Bantjes at Bay
By megan dealSeptember 30th, 2007
By: Megan Deal
Sitting inside Bowling Green State University’s Olscamp Hall, we anxiously awaited Marian to “take the stage,” and deliver for us a mystifying lecture on life, love, and pursing design bliss. That she did. In a typical University lecture environment, complete with rows of gradually descending chairs that magically become desks, Marian engaged her student audience for a solid 90 minutes. The Vancouver residing designer was, to my surprise, a very dynamic speaker, telling the individual story of each piece as it appeared on screen. It quickly became apparent that Bantjes has a profound attachment to her work, though she discussed each piece in a very modest way – an approach that I found to be quite refreshing. Referring to her winning t-shirt design for a Speak-Up competition, (the victory she deems responsible for her growing success), Marian states that “It (being the design) won the competition.” She refers to the work itself as being the real winner, as opposed to saying “I won the competition”, or “MY design was the winner.” This unpretentiousness carried through her entire talk.
In fact, I believe that the designer’s positive attitude may have been the most useful thing for student audience members to take with them. Marian possesses a very grounded outlook, despite her growing success within the design community. Her sense of curiousity and wonderment towards new creative endeavors is an attitude that students can relate to and learn from. As she displays on screen a line of type, set completely in sugar, Marian encourages students to test out their ideas for themselves, trying everything once and not limiting means of discovery. Her best advice: “Keep moving in a direction that you feel is right, and hope that people will follow.”
More on Marian at: http://www.bantjes.com/
The presentation sounds interesting and I wish I could have made it. Anyway, her work is definitely worth checking out. I strongly encourage anyone who hasn’t been to her site to give it a visit, especially if you love type.
Marian Bantjes. I love her. Her work is beautiful typography mixed with organic, intricate forms. I respond strongly to the hand crafted quality of her work as well. It was interesting to hear about how a friend and her started a company, but after 9 years, she decided to “get in touch with her more artistic side.” I think most designer forget the fact that they were an artist first and that the fundamentals of art make design more impressive and unique, yet Bantjes decides to embrace it. So, I see Bantjes as one who that really pushes the form and has the confidence to admit she is not a conceptual designer, but a visual one at that.
Bantjes talked about one project specifically that was introduced to her by design rockstar, Stefan Sagmeister. The project was to make type with one of Sagmeister’s sayings being, “If you want to explore a new direction professionally, it is helpful to try it out for myself first.” She had been wanting to use sugar as a medium; therefore, she generated this statement all in sugar. She stressed the importance of sometimes doing something first for yourself to see if other things an evolve from it. I think this is a positive step in the direction design should proceed to move because it twists the mundane and adds new depth. She has other incite that could be addressed in detail; however, the main points were that she tended to have this excitement for design that one does not see often. She forces herself sit down and complete her ideas even if deadlines are unrealistic. She hand crafted 150 Valentines because she was involved in excessive traveling. She worked with Sacks Fifth Avenue to create a new visual identity that was transformed into large plastic structures, carpet, signage, etc. In both cases, she was in awe of the results, or at least presented the experience with a shocking tone.
Overall, Marian Bantjes has great character and an inspiring take on attacking design. And I cried the entire lecture. joke.
She sounds like an excellent speaker, I really wish I had gone. I think that her advice to “Keep moving in a direction that you feel is right,” is excellent. There is a certain point when critiques may turn from good feedback to personal opinions and one thing that really frustrates me is when someone comes to class and says right out that they don’t even like their design refinements and than they will try to justify the bad design decision by saying that last class Mr. Whoever told them that they liked purple better than green or something ridiculous like that. Yes, we still need to listen to other peoples opinions but than we need to turn their views into a direction that we still feel confident with.
It’s a beautiful thing when you can walk away from a lecture and appreciate not only the designer’s work and they’re philosophy on design, but also they’re personality. I would love to hear from more of these humble, enlightening designers, primarily on the female end.
I always loved the idea of Experimentation and play… and it seems that some people just forget that you can create so much from just playing around with an idea and just doing the craziest of things that might not make sense.
and her designs are so beautiful and of course the handcrafted look is just perfect! I’ve been working on my drawing skills as well as just using my hand in my projects so this is very interesting to me! Thanks!
She sounds like a person I would like very much! Positive people always rock
Now I am pretty bummed I wasn’t able to make it. Knowing how much I’d like to improve in the area of typography, I’ve been trying to immerse myself in all things type (well, as much as possible). The site looks very interesting and has been added to my bookmarks. Hearing designers speak has been less than thrilling for me. Maybe it’s the fact that I’m looking for more than they are willing to give, but in my experience it almost always becomes a commercial for their latest book or self-aggrandizing to the point that I just want out. I’d rather look through their website or read through their books on my own so that I can form my own opinions on them. For some reason it seems that after they speak, its ruins it for me. It’s kind of like reading a book and then watching the movie. Your mind creates the visuals, and the movie just destroys it.
On the other side of things, I like to learn about a designer and then find out other’s opinions on them as well. I just finished Sagmeisters book “Made you look” and I thought it was great. Through the entire book you had the third person narrative by Peter Hall, then you had Sagmeister’s personal commentary by reading pages from his journal that corresponded with the specific project at the time, and then there are also comments from outsiders that were involved in the project. I thought the book was great and many of the projects were neat, however I’d be interested to know what others thought of his work. Because as “innovative” as he seems(ed) to be, a lot of the work appears to be fluff, and many things seemed to be done “just because” without a real explanation as to how it helped the design etc.
So back to Marian; I’m glad that there are still people out there who let the design speak for itself, and don’t seem to be caught up in the hype of being a “super designer” and doing things “just because”. While we all have to do thing “just because” as part of process and to see what happens, I also think that there needs to be some meat behind it.
Marian
I wish could have made it to the lecture. Marian sounds like a really inspiring person. I like her comment on how “Keep moving in a direction that you feel is right, and hope that people will follow.” I’ve heard so many times that people should try and step outside of what they usually do to come up with new solutions to things and I think that quote goes along with it very well. Doing what you feel is right isn’t always what other people are going to like but I think we need to do this more often so we can get out of what we are used to seieng around us and experiment a little bit. That’s what I got out of it anyways.
Though I did not see I did enjoy Ellen Lupton recent appearance. I must say that I was pleasantly surprised with the interesting and witty presentation delivered by talented designer, author, artist, and teacher extraordinaire, Ellen Lupton. As those of you who attended know, Lupton recently appeared at the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor. This being my first attendance at an appearance for a known graphic designer, I was unprepared to see the sheer number of people that were in attendance at the quaint venue.
Lupton’s presentation was all about the good, bad and the ugly (but mostly about the ugly) of design. Using illustrated examples of these ugly designs on a projected PowerPoint display, Lupton proceeded with her funny anecdote on how she has become to hate nearly everything (from a design standpoint). All in all, I enjoyed the lecture and I think Lupton should add the title of “Funnylady” to her resume. She delivered relevant and insightful information, drawing on her years of experience teaching and practicing in the field of graphic design, and adding the spice of wit to add even more interest.
In response to Angbrown…
I was actually rather disappointed in Lupton’s lecture in Ann Arbor. It started off great, somewhat educational, very humorous. However, about half way through it turned into an advertisement for her latest book(s). I went into the Q&A afterwards and it seemed to turn into a Feminist I Love Martha Stewart rally. I guess that’s another case where I love the work, just like I loved reading the book, but then the seeing her in person (watching the movie) somewhat ruined it for me.
Whether Ellen’s lecture seemed dry or witty, it is important to know that she is a dominant female figure in the graphic design world. There are not many women who would freely discuss how to find the right bra in front of a mass of students. To add, a small group of us had the opportunity to have dinner with Ellen. She humor continue out of the lecture and into the restaurant as she refered to her steak dinner as “here comes my man’s meal” and then go call her mother a bitch within conversation.
She was great.
I came across Marian’s work online before I had any idea of who she was and have been interested in her work ever since. I wish I could have attended her lecture, it sounds like it was very inspiring to those who made it. I love that in her process she experiments with different materials and always has room to play. I found out my executions are always stronger when I begin testing and playing with everything that I see or can think of. Accumulating variaties of materials, textures, forms, colors and multiplying helps me develop ideas and visuals I normally wouldn’t just by sketching. I really enjoy Marian’s work and wish I didn’t miss the opportunity to learn more about the designer.
In response to Aubrey’s post #10…Its good to know what she was like in an intimate setting, and that she took the time to sit down with a few of you guys, I think thats great. Maybe she (along with sagmeister?) is one of those people I’d just like to sit down and pick their brains, or better yet, be a fly on the wall when they are working, just to observe.
http://ilovetypography.com/2007/10/19/ellen-lupton-the-movie/