2024
Graphic Designer of the Year
Laboratoř (Petr Babák, Lukáš Kijonka)
Graphic Designer of the Year
Laboratoř (Petr Babák, Lukáš Kijonka)
graphic design of the book Loutka mezi divadlem, filmem a televizí (Pavel Jirásek, JAMU – KANT)
It takes some time to rightly assess the visual styles of companies and institutions, because their implementation can often take several years. Therefore, only now was it the turn of the National Film Archive, the visual of which is, so to say, of typically "laboratory" character. At first sight, it is totally unclear why – since film is at stake here - it contains flowers, patterns and other mishmash. The concept begins slowly revealing itself only upon thorough investigation in the charge of Petr Babák, Jan Matoušek and Michal Krůl.
The starting subject is free associations related to collecting and inventorying, concentrated around several circles (flowers from a herbal, chemical formulas of viewers' emotions watching a film, inventory numbers of films deposited in the National Film Archive, portraits of masters-filmmakers). "All these LAYERS – because yes, FILING IS INDEED LAYERING – will be further appearing in all forms of the Archive's visual style," says one of the authors, Petr Babák.
The designers fiddled a lot with the conventions in developing corporate visual identities. No smooth static logo, no apposite visual style unambiguously expressing the institution's mission - but, on the contrary, layers of some kind of an archive "mess", which dynamically expands under the logo and makes sense only secondarily. This seeming chaos is nevertheless ruled by order in the minimalist typography, which even the employees can easily use in creating the widest range of applications (leaflets, invitations, posters and others).
The very signs of the Laboratoř [Laboratory] studio are indefiniteness and a certain visual provocation. Similar gestures represent a significant catalyst of changes in the field. We can either oppose them, or employ them as our source of inspiration. Only strong actions elicit reaction both among designers and clients. The acknowledgement belongs not only to Laboratoř, but also to the National Film Archive, without which the open system of dynamic visual identity would be impossible.
Kateřina Přidalová
