Event

QVED day one

1 March 2014 Jeremy Leslie

Designers, Events, Exhibitions/events, Magazine-y

After a very civilized, slow morning QVED kicked off yesterday lunchtime with opening comments from co-founder Boris Kochan. Held at the beautiful fifties-built Alte Kongresshalle, the theatre full following the sell-out of all 650 tickets, the day had a real buzz about it as people from large and small magazines shared experiences.

First speaker was David Moretti, who presented a beautiful set of slides and described his typographic and infographic work for Wired Italia in a very engaging way. The examples of calligraphy and print effects were stunning, a really powerful and individual addition to the Wired series. German designer Dominik Schatz followed with a more downbeat talk without slides, an overview of his freelance career to date. The translation service did an impressive job but couldn’t make up for the lack of images – there were many references to projects I didn’t know but would have liked to have seen.

Canadian Michelle Champagne speeded things up again with some astute analysis of contemporary communications, and the editorial process behind her That New Design Smell magazine. Check out the project’s website for a forceful example of how to encourage reader (user) input.

Panel discussions sometimes work, sometimes don’t, and I awaited the illustration panel slightly anxiously. Luckily the panel moderator Raban Ruddigkeit knows his stuff and the five speakers presented a good range of work and spoke intelligently about it. The discussion afterwards was complicated listening via translation – the six people speakers blurred together when presented by a single voice.

The day ended with a rare talk from Mike Meiré. Focusing on the relationship between art and magazines, and his recent work with Garage magazine, this was a real treat that started with the Mona Lisa, moved via Duchamp’s LHOOQ parody to Warhol’s factory and then Mike’s work with Garage. I’ve been a bit ambivalent about Garage til now, but this was a good example of how hearing from a project’s maker can bring it to life. I’ll be picking up the back issues from the QVED shop.

Meiré ended the day echoing David Moretti’s start: we shouldn't be afraid of complexity and difficulty. Sometimes magazines shouldn’t be easy.

After the jump, a picture report from the opening day.

‘I hate decoration, everything should have meaning' – David Morreti, Wired Italia

A reminder of Wired’s launch art director John Plunkett’s mission statement.

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‘I couldn’t sit in the same office from 9-5 every day, I wanted to freelance.’ – Dominik Schatz, Interview Germany

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‘That cute nineties idea of the internet, network culture.’

‘We’re seeing more and more that every person sees a different internet. There are billions of internets’

‘The Smithsonian Institute was crowdsourcing weather reports in 1861.’ – Michelle Champagne

The reader-centric editorial process for Michelle Champagne’s That New Design Smell.

‘The magazine is designed with user comments included.’ – Michelle Champagne

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The busy shop, run by Soda.

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‘I use video stills and move through frame by frame to see the face move.’

'The trend? A demand for slow and beautiful things.’

‘A drawing a day keep the doctor away.’ – Tina Berning, illustrator

Gabriele Dunwald, art director/illustrator

Katharina Gschwendtner, illustrator

Martina Wember, illustrator. Beautiful, spare line work.

André Rosler, illustrator

The illustration panel discussion.

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Harry Peccinotti and Mike Koedinger prepare Harry’s slides for tomorrow.

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Co-curator Horst Moser introduces Mike Meiré with a Subterranean Homesick Blues–style series of posters featuring the names of the many magazines Meiré has art directed.