Design Commissions
Kévin Bray and Thomas Buxó devised the graphic identity of The Life Fair exhibition (2016).
The Life Fair
'"We were looking for a form of communication that's similar to advertising and corporate design, without being too literal," says Kévin Bray. "_The Life Fair_ considered the impact of technology on our lives and, more specifically, how companies and governments use digital means to influence our behaviour. The exhibition was based on research by Agata Jaworska and Giovanni Innella. I edited and reworked the images they had collected so that they were sufficiently decontextualised to become part of the exhibition's overarching narrative, yet without losing their original meaning."
"Kévin introduced an extra visual layer to the imagery," adds Thomas Buxó. "Instead of providing clarity, he heightened the complexity to enhance the degrees to which the material could be read." Buxó contrasted this visual excess with extremely simplified typography. "I tried to reduce it to a labelling system, almost like code," he explains. "I used Helvetica Monospace - in this font, each letter takes up the same amount of space. It's a companion of the Helvetica Textbook typeface used in Het Nieuwe Instituut's corporate identity. Max Miedinger designed both typefaces. Helvetica is a no-frills font that references nascent forms of digital communication." To counterbalance Bray's sumptuous, layered imagery, Buxó arranged the texts in a tight grid. The results were printed in large format and mounted onto exhibition stands. "The texts were set in negative, with white letters on a black background, to reference programming code and the first computer screens," Buxó says.
"The clear structure of a trade fair allowed me to create confusion," Bray adds. "I played with different styles and combined advertising images with illustrations and sometimes with scientific information." He used software to manipulate images and encourage the blurring of boundaries. Bray's seductive yet disconcerting imagery and Buxó's pared-down typography refer to the digital domain's history and present state. These extremes coalesced in a graphic identity that adhered to Claus Wiersema's spatial design, thus enhancing the exhibition as a whole. The experience of working as a graphic designer on an exhibition in a more subservient role prompted Bray to take a more autonomous path. He subsequently enrolled at the Rijksacademie and became an artist.
Kévin Bray
An artist based in Amsterdam, Kévin Bray studied graphic design and fine art at the Rijksacademie in Amsterdam, where he also completed a residency. He teaches at the Royal Academy of Art (KABK) in The Hague. His work straddles different media, including video, graphic design and sound design, through which he questions the image and its production. Bray allows the viewer to observe his techniques for creating video works. He favours collage techniques over editing and interacting with the background and stage. He reveals the relationships and gaps between an image's constituent layers and plays with the boundary between transparency and concealment.
Thomas Buxó
A graphic designer based in Amsterdam, Thomas Buxó founded his own studio after graduating from the Rietveld Academy in 1996. His assignments are always in the field of art, design or architecture. After years of designing mainly printed matter, he introduced code into his practice through his Headless Design research project. Buxo is an ardent advocate of open source software. He has taught at ECAL in Lausanne and the Werkplaats Typografie in Arnhem and was a jury member at the art academy in Valence. Buxo is a guest lecturer at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Baltimore and teaches graphic design at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague.