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A—Z is dedicated to develop, showcase and promote ideas and projects in which graphic design goes beyond its boundaries and explores its more unconventional and experimental facets …
A—Z is an independent space in Berlin with the mission of expanding the definition of graphic design by rethinking its limits and challenging traditional perceptions. At the storefront space, located in the heart of the city, inspiring graphic designers are invited to unfold their artistic, conceptual or formally experimental projects.
By showcasing individuals who are open to transposing the boundaries of their own practices, A—Z is setting a counterpoint to the predominant trends of over-specialization. The idea is to provide an transdisciplinary environment where graphic design enters into dialogue with other areas, such as contemporary art, cultural research and social engagement.
Featured contributions range from print, digital media, installation, performance, film, and a variety of other media and formats. They also cover a spectrum of topics, from typography and language, templates and hacking, to political and social questions, and many more. Each of the invited collaborators create works that reach beyond the commissioned and applied realm of graphic design.
The space also hosts talks, workshops and other events, in partnership with invited designers, initiatives, collectives and institutions worldwide. A—Z is an initiative of book designer Anja Lutz and The Green Box – Kunst Editionen.
16/02/23, 19:00 Counter Session #4 Cyberfeminism Index with Mindy Seu
The presentation by Mindy Seu will be followed by a Q&A and a discussion over drinks at the FLIPPER Bar counter.
The history of the internet is often overfocused on the grandfathers who created its architecture and protocol. But the internet is more than a network of cables, servers, and computers—it is an environment that shapes and is shaped by its inhabitants and their use. In Cyberfeminism Index, a variety of hackers, scholars, artists, and activists consider how humans might reconstruct themselves by way of technology through more than 700 short entries of radical techno-critical activism. Both a vital introduction for laypeople and a robust resource guide for educators, Cyberfeminism Index—an anti-canon, of sorts—celebrates the multiplicity of practices that fall under this imperfect categorization and makes visible cyberfeminism's long-ignored origins and its expansive legacy.
Mindy Seu is a designer and technologist based in New York City, currently teaching as an Assistant Professor at Rutgers Mason Gross School of the Arts and Critic at Yale School of Art. Her expanded practice involves archival projects, techno-critical writing, performative lectures, design commissions, and close collaborations. Mindy's ongoing Cyberfeminism Index, which gathers three decades of online activism and net art, was commissioned by Rhizome and presented at the New Museum in its online form, and its print form is a recipient of a Graham Foundation Grant.
The A—Z Counter Sessions at Flipper Bar
A–Z launches a new format of events, The Counter Sessions – a place for meeting and exchanging ideas, where all happens over the bar counter: presentations, informal talks, discussions and other forms of interactions, exploring the countless facets of transdisciplinary Graphic Design.
The bar setting has a history: 22 years ago, in the very same building, Anja Lutz and Jens Bauermeister ran the legendary unofficial Flipper Bar. Once a week they would welcome friends and locals, all in the improvised spirit of the "wild years" of post-reunited Berlin.
The bar installation will be now the scenario for accommodating a new program that aims at fostering the same deep level of reflection and discussions promoted by A—Z. The Counter Sessions closely connect to the original purpose of A—Z being a space for rethinking and challenging traditional perceptions of Graphic Design. The new format proposes a more intimate path, with an emphasis on interactive participation that opens the space for multiple voices.
Watch out for more dates and announcements of the new program.
Flipper Bar Revival Night
"Ever since the days of Mrs. Gutenberg …"
MMS in conversation with Gerda Breuer and Madeleine Morley
followed by paper marbling workshop
Inverse – A Yearly Ritual: Record Launch with Florian Dombois
Family Trees & Sound Clouds
Visual Lecture Performance with Ilka Helmig and Johannes Bergerhausen
Counter Session #3 Family Trees & Sound Clouds with Ilka Helmig and Johannes Bergerhausen
Thursday 08/12/22, 19:00
Who invented "writing"? How many writing systems are there in the world? How do they relate to the spoken languages and their individual sounds? Why are only half of them available on computers and smartphones? What are the aerodynamics of the pronunciation of human sounds? Why do pictograms always function simultaneously as ideograms? And what would a complete family tree of writing systems look like?
These and other questions on the languages we read, speak and hear, will be the topic of a visual lecture performed by artist Ilka Helmig and designer Johannes Bergerhausen, who will be presenting some findings of their research and projects on writing systems, Unicode, languages and the visualisation of the aerodynamics of human sounds.
The presentation will be followed by a discussion over drinks at the FLIPPER Bar counter.
Talk will be in German, slides in English.
Ilka Helmig (*1971) studied visual communication and fine arts in Nuremberg and Bonn. Since 2007 professor for visual conception and drawing at FH Aachen. Her work has been shown, among others, at the National Museum of Nairobi, Ludwig Forum Aachen, Bienal de la Pintura Ecuador, Karst Gallery Plymouth, Leopold-Hoesch Museum Düren, Museum für Neue Kunst Freiburg. 2018 Artist in Residence Graz, Steiermark. 2019 West Museum for contemporary art, The Hague. 2020 Artist in Lab fellow of Fraunhofer Gesellschaft. Since 2018 board member of And She Was Like: BÄM!.
Johannes Bergerhausen (*1965) studied visual communication at FH Düsseldorf. From 1993 to 2000, he lived and worked in Paris. 1998 research grant of CNAP, Paris. Since 2002 Professor of Typography at HS Mainz. 2004 decodeunicode.org. 2011 "Die Schriftzeichen der Welt". 2014 "Digital Cuneiform". Since 2014 visiting professor at ANRT in Nancy, France. Since 2016 Missing Scripts Project, since 2018 worldswritingsystems.org 2019 "Missing Scripts", West Museum for contemporary art, The Hague. 2020 "Picto-, Ideo-".
Counter Session #2 Inverse – A Yearly Ritual with Florian Dombois
In "The Art of Looking Sideways" (2001) its author Alan Fletcher makes a plea for thinking graphic design from the perspective of white space, of the not-printed areas. He does so in reference to the Japanese concept of Ma 間 (negative space) which is the interval that gives shape to the whole. In Counter Session #2 this idea will be explored and inhabited:
Every year, when summer time changes to winter time at the end of October, all public clocks are stopping. Every year at this very moment there is no public time between 3 am and 3 am in the night. A moment of technical efficiency resulting in a poetic standstill has become the material for a yearly ritual, scored by the artist Florian Dombois. Together with the composers Saskia Bladt, Alexej Retinsky, Didier Rotella, Olga Bochikhina and also with Christoph Israel and Meret Becker, he developed musical intros for the hour without a name, that are now published as vinyl records.
For the release of the records with the Berlin publishing house The Green Box, Dombois will present the ritual and contextualize it with the history of public time and its meaning, that goes far beyond our wristwatches. E.g. in the July-Revolution of 1830 Parisian were shooting on public clocks to make authority stop and history take another track. Or in 2016 Erdogan decided to let Turkey not return from summer time to winter time and thus synchronizing with Russia, where Stalin did the same in 1930.
After the talk, drinks will be served by Flipper Bar and Florian will offer a little DIY workshop where you can bring you own clock and learn how to make it run backward.
We look forward to having you come, take part in the conversation and be prepared for the upcoming change of time at October 30, 2022.
Florian Dombois (*1966, Berlin) has focused on wind, time, labilities, and tectonic activity. His artistic practice includes a wide variety of media and repetitively articulates in happenings and sound installations. 2010 he received the German Sound Art Prize.
Counter Session #1 "Ever since the days of Mrs. Gutenberg …" with MMS
Thursday 18/08/2022, 19:00
Departing from their book "Natural Enemies of Books – A Messy History of Women in Printing and Typography", feminist graphic design research collective MMS invite colleagues to the A—Z Counter Sessions for a conversation on graphic design histories beyond the male-dominated canon.
"Ever since the days of Mrs. Gutenberg, women have been involved in the art of printing" writes the group Distaff Side in 1937 in their preface of the book "Bookmaking on the Distaff Side" offering a satirical, feminist, re-writing of book history. Decades later, design historian Martha Scotford responded to patriarchal and capitalist design history writing by inventing the concept of "messy history", which could serve to acknowledge many more experiences and trajectories than those fitting into conventional design history books. Not only have individual women designers been structurally obscured in written design history, but also social relations and collective activities that deny or go beyond individual success stories.
This evening is dedicated to a collegial conversation about experiences from attempts made to contribute to graphic design history with names and stories that can allow for more accurate ways of understanding the past, present and future of the field. Invited guests are design historian and writer Gerda Breuer, co-author of "Women in Graphic Design, 1890–2012", and design writer Madeleine Morley, for a discussion on women and labor histories of graphic design, collective struggles, research strategies, and history writing today and tomorrow.
The panel will be followed by a workshop where copies of "Natural Enemies of Books – A Messy History of Women in Printing and Typography" can be coloured along the edges using the traditional technique of marbling paper.
MMS is a Stockholm-based group of graphic designers Maryam Fanni, Matilda Flodmark and Sara Kaaman, collaborating since 2012 on investigations and writings on graphic design histories from feminist and labour history perspectives. They are the editors of "Natural Enemies of Books – A Messy History of Women in Printing and Typography" (Occasional Papers, 2020).
Gerda Breuer is a historian of art and design history and a writer based in Aachen. She was a professor at the University of Wuppertal until her retirement, along with a number of teaching positions and guest professorships in Germany and abroad. Her research and publications are devoted in particular to applied art, design, architecture and industrial culture of the 19th and 20th centuries. She is, together with Julia Meer, the author of "Women in Graphic Design, 1890–2012" (jovis Verlag, 2012).
Madeleine Morley is a Berlin-based writer, editor, and researcher originally from London. She is especially interested in histories of design, media, and feminism, often seeking to combine the tools of journalism and archival research. She was previously senior editor at AIGA's Eye on Design, founding editor of Futuress magazine, and has also worked as an editor for magCulture and It's Nice That.
Revealing » Recording » Reflecting Women Graphic Designers from Southwest Asia and North Africa
Exhibition Dates: 16/03—23/06/22
The exhibition is a research-in-progress that will continuously develop and expand. It invites the visitors to engage and contribute to the research. Six online panels complement the program.
Revealing » Recording » Reflecting is a speculative research on generations of women graphic designers from Southwest Asia and North Africa, and diaspora. The project uses the exhibition platform as an editorial space to collect, reveal, retell and record the work and untold stories of the women graphic designers, calligraphers, typographers and illustrators who play key roles in shaping and rethinking visual and material culture of the region.
The exhibition is planned as a book editing platform, a research lab to conduct a series for collaborative investigations, and a space for interactions, meetings, and discovery. Six panel discussions will be designed and moderated by the four main researchers and activists Dr. Huda AbiFarès, Dr. Yasmine Nachabe Taan, Dr. Bahia Shehab and Soukeina Hachem. The panels will revolve around the themes: Visual Storytelling about Women by Women; Ladies of Letters; Image-Making for Social Engagement and Empowerment; and Navigating Diasporic Identities and Practices.
Online Panels
Wednesday 16/03/22, 19:00–20:30
REVEALING RECORDING REFLECTING: Introduction
Opening online panel with Huda Smitshuijzen AbiFarès, Dr. Yasmine Nachabe Taan, Dr. Bahia Shehab, and Soukeina Hachem
View the recording of the panel here.
24/03/22, 19:00–20:30
VISUAL STORYTELLING: ABOUT WOMEN, BY WOMEN
Online panel moderated by Dr. Yasmine Nachabe Taan
Thursday 14/04/22, 20:00–21:30
LADIES OF LETTERS: CROSSING AND CONNECTING GENERATIONS
Online panel moderated by Dr. Bahia Shehab
IMAGE-MAKING: BEHIND THE LINES OF ENGAGED GRAPHIC DESIGN
Online panel moderated by Soukeina Hachem
WOMEN DESIGNERS IN DIASPORA: NAVIGATING MULTIPLE IDENTITIES & PRACTICES
Online panel moderated by Dr. Huda Smitshuijzen AbiFarès
REVEALING RECORDING REFLECTING: Conclusion
Online panel by Dr. Huda AbiFares with Yasmine Nachabe Taan, Bahia Shehab, Soukeina Hachem
Open Call for Contributions
You are invited to contribute to this research by suggesting names and links about female designers who contributed to the design practice and visual culture in the SWANA region and diaspora since the 1950s. The research looks for work that engages feminists narratives and community building.
Thank you for sending your suggestions to mail@a-z-presents.com and please let us know how you would like to be listed as contributor.
Dr. Huda AbiFarès is the Founding Director of the Khatt Foundation and Khatt Books publishers, in Amsterdam. She holds degrees in graphic design and design history from Leiden University (PhD), Yale University (MFA), and Rhode Island School of Design (BFA). She works as independent researcher, writer, designer, design curator and publisher.
Dr. Yasmine Nachabe Taan is an Associate Professor of Art and Design History at the Lebanese American University in Beirut. She is currently Visiting Professor at Bilkent University in Turkey. She holds a PhD in Art History and Communication Studies from McGill University. Her interdisciplinary research cuts across the fields of visual culture, gender politics, photography and design history with a focus on Lebanon and the Middle East. She is author of a number of books on design and photography.
Dr. Bahia Shehab is an artist and author based in Cairo. She is Professor of design and founder of the graphic design program at The American University in Cairo. Her work has been exhibited internationally and has received a number of international awards including the BBC's 100 women's list, a TED Senior Fellowship, a Prince Claus Award, and the UNESCO-Sharjah Prize for Arab Culture. Her latest publications include You Can Crush the Flowers: A Visual Memoir of the Egyptian Revolution and the award winning co-authored book A History of Arab Graphic Design.
Soukeina Hachem is a Moroccan designer whose work in design and in culture aims to create social and systems change. Her diverse work portfolio includes interiors, furniture and graphic design. In 2012, Soukeina founded SHAPE, a strategic consulting agency that merges strategy and design, putting the user at the heart of its work process. She also initiated Casablanca Design Week in 2017 then 2019, a biennale of design, that involved more than 100 designers in more than 25 spaces in the city, to showcase, reflect but also to gather communities around on ongoing designers projects.
This research is supported by Khatt Foundation, AFAC, ACSS, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and A—Z Presents
Graphic.Designers.Collectors.
Exhibition Dates: 15/12/21–10/03/22
Opening: Wednesday 14/12/21, 19:00
Panel discussion Collecting Graphic Design: Thursday 10/02/22, 19:00
with Christina Thomson (Kunstbibliothek Berlin), Julia Meer (Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg) und Jens Müller (Author of Collecting Graphic Design)
Closing event: Thursday 10/03/22, 18:00–20:00
The exhibition Graphic.Designers.Collectors. transforms A—Z into a chamber of collections and curiosities. Over 30 invited graphic designers are presenting their own personal collectibles: from poster stamps to toilet paper, fake documents and queer fanzines – many surprising, very specific and above all unique personal collections and their stories displayed for appreciation and reflection on the topic and its relation to graphic design.
Collect: To gather, put together. Collections are usually very personal – be it for the objects, or for the memories they carry along with them. Collections are also biographical, they not only contain the story of the collected items themselves, but also the one of who collects, who created, or who owned them before. In that way, the past, cultures, memories and emotions also become an integral part of the collections.
But if collectors are designers, what can their collections tell us about graphic design? And what could graphic designers possibly collect? Graphic design includes a wide range of skills and media. It interacts, counteracts and reacts with many other disciplines, and it is precisely this diversity one can expect to see in these collections.
Whether their collections influence directly the work they do, serve as inspiration, or reflect the conceptual approaches of their practice, in the exhibition Graphic.Designers.Collectors. we have the chance to peak into selected items from over 30 different collections of graphic designers, and draw our own conclusions – and collect personal inspirations.
Graphic.Designers.Collectors showcases collections by: Hala Al Afsaa, Sally Alassafen, Anna Berkenbusch, Sarah Boris, Anky Brandt, Pauline Clancy, Niko Courtelis, Sara De Bondt, Barbara Dechant, Philippe Delangle, Ronny Duquenne, Markus Etienne, Kinda Ghannoum, Jason Grant, Juli Gudehus, Sarah Illenberger, Sara Kaaman, Rob Keller, Na Kim, Oliver Klimpel, Sonja Knecht, Anja Lutz, Franziska Morlok, Fraser Muggeridge, Heinrich Müller, Jens Müller, Isabel Naegele, Peter Nencini, Lucienne Roberts, Bernard Stein, Szymon Stemplewski, Katharina Sussek, Patrick Thomas, Andrea Tinnes, Niklaus Troxler, Sven Völker, Henning Wagenbreth, Mark van Wageningen, Margaret Warzecha.
Watch the Guided Tour.
Anita Di Bianco The Error Is Regretted
Opening and Talk: 07/12/21, 19:00
Anita Di Bianco in Conversation with Florian Wüst and Anna Bromley
The Error is Regretted marks the 20-year anniversary of Anita Di Bianco's project Corrections and Clarifications.
Corrections and Clarifications is an ongoing newsprint project, an edited compilation of daily revisions, retractions, re-wordings, distinctions and apologies to print and online news from September 2001 to the present. A catalog of lapses in naming and classification, of tangled catchphrases, patterns of mis-speech and inflection, connotation and enumeration. An intermittent newspaper without headlines, a distillation of the predictive patterns and algorithmic amplifications of the last two decades, from fake news to the attention economy.
With this project, Di Bianco offers credit to " … those seekers, processors, middle managers, and ultimate regulators of public information who take it upon themselves (or impose it upon others) to re-name, re-classify, disguise, de-fuse or be de-briefed; who find clever metaphors to obfuscate, euphemize and mystify; who disseminate information according to political structures coincident with particular economic interests, who consent to use language to dismiss, excuse, cushion, cover and obscure the consequences of actions and the submerged structures behind events. And ultimately who, regardless of stated intentions, occasionally reveal something, piece by piece, through slips in language and naming systems."
The exhibition features a new 96 page newspaper edition of Corrections and Clarifications comprising English- and German-language news corrections from June 2020 – October 2021.
Previous volumes of Corrections and Clarifications have been produced, exhibited, and distributed in numerous cities, languages, and art institutions since 2001, including KW Berlin, Kunsthaus Zürich, Kunsthalle Nürnberg, STUK, Camberwell College London, Springerin Magazin, Extra City, collectorspace Istanbul, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Distributed by Printed Matter, New York; held in the archival collection of Sammlung KIOSK Kunstbibliothek Staatliche Museen zu Berlin and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Talk: Anita Di Bianco in conversation with Florian Wüst and Anna Bromley
Anita Di Bianco will be in conversation with Florian Wüst and Anna Bromley, discussing the ever-expanding struggle in the media landscape between credibility vs. attention, the renewed legitimacy of mis-information, and the pitfalls of news consumption habits and codes.
The Error is Regretted / Wir entschuldigen uns für diesen Fehler includes the 2021 edition of Corrections and Clarifications as well as critical texts by Anna Bromley, Francesco Gagliardi, and a conversation between Florian Wüst and Anita Di Bianco. Published by The Green Box.
Anita Di Bianco's works in film and print, focused in text and language, have been shown at PS1, Kunstwerke Berlin, the Kunsthaus Zürich, the Kunstverein Braunschweig, the Rotterdam Film Festival, Les Laboratoires d'Aubervilliers, K21 in Düsseldorf, the Kunstverein Salzburg, the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, the Glasgow International, among others. Her work in both offset and printmaking started at the SUNY-Purchase Center for Editions with Brad Freeman and Antonio Frasconi, respectively. She received her Master of Fine Arts from Rutgers University and was awarded a research stipend at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten by the Dutch Ministry of Culture in Amsterdam. Born in New York, Di Bianco has lived and worked in Germany since 2007, after a year-long residency at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin.
Lucienne Roberts Perhaps it's not you, it's me.
Opening and Presentation by Lucienne Roberts: 09/09/21, 19:00
Discussion with Lucienne Roberts "Hello You!" about women, age and graphic design: 02/11/21, 19:00
Perhaps it's not you, it's me. transforms A—Z into a space of humour and heartbreak. Based around a love letter from practitioner Lucienne Roberts to her long-standing partner Graphic Design, the installation is part critique, part provocation, part celebration of graphic design and what it can do.
Drawing upon the language of love and leave-takings and set against the finite nature of life, Lucienne takes us on an intensely personal journey from early utopian zeal to dystopian dilemma and back again. As Lucienne says 'Graphic design is always political. That was my mantra (it still is). It's the most egalitarian of art forms, helping to disseminate messages seen and used by all. I embraced this responsibility (I still do) and, as a maker of ephemeral art, I was comfortable that my endeavours ended in the bin. But now we're all having to consider existential crises of a more significant kind. The future of work, climate change, Covid-19 remind us that nothing lasts forever. Worse still, a realisation is dawning that much graphic design promotes and supports a system that is destroying the planet we call home. So, how should we respond as makers, friends, families, citizens of the world? What should we do – and stop doing? And what does this mean for the (still young) profession that I love so very much.
Talk by Lucienne Roberts
The Personal is the Political
Influenced as much by feminism as Swiss typography, Lucienne Roberts has always considered graphic design to be a political act. She shares a little of her graphic design journey from utopian zeal to dystopian dilemma, and ponders on what's coming next.
Lucienne Roberts is founder of graphic design studio LucienneRoberts+ and co-founder of advocacy initiative GraphicDesign&, research and practice characterised by her abiding interest in definitions of ethical design. LR+ projects include exhibition design, books and identities for the Science Museum and Royal Academy of Arts. Lucienne's books include Good: An Introduction to Ethics in Graphic Design and she was Typographer-in-Residence 2018 at ArtCenter, Los Angeles. GD& creates intelligent, vivid books and exhibitions that explore how graphic design connects with all other things. Recent GD& projects include Can Graphic Design Save Your Life? [Wellcome Collection, 2017] Hope to Nope: Graphics and Politics 2008–18 [the Design Museum, 2018]. Both were designed by LR+. Lucienne is a member of AGI and HonFISTD.
The bed in the exhibition is kindly provided by Bartmann Berlin
Mark van Wageningen Novo Typo Offgrid Berlin
Opening with Book Release and Presentation by Mark van Wageningen: 08/07/21, 19:00
Workshops: 10/07—27/07/21
Novo Typo Offgrid Berlin
A DIY proposal for Creating a Self-Sufficient Graphic Design Studio
Mark van Wageningen / Novo Typo present his return to the three fundamental elements of analogue graphic design—letters, ink and paper—in an exhibition that offers designers a way to respond to the economic and individual vulnerabilities by means of an exercise in self-sustainability for graphic designers. During the whole exhibition period in July, Novo Typo Offgrid studio will be fully operational at A—Z, with Mark producing and recycling his own work.
The workshop-style exhibition is an opportunity to learn and to reflect on how to de-standardize and autonomize in order to be truly self-sufficient. On the background of this exercise lies the need to face a global overly complex system of production, supply chains and restrictive industrial standards, that have shown their dangerous disruptive effects, specially at the beginning of the pandemic.
Based on the core idea that a typographic design studio that designs and produces its own letters should also be able to make its own ink and paper, Novo Typo Offgrid Berlin will show how we can produce our own locally sourced paper and plant-based inks, in order to create our own tools and methods.
By independently selecting the raw materials for the production of paper and ink, a new and bespoke standard is defined. In the process, the designer and the artisan should be one and the same person, free to choose how to produce and visualize their designs, thereby regaining control over their end product.
During the first month of the exhibition, Mark van Wageningen offered a series of free workshops – a D.I.Y. experiment in designing recycled paper, producing handmade plant-based ink, printing and soap making.
"Novo Typo Offgrid" is the latest book by Mark van Wageningen. Aiming at inspiring the pursuit of different approaches in graphic design, the publication is an in-depth presentation of his concept of the self-sufficient design practice, which proposes a new standard for polychromatic typography by using plant-based ink and recycled paper. The book will be released at the opening of Novo Typo Offgrid Berlin exhibition, and will be available at bookshops and at The Green Box.
Mark van Wageningen is the founder of Novo Typo, a typographic design studio and font foundry based in Amsterdam. The design output of Novo Typo is a mix of commissions and self-initiated projects, and it has attracted the interest of a variety of international design magazines, blogs, and publications. As a self-proclaimed ambassador of digital and analogue multicolored typography, van Wageningen presents the work of Novo Typo in several international design conferences and festivals. He is the author of design awarded books, such as "Typewood", "Novo Typo Color Book", and "Type and Color".
Connecting from A—Z Collaborative free font
CONNECTING FROM A—Z joins twenty-eight designers in creating one diverse alphabet, as a way to connect during the recent period of social distancing. The process was a lively demonstration of their common passion for design, expressing their unique approaches and styles – with each individual designing one letter of the Roman alphabet.
The project was conceived as a chained event: Each designer received a letter, already designed by a colleague, and has been asked to design the following one in the alphabet. The previous letter could be used as an inspiration or connecting point of dialogue for the next design. Each letter was delivered within one day, making it a dynamic and playful experience.
The result is a wonderfully vibrant alphabet, comprising so many cool and funky letterforms, created by the following designers:
Franzi Bauer, Alex Branczyk, Barbara Dechant, Imad Gebrayel, Jason Grant (Inkahoots), Ilka Helmig & Johannes Bergerhausen, Frank Höhne, Na Kim, Christopher Knowles, Jungmyung Lee, Urs Lehni, Anja Lutz, Tine Melzer, Peter Nencini, Johanna Olm, So Jin Park, Francesco Pini, Rimini Berlin, Lucienne Roberts, Georg Rutishauser, Emily Smith, Patrick Thomas, Andrea Tinnes, Juliana Toro, Niklaus Troxler, Ferdinand Ulrich, Mark van Wageningen (Novo Typo)
CONNECTING FROM A—Z is now available as a free font
Time for Books A temporary reading room
11/03–11/05/21 Claudia de la Torre: Books are Bridges
How can we still find ways to connect with each other? Can books play a role in this connection? And from where to where can they take us? For the show, book artist Claudia de la Torre has developed a strategy to bring people and ideas together. A participative, open, never-ending work that couldn't exist without some form of contact. A book that will build itself throughout the duration of the show. The thickness, amount of pages, and content will depend on the contributors. A book that functions as a bridge that connects people, ideas, ways of ciculation and collaboration.
18/02–10/03/21 Andreas Koch: All my books. Andreas Koch has been designing over 100 books for artists since 2001. As books are difficult to show, Andreas Koch shows them himself and talks about fonts, colours, papers, bindings and more.
21/01–17/02/21 Albert Coers: Books To Do
A wall-installation of possible publications, a collection of ideas and material, alongside some artist books that have already been realized. Including the book and video work Du kannst mehr als du denkst [You can do more than you think]
26/11/20–19/01/21 Anja Lutz: Marginalia
Marginalia draws our attention to the overlooked elements that coexist in carefully designed books. Removing the text and images from a selection of art books designed by Anja Lutz in close collaboration with the individual artists, reveals the nondescript details: the margins, the edges, the backgrounds, the spaces between the lines … The quiet and yet eloquent remaining spaces seem to have their own language – that of an abstract visual poetry of books.
TIME FOR BOOKS
A space to enjoy, discover and discuss the art of making art books
A space to meet and learn from the designers behind the art books
A space to read, borrow for free, or buy art books
The current situation imposes so many challenges, yet we still can find something good about these times: more time for reading and enjoying books. And, instead of doing that all alone in the solitude of our homes, we want to offer a space where we can meet and share our passion for art, books & art books.
Until mid March, if you find time for a book, A—Z offers a space where you can envision art books as portable exhibitions to bridge the gap in time until great art exhibitions are open for visit again. So, come and browse through art books, sit down, read at length, enjoy a cup of tea, and share the time and space with us. There will be over 100 books from the The Green Box publisher as well as a selection of outstanding titles from various book designers available to read,and some also to borrow for free, or to take them home forever at a fair price.
Moreover, Time for Books is about sharing the knowledge and love for books, so at a scheduled and announced time, you will be able to meet graphic designers, view their art books and artistic installations of their work. With them you can engage in a one-to-one conversation about their making of books, get insights, tips, tricks, or attend mini workshops. Amongst the book designers to present their work are: Lamm & Kirch, Claudia de la Torre, Andreas Koch, Albert Coers, Georg Rutishauser (edition fink), Anja Lutz//Art Books and The Green Box.
Follow @a.to.z.presents on Instagram or sign-up to our newsletter to stay tuned about the program and possibilities to take part in personal meetings, and come by anytime to enjoy a book!
Stay safe, grab a book!
Tine Melzer & Markus Kummer Blumen sind geil
Exhibition dates 08/10–19/11/20
Opening and Lecture-Performance by Tine Melzer 08/10/20, 19:00
In the project "Blumen sind geil" [Flowers are wicked], gestures come together that work with examplary conventions in dealing with flowers on a visual and linguistic level. Flowers are wicked because they can embody very different meanings. They are products of globalized trade and are everywhere where people celebrate, praise, seduce and mourn. In the exhibition a new wall installation with multiples is on display: Kummer & Melzer have transformed flower petals into patterns in collaboration with the Wolfensberger Zurich lithographic printing house. In the book "Blumen sind geil", that is published at the occasion of the exhibition, literary short texts come together with a series of photographic scenes, complementing, disturbing and distorting each other. It combines visual, sculptural and conceptual work with spelled-out language. The monologue-like texts meet with the images as sentences, thereby tilting their meanings.
At the opening Tine Melzer will give a short lecture on conceptual and linguistic-philosophical references between word and image, saying and showing. She gives an intro on the tilting of meanings, the so-called aspect seeing, and what this has to do with us.
Tine Melzer (*1978) is a Swiss author and lecturer at the Bern University of the Arts. In her work she combines philosophy of language with visual arts and literature. She studied Fine Arts and Philosophy in Amsterdam, received a scholarship at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten and completed her doctorate in England on Ludwig Wittgenstein and Gertrude Stein. From 2004–2009 she was a lecturer at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie Amsterdam. After working in Germany, England, Finland and the Netherlands she now lives in Zurich and is represented by literary agent Liepmann from Zurich.
Markus Kummer (1974) is a visual artist and materialises architectural, scenographic and interventional processes. He studied in Geneva, Basel and Bern and lives in Zurich.
Time is running Rebellion Riso Posters Collab
Printsession 02/10/20, 10:00–19:00
Presentation 02/10/20, 19:00
Time is running / Die Zeit läuft
Open Call Riso Collab of Posterrex & Drucken 3000, supported by Slanted and A—Z
Our goal was to bring together visuals about the topic of climate change — as we want to contribute to reduce the risk of extinction of mankind and the collapse of our ecosystems. The submitted artworks were combined and overprinted to create new and multi-layered perspectives. The Posters were used at the Extinction Rebellion Demonstration the following week.
With contributions by Marc Lotus, Giulia Lantier, Florian Haberstrumpf, Ariane Spanier, Raban Ruddigkeit, Bianca Schill, Yumiko Soga, Olena Smetanka, Marta Ustvarja, Deborah-Lois Sery, Anja Lutz, Lana Soufeh, Markus Lange, Florian Brugger, Sebastian Dietel, CH Ernst, Martina Wember, Miltos Bottis, Filip Zagórski, Salma Khairy, Manuel Viergutz, Amelie, Agnieszka Weglarska, Thomas Marutschke, Lisa Panitz, Cihan Tamti, Martin Gnadt, Klaudia Mazur, Raupa Gonzales, Melis Guenoglu, Philipp Heinlein, Julia Kahl, Nina Engel, Daniel Hahn, Max Schürmann, Paula Hornickel, Jois, Eva-Maria Offermann, Jacco Bunt, Katharina Gschwendtner, Stefan Vogtländer, Rafael Bernardo, Daniel Hicks, Vincent Bord, Alex Branczyk, Lars Harmsen, Frank Höhne.
Feminist Findings Liberation in Print (L.i.P.) Collective
Opening 30/07/20, 19:00 with Zine Launch and Film Screening
Feminist Findings brings together the collective research of twenty-six womxn and non-binary people on the history of feminist publishing. The L.i.P. Collective—short for "Liberation in Print"—formed during the recent lock-down period. Spread over four continents and many time zones, its participants came together over the beams of their computer screens to dig through digital archives, searching for the missing histories of feminist journals, magazines, zines, newspapers, and newsletters. Feminist Findings presents the L.i.P. Collective's research for the first time, taking the form of an exhibition and accompanying zine.
Scanning the gallery at A—Z, you'll discover the struggles and victories of a 1980s San Francisco newsletter for Asian/Pacific lesbians, solve the mystery of an underground tearoom in Paris, hear from the co-founder of India's first feminist press, learn how writing a feminist history of Swiss graphic design might start by calling up a neighbor, and much, much more. A wunderkammer brimming with photographs, artefacts, logos, magazines, quotes, excerpts, resources, pages, footnotes, and digressions, Feminist Findings is a messy, knotted web manifesting its own collective research process. It showcases stories around twentieth century publications from across the world, including Agenda, Al-Raida, Aspekt, Bridges, Carnets des Nanas Beurs, Chrysalis, Common Lives/Lesbian Lives, Courage, Di Froy, DYKE A Quarterly, Distaff, Emanzipation, Ewa, Froyen Shtim, Gidra, Heresies, Leïla, Manushi, Nova, Phoenix Rising, Sinister Wisdom, Sorcières, Soviet Women, and Spare Rib.
The L.i.P Collective workshop was initiated by le Signe, the National Centre of Graphic Design in Chaumont, France, as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Over the course of six weeks, its group of isolated strangers became a tightly-knit research unit, bonding over shared interests, rooting for one another's projects, and celebrating together each and every new find. It was led by Nina Paim and Corin Gisel of common-interest along with design journalist Madeleine Morley.
The L.i.P Collective is Zenobia Ahmed, Yanchi Huang, Sophia Yuet See, Silva Baum, Phoebe Eustance, Pauline Piguet, Noemi Parisi, Nina Paim, Naïma Ben Ayed, Mujgan Abdulzade, Mio Kojima, Maya Ober, Mariachiara De Leo, Madeleine Morley, Loraine Furter, Klaudia Mazur, Floriane Misslin, Fanny Maurel, Eugénie Zuccarelli, Elham Namvar, Delphine Bedel, Corin Gisel, Clara Amante, Carolyn Kerchof, Barbora Demovičová, and Amy Gowen.
Curated and edited by Futuress:
Launching Autumn 2020, Futuress is an online magazine and community space for design research. The feminist publishing platform is founded by Nina Paim and Corin Gisel (of the Basel-based design research practice common-interest) alongside journalist and editor Madeleine Morley. The once-hidden stories collected in the Feminist Findings zine—which the Futuress team has worked with the authors to craft into accessible storytelling formats—will be republished online via Futuress this upcoming Fall, adhering to its guiding philosophy of making design research public.
Na Kim Transitory Workplace, 56
Soft Opening 28/05/20, 17:00–20:00
Presentation by Na Kim 02/07/20, 19:00
Transitory Workplace 56 transforms A—Z into Na Kim's studio for fifty-six days. It presents her temporary working activities at a provisional workplace and the encounters of others with diverse purposes. While Na Kim usually spends around half the year traveling due to the breadth of her work and the places it takes her, she is now confronted with the situation of the lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic. This entrusts the body to a time of uncertainty. The anxiety felt by being enclosed in a physical environment naturally probes solitude in daily life and summons the space of memories. By allowing her to set her own rules for this private workplace for fifty-six days in a public gallery space, this project makes abstract uncertainty concrete with physical space and daily action, demonstrating an attitude of observation and appreciation for the value of everyday life. Transitory Workplace 56 exists beyond the realm of physical space and is instead the accumulation of time in space. It mediates the intersection of these two layers of experience and attempts to capture, collect, document, and present them.
Transitory Workplace 56 is for all kinds of uncertainty.
Transitory Workplace 56 is about solitude for togetherness.
Transitory Workplace 56 is for learning by doing and sharing.
Transitory Workplace 56 is for re-projecting and re-producing.
Transitory Workplace 56 keeps daily documentation of 56 days.
Transitory Workplace 56 is for communication with the outside world in a private way.
The title of the work originates from her 2012 project Transitory Workplace 53, from when she migrated back to Korea, ending a period of many years spent living in the Netherlands. Na Kim has been interested in the ideas of space and its extension. She previously explored these various questions in works such as Situation Room (2010), Transitory Workplace 53 (2012), and To Be a Loner (2015). In her recent solo exhibition in a children's gallery, Bottomless Bag (2020), the large-scale installation remained under lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic. Staying in the bare, white cube for more than a month and recollecting her previous works acted as a catalyst for a newer version of Transitory Workplace in 2020.
During the exhibition period, Na Kim will lead her daily work at A—Z, dividing the space into different zones of activity as part of her design and creatively tackling the current safety measures. She will keep a precise schedule with daily presentations of her work exercise and carry out projects in her studio-gallery. By appointment, she will arrange personal meetings.
Na Kim is a graphic designer currently based in Seoul and Berlin, as a member of Table Union. She has focused on the visual language on autonomous works as well as various cultural commissioned projects. Kim was responsible for the concept and design of GRAPHIC magazine from 2009 till 2011 and has initiated series projects based on her monograph, SET since 2015. She has held solo exhibitions, such as Bottomless Bag (2020), Black and White (2019), Red, Yellow, Blue (2017), SET (2015), Choice Specimen (2014), Found Abstracts (2011). Besides, Kim has been a curator for Brno Biennale, Chaumont Festival, Seoul International Typography Biennale, and Fikra Graphic Design Biennial. Kim also worked on projects with COS, Hermès, ÅLAND, and many other clients, and Kim's works have been invited to international exhibitions at MMCA, V&A, MoMA, Milan Triennale Museum, Die Neue Sammlung, etc. Na Kim has been a member of AGI since 2016.
Niklaus Troxler Tape Works
Opening Saturday 15/02/20 Niklaus Troxler sticking tape-images to improvised music in a Live Performance:
at 16:00 to Silke Eberhard (altosax) and Nikolaus Neuser (trumpet) and
at 18:00 to Almut Kühne (voice)
Presentation by Niklaus Troxler 05/03/20, 19:00
Niklaus Troxler has been creating images with black and coloured adhesive tapes for the past three years. These Tape Works excite the designer and artist very much, as they represent the true basic elements of design: colour and form. Sometimes the images are free and abstract, sometimes they evoke landscapes or signs. And they are always musical. As in music, they are compositions and also improvisations. The resulting colour compositions as well as the relationships between the individual forms create the specific sound of his works.
Niklaus Troxler is an internationally renowned Swiss graphic designer who specialises in poster design, corporate design, illustration and architectural murals. Since the mid-1960s he has organised jazz events and in 1975 founded the Willisau Jazz Festival, which he also directed until 2010. The Festival offered Troxler the perfect opportunity to merge his two passions of graphic design and jazz music into one unique concept. "Everything that fascinates me about jazz music, is also what interests me in design: rhythm, sound, contrast, interaction, experiment, improvisation, composition, individuality. I have been organising jazz concerts for as long as I have been designing. Both activities have inspired me since the mid-1960s, and still have lost none of their fascination." Troxler's posters are layered with visual puns and musical metaphors, executed in hand crafted illustration and typography. Silkscreen and lithographic prints are the main techniques that Troxler uses to communicate both figurative and abstract ideas created from paper cut-outs, collage, stencils and brush and line drawings.
Teaching Design Conversations
Opening with Presentations by Imad Gebrayel, Stefanie Rau and Madeleine Morley 28/01/20, 18:30
Workshop with Antonia Schneemann and Lisa Baumgarten 01/02/20, 15:00–18:00
Book Release and Reading "Real-time Realist #2" with Jungmyung Lee, Lieven Lahaye 06/02/20, 19:00
Closing Event: Reading and Book Sale, 11/02/20, 19:00
Teaching Design Conversations is a temporary library and conversational format about design education from intersectional feminist and decolonial perspectives. Building on the online platform Teaching Design, the two-week long format CONVERSATIONS provides access to literature in a physical space as a framework to come together and connect with like-minded design educators – such as ourselves – and everybody interested in the field. Let's share our experiences, doubts, questions, knowledge, concepts, methods and references to transform current structures!
THE TEMPORARY LIBRARY
The temporary library at A—Z from 28/01/–11/02/20 has grown from the collectively gathered resources from our online platform Teaching Design. The books will be compiled from Berlin libraries and provided by Pro qm. We warmly invite you to use the space to browse through the literature, read, listen and discuss!
Visit the library Fridays from 13:00–18:00 or make a personal appointment via info@teaching-design.net
The A–Z space will be transformed by commissioned work by artists and designers Benedetta Crippa (Stockholm), Peter Behrbohm (Berlin) and Fabrice Höfgen following core principles of Teaching Design: The temporary library offers access to resources to develop transformative strategies, a safe space to ask critical questions and start a dialogue and the tools to share and exchange knowledge. (For more info on the artists see below.)
Tuesday 28/01/20, 18:30, OPENING with contributions by
Imad Gebrayel, a Lebanese designer and researcher based in Berlin whose projects revolve around identity politics, migration and representation. Imad will be discussing modes of exclusion and coloniality of power in both EU and Non-EU design education systems based on his experience in Lebanon, the Netherlands and Germany.
Stefanie Rau, who moves with her work between the fields of graphic design, text-based artistic practices and teaching. In a form of auto-critique Stefanie will reflect on her experiences and involvement in self-organized educational projects and her work at the Weißensee Academy of Art where she started teaching in 2019.
Madeleine Morley, a Berlin-based design writer, editor and researcher. Madeleine's talk will discuss writing about (and around) design history, and the things that often get in the way. She will describe her own process of looking for gaps, following the labour, practising care, and working both with and against the archive.
Saturday 01/02/20, 15:00–18:00, WORKSHOP with Antonia Schneemann and Lisa Baumgarten
Why do I do what I do – like I do it – and not differently?
In this workshop we move from the theoretical examination of design theory to practice. Starting from the participants' and our own individual experiential knowledge, we will test methods, reflect on our individual standpoint(s) and skills, and discuss the question: How do we want to learn and teach?
The workshop length is approx. 2 hours, there will be an additional hour to drink tea and reflect on the outcomes.
The number of spots for the workshops is limited.
Please register at info@teaching-design.net by 25/01/20.
Antonia Schneemann has been working as an art mediator since 2014. Amongst other projects Antonia conceived and directed educational programming at the National Museums in Berlin. As a freelance art educator, she conducts workshops and develops formats for museums, associations or educational institutions with a focus on group processes and the development of methods. She holds an M.A. in Arts Education from the Zurich University of the Arts (Switzerland).
Thursday 06/02/20, 19:00, BOOK RELEASE and READING
Real-time Realist #2 with Jungmyung Lee and Lieven Lahaye
Published by J-LTF Press, "Real-Time Realist" is an experiment in the range of human affect through typography, visual art, and contemporary writing, based on psychologist Robert Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions. This publication is, also, a type specimen of linguistic significance which showcases typefaces produced by Jung-Lee Type Foundry. The second issue explores ECSTASY, JOY, SERENITY, and LOVE, The Yellow Wheel, with contributions from invited artists distilling the aforesaid emotions.
Tuesday 11/02/20, 19:00, Closing Event – READING and BOOK SALE
We will sum up our two-weeks exhibition with reading selected texts from our library which will also be published in a printed reader. The books provided by Proqm will be sold during the event.
FURTHER EVENTS are going to be announced via Instagram @teaching.design
Teaching Design started as a visual bibliography on Instagram, focusing on design education from intersectional feminist and decolonial perspectives – initiated and edited by Lisa Baumgarten – designer (lisabaumgarten.de), educator and researcher – and Anja Neidhardt – co-creater of depatriarchisedesign.com, design journalist, and PHD candidate.
www.teaching-design.net
Pro qm – thematische Buchhandlung, Almstadtstraße 48-50, 10119 Berlin, pro-qm.de
The title font "Calyces" was kindly provided by Charlotte Rohde
Cottonbee, ctnbee.com/de
ADDITIONAL ARTIST INFO
Benedetta Crippa runs her graphic design and research practice in Stockholm with work across the wide scope of visual communication. Her main area of research concerns ways in which graphic design can expand beyond current boundaries of methodology and aesthetics. She designs visual interventions for transformation and pleasure beyond dominant traditions to revisit ideas around beauty, form and power. Benedetta is currently guest teacher at Konstfack University as initiator of the first course of its kind on sustainability through visuality.
studiobenedettacrippa.com
Peter Behrbohm designs obstacles, digs for narrative fragments, thinks with hands and feet, constructs abnormal apparatus and installs fictions in public spaces. With his work he surgically intervenes public spaces as well as its routines.
www.peterbehrbohm.net
Fabrice Höfgen is a spatial designer focusing on the exploration of synergetic human interactions. Led by a fascination for the "inbetween", the emotional, his practice aims to transgress conventional categories by queering spaces and environments.
www.instagram.com/fabricehoefgen/
The Rodina When the Work is Done
Exhibition Dates 21/11/19–24/01/20
Performance with Tereza and Vit Ruller and Jessica Deira 21/11/19, 19:00
Open Debate with The Rodina, Prem Krishnamurthy and Anja Lutz 22/11/19, 19:00
Amsterdam-based studio The Rodina is interested in temporalities of design (when does design start, how does it last, and what does it mean 'it's finished'?) and the labour behind it. During the opening, they performed together with The Hague based designer Yessica Deira to unwrap questions about the creative production and project-based labour. During a non-linear 3-hour-long event co-directed by the audience – the designers democratised the process of "situation making" and discuss together, when the work is actually finished. The Rodina use the performance to open a space that allows an exchange and personal encounter with each participant.
During the duration of the exhibition, visitors are invited to interact with the installation, and become part of the work and set-up at A–Z. Visitors can further place questions to The Rodina in the space that will be answered and added to the installation.
During the Open Debate guest, curator and graphic designer Prem Krishnamurthy discussed with The Rodina the notion of creative work, design processuality and continuity of projects. The discussion was organized as a nonhierarchical agora set up, where the audience members were welcome to share their experiences and discussed what the production of graphic design in capitalism is for them.
The Rodina (Tereza and Vit Ruller) is a post-critical design studio with an experimental practice drenched in strategies of performance art, play and subversion. Both in commissioned work and in autonomous practice, they activate and re-imagine a dazzling range of layered meanings across, below and beyond the surface of design. The Rodina invents ways in which experience, knowledge and relations are produced and preserved. In their work, Tereza and Vit often explore and investigate theoretical framework around Body presence, Labour, Surface, and Action.
The studio works mostly for the cultural clients such as Harvard GSD (USA), Sonic Acts Foundation (NL), and Hyuindai Card Library Soul (KR). Tereza is an educator at Design Academy Eindhoven (Society & Change) and together with Vit, they exhibit and give lectures internationally, amongst many other places at CalArts (USA), Cooper Union (USA) a ZHDK (CH).
Yessica Deira is a graphic designer and DJ who experiments in re-constructing collective consciousness through design, film, sound and music.
Patrick Thomas Pulp
Presentation by Patrick Thomas 10/10/19, 19:00
PULP is the title of a new body of work made by Patrick Thomas in response to the reality of living in an age of 'truth decay'. Interacting with randomly sourced daily newsprint — the traditionally respected source of factual information — he layers found, drawn and code-generated graphic forms in an aleatory way utilising the mechanical process of silkscreen printing.
Intentionally ambiguous, the resulting prints may be appreciated for their abstract beauty and as a celebration of the disappearing broadsheet newspaper format; however, they might also conceal a darker significance that suggests manipulation, concealment and censorship.
They are powerful graphic statements that document a moment in time whose aim is to ask more questions than provide answers, which, due to the unstable physical properties of the newsprint material, will continue to silently evolve over the years.
Patrick Thomas (Liverpool, GB) is a graphic artist, who lives and works in Berlin and is a professor at Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste Stuttgart.
Inkahoots New Anthems VI (Berlin)
Presentation by Jason Grant (Inkahoots) 14/06/19, 19:00
Public Discussion 29/08/19, 19:00 "Gestaltung und Solidarität – Wie kann Grafikdesign politisch sein?" with Mara Recklies, Susanne Beer (ZOFF) and Sandy Kaltenborn, presented by Fanzi Bauer und Toni Brell
In its second exhibition A—Z presents New Anthems VI (Berlin) – A New Anthem for Germany, an interactive installation by the Australian design collective Inkahoots, that invites creative participation in a public dialogue about the critique and construction of contemporary nationalism and national identity.
The installation displays the most commonly cited line in Das Lied der Deutschen (3. verse) by August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben, the current German national anthem: 'Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit für das deutsche Vaterland' ['Unity and justice and freedom for the German fatherland'], where the words 'Freiheit' and 'das deutsche Vaterland' are omitted and replaced with LED screens enabling participants to input their own words, and rewrite the text. These contributions are catalogued online at newanthems.inkahoots.com.au and thus create a dynamic archive of debate around issues of national identity, inclusion and exclusion. The website enables real time listings of all contributions – in this way they are archived and can be viewed offsite by anyone. To participate SMS: 015735994499 to insert your contribution. Enter a word or short phrase for each LED screen separated by a comma: eg. 'firstword, secondword' or 'short phrase, another short phrase'. The present installation uses a mix of historic letters from East- and West-Berlin from the collection of the Buchstabenmuseum.
The New Anthems installations affirm national identity as dynamic and constructed, rather than fixed and natural. To misquote Richard White (1981) Inventing Australia: "There is no 'real' Germany waiting to be uncovered. A national identity is an invention." The work attempts to integrate graphic design's potential regarding expressive modes of visual language with user generated digital interactivity, as a relational artwork that functions as a forum for creative public dialogue and cultural critique.
Inkahoots is a Australian design studio focusing on creating democratic spaces for for productive social resistance and public dialogue. They collaborate locally and internationally on projects of all sizes across a range of media, specialising in the creative intergration of physical and digital experiences. Born as a community access screenprinting studio/arts collective, Inkahoots continues to work for social change with adventurous visual communication. They are widely published and exhibited around the world. In Australia, Inkahoots' work is held in the collection of the National Gallery of Australia, the National Museum of Australia, the Queensland Art Gallery, and others.
New Anthems VI (Berlin) is a collaboration with Buchstabenmuseum Berlin.
Template Culture Workshop
Workshop Dates 06/05–10/05/19 "Template Culture – Inclusion, neutrality and the responsibility of design", a workshop conceived by Anja Lutz, Rebekka Kiesewetter and Franziska Morlok, with students of Hyperwerk (Basel) and FH Potsdam.
Presentation by Rosa Menkman 06/05/19, 19:00
Presentation by Anja Kaiser: "Bodies of discourse" 07/05/19, 19:00
Today, templates play a role in all areas of design – an example are websites that can be built with content management systems and filled with seemingly arbitrary content. On the one hand, templates are practical, efficient and user friendly, but on the other hand they are also restrictive and by no means neutral: templates, programs and user interfaces express certain world views and value systems and exclude others; under the primacy of efficiency and goal-orientation, naming and ordering are based on a certain view of knowledge and information, on economic, political and ideological priorities. Nevertheless, we proceed with templates as if they were completely neutral.
How can we deal with templates consciously, critically and productively? How do we make templates more inclusive – especially in the light of a feminist perspective and one that takes into account the inclusion of non-hegemonic perspectives? During the five-day workshop, the topic will be dealt with in groups and reflected upon in a publication. The publication process, which will be developed on the basis of the three areas of image, text and structural templates, will become a method for exploring, discussing and productively questioning the economic, political and ideological mechanisms behind templates, their graphic and functional characteristics.
Talk by Rosa Menkman
"As silly as it sounds, they were surprised she was a real person." (Jeff Seideman on Lena Söderberg, "The First Lady of the Internet")
For a while now storytelling and the practices of ventriloquy have made a return to the artists "toolbelt". Contemporary technologies have enhanced the power of ghosts and their ability to haunt us: "the ghosts are making a comeback." (Derrida in Ghost Dance, 1983). Now, with a 538 page Posthuman Glossary (Braidotti and Hlavajova, 2018) next to me, I try to navigate the realms of infomorphs and Xeno Zombies. It seems that the digital realm is full of dummies and that artists are eager to lend their voices. But should ghosts not stay shrouded in a sea of fog, do they need to be pulled out from the realms of static and canned laughter? Is it ok to lend a voice to a material that once was human?
In this talk I will take us through my collection of "ghosts" – bodies and voices from the internet, that have been cut off from their "humanity" – and ask: are these real people? And can I puppeteer these corpses?
Rosa Menkman's work focuses on noise artifacts that result from accidents in both analogue and digital media (such as glitch and encoding and feedback artifacts). She believes that these artifacts can facilitate an important insight into the otherwise obscure alchemy of standardization via resolutions. The standardization of resolutions is a process that generally imposes efficiency, order and functionality on our technologies. It does not just involve the creation of protocols and solutions, but also entails the obfuscation of compromises and the black-boxing of alternative possibilities, which are as a result in danger of staying forever unseen or even forgotten. Through her research, which is both artistic and theoretical, Rosa Menkman hopes to uncover these anti-utopic, lost and unseen or simply "too good to be implemented" resolutions — to produce new ways to use and perceive through our technologies.
Talk by Anja Kaiser: "Bodies of discourse"
The body is subject to multiple perspectives and constructions, no matter whether we encounter its representatives online or in real life. Which realities can be derived from them and which deviations arise? Anja Kaiser presents applied and independent projects that address the body as an ambivalent medium between power and powerlessness on the playing field of self-determined and externally determined utilisation. The visibility of the empowering grrrls-, POC- and LGBTQ-community determines her projects.
Anja Kaiser moves in an activist environment, in scenes of pop culture and searches for free space for social participation. In cooperation with the Institut für Zukunft, Conne Island and various feminist groups, she has worked on projects and their graphic translation. Within her own artistic work, she investigates the human body as an inevitable surface of projections of a biologically based determinism and illuminates approaches of deconstruction. In doing so she works on the transitions between graphics, design, art, music and forms of digital self-empowerment. With posters, animated digital images and towel editions that bear a radical aesthetic signature, she helps the subjects she works on to gain broad public recognition.
Andrea Tinnes Library of Shapes, Texts and Structures
Conversation with Andrea Tinnes and Anja Lutz (A—Z) 07/06/19, 19:00
The Library of Shapes, Texts and Structures is a visual research project and personal archive of graphic elements. The title is program; as the "library" encompasses sustained efforts of systematic collecting, note-taking, documenting, selecting, registering, archiving, manipulating, sorting and cataloguing of a body of diverse visual, textual and linguistic material.
The library's "Shapes" section consists of two comprehensive typographic systems: The Affiche Collection and Allgemein Grotesk are both fonts that combine different letter forms in their character sets, and include numerous forms and symbols, from abstract-geometric to figurative-illustrative to organic-distorted. The section "Structures" contains a variety of analogue and digital textures, as well as photographic imagery of vernacular typography. These visual collections are complemented by the section "Texts", which gathers excerpts, sorted by date, from newspapers, magazines, books and social media posts.
The exhibition at A—Z presents the current state of the "Library of Shapes, Texts and Structures" and a diverse series of posters that combine a selection of materials from the library with different motifs and colour combinations.
Andrea Tinnes is a German type designer, typographer and educator based in Berlin. She has a degree in Communication Design from the University of Applied Sciences Mainz and a Master of Fine Arts in Graphic Design from the California Institute of the Arts. Her design practice is focused on client-based as well as self-initiated projects. Through her own label, typecuts (founded in 2004), she publishes as well as promotes all her type designs and typographic projects. She is Professor of Type and Typography at Burg Giebichenstein, and was responsible for the school's new visual identity.
Her work has been featured in many national and international publications and exhibitions and has received several awards, including a "Certificate of Typographic Excellence" and "Red Dot".
Posters and Publication by Johannes Bergerhausen & Ilka Helmig
World's Writing Systems — chronological and geographical order
Typographic reference glyphs and timeframe for 293 scripts
Research by ANRT Nancy, IDG Mainz and SEI Berkeley
Four color silk screen printing
20,— €
World's Writing Systems — chronological order
3rd revised edition
Picto-, Ideo-
On Pictograms, Ideograms and Sound Clouds.
For the exhibition »Piktogramme, Lebenszeichen, Emojis« at Leopold-Hoesch-Museum, Düren and Museum für Neue Kunst, Freiburg
17 × 24 cm, 48 pages
Items by Graphic.Designers.Collectors
A5/10: Collecting Graphic Design – Die Archivierung des Visuellen/ The Archiving of the Visual
Optik Books, 2021
Offset, Brochur with poster cover
28,— Euro
Anna Berkenbusch
Gestaltung verändert die Welt Alle Tage – Design für Menschen / Design is Changing the World Every Day – Design for People
A5/08: Best German Posters –
Eine Geschichte der deutschen Plakatwettbewerbe/
A History of German Poster CompetitionsJens Müller
Isabel Naegele / Rudi Baur
Scents of the City / Aroma der Stadt
Lars Müller Publishers, 2004
English, German, French, Portuguese, Chinese, Turkish, Arabic
A5/09: West-Berlin Grafik-Design –
Gestaltung hinter dem Eisernen Vorhang/
Graphic Design behind the Iron Curtain
Isabel Naegele
Typologien des Alltags / Typologies of Everyday Life No. 1 "CORONA"
Institut Designlabor Gutenberg, 2021
Typologien des Alltags / Typologies of Everyday Life No. 1 "Scratch, Scrub & Scour"
Sven Völker
Twentysix Nine Eleven
5,— Euro
Barbara Dechant
Floaty Pens
Plastic pen with changing image
Na Kim
SET (revised version), 2017
23 x 30 cm,
Publication & Newspaper by Anita Di Bianco
The Error is Regretted /
Wir entschuldigen uns für diesen Fehler
Anita Di Bianco
The Green Box, 2021
112 pages, incl. 96 pages on newsprint
Hardcover, stapled
Corrections & Clarifications Newspaper
96 pages on newsprint
Books, Prints and more by Novo Typo
Novo Typo Offgrid
Mark van Wageningen
64 pages, English
Hardcover, 17,5 x 24 cm
3 x pms offset + 2 handmade ink
plantbased pigment Letterpress
on Amsterdam Pulp Paper (cover)
Limited edition of 750 copies
Novo Typo Color Book
De Buitenkant, 2018
104 pages, English
3 x pms offset + 2 pms letterpress
Typewood Type Specimen
25 x 35 cm, 32 pages
CMYK / BW printed on Fedrogoni 140 g/m²
Woodstock paper
Pulp Is The New Gold
3 color print run with handmade ink based on
natural pigments (Madder, Saffron, Indigo)
Handprinted letterpress on Amsterdam Pulp Paper
Limited Edition: 5 copies
Numbered and signed
Offgrid Color Code
Ink Pulp Type
Amsterdam Pulp Paper, 2020
One package of 9 plano sheets (with deckled edges)
32 x 25 cm, 400g/m²
Made from genuine Amsterdam poplar sawdust
Amsterdam Pulp Soap, 2021
One bar of handmade soap
made with woodpulp
from genuine Amsterdam poplar trees
Books & Prints by Tine Melzer & Markus Kummer
Blumen sind geil
Tine Melzer & Markus Kummer
128 pages, 46 ills., German
Softcover, 14 x 21 cm
Taxidermy for Language-animals
Tine Melzer
Rollo Press, 2016
Protest: Flowers
Photography on Aluminium
150,— Euro
Wallpaper "Blumen sind geil"
2-color lithography with silver
Steindruckerei Wolfensberger, Zürich
Framed prints "Blumen sind geil"
5-color lithography
Limited Edition of 7 copies
280,— Euro each
Temporary Items by Na Kim
23 x 30 cm, 136 pages
Table A, 2013
29,7 x 42 cm, 12 pages
The Show-Room / mt, 2014
25 mm width
Tape Works by Niklaus Troxler
Just tape it!, 2020
Silkscreen printing
Limited Edition of 15 copies
Willi's Sound, 2008
Silkscreen 3 colors, 2018
Tape work 05.05.2015
Tape on paper, Uniques piece
Signed and dated
Tape Work, 2020
3-Coloured Silcscreen Print
Folded card with envelop
5.— Euro
Real-time Realist #2 by Jungmyung Lee
Real-time Realist #2
by Jungmyung Lee
and Lieven Lahaye
236 pages Offset
Ponchos and Posters by The Rodina
Unionize
Silkscreen with neon and metallic colours
90.— Euro
Play6 Out
The Chamber of Transformation
Poncho A
650.— Euro
Poncho B
Poncho C
Poncho D
Poncho E
Pulp Prints by Patrick Thomas
Pulp Print "Willow", 2019
Silkscreen on newsprint
Unique pieces, hand-pulled
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(Please indicate which Poster you want)
PULP Newspaper
4 page, offset on newsprint
New Anthems VI (Berlin) by Inkahoots
New Anthems VI (Berlin), 2019
Folded card with sticker sheet
Library Prints by Andrea Tinnes
Library Print (Neon Pink), 2019
Hand-offset print
Library Print (Neon Orange), 2019
Library Print, 2019
3-Coloured Riso Print
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How CIOs are redefining business models
Leaders across the C-Suite are looking to IT to enable business transformation. This shift has occurred after many years where IT was simply viewed as a cost-centre, and the role of the CIO was mostly confined to the IT silo.
Driving this change is the rise of the five horsemen of IT innovation: cloud, big data, IOT, social media and mobility. These successive waves of change have convinced business leaders that if they don't embrace IT as a core strategy for growth and innovation, the organisation will be left behind by disruptive competitors.
Despite the rise of the five horsemen, an enterprise must also contend with the fact that it has sunk costs in its existing landscape, particularly in the ERP, database and CRM software.
CIOs then, must learn to drive more value from these core 'systems of record' assets, all the while keeping an eye on new technology and ways to integrate that technology into the organisation's processes and business models.
There are two significant ways CIOs can drive more value from the core application base. The first is to look at maintenance, service and support contracts for their ERP and database software. Central to looking at this spend is the idea that the business doesn't have to stay with the vendor for their service and support.
Third party support from organisations such as Rimini Street has shown that organizations can immediately cut their annual support fees by 50%, avoid unnecessary upgrades, and save up to 90% of their overall maintenance costs.
By significantly reducing this cost, an enterprise can redirect the liberated funds towards more productive and innovative uses. Which is where the second major method of driving value out of existing infrastructure comes into play.
By reducing their service and support costs to free up funds for innovation and strategic initiatives within the business, companies can look towards a 'hybrid IT' model. With a hybrid IT model, the existing infrastructure is supplemented and augmented by newer cloud and SaaS offerings from rising vendors that are fleet of foot and offer innovative ways of approaching existing and future business challenges.
This means the role of the CIO has to change and adapt to the circumstances of a new technological age. It's no longer good enough to simply be a strong technologist focussed on reducing cost. The new-age CIO is both an innovator and a disruptor – he/she is a change agent seeking opportunities to introduce new technologies and methodologies as a way of driving business growth.
Savvy boards and CEOs have come to realise this change in the CIO's role. The CIO must adapt to this change and to the new age of cloud and mobility, or risk themselves, and their business organisations being left behind.
Article by Andrew Powell, Managing Director, Asia Pacific and Middle East, Rimini Street
Gartner: The character traits CIOs will need to have in 2021
Organisations unprepared for IT needs of the future - IBM
Gartner: The 10 rules CIOs must follow for rapid IT cost reduction
Chinks in the armour: Why the post COVID-19 cloud is easy game for cybercriminals
Forrester's guide to staying savvy in the world of COVID-19
Rimini Street CIO

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Spain to invest 600 mln euros in National AI Strategy
Thursday, 03 Dec 2020
China 5h ago
Beijing to be built into international innovation hub: officials
World 23h ago
Spain declares storm-hit Madrid, 8 other regions disaster zones
Other Sports 2h ago
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MADRID, Dec. 2 (Xinhua) -- Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Wednesday announced that the country will invest 600 million euros (around 725 million U.S. dollars) between 2021-2023 in a National Artificial Intelligence (AI) Strategy.
Presenting the strategy, Sanchez said the government investment could lead to a further 3,300 million euros of private investment, "if things are done well."
A total of 275 million of the 600 million euros of investment will be allocated to the technological development of AI, 133 million for its integration into the economic fabric and production process and 100 million to enhance the use of AI in public administration.
The plan will see the investment used for a series of measures, such as the promotion of AI research; the promotion of new national multidisciplinary technological development centers and the creation of aid programs for companies to develop AI and data solutions.
This will be accompanied by a wider offer of university and professional training and an effort to promote Spanish as a working language in AI through the development of Spanish language-based technology and applications.
Smaller amounts of money will be used to create a data program and promote Spanish talent in the field as well as to develop a regulatory ethical framework that Sanchez said would "reinforce our individual and collective rights and freedoms."
In his speech made while presenting the initiative, Sanchez said AI was a "transversal technology that covers health, agriculture, protecting the environment, improves systems of production, design and cyber-security" and insisted it would help to advance the ecological and digital transitions along with promoting gender equality, while helping social and territorial cohesion.
Campaign ID: 18
Newsmaker: Kamala Harris breaks barriers as America's vice president
Biden becomes 46th US president, vowing 'new day' after Trump tumult
Kamala Harris sworn in as Vice-President of the United States
Europe's COVID shot party gives way to Pfizer vaccine delay headache


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NEW FOR 2018: To make registration easier and provide better tracking for attendees as well an authorized list for pickup/drop-off, we have switched to Sawyer to manage the entire camp / class signup process. Click the registration button to see a complete list of classes in date order, or scroll down for the same info as we as downloadable PDF files for each class. You will need to create an account and enter your student(s) name(s) so we can track attendance and class sizes. Full details are contained within each class description when you select "More Info" – that's where you register as well. A calendar view is available here.
Please ignore the day headings along the top (Mon, Tues, etc.) … we're working with our booking partner Sawyer on getting that removed, so for now, please just be sure you always select "Camps / Events" and "All" to make certain you're seeing the full list. Click the "More Info" button to get full details and/or to register for that class. Thank you!


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Category Archives: Josh Thompson
Here's to some senior athletes who provided us with great moments the last four years
Posted on June 29, 2016 by Michelle Gardner
It is always fun to look back when a school year is over and reflect on the individuals and teams that made it a memorable run.
So just for fun here are athletes I'll miss covering next year. Nothing against those not singled out here because I have enjoyed my interactions with all the coaches and athletes in the Inland Valley.
But there are some that have been so successful since their freshman year I have had more dealings with them then most. So here goes.
Bryce Peters, Damien basketball
He was a key player as a junior in helping the Spartans to a state championship but probably didn't get the credit he deserved because of the more heralded seniors around him. This year he excelled in a starring role and it was nice to see him flourish in that role. He's headed to Colorado State.
Kylie Miller, Rancho Cucamonga volleyball
She was a four-time first team All-Inland Valley selection and that's an accolade very few can claim. There are few athlete more humble or soft-spoken but her talent did the talking. The Under Armour All-American is headed to UCLA.
Josh Thompson, Colony football
Grabbed the starting job early his sophomore year and never gave it up, leading Titans to a CIF title as a junior. Oh, and he did that in the title game after missing a month with a separated shoulder. He is about as tough as they come. I will never forget a Pomona player grabbing him by the face mask with such ferocity it turned the helmet all the way around. He got up without skipping a beat and was ready for the next play. He's headed to Dixie State.
Jacob Beltran, Upland baseball
How can you not root for a kid that had brain surgery and went from having to learn to walk again to returning to the playing field in seven months. We have all heard the tragic stories of athletes who collapsed on the playing field and didn't make it. So it is nice to have a happy ending. He's probably headed to a community college, since he missed is entire junior season.
Mikey Dean, Chaffey football/track
Who doesn't love Mikey Dean? Guys that small shouldn't be able to do what he does both on the football field and the track. Rushing for a ton of yardage is one thing. But taking up a new track event – long jump – this year and then placing at state in California which has so many elite athletes. Well, that pretty much says it all. He is headed to Idaho State where he'll compete in both sports.
Lonzo Ball, Chino Hills basketball
There isn't much to say that hasn't already been said. I have been covering high school sports for 30 or so years (yes I am aging myself) but I have never enjoyed watching a player or a team as much as I did the Ball and the Huskies. The last thing I remember close was seeing Deion Sanders in high school in my Florida tenure. I definitely don't remember the last time i saw an athlete with such a complete skill set at such a young age. Can't wait to see Lonzo doing his thing at Pauley Pavilion for the UCLA Bruins.
Posted in Bryce Peters, Jacob Beltran, Josh Thompson, Kylie Miller, Lonzo Ball, Mikey Dean	| Leave a reply
Colony's Josh Thompson not getting enough attention from colleges
Posted on October 22, 2015 by Michelle Gardner
Quarterback Josh Thompson led the Colony Titans to a CIF championship last year. Making the feat even more impressive was that he did it only a week removed from returning from a broken collarbone that sideline him a month.
One would think that would help land the attention from major colleges. Well that hasn't exactly been the case.
Colony coach Steve Randall chalks that up to Thompson's size. He's 6-foot, 180 pounds. Thompson has all the physical attributes that go into making a good quarterback as well as other intangibles such as composure and toughness but nowadays they're looking for physical stature as much of more than anything else.
"It's all about passing the eye test," Randall said. "I don't understand it because he's a batter quarterback than some of the guys that are getting all the attention."
Thompson probably needed a good senior season to help draw more attention. Randall says his star player has been every bit at solid as in years past. It just doesn't look like it on paper.
He threw for 4,465 yards with 37 touchdowns and 9 interceptions the previous two seasons. He is at 1,326 so far this season.
The problem – Colony's schedule.
The Titans played a difficult schedule, with the first four games against elite teams in Southern California. The Titans were 2-3 over the first five games and four had running clock so Thompson's stats were modest.
Then the Titans started league play with a 41-7 win over Montclair and a 46-0 thrashing of Ontario. He didn't have great numbers in those games either because those were running clock too and Randall pulled back the reigns on the passing game so as not to run up the score. He didn't have overwhelming numbers there to balance out the tougher games.
Thompson is also a good student and thought of highly by his teachers and peers so a college would be getting an athlete with great character as well.
Colony is also running a different offense, one that Randall was hoping would play in Thompson's favor.
"He's running the ball a little more and we're doing some read option," he said. "We thought that would show his versatility and that might help him. We'll see. I really hope someone gives him a chance, They wouldn't be sorry."
Posted in Colony High football, Josh Thompson, Uncategorized	| Leave a reply
Colony football team aiming to defend Central title
Posted on July 8, 2015 by Michelle Gardner
Some say it's harder to stay at the top than get to the top. Count Colony High School football coach Steve Randall among those who agrees.
"You're on everyone's radar when you're the defending champion," he said. "We're not going to sneak up on anyone."
Well the Titans (12-2) are confronting the challenge of defending head on. They're playing as tough a non-league schedule as you'll see so they should be prepared by the time Mt.Baldy League play rolls around.
The Titans graduated 30 or so seniors, with a dozen of those being significant impact players.
Leading the returning cast is senior quarterback Josh Thompson, who has thrown for 4,465 yards and 37 touchdowns in the last two years. He separated his shoulder later in the regular season and was thought to be lost for the season only to return for the title game against Los Altos.
"He worked really hard in the off-season to get stronger," Randall said. "He has looked good. We're looking for more good things out of him this season."
Some of the other vital cogs in the offense are gone. Look for Fred Harrison to shoulder some of the load carried by the departed Ryan Kinard with Tyrone Hatchett pitching in as well. Senior Tre Bland and sophomroe newcomer Oscar Noyola will be among the big bodies up front clearing the way.
Hugo Malana and Marcos Valencia headline the receiving core.
The offense will be a bit different this season. Chalk that up to the departure of offensive coordinator Kevin Davis who left for the head position at Etiwanda.
Randall says his team will not go up-tempo all the time as it did last year. Instead it will pick and choose its spots. Thompson will also be more over center as opposed to in shotgun formation.
"I like going up-tempo but it hurt as at times," Randall said. "So we'll be more conventional at times."
Randall singles out the defensive line as the team's strong suit. Returner Tyrique Faatiglia will head the effort along with a couple of newcomers in junior Jacob Chagolla.
Other key defenders include defensive back Khalil Dorsey, who had 11 interceptions last year, as well as newcomer Dallas Trena and linebacker Elijah Arellano.
The Titans begin defense of their title on Aug. 28 with an opener at West Covina, a foe that made it to the second round of the playoffs a year ago.
Josh Thompson to get start for Colony in title game
Posted on December 4, 2014 by Michelle Gardner
Colony football coach Steve Randall and offensive coordinator Kevin Davis had a huge decision on their hands this week as the Titans prep for the CIF title game against Los Altos on Saturday at Cerritos College.
The debate? Which quarterback to go with in the big game. The options – junior Josh Thompson the starter as a sophomore as well as this year until he sustained a broken collarbone in the ninth game of the regular season.
Or senior Jordan Johnson, who took over when Thompson got injured and did an admirable job getting his team to the title game.
Randall ended the speculation, saying on Thursday it would be Thompson, although there would be some packages in which Johnson would also be in.
It was the right decision. If your starter is ready to play you go with him. He was the starter for a reason.
Thompson played the second half of last week's game which helped shake off the rust and probably made the decision this week easier.
The good news for the Titans? They have a game sharp backup that is prepared if necessary.
Both quarterbacks have handled the situation with class, each helping the other for the betterment of the team.
Here's what each had to say earlier this week when the job was up for grabs.
Posted in Colony High football, Jordan Johnson, Josh Thompson	| 1 Reply
Colony quarterback Josh Thompson likely done for season
The Colony High School football team is ranked No. 2 in the Central Division and was hopeful for another extended playoff run this season. But those hopes took a hit when junior quarterback Josh Thompson sustained a broken collarbone in Thursday's 35-17 Mt. Baldy League win over Don Lugo.
The injury happened on the first drive but Thompson tried to play through another before telling his coaches he didn't feel right.
"It was a play he got hit on but it wasn't some bone-crushing it or anything like that," Titans coach Steve Randall said. "It didn't seem like a big deal."
Thompson was the leading passer in the area, having thrown for 1,903 yards and 14 touchdowns with four interceptions. He has run for another 106 yards and six touchdowns.
If there is a silver lining , it is that senior backup Jordan Johnson got almost a full game in and directed the team to a win. The Titans close out the regular season next week against Montclair which doesn't mean much since the Titans clinched a league title last night.
No one had heard of Thompson last year when he took over for an injured Jonathan Trucks.
Johnson had been battling Thompson for the backup role last year so he is a veteran in the program.
Randall is now glad his team played on Thursday so his team has a couple days to regroup. He said he won't change anything with a different quarterback in charge.
"I just don't believe that's the best thing to do," he said. "We have a couple days to collect ourselves and get ready. Injuries happen. They're part of the game."
Posted in Colony High football, Colony High School, Josh Thompson	| Leave a reply


I've been back home living with my parents for about 10 months now, so almost a year. While it's nice to be back around my family and not being limited to seeing them like a once month, there are some drawbacks. One of them is the things you start to realize you can't do anymore or that you don't have control over because it's not your house or space.
I am a mixture of independent and dependent. There are certain things that without someone around to remind me or force me to do, wouldn't get done. Things like scheduling doctor's appointments, going to Secretary of State before my license expires, having my car looked at, etc. However, I'm not someone who wants someone else to have a say or control over my life or decisions. Even though I like getting other peoples opinions and advice I don't want to ever feel like i have to take it. I also really need my personal space. While I have never, so far had a place of my own, I've at least come close. I mean there's a big difference between living with your family and living with a friend in an apartment or sharing a dorm room in college.
Anyway, here are some of things that I had taken for granted and now have to learn to deal without.
Grocery Space: When I was living in a one bedroom apartment with a college colleague after graduation it was, obviously, just the two of us. We bought our own groceries and we only had to worry about each other using the space. At my parent's house, the fridge is housing groceries for the whole family and my dad caters so when he has an event the fridge and freezer are stuffed to the max. The problem I have is that even on days where I kind of feel like picking up some of my own groceries, I can't always because the fridge is full of stuff I can't eat. Thankfully my parents are fine with feeding me and my mom, when she can, will sometimes pick me up some gluten free food, but you know there are just days were I wish I could go and buy a bunch of stuff that I wanted. You know?
Privacy: This is a big one. It probably wouldn't be that big a deal if i had a real room. My room is just a slightly sectioned off space in our upstairs. In a way I share a room with my little sister but her section is kind of in a little alcove but there are no doors. The only part of the upstairs that has a door is the bathroom and my parent's room. This makes privacy very difficult.
Clothes: I will be very upfront and say that whenever I had my previous homes to myself, because my roommates were gone, I would walk around in whatever I wanted. Whether that was just a long shirt and nothing else, just my undergarments, or whatever. But that's kind of hard to do now, and I feel weird doing it even when I'm the only one home.
Personal Space: This is kind of in line with the privacy thing, the only difference being that even if I had a room to myself it wouldn't necessarily fix the personal space issue. I am very protective of my bubble. I don't like people invading my space, I don't like people touching me, I don't like being interrupted when I'm in the middle of something, and all of these things happen a lot at home. They happen elsewhere too, but home should be the one place it doesn't.
Bed Time: I am a night owl. Always have been and always will be. I like staying up late, that's usually when I feel inspired and get the most done. However, the problem is that since my room is right next to my sister's and we don't have doors, I feel bad staying up late because I don't want to disturb her. Plus it's just difficult because I have to do things without a light, or feel like I have to be super quiet, and it just hampers my style.
Music: I like blaring my music. Whether it's in the car, my room or just the house period. I especially like doing this when I'm doing chores. Problem is my parents aren't a huge fan of that and they don't really approve of my music choices so I can't really blare it through the house when they're around.
I really don't mean to complain, that's not my purpose. I knew when I moved back home that I would be giving up certain comforts, it's just tough sometimes.