Graphic design represents that superlative form of communication that skilfully finds its place between the primary value of the written word in natural language and various visual and figural systems. In this way it occupies a broad field of expression in which the message is realised in an intersection of diverse semiotics, which through various contributions provide that fullness and multifaceted nature of the message, for which reason graphic design represents a privileged idiom of the modern day.
A condition determining such “eloquence” in visual communication is the simultaneous mastery of the rules of autonomous semiotic systems – from language in the narrow sense to the broad spectrum of artistic expression, illustration, photography and the possibilities of new media. The degree of directness in visualising ideas and concepts from the message in a design work vary and combine abstract methods, such as typography, with more concrete ones that allow for a direct narrative quality of a certain artistic idiom. Yet the starting point for the work of a graphic designer lies in the incisive conceptual basis, which must take into account complex parameters of the transfer of a formally uniform message into a visually more suggestive and complex web of symbols of differing origin.
Design is a reconstruction of parallel construction of a certain idea or narrative which, whenever it is truly successful, acquires its own value and is able to appropriately enhance the original context it is transmitting. An insight into the process of creating such visual messages will be offered by the exhibition Transformations (Transformacije), which showcases the most successful entries from graphic design students at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design (ALUO) in the competition for the visual image of the exhibition Trans: form – Action. Their designs and related processes present the message as the result of a successful merging of the material, visual, non-material and signifying sides of the sign, and the work of the designer as a masterful juggling between various visual systems and a knowledge of all the rules that are nevertheless successfully broken.
Authors: Ajda Auer, Dejan Batrićević, Pavo Bušić, Črt Mate, Sara Sešlar Naraks
Mentor: prof. Radovan Jenko
MGBS Curator: Vladimir Vidmar
Production: Academy of Fine Arts and Design, University of Ljubljana
Music performance accompanying the opening of the exhibition: Gašper Livk - contrabas and Neža Zupanc - flute, students at Academy of music, programme FriFormA\V
