Design Commissions
David Bennewith collaborated as a graphic designer on the exhibition _Munich 1972. The Design of a Democratic Body _(2017).
Munich 1972
The 1972 Olympic Games offered host country West Germany an unrivalled opportunity to present itself to the world as a modern, democratic and culturally aware nation. Various design disciplines played a vital role in the games' preparations. Architecture, design and landscape architecture were integrated into an overall design intended to exude openness and inclusivity. This carefully constructed image was marred two weeks into the games when eight members of the Black September Organisation (BSO) infiltrated the Olympic Village and took nine of the Israeli Olympic team hostage. In Munich 1972, Het Nieuwe Instituut tells this controversial story through the lens of design, by contrasting the narratives and aesthetic strategies of the organisers with the tactics deployed for the games' disruption.
Bennewith was involved as a graphic designer at an early stage of the exhibition's realisation. "This made it a valuable and significant experience for me," he says. "At the time, I was looking for a design approach comparable to method acting - taking specific materials and images from the research into the 1972 Olympics and turning them into graphic components for the exhibition. The idea was to recreate, as it were, this historical event that attracted worldwide attention." For example, shoe polish - which the BSO members used to anonymise their faces - was used for colouring the lettering and images in the exhibition. Bennewith used the font from the games' graphic identity and surrounded each letter with an Olympic circle. The information was printed on large plexiglass plates, cut into the shape of Olympic rings and teardrop emojis, which hung throughout the space. "I was fascinated by the idea of perspiration," explains Bennewith, "I wanted to have the walls dripping with sweat, but that wasn't feasible. A wooden pictogram of Waldi, the games' dachshund mascot, stood in one of the empty corridors, like a 'no entry' road sign."
Het Nieuwe Instituut put together the Munich 1972 exhibition team, which included Bennewith, researchers Marten Kuijpers and Isa Fahrenholz, and spatial designer Bart Guldemond, none of whom had worked together before. "I appreciate this kind of risk-taking from an institution," says Bennewith. "As a graphic designer concerned with research, writing and publishing, the proximity to the development of content was ideal. We met regularly, and the multidisciplinary approach and mutual respect for one another's talents and interests fostered interesting discussions. From the graphic design perspective, I was able to contribute substantially to visualising content by experimenting with material and form. I felt challenged to be more daring with decisions and trying things out. The exhibition's design evolved in tandem with the research of the curators, who were struggling with conveying the emerging narratives. The challenging process and valuable experience helped me to grow as a designer."
Bennewith notes that the desire to arrive at a design in which the visitor feels included, by employing materials that attempted to get closer to the content, felt almost irresponsible or indulgent at times. "We all know that reproducing power structures - even when critiquing them - makes them more present," he says. "It's a privilege that reminds me of a certain 'power' one has as a designer. However, it might be more precise to use the words 'coercion' or 'co-option' for the influence implicitly present in many designs. In the Munich 1972 exhibition, there was no 'goodie' or 'baddie', just different worlds that were imagined and had agency through oddly similar forms of representation and visual strategy. Ultimately 'power' is something people exert over one another; you don't need design to do this." ;
Open and inclusive: Interview with Marten Kuijpers and David Bennewith.
David Bennewith
David Bennewith is a New Zealand-born, Amsterdam-based graphic designer and design researcher. Under the name Colophon, he works on research and commissioned projects dealing with type design and typography. He has extensively researched New Zealand type design, particularly the work of Joseph Churchward, publishing a monograph on him in 2009. Bennewith is the head of the graphic design department at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam.