cuboctaedro.eu

The Blogger’s philosophy

Dimitris — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 13:27:47 +0000

I have
nothing to say
and
I am saying it.

John Cage – Lecture on Nothing, 1949

Minimum Dwelling

Dimitris — Mon, 24 May 2010 17:30:00 +0000

This book presents architectural and artistic projects exploring the idea of minimum dwelling space. The projects include some practical and some conceptional proposals. Most of the research for the book was done by the publisher. My part was to make the final selection of the more than 60 projects that were included and develop the layout. Most of the projects are given 4 pages with the first page containing the main text.
The format of the book is square (22 x 22 cm) and it has 300 pages. The layout is based on a 12 x 12 grid that gives a great flexibility for different image sizes. The book was published simultaneously in three languages.

Without the photos

Dimitris — Mon, 24 May 2010 16:34:30 +0000

A board used for years for hanging photographs after the photographs are taken out.

Science Fiction calendar 2010

Dimitris — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 17:13:16 +0000

An A3 wall calendar with a science fiction theme. Apart from holidays for quite a lot of countries and astronomical events the calendar contains many science- and SF-related anniversaries (birthdays of authors and scientists, scientific events, first screenings of important movies, etc). It is printed on 50 copies on 250gr paper. You can buy this calendar here.

grayscale – reseach and editing

Dimitris — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:16:37 +0000

This is a mini-site for our new team “grayscale”. It is a one-page site with no CMS or navigation. Just one html, a simple style, a jQuery accordion and a nice tilling background.
Visit site: grayscale.

Event Art

Dimitris — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 09:38:46 +0000

This book presents the recent work of architects, designers and artists in the field of installation and ephemeral design. It includes more than 60 projects by artists and architects like Zaha Hadid, UN Studio, Olafur Eliasson and NOX. Most of the research was done by the publisher and my work was to organize the material and prepare the layout. The projects are of various kinds incuding funcional temporary constructions, artistic installations and student projects.
The book has 300 pages, a square format (22×22 cm) and has been published simultaneously in five languages. The layout is based on a 12 x 12 grid place asymmetrically on the page to allow for the footer and a sufficient margin at the spine.

Ina Cotsou – Graphic Designer

Dimitris — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 12:16:58 +0000

This is a web site for a graphic designer’s portfolio. The layout was developed in collaboration with Ina Cotsou. The goal was to create a minimal layout that could work as a frame for presenting a variety of works in many formats. The site uses Wordpress as a CMS and is completely bilingual with the use of Language Switcher plug-in. The jQuery library is used for the image galleries.
Visit Site: Ina Cotsou.

Frankfurt Book Fair 2009

Dimitris — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 11:09:58 +0000

The official stand of China

The stand of Latvia

The graphics from the Italian stand

The logo of Denmark and an illustration from Cato Thau-Jensen

The stand of Taschen

One graphic from the stand of Leya. Made only with letters.

A detail from another letter-image from Leya

Demonstrations of letterpress and linocut.

Frank Schaetzing posing for the photographers

I just came back to Berlin from the Frankfurt Book Fair. It was very interesting although trying to see everything in three days left me quite exhausted. According to those who have been visiting for years attendance this year was quite low. I also saw much less new titles than I expected. It seems that the whole publishing section is not moving much because of the crisis, however things are not catastrophic.

The Guest of Honor for this year was China and they made a presentation that I did not found very impressing. Much more interesting was the presence of Chinese publishers at the art and design section. There are many of them and they had some really good books.

One of the stands that i really liked was Latvia. Very small but beautiful. it was made only from corrugated cardboard and the same material was used for business cards and many other things. They also had some very nice magazines and catalogues.

Italy had one of the most beautiful and eye-catching graphics but not much else.

Denmark had a very interesting stand dedicated to illustrated children books. Beautiful children books were also presented by some Asian countries (I realize now I don’t have any photos of them, I don’t know how I managed not to take any).

Of course all the big publishers had made huge stands but not really special in terms of design. Actually some small and middle-size publishers had some much more interesting stands and banners. One of the most beautiful was the graphics from the Portuguese publishers Leya (I don’t know who made them unfortunately).

The Art Books section had a beautiful exhibition of hand-made prints and some demonstrations of printing techniques. Letterpress, linocuts and other techniques, but not screen printing

There were also lots of interviews and presentations of authors. I didn’t watch any but i happen to pass by as Frank Schätzing was finishing the presentation of his new book (which sounds quite interesting for science fiction fans) and took a photo while he was posing for the media.

Robert Venturi house on the road

Dimitris — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 13:20:17 +0000

The Lieb House designed by Robert Venturi and Denisse Scott Brown in 1967 is being moved to a new location. It was threatened with demolition when the land where it stood was sold. Some friends of the Venturis manage to buy it (for 1 dollar) and now they are moving it from New Jersey to Glen cove, New York to use it as a guest house.

In that case we have to do with a rescue operation but the idea of someone buying a famous building and relocating it for a different use could create some quite surreal situations like the Bauhaus building used as a hotel on a tropical beach or the Villa Savoye relocate in the desert of Dubai. I’m not sure I want to see it happen with these buildings but I wouldn’t mind if some “iconic” stuff form Potsdamer Platz was taken away.

You can read the details of the story in Architectural Record and Fantastic Journal. More images here.

Koolhand, architectural font by Fwis

Dimitris — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 12:44:19 +0000

Fwis (Chris Pasadero) has create a typeface based on the work of Rem Koolhaas and OMA. Although not the most legible typeface, it is quite interesting as an experiment and may even be used somewhere. You can download it for free (as EPS) here.

Cuboctaedro set in Koolhand

I gave it a try with the word Cuboctaedro and it came out quite nice.