The 384 page long volume "Sensing the Ocean", designed in large format by the graphic and communication designers Teresa Döge and Björn Schmidt, was recently awarded by the New Yorker Type Directors Club for excellent typography. The Type Directors Club, based in New York (USA), is the leading international organization for the promotion of excellent typographic works in the print and online sector.
The Muthesius publication will be shown on the occasion of the premiere of the current competition of the Directors Club 'The World's Best Typography' in the exhibition of the 64th Awards (TDC64) 2018 in New York City. Subsequently, it will be presented worldwide and additionally in the Annual of the Type Directors Club, "The World's Best Typography".
"Sensing the Ocean" documents ten years of artistic research of the Muthesius University of Fine Arts and Design in the Cluster of Excellence "The Future Ocean", a marine science research association. Communicative projects on key topics of Kiel research on ocean and climate change from the past ten years are documented in the impressively designed publication. "The information era also requires excellence in communication," explains Tom Duscher, professor for digital and interactive media at Muthesius University of Fine Arts and Design. The editors, authors and designers take the reader and observer on a trip through time, from the beginnings of the collaboration until today, report on large exhibition projects in Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and Kiel, the development of new artistic research institutions and provide insight into innovative and exciting visualizations. The contributions highlight the effect of newly developed groundbreaking formats of science communication from an artistic and a natural sciences perspective.
"These multimedia and three-dimensional projects require a translation into a book form, making the different works accessible to the reader. Since a full reproduction or reconstruction is not possible, the three projects on the topics exhibitions concepts, science visualization and film are represented in different ways. Rather than limiting itself to mere documentation, the design uses the medium of the book to create a new perspective on the projects through reflection and analysis. These stagings of spatiality, interactivity and temporality extend over several pages and constitute the core aspect of the publication. What they all have in common is the principle of enlargement. First, in the style of the illustration in atlases, an overview of the work is shown, the details are hardly discernible. Later, sections are shown at different zoom levels, the individual image, the detail view are placed in the spotlight," explain designers Böge and Schmidt.
Björn Schmidt works as a freelance communication designer in Kiel; he specializes in design of artists' books and catalogues. Teresa Döge studied at the Muthesius University of Fine Arts and Design and in Den Haag. She lives and works in Kiel as a graphic designer with a focus on typography.
Tom Duscher/Stephan Sachs/Manfred Schulz (Hrsg.), Sensing the Ocean. A Collaboration between Art, Design and Science. Revolver Publishing, Berlin. 2017. ISBN Hardcover: 978-3-95763-388-0
(With contributions by Tom Duscher, Martin Visbeck, Stephan Sachs, Manfred Schulz, Klaus Wallmann, Peter Friedrich Stephan, Ingrid Ernst, Norbert M. Schmitz, Julian Klein, Thomas G. Bosch, Johanna Barnbeck, Arne Zerbst, Rainer W. Ernst, Christian Engler and Tobias Hoss.)
About the background:
In 2006, it was still a coup within the science community: The Kiel Cluster of Excellence "The Future Ocean," a predominantly natural science research association, celebrated their success in the nation-wide excellence initiative together with the Muthesius University of Fine Arts and Design, as one of four partners, Kiel University (CAU), the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel and the Institute for the World Economy (IfW). The collaboration within the Cluster of Excellence "The Future Ocean" between marine scientists, communication designers, scenographers and film artists of the Muthesius University of Fine Arts and Design has made an impact in recent years – in many highly acclaimed exhibitions, new visual communication platforms and artistic films. Today, more than ten years later, the collaboration between art, design and science - not only in marine science - has long since secured a firm position within science communication.
Links
www.muthesius-kunsthochschule.de (about the Muthesius University of Fine Arts and Design)
https://www.tdc.org (about the Type Directors Club)
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