Prague – The history and present of Czech graphic design will be mapped by the Identity project. A TV series, an exhibition, a monograph and a film will be created. The project will present state symbols, postage stamps, banknotes, logos of institutions, but also books, traffic signs, the orientation system in the subway, product packaging and movie posters as things that are part of the formation of the Czech national identity. Martina Reková informed ČTK about this on behalf of its authors and organizers.
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The television series, which will be made by one of the most famous designers of the post-revolutionary period, Aleš Najbrt, will appear on Czech Television in 2024. It is filmed by director Jakub Skalický in co-production with public television. The exhibition, the monograph and the full-length documentary film are being created at the same time. The initiators of Identity are the typographer and pedagogue Filip Blažek and the design theorist Linda Kudrnovská.
The exhibition will start next year in the spring in the regions and culminate in the autumn at the Kampa Museum in Prague. The full-length documentary as the completion of the entire project is to be shown in Czech cinemas in 2025.
The Identity project brings to mind names such as Ladislav Sutnar, Karel Teige, Alfons Mucha, Jan Solpera, Rostislav Vaněk, Clara Istlerová, Petr Babák, Robert V. Novák, Tomáš Brousil, Marek Pistora, František Štorm or Zuzana Lednická.
The initiators of the project were based on the fact that the field of domestic graphic design has not yet been mapped in detail in the Czech Republic. Identita will also pay tribute to a significant generation of creators who shaped Czech graphic design. Such as, for example, the recently deceased typographer and teacher Zdeněk Ziegler, with whom the creators filmed one of his last interviews at the age of 90.
The aim of the creators, in addition to presenting the field's more than a hundred years of history, is also to point out its influence on society. Graphic design accompanies everyone throughout their life, but few know the stories behind it. The graphic designers themselves perceive this field primarily as a service to the public, which, in Ziegler's words, “may sometimes be related to art”.
According to the organizers, the purpose of the exhibition will be to clarify how individual works were created and how they positively or negatively influenced or influence people. They want to show that the term graphic design does not only mean beautifully crafted books, but also warning signs or posters of Nazi or communist propaganda. The exhibition will also exist in a version for cooperation with Czech centers and embassies abroad.
The authors of the logo and visual style of the Identity project are Studio Marvil, the typeface was created by Tomáš Brousil. More information is available at www.projektidentita.cz.
