gui bonsiepe

Our last interview brought us to La Plata a city, 60 km southeast of Buenos Aires to visit Gui Bonsiepe, who graduated at the Hochschule für Gestaltung Ulm in Germany. Since 1968 he has been living in Southamerica working in programms for the developement of industrial design. He has been teaching as a professor in several latinamerican and european universities, for example the KISD in Cologne. He is an author of various books and essays since the mid 1970`s, for example »Democracy and Design« and the latest book, which he wrote with his partner Sivia Fernandez »Historia del Diseño en América Latina y el Caribe«. Together with Tomás Maldonado Gui represents the axis »Buenos Aires-Ulm-Zürich-Mailand« who had an important influence on the developement of Argentinian design. Hence it was indispensable to talk to Gui and get to know more about design history and his experiences in South America.

It was probably the most unusual interview we had, starting with a big »parilla« in the countryside together with Gui and Silvia, Germaine Bonifacio and Professor Heiner Jakob.

doma

Today we`ve been to galeria turbo again, this time to catch up with the guys from the collective doma who are running the gallery: Matias Vigliano, Julian Pablo Manzelli, Orlio Blandini, and Mariano Barbieri. The collective was founded in 1998 by different personalities with different skills. Hence it was possible to work in a broad field of distinctive domains, such as streetart, motion graphics, film, toydesign and vj performances. Their artistic works always have a social or political background and sense while using graphic design as a tool to develope them.

»Roni to the Rescue« was a project doma initiated as a reaction towards the Argentinian crisis in 2001 when in two weeks 5 different presidents were nominated.

One of the several actions the doma collective did in the streets to arouse reactions from the people passing by.

ronald shakespear

It was a pleasure to get to know Ronald Shakespear, founder of Diseño Shakespear (www.shakespearweb.com). Today Ronald is heading the studio together with his two sons, Lorenzo and Juan and they are celebrating the studio`s 50th birthday this year. Besides others, the studio was crucial for the development of Argentinian design and also for the face of the City Buenos Aires. To name just a few examples: they designed the way finding system and branding for the underground (SUBTE), the Temaikén Biopark, the Municipal Hospitals signage and more than 1.600 corporate identities, including Banco Galicia, Duty Free Shop, Luigi Bosca and more. A selection of their works can be seen in Ronald`s latest book »Señal de Disño«. In 2008 the Society for Environmental Graphic Design (www.robert1peters.com) has honoured Ronald with the SEGD Fellow Award.

Design by Juan, Lorenzo and Ronald Shakespear

gferna

Behind the name Gferna hides this young successful web designer Guillermo Damián Fernández. One of his first sites was the

Blue Vertigo project which is a rich source for designers searching for anything. The platform presents links to pages offering free fonts, logos, sounds or whatever a designer might need.

Guillermo showing us a website he did for Coca Cola, a dream project for him which he already could fullfill.

Besides designing websites he also likes to draw and illustrate.

daniel wolkowicz

Friday morning we had a very long and interesting conversation with Daniel Wolkowicz. He is professor for design at the FADU-UBA, Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, Universidad ORT in Uruguay and at the Universidad Maimonides. Besides his impressing academical engagement Daniel works in editorial and corporate design and founded his own publishing company called »Wolkowicz Editores«.

One of Daniel`s current projects is the designing of catalogues for the regulary changing art exhibitions at the gallery »Espacio«.

Santorini is one of Daniel`s more ancient but very successful projects. He created the product design company`s corporate design. Here we can see a collection of postcards showing different designers who worked for Santorini.

cinco

Today we got to know the three sympathetic members of Cinco, Loly Carnero, Mariano Sigal and Sebastian Sigal. The three have been working in different fields of design for big advertising companies until they founded their own collective Cinco. Within their collective they focus on taking enough time for each project to become a unique work and to use the computer as less as possible. Cinco works in various diciplines: film, photography, graphic design, illustration and modern arts as the three of them combine different knowledges and skills.

A poster showing some of Cinco`s multidisciplinary projects.

One of our favourites: »papel y grasa«

cristian turdera

Today we interviewed Cristian Turdera, a well known Argentinian illustrator and Art Director at Pequeño Editor. His striking illustrations have often been published being part of books for children and adults. His work can currently be seen in his exhibition »Golem« at

Sapo Galeria.

We met Cristian at his cozy home where he lives and works.

The illustration for »La Reina Mab« are based on William Shakespeare`s poem »The Veil of Queen Mab« from Romeo and Juliet.

punga

Tomas Dieguez from studio Punga took an hour of his few time for an interview with us. Punga is a collective of artists who specialized successfully in animation and branding, creating global campaigns, advertising work and music videos.

One of the main actors of a Coca Cola advertising spot that Punga developed.

Punga`s real boss: »El Jefe«.

ale paul

In the morning we visited Graphic and Type Designer Ale Paul at his studio. He has designed a huge amount of fonts and letterings for packaging design and is one of the Sudtipo founders, the first Argentinian type foundry collective.

Ale`s desktop showing a complicated looking font design programm.

Semilla, one of Ale`s elegant and playful script types.

rubén fontana

It was a big pleasure to talk to Rubén Fontana, one of the most important Argentinian Designers who had a big influence and impact on the development of Argentinian Design. Rubén who also raised up the typographic department at the University of Buenos Aires, is Typographer and Creator of several fonts. During the now thirty years of his studio Fontana Diseño he and his team worked on several corporate identities for Argentinian companies like for example the »Telecom«.

Fontana Diseño also worked on a new identity for the products of the brand »Casalta«.

dosve

We spent this Friday afternoon with the Dosve team and interviewed its founder and General Creative Director Fernanda Valentini and Creative Director Vanessa Souss about their work and Argentinian Design. Dosve works mainly on Motion Graphics. Their work catches your eye through its imaginative handmade style.

»Paka Paka« is one of the biggest projects Dosve has been working on. During the project the Dosve team developed a new Branding for the Argentinian TV channel »Canal Encuentro« besides various openings and promotional works, all made with stop motion technique.

nasa*

We met Hernan Mariano Lombardo at his shop Love you* which is situated in Palermo. The shop is not just a shop it serves as a platform for the various things Hernan is involved with. It is his studio Nasa*, the boutique for his own fashion label Puta and also provides a gallery for various artists. Hernan, who studied Design and Architecture, creates Interior Designs for shops, Fashion, Graphics and Arts. The most important inspiration he finds in music.

cabina

Today we visited the Cabina, studio for Communication Design which is headed by Carolina Mikalef and Coni Luna. The studio offers a broad spectrum of Design works such as Signs, Corporate, Editorial and Graphic Design.

As you can see a lot is going on in the Cabina.

Cabina also created the new Country Brand, the »Marca Argentina« which represents Argentina in the world.

colorium

We met Florence Kohan at her sympathetic little studio where the Colorium team consisting of Flor, Melissa Scheinkmann and Marcos Farina developes its playful works.

The studio works on graphic design, illustration art, editorial design, animation, scenography and branding for TV and theatre.

»Renata« is a serie of books that Colorium illustrated and designed for kids.

An example for the playful and imaginative illustration style that typifies Colorium.

sergio manela

We spent the afternoon at Sergio Manela`s house learning a lot about Argentinian Graphic Design and its history. Sergio who is Designer and Professor at the same time is famous for his book covers and calligraphic works. He also works on Brandings, Corporate Design, Posters and Guidance Systems.
The tools on his desktop tell about Sergio`s passion for Calligraphy.

»Tierra del Fuego« is a project Sergio worked on together with a Journalist an a Photographer telling the story of Fireland.

laura varsky

We interviewed Laura Varsky, another multitalented Designer and Illustrator who specialized in Art Works, Editorial Design and Typography. Her works vary from playful imaginative illustrations to clean typographic works.

No wonder that her cats inspired her for many works.

»Verdesolar« is a combination of both of her subjects Illustration and Editorial Design.

christian montenegro

It was very interesting to get to know the person behind those illustrations. Christian Montenegro is an illustrator who developed his certain style which drew from German Expressionism. His works are always based on texts and developed elaborately, planned in each detail.

»Leucrocottas« from the serie » Imaginary Beings«

Illustration of a city serie.