Munich Print Festival 2024

The Munich Print Festival 2024 wrapped up with resounding success and gratitude to all attendees! Hosted by Metapaper, Melville Brand Design, and Slanted Publishers, this vibrant celebration of paper and print took place on July 17th.

The event showcased a rich tapestry of creativity, featuring contributions such as additional design and Riso printing by Markus Lange, and videography by Johannes König.

Riso Studios from across Europe including DRUCKEN3000, Herr und Frau Rio, La Martiennerie, and The Happy Club added their unique flair to the festival.

Noteworthy printing houses like bc.Cards, Chiemgauer Stahlstich Manufaktur, Druckerei Vogl GmbH & Co KG, MXM, P5 / Der Gilch, Simon Marchner, Sven Quaß, and Werkstatt Höflich further enriched the event with their exceptional craftsmanship. You could also find books from us on-site.

The Munich Print Festival 2024 truly exemplified the artistry and innovation within the print industry, leaving participants inspired and eager for more in the years to come.

 

contemplate

Within the chaos of daily life, letters and words blend into a grid of confusing shapes. It is necessary to stop and admire the surroundings, then contemplate: to find meaning and direction, in which the act of contemplation, pause and reflection is hidden in silence, to catch a breath and appreciate the harmony hidden in the mess.

FILTH

Maite Oswald, a design student, explores AI’s role in graphic design. She asks, “How dirty is the use of AI? Are we, as designers, rendering ourselves obsolete or is AI just a tool that can’t replace true creativity?” She is currently working on a series of posters featuring AI-generated typography. Each poster is composed of several AI-generated images, which have been meticulously retouched and edited. Where does AI end and her creative process begin, and does using AI make her a ‘nasty girl’?

NUCLEUS

Stiva Kornfeld’s project “Nucleus” delves into experimental typography inspired by his fascination with organic cell structures. By pushing the boundaries of digital design tools, Kornfeld generates new, unexpected forms that challenge traditional design norms. “Nucleus” shows how accidents and imprecision can lead to innovative designs, offering a fresh perspective on type creation. This project highlights the fusion of technology and creativity, embodying experimental graphic design.

BT Flimmer – A Flickering Display Font

BT Flimmer is a distorted display font developed by photographing letters through a textured vase filled with water. By turning the vase slightly after each photo, a series of multiple versions of the same letter were created. This process created flickering and restless looking characters. Each letter and number offers 4 variations (including the standard version) wich are swapped automatically using contextual alternates, leading to variation in the look of the written text.

Chimera Type Specimen

Chimera is an incredibly bold and unique display typeface inspired by the Rorschach test, a psychological tool known for its inkblot patterns used to analyze perception and imagination. This typeface captures the essence of these abstract, symmetrical forms, resulting in letterforms that are both striking and enigmatic.

Unconcious traces

The sensitive gaze collects and archives visual residues from everyday life; these are then digitally processed to achieve homogeneity among them. Afterwards, they are manipulated using code (via Processing) and what appear to be pieces of an infinite puzzle are obtained. These pieces are interpreted individually and associated with numbers and letters. Finally, they are played with as a whole, constructing letters of different typographic categories.
Throughout the construction process, error

notdef

Scattered among our folders and hard drives, often unnoticed, are pretty glyphs. This specimen has been conceived and designed as a collection of attractive characters. Beyond the usual typographic signs, it deploys a constellation of heterogeneous signs that tell stories. It’s a question of taking the time to observe these decals, out of fascination, obsession and adoration. Let their original meanings disappear and turn them into independent entities among which one can now navigate.

Feminine grotesk

This typeface was designed with biological and monstrous forms as its motif. The organic and chunky stems paired with sharply truncated sans-serif forms visually discomfort while capturing attention. When viewed in long texts, this typeface can cause discomfort due to its distorted visual flow. Through these difficult and bizarre forms, the intention was to break free from the constraining standards imposed on women and express a raw and liberated representation of femininity.

Jacques

This typeface is based on stone-carved letterforms used for an 1871 gravestone for Jean Jacques Lallelment, located in a small cemetery in Orqueveaux, France. The designers were inspired by the deterioration and disconnection of strokes of the upper- and lowercase letterforms, resulting from temporal and environmental forces acting on the material surface of the carved stone.

Autour

(this was mistakenly sent under the wrong name Droit, resubmitting here…)

The glyphs in this typeface, comprised of over 100 handprinted monoline characters, were created during a residency in France. The designers were inspired by the many decorated iron gates and fixtures seen in Paris and throughout the northwestern region of France. The forms gesture towards a systematic symmetrical structure but find pathways that are unusual or challenge the legibility of specific letterforms.

Droit

Droit is a distinctive display typeface characterized by its straight, fragmented lines that form round and diagonal shapes. The typeface creates a unique texture and rhythm through the interplay of wide and narrow letters, resulting in an unconventional look rooted in the application of a narrow set of parameters.

photo.grafik

Julia Skopnik uses classic as well as experimental photographic methods in her color darkroom to create graphic images. She is currently using various light sources to paint on photo paper. This process takes place in absolute darkness. For her, mistakes during the process are sometimes annoying and sometimes surprisingly inspiring.

Letter S

»Letter S« illustrates the essence of paper. Flexible, tear-resistant, absorbent – versatile for graphic design. Fragile individual sheets develop changed properties through binding. Coloured separator sheets, held by a strong strap, form an object under tension: a dynamic block, a book open on all sides. On the scanner, a letter made of thin layers was visualized, like fine drawn lines.

Plottertype

This is an ongoing project exploring the possibilities of using a pen plotter, a type of drawing robot, for typographical purposes. By physically intervening in its rigid drawing process, and/or not bothering to fasten the pen in its holder, the design can be intentionally “messed up” in unpredictable ways.