it will be for longer so that I can check out even more of what the city has to offer.