Book review – Introducing: Culture Identities, Design for Museums, Theaters and Cultural Institutions

Introducing: Culture Identities – Design for Museums, Theaters and Cultural Institutions, edited by Robert Klanten, Anna Sinofzik and Floyd Schulze.

Available on amazon USA and UK.

Publisher Gestalten writes: Introducing: Culture Identities features outstanding poster campaigns, publications, and cross-platform corporate design for international cultural institutions by both young designers, who are striving to prove themselves creatively, and established studios, who are experimenting with new forms of visual expression. In the book, readers not only hear from designers who are especially active in the cultural field, such as Bureau Mirko Borsche, the New York-based studio 2×4, James Goggin, and Johannes Erler, but also from notables on the client side including MoMA, the Barbican, Van Abbemuseum, and documenta.

With its selection of striking collaborations between innovative designers and visionary cultural institutions, Introducing: Culture Identities presents the field of visual identities for cultural clients as a continuous dialogue that pushes the limit of what is possible creatively.

Les Graphiquants, Biennale de la Danse Lyon, 2012

Jürgen Fehrmann, HAU Hebbel am Ufer, 2012

I like a book that influences the way i look at the city i walk through every day. Since reading Introducing: Culture Identities, Design for Museums, Theaters and Cultural Institutions, i’ve started paying more attention to the design of posters and leaflets advertising the programme of cultural institutions. And even if being more attentive to promotional material isn’t exactly my life greatest ambition, there’s some great graphic design and typography out there that deserves to be granted more than a distracted glance.

The book features tree main sections. The first one looks at graphic design from the point of view of the cultural institutions. The chapter reveals how some museums or art events select a design studio, integrate them as collaborators and how the internal team welcomes (or not) the proposals of the designers. Only 7 institutions are featured but their relationship with typography and graphic design is analyzed with a depth i wasn’t expecting. That first chapter sometimes gave me the feeling that i was taking a peek behind the curtains of institutions such as the Barbican Art Center or Documenta.

The next chapter brings the perspective of the design studios, looking at the relationship they establish with the institutions and how they subtly tweak or break with the identity that cultural institutions have developed over the years. For some designers, a theater or a dance festival is a client like any other. For others, it’s a particularly stimulating interlocutor who is receptive to experiments and has developed a similar understanding of creativity.

The last chapter is pure Gestalten: a fast and vast selection of success stories with plenty of images and über efficient descriptions.

Daniel Josefsohn, Volksbühne, 2012

Scandinavian Design Lab, The Theatre Republique, 2009

Introducing: Culture Identities, Design for Museums, Theaters and Cultural Institutions is a book that should inspire and inform anyone interested in graphic design and typography. It should also entertain anyone interested in uncovering yet another layer of their urban environment and in discovering some of the strategies that culture is using to sell itself to the public.

The only negative comment is a geographical one. Apart from a couple of exceptions, most of the design studios and institutions are based in either Europe or the US. I wouldn’t have minded seeing some works from countries such as China, New Zealand, Mexico or South Africa.

Helmo, Pronomade(s), 2011