Graphic Design from Past to Present

This publication and exhibition plan is conceptually based on the previously realized project of Lada Hubatová-Vacková – Martina Pachmanová – Pavla Pečinková (eds.), Things and Words. Artistic Crafts, Applied Arts and Design in Czech Theory and Criticism 1870–1970, Praha: VŠUP 2014, which also used a book publication and accompanying exhibition to present the changes in Czech professional reflections on the disciplines specified in the title. A virtual exhibition on the project website, accompanied by a printed scholarly catalogue, will apply a parallel model in the area of Czech graphic design: presenting the changes in professional expertise regarding graphic design in the region from the 1870s up until the present. Part of the virtual exhibition will be primary texts addressing the multilayered and shifting body of professional practice and its critical reflection (typography, book design, decorative drawing, advertising, window arrangement, state propaganda, visual communication, digital media etc.). In the printed anthology, the textual material will be divided into four chronologically successive sections (1870–1918, 1918–1945, 1945–1989, 1989–2020), each containing a commentary on the given historical period, a selection of key contemporary texts and commentary on the individual writings. In each chronological section, attention will also be paid to schooling and instruction methods in graphic design. As an easily updated format, the web exhibition allows for the continual expansion of the basic selection of texts to include further contributions or their ongoing filtering. In turn, the virtual exhibition can serve as a medium for presenting the database of letterforms from the archive of the book-printing workshop at UMPRUM, which is currently undergoing digitalization and interpretation as part of the project through the efforts of students in the atelier of Typography and Letterform Design. Selected digital typefaces will be presented with a free licence as printing type.

Pavla Paukrnerová

Lada Hubatová-Vacková, Iva Knobloch, Pavla Pauknerová, Jan Wollner, Jan Čumlivski

Barbora Haplová, Tomáš Klička, Zuzana Říčařová, Filip Kraus, Ilja Bazhanov, Eva Havlová, Šimon Vlasák