p r a g u e . b l a g u e

end of the semester.

It feels like I just did my 2/3 of the semester post, but seeing as this is the last week of class, I guess it's time for my post about the last third of the semester.

What happened to our time here? It just completely flew by. I'm totally shocked that it's time to go home already. The semesters in Raleigh seem excruciatingly longer by comparison. I guess our semester here is two or three weeks shorter by comparison, but still. I'm so not ready for the end! I want to finish my typeface and I want to have more time on my archive project, but mostly I want to stay in Prague longer. This weekend was so beautiful, the warm weather finally got here just as we are going to be leaving.

I feel like I've changed a lot this semester. I think I've grown up a lot, with dealing with money and being so far away from home, and I've learned so much from my experience here. I feel a lot more worldly. I think it's going to be really hard to go back to Raleigh. I'm ready to move on and go to a new place, and being stuck in Raleigh for another year is going to be a drag. I hope I won't get scared about leaving home all over again. Though I don't think I will, I think I'll spend next year anticipated leaving. This semester has allowed me to feel a lot more comfortable about the idea of leaving college and being on my own.

So now I'm left wondering, how weird will things be when we get home? I know I've changed, and I'll bet that my friends have too, I wonder if our reunion will be ackward. And I know when people ask me how my trip was, I'll just say 'amazing,' and that will be that, because I won't be able to describe to them how incredible this trip has been. But it's okay, because I know I won't ever forget. I'll just encourage anyone considering studying abroad to do it, because it's totally worth it.

In terms of design, I think meeting with the Berlin designers was super cool and gave me an idea of what I would like to strive towards. To meet young and fresh designers trying to establish themselves was really inspiring. I think also that doing projects that aren't necessarily catagorized as graphic design helped me to realize where my passion truly lies. These projects were much more different/open than some of my previous projects, and required a bit more thinking. I think getting that kind of experience was beneficial, moving toward real world experience, which we all really need. I'm really excited about our studio next semester, which is supposed to be geared toward those real world projects. I think my favorite project this semester was the typeface design. That opened a new window I want to explore in more detail in the future.

In conclusion, I can say that this last third of the semester, I have felt more at home in Prague than ever. We don't need maps, we can semi speak the language [kind of], we know the rules and traditions. When we help people find their way on the metro or laugh at the girl trying to get free tap water, I feel like I've really adapted to this culture and connected with this place. And it feels good.

Ziegler poster show

Zdenek Ziegler's poster show was pretty cool. Mostly I couldn't believe he did all that by hand. That would be ridiculous. I thought it was interesting that he was an architect and a typographer/poster designer, those disciplines seem so different. I think it would be more fun to design foreign film posters, because you have more freedom to be creative, as you don't have to worry about portraying the famous actors.

I also super loved the book store we went to, those books were completely amazing. I wanted all of them.

Here are a few of my favorite posters from the show:

digital digital getdown

Here are the changes in my typeface as of April 9th.
The first image is of my new iterations, the second is how the alphabet looked last thursday.
I still have a lot of tweaking to do [I like my old W better] but I think the system is more cohesive now.

project four results [chess set]

Here are my final renderings for my Communist v. Bohemian Prague chess set. I'm pretty happy with the outcome, I just wish I was able to render the pieces in a 3-D form.

archives at museum of decorative arts

Wow, the stuff in the archives was really cool. Or beautiful, as Eva would say.

I was really excited to see the large Metron type samples. It was my typeface from our postcard type examination activity, and I've been noticing it a lot in the metros since. Having already studied it pretty thoroughly, it was really nice to see the letters big and presented in that way. [when I studied the postcard sample, I had to squint to notice the angle differentiations, but they were much more obvious at a larger size.] Pretty much I'm kind of in love with it.

The books were really good as well. I liked the texture of the cover of the 60's books; I think she said the material was made especially for those books. I hadn't ever really considered creating a new material for the cover of a book, but it was really nice and tied the group together well. It was stronger and more durable than paperback, but still flexible, making it better than both paperback and hardback. Ingenious. I also really enjoyed the design of the 80's books, and the sleeve to hard cover relationships. [Like the first three pictures below.] They were really fun and smart and beautiful.

The hand done things were really amazing to me, I can't imagine having that kind of craft. Typesetting by hand would be so horrible. And the hand painted book cover mockups were really beautiful. It's always really exciting when you make the realization that something that looks so perfect that you assume it has to have been done on the computer is actually done by hand. I'm pretty sure I would be a horrible graphic designer if I had to have such impeccable craft. Hooray for computers. But things are so much more precious when the are done by hand, because the time and effort is evident and they are unreproducible.

And of course the children's science book was amazing. I don't even know what to say about it other than I want one.

The Japanese poster show was also really cool. I thought it was interesting how the goal was to have "no type of information be inferior to another." The concept of doing away with hierarchy never really occurred to me before as a positive thing. But as we saw, it can be a good thing, if done well.

It was a really cool visit and I was really glad we got to see and touch the things. Looking at everything behind glass would have been a bummer. Thanks Eva!

communism museum

I don't know how many people other than Kyle have been to the communism museum, but it's pretty interesting. I went to do research for my Communist set of pieces, because I was a bit stuck. I think going there helped me resolve one of my pieces, but a couple of the others still have issues. I think I'm going to make the bishop be Karl Marx, because the communist ideals were based off of his writings and obsolete economic theories about how the life of the whole society should revolve around industrial production.

One of the most interesting things I learned at the museum dealt with the money. After Stalin's death, the relaxed condition of the socialist camp's purely ideological aspects gave way to pragmatism. In 1957 a "second currency" was introduced to allow the privileged class to purchase foreign goods. This foreign currency was called Tuzex crowns, and though it had the same value as Czech crowns, it was worth five times more because it could be traded for inaccessable goods in special shops. 160 Tuzex could be traded on the black market for 800 Czech crowns.

Something that I found upsetting was how much the industrialization damaged the health of the people and the environment. Mining for raw materials turned forests into wastelands, and the pollution from all the factories killed even more forests. The soil was damaged and the underground water was contaminated. A large number of small wildlife species were exterminated, and the average human lifespan was five years less than it was in democratic countries at the time [it increased quickly after the fall of Communism].

Though the museum could use a makeover, it was really interesting to learn about how things were. I recommend you go if you haven't! [it is a tad expensive though, 140 kc]

two months, two thirds of the semester.

Time for update 2 on my time in Prague so far.

After this month's excursions, I think my perception of Prague has changed quite a bit. Now that I feel more comfortable and know my way around, it seems smaller, especially in comparison to Berlin and Barcelona. Now it feels comparable to Charlotte, with a small and exciting downtown and lots of suburbs. And living here feels a lot more normal. I mean, it's still exciting, but in a more laid back way, if that makes sense. I don't feel as pressed to see and do as much as possible, but just hang out and live here as I would back home.

I really enjoyed this month's traveling to Cesky Krumlov, Kutna Hora, Barcelona, and Berlin. Each place is different and unique. I think maybe Berlin was my favorite, it reminded me of San Francisco [my dream home] with all the cool cafes and stores and trendiness. But I think I'm glad we're living in Prague instead, because it is more different than Raleigh, and I've really enjoyed that experience.

I think I'm going to be ready to go home when it's time. I really like it here, but the initial excitement of being someplace new has worn off some and I miss my friends and family. Also I've been making plans about where I'm living this summer and what classes I'm taking, so I've kind of been drawn back to the real world. [sadly.]

After visiting the studios in Berlin, I'm kind of pumped about doing graphic design. They gave me hope that someday I'll also be able to open my own cute studio and give cheese straws to students. I think it was really good for me, to see them and be envious, because I'm feeling nervous about our approaching graduation and it gives me something to look foreward to/work toward. I'd never really visited a graphic design studio before, and I really enjoyed talked to everyone we met. I need to get my head out of the clouds and I think it was good for me to hear the part about doing not so fun corporate projects in order to also be able to do fun things.

So now I guess it's time to buckle down and get some work done, we have four more weeks [a digitized typeface and two projects, yikes] and then I'm off to Italy! I'm interested to see how the last leg of this trip compares, especially if a large portion of it is going to be spent working. [And looking stylish in my hip Berlin clothes!]

berlin street art

so amazing.

organic + digital = ? [nicole's type]

chess

For my souvenier project, I wanted to focus on creating something that was useful and particular to Prague. Of the souveniers out there at the markets, the things that I find most engaging are the chess sets, because chess is a game that people of different cultures and language barriers can all enjoy. However, the styles of chess sets seen on the markets in Prague are identical to the ones we saw in Krakow; though their designs are unique, they are particular to a wide range of places in Eastern Europe, not just Prague. My idea was to design a chess set that spoke specifically about Prague and it's history. Designed maybe not for a visitor of just a few days or a week, but the visitor that stays long enough to get a feel for Prague.

My proposed souvenier would be bought in pieces; you would buy the board and then have different options for which pieces you wanted. I would want for there to be different sets, each speaking of a different time in Czech history, to be purchased and set against each other. The sets I actually plan on designing for this project are Bohemia and Communist Czechoslovakia. Other sets would include present day Czech Republic, Prague as a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Prague under German occupation, etc.

I've been doing a lot of researching about my chosen time periods, and also about the history of chess and what it's pieces stand for. I think it's really important for the pieces to be clear and not distracting so they can be used for play and not just show. I've considered the importance of how the queen is the most powerful and the king the least so, though the life force of the game. I decided to represent the ruler during the time period as the queen, being as they are the ones holding the power, and I expanded from there.

For the Bohemian set, the queen will be represented as the bird wearing a shield, the arms of Charles IV, considered the father of Bohemia. The king would be the crowned lion, representing the crest of Bohemia. The bishop will be represented by a chalice or a man holding a chalice, symbolizing Jan Hus and his fight against the Catholic church. The rook will be represented by the astronomical clock, very unique and particular to Prague [as the designer's eyes were gouged out so that he couldn't recreate it.] For the knight, I'm not completely sure, but I think I might use the Golem, the man of clay of Jewish folklore who comes to life to do the bidding of his master, a sort of robotic soldier. I wanted to represent the people of Bohemia as the pawns, in the shape of nesting dolls. Ideally I would like to individualize each one, and perhaps make two different rooks, knights, and bishops, though that might be unrealistic considering my time frame. In reading about the history of chess though, I found it particularly interesting how the bishops are referred to as "the king's bishop" and "the queen's bishop," and it would be fun to play on that, using the queen's bishop as the bishop of the country and the king's bishop would be the bishop of the government.

The Communist King would be represented by the hammer and sickle symbol of Communism placed on a pedestal, representing the spirit of Communism. The Queen would be Stalin, either identical to the gigantic statue of him that once stool in Letna Park overlooking the city, or perhaps him on a horse. The rook would be the Zizkov tower decorated with babies, standing for censorship. The bishop would be Jan Palach, the martyr who set himself on fire to shake his country into action. As the writers, artists, and intellects were the real warriors in the battle against Communism, I would like th represent them as the knights, though I'm not sure how yet. The pawns I would want to represent the working man, ideally having each one be a different sort of factory worker. The style of the Communist set I want to be cubic and simple, similar to the communist architecture found throughout the city. In contrast, I would want the Bohemian style to be more organic and detailed, reminiscent of the art and design of that time period.

Things I have yet to decide are the materials and the design of the board, and whether I want to have a booklet describing each set. And of course I have to design each piece. So looks like I have a lot of work to do!