The Selection Committee of the Croatian Designers Association 1718 decided on three nominees for the Grand Prize of the Croatian Designers’ Association. The Grand Prize winner will be selected by the international jury, and the decision will be announced at the opening of the Exhibition 1718 on October 25, 2018 at the Museum of Arts and Crafts.
The selection committee has nominated three projects that have achieved noticeable effects and positive shifts in the social, cultural and economic context in the past two years, and the international Jury will decide on the first-placed project in October 2018. The nominees are:
Basics of creating a typeface
Authors: Frank E. Blokland, Nikola Đurek
Project description: The book was created in collaboration of two different authors of somewhat different generations, from different social contexts and typographical traditions – one from the Netherlands and the other from Croatia. The book is both a translation and an original. It started as a translation of the classical textbook of the Dutch typographic school, it was upgraded and supplemented with the results of Đurek’s researches and the perception of the specificity of typographical writing of the Croatian language. In addition to designers and design students, it is intended for anyone interested in the history of writing and typography, as well as calligraphy.
Visitors center Mali Arsenal
Authors: Iva Letilović, Igor Pedišić + Vladimir Končar
Project description: Mali Arsenal (Little Arsenal) is a protected monument of culture, part of the medieval Zadar castle, a separate fortification structure incorporated into the city walls system. Through conservation activities in 2017, the Arsenal became a center for visitors and a starting point for exploring and visiting Zadar’s fortification system. Conservation requirements prescribed the possibility of minimal architectural intervention, therefore multimedia was included as an equal spatial element. The interior space of the Little Arsenal has two modes of appearance: the one where multimedia is present and the space is dematerialized and invisible, and the one where the space is visible with all the preserved historical layers. When entering, the space is darkened, a large projection starts against a vertical glass, and an interactive projection on a horizontal glass plate above the former canal. At the end of the projection the lights go on, the multimedia disappears and the projection surfaces become empty slates, and the presence of the new is almost invisible.
Family hotel Amarin
Design: Damir Gamulin
Copywriting: Nenad Vukušić Sebo
Architecture: Studio UP – Lea Pelivan, Toma Pleić
Client: Maistra d.d. Rovinj
Project description: Spatial graphics and signaling of the Amarin Family Hotel are based on the idea that graphics and words as a communication layer of a family hotel should be directed to adults and children who perceive things differently than adults. Designed as a “hotel that talks”, Amarin communicates with guests through an upgrade to the standard notification system with an experiential dimension. In order for the children to feel that the hotel is theirs as well, two parallel signaling and activation channels were created. It speaks to adults with intimate text, and to children with a visual language of simple geometric forms that call for active participation and discovery of space. Graphical and linguistic identity is shaped by the principle of double encoding of information that direct but also open the way to imagination.
