Czech graphic design is world class, believe Filip Blažek and Linda Kudrnovská. That’s why they dedicated seven years of their lives to letting as many people know about it as possible. Under the banner Identita, they created a TV series of the same name, published a voluminous book, and now they have prepared an exhibition that shows the best of the industry throughout history. It can be seen in Prague’s Museu Kampa until February 2 next year.
The show, which occupies all three floors of the building, thematically more or less copies the cycle presented by public television at the beginning of the year. On the ground floor, it presents graphic design intended for the widest range of people – in state symbolism and public space. With each subsequent floor, the target group narrows. The visitor progresses from posters to book and magazine graphics to products with an overlap into graphic design, such as food packaging or fashion.
In the section dedicated to state symbols, you can see, for example, the first Czechoslovak representative constitution or drafts of the flag for the new republic. The section dedicated to posters presents both historical pieces and contemporary ones created with the assistance of artificial intelligence or examples of digital design, which, according to the authors, is beginning to significantly dominate. The room about the public space looks almost like a subway station and deals mainly with the old-fashioned solution of the orientation system of the underground railway.
Voices from outside
In the course of a several-year project, graphic designer Filip Blažek and design theorist Linda Kudrnovská tried, among other things, to get an answer to the question of what makes domestic visual communication specific. They collected interesting answers mainly from foreign respondents who, according to them, are able to look at Czech art from a greater distance. They mentioned playfulness, irony and a desire to experiment. “And also the courage not to worship idols. In countries with hundreds of years of typographic tradition, people are much more afraid of breaking the rules. Here, the tradition is shorter and the icons are not so stable, so we are less afraid of breaking the principles,” says Kudrnovská. As an example, the pair cites designer Petr Babak, the author of the Šijan font created on a sewing machine.
The poster for the Prague Jubilee Land Exhibition from 1891 by Vojtěch Hynais, which the exhibition also includes, is considered to be the beginning of Czech graphic design. The development of the field was initiated on the one hand by technological progress and on the other hand by the desire to get closer to countries where visual communication was already more developed. “Before, posters looked more like font samples,” Blažek compares.
Locals gradually fell in love with the Ostrava logo by Studio Najbrt. | Photo: Studio Najbrt
Most of the exhibits are united by the fact that when they were new, they provoked criticism from the general public. It is said to be perfectly normal for good design. The authors of the exhibition mention, for example, the logo of Ostrava with three exclamation points from the workshop of Aleš Najbrt, which is, among other things, a guide to the television cycle.
The inhabitants of the city criticized him at first, but gradually fell in love with him thanks to his variability and eloquence. “Today, there is probably no one in the Czech Republic who does not know that the three exclamation points are connected to Ostrava. The logo lives an autonomous life and eventually merged with the Ostrava environment. A simple thing that works, looks nice and will last. That is the definition of quality graphic design, ” says Blazek.
According to him, the controversy that usually accompanies a new visual identity is also related to the fact that Czechs do not like change. Recently, this has been shown, for example, in the new visual identity of Hradec Králové, in which the authors Bohumil Vašák and Petr Štěpán used simplified elements of the city’s heraldic emblem. The discussion is also about the gradually deployed old information system of the Prague metro, which returns to the original black background. “The authors of the proposal would probably not like to hear it, but I think that if no one told the passengers about the change, they might not even notice it, it would just be easier for them to read. People will find their way around better and the metro area will be calmer,” believes Linda Kudrnovska.
Should the citizens themselves intervene in competitions concerning the visual identity of cities or public institutions? “I’m terribly sorry to say this, because I would also like it if it were, but it doesn’t look good. Drawing a brand is not the same as designing a visual identity. You have to think about where the logo will be placed, how it will age, whether will the chosen font be legible and whether it will look good on a pen and as a large sandstone sign on a building,” the theorist enumerates.
But there is one example of a successful design from the pen of an amateur in Czechoslovak history. This is a draft of the national flag by official Jaroslav Kursa. In the competition he won, for example, over the famous painter František Kupka. “Perhaps precisely because the artists put their artistic expression into it and perhaps even specific symbols, thus complicating it,” thinks Blažek. “Thus, for example, they excluded a part of society, whereas three colors will not bother anyone,” adds Kudrnovská. They agree that it is a piece of genius, which became dear to the hearts of the Czechs and survived totalitarianism.
The Identita exhibition occupies three floors of Prague’s Museo Kampa. | Photo: Martin Šimral
Whoever had Word made a book
We come into contact with graphic design on a daily basis. Despite this, or precisely because of this, according to Blažek and Kudrnovská, it is on the fringes of interest and few people know what it is actually about. After all, that was also the motivation to embark on the entire Identity project. “Designers tend to have trouble explaining this even to their own family members. So maybe it’s partly their fault that they can’t communicate what is important about their field,” reflects Kudrnovská.
Blažek sees this as a remnant of the 1990s. The professionals of the time were often unable to work with a computer, and those who were technically proficient did not understand graphic design. “Completely uneducated amateurs started doing it, and in the early 1990s it became the standard. Everyone who had Word thought they could graphically process a book,” he criticizes.
The colleague adds that the previous regime did not favor creativity in this area, but after the revolution everything was possible. “So we’re used to being surrounded by visual smog,” he says. According to her, this, especially in today’s era rich in external stimuli, only contributes to overeating. “The city environment itself is in a way unnatural for humans and disturbs them with a lot of sensations. Visual smog only continues to stress and disturb us. If we take care of public space, people will be calmer, more satisfied and better oriented,” he believes.
The authors of the exhibition remind us that Czech cities resisted the regulation of visual smog for a long time. They are again looking for the roots of the problem in the 1990s. “It’s capitalism now and you won’t talk to me about how my signboard should look,” Blažek summarizes the social setting at the time. “For a long time, cities have refused to control visual smog precisely with the argument that it will clear the market and that it will resolve itself. But still nothing has been resolved, with the exception of some cities that introduce, for example, programs for the quality of public space,” he says.
The couple mentions Brno, where in the last few years the amount of aggressive advertising and shop windows in the center has been reduced. Graphic designer Veronika Rút Fullerová, among others, is responsible for this, as she developed the so-called Good Practice Manual for Advertising and Labeling of Establishments for the city. Many other larger and smaller cities were inspired by it, for example Žďár nad Sázavou.
Rút Fullerová also appears in the television series Identita and will participate in the accompanying program of the exhibition at Museu Kampa in the form of a walk through places overwhelmed by visual smog.
The exhibition at Kampa includes hundreds of exhibits from the beginning of the 20th century to the present day. | Photo: Martin Šimral
However, the author tandem admits that in some places visual overload simply belongs. In the Prague environment, we could mention, for example, the Sapa market. “There are places that are plastered with digital advertising from top to bottom, like Times Square in New York, Trafalgar Square in London, or Shibuya Junction in Tokyo, and that are visited just for that. But a few kilometers away from bustling Shubuji, you find yourself in a lovely district without a single advertisement,” says Blažek. He doesn’t even mind poster boards. “On the contrary, they complete the color of the given place. Prague has removed many of them, which is a great shame,” he says.
And what do Kudrnovská and Blažek expect from the entire Identity project, with which they spent seven years? “That my brother will learn what graphic design is,” laughs the theorist. “Our point was to let people know that the cultivation of public space is not a useless investment and that something can be done about it. We realize that compared to other problems it is a complete marginality and no one will die because of it. But maybe someone will die because of a poorly executed traffic sign. Graphic design also has the potential to manipulate the masses. He can sell his product or ideas better.”
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Renowned graphic designer Aleš Najbrt also commented on David Černý’s project for the Prague department store Máj in the Spotlight program. | Video: The Spotlight Team