The designer as activist

The designer as activist Held in an abandoned, unheated department store in the center of the former Yugoslavia’s snow-covered capital, it was the hottest event in town — at least for me. And it couldn’t have been more inspiring, since the attendees included over 200 student and professional designers from Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia, many of whom endured ethnic wars and NATO bombardment as children. Borut Vild, a Belgrade designer and professor who was one of the organizers of the conference, told me that he was “overcome with emotion” when, for the first time ever, some of the students from these once-warring states appeared wearing “I [Heart] Belgrade” T-shirts. The conference’s title was coined to underscore the idea that graphic designers, especially in this economically strapped region, need to produce content beyond their clients’ wants, and to fight for human values. Because of their recent history, designers here routinely address social, cultural and political themes, seasoned with a dose of native sarcasm, in their cultural or self-initiated projects. Although it actually came from the United States, one presentation in particular that captured my attention was a graphic identity campaign designed to help reclaim the site of the 1937 Belgrade Fairground, which became a Nazi concentration camp in 1941. The fairground’s modernist pavilions were once filled with elaborate displays of industrial progress and machine-age design from European countries, including Nazi Germany. Its architectural centerpiece, which still stands, was a futuristic tower used to transmit the earliest television broadcasts in Europe by Philips, the Dutch electronics company. But in 1942, at the Judenlager Semlin (or in Serbian, Sajmiste), the camp that came to occupy the site, close to 7,000 Serbian Jews, mostly women and children, were systematically murdered. (More on the history of the site can be found here). After the war, the fairground fell into neglect and now is home to squatters and a seedy disco. The campaign to turn the fairground into a monument was started a couple of years ago by Veran Matic, the director of B92, the Serbian independent broadcasting company, who produced a documentary film on the camp. However, his efforts came to a standstill without state or private funding. But during the conference, a new logo (right) helped restart the campaign. Milton Glaser, who was awarded the 2009 National Medal of Arts by President Obama, and Mirko Ilic, a Bosnian-born designer and illustrator and the former art director of Time Magazine’s international edition and the New York Times Op-Ed page, designed the logo. And thanks to a full-court press by B92, it received considerable media attention. The logo was conceived when Ilic, who travels frequently between Belgrade and his home in New York City, and who co-organized the design conference, learned from the campaign’s supporters that few people living in the city today actually know anything about the camp’s criminal history. “It's not denial,” he insists. “They really don’t know.” The Old Fairground today The logo rekindled public interest. “We did this as a kind of flag,” Ilic said about the red, white and blue logo that “represents all the colors in the Serbian flag, from the times of the monarchy through Tito to the present.” The logo combines symbolic representations of water and smoke, suggesting both tears and fire. The typeface, which alternately comes in Cyrillic and Latin, is called “Tabula,” and was designed by Jana Orsolic, a typography professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrade. “It suggests a tabula rasa,” Ilic explained. In addition to raising awareness, the introduction of the logo has drawn a pledge by a Belgrade city official to take action on the fairground issue. Whether this actually happens remains to be seen, but Ilic and Glaser are committed to seeing the monument built, even it requires a persistent bombardment of graphic design. Steven Heller, a former art director at The New York Times, is a co-chair of the MFA Design Department at the School of Visual Arts and a blogger and author. Here are some reactions to the article: Veran Matic: Following the end of the slaughter and killings of Jewish prisoners in May 1942, Sajmiste concentration camp was turned into Anhaltelager, the transit and collection camp for forced labourers (mostly ethnic Serbs from Croatia and Bosnia), political prisoners and captured Partizans (members of Communist resistance guerrilla force) who were, for the most part, routed further to labour camps throughout the Third Reich. From May 1942 until July 1944 (when Anhaltelager ceased to exist), 32,000 inmates passed through this camp out of whom almost 11,000 died of diseases, exhaustion or beatings. Sajmiste was the biggest concentration camp in occupied Serbia in World War 2. I’d like to thank Steven Heller for visiting Belgrade, his excellent article, and I would also like to call on everyone to show solidarity with the initiative to build a memorial centre and holocaust museum on the site. Ken Carbone It's always great to see great design in action. Thanks for sharing this and I look forward to hearing the positive results of this endeavor. Chuck Miller It's amazing to read stories like this. People not aware of the recent history of their own community (whether good or bad) is a scary reality happening more frequently than we realize. I'm glad to see the actions of designers working to turn an issue like this around. I hope it works and spreads to many other outlets of communication. I was recently a speaker at “Author or Universal Soldier,” a graphic design conference in Belgrade, Serbia. Steven Heller "In addition to raising awareness, the introduction of the logo has drawn a pledge by a Belgrade city official to take action on the fairground issue. Whether this actually happens remains to be seen."

The designer as activist

Held in an abandoned, unheated department store in the center of the former Yugoslavia’s snow-covered capital, it was the hottest event in town — at least for me. And it couldn’t have been more inspiring, since the attendees included over 200 student and professional designers from Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia, many of whom endured ethnic wars and NATO bombardment as children.

Borut Vild, a Belgrade designer and professor who was one of the organizers of the conference, told me that he was “overcome with emotion” when, for the first time ever, some of the students from these once-warring states appeared wearing “I [Heart] Belgrade” T-shirts.

The conference’s title was coined to underscore the idea that graphic designers, especially in this economically strapped region, need to produce content beyond their clients’ wants, and to fight for human values. Because of their recent history, designers here routinely address social, cultural and political themes, seasoned with a dose of native sarcasm, in their cultural or self-initiated projects.

Although it actually came from the United States, one presentation in particular that captured my attention was a graphic identity campaign designed to help reclaim the site of the 1937 Belgrade Fairground, which became a Nazi concentration camp in 1941. The fairground’s modernist pavilions were once filled with elaborate displays of industrial progress and machine-age design from European countries, including Nazi Germany.

Its architectural centerpiece, which still stands, was a futuristic tower used to transmit the earliest television broadcasts in Europe by Philips, the Dutch electronics company. But in 1942, at the Judenlager Semlin (or in Serbian, Sajmište), the camp that came to occupy the site, close to 7,000 Serbian Jews, mostly women and children, were systematically murdered. (More on the history of the site can be found here).

After the war, the fairground fell into neglect and now is home to squatters and a seedy disco.

The campaign to turn the fairground into a monument was started a couple of years ago by Veran Matić, the director of B92, the Serbian independent broadcasting company, who produced a documentary film on the camp. However, his efforts came to a standstill without state or private funding. But during the conference, a new logo (right) helped restart the campaign.

Milton Glaser, who was awarded the 2009 National Medal of Arts by President Obama, and Mirko Ilić, a Bosnian-born designer and illustrator and the former art director of Time Magazine’s international edition and the New York Times Op-Ed page, designed the logo. And thanks to a full-court press by B92, it received considerable media attention.

The logo was conceived when Ilić, who travels frequently between Belgrade and his home in New York City, and who co-organized the design conference, learned from the campaign’s supporters that few people living in the city today actually know anything about the camp’s criminal history. “It's not denial,” he insists. “They really don’t know.” The logo rekindled public interest. “We did this as a kind of flag,” Ilić said about the red, white and blue logo that “represents all the colors in the Serbian flag, from the times of the monarchy through Tito to the present.”

The logo combines symbolic representations of water and smoke, suggesting both tears and fire. The typeface, which alternately comes in Cyrillic and Latin, is called “Tabula,” and was designed by Jana Orsolić, a typography professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrade. “It suggests a tabula rasa,” Ilić explained.

In addition to raising awareness, the introduction of the logo has drawn a pledge by a Belgrade city official to take action on the fairground issue. Whether this actually happens remains to be seen, but Ilić and Glaser are committed to seeing the monument built, even it requires a persistent bombardment of graphic design.

Steven Heller, a former art director at The New York Times, is a co-chair of the MFA Design Department at the School of Visual Arts and a blogger and author.

Here are some reactions to the article:

Veran Matić:

Following the end of the slaughter and killings of Jewish prisoners in May 1942, Sajmište concentration camp was turned into Anhaltelager, the transit and collection camp for

forced labourers (mostly ethnic Serbs from Croatia and Bosnia), political prisoners and captured Partizans (members of Communist resistance guerrilla force) who were, for the most part, routed further to labour camps throughout the Third Reich. From May 1942 until July 1944 (when Anhaltelager ceased to exist), 32,000 inmates passed through this camp out of whom almost 11,000 died of diseases, exhaustion or beatings.

Sajmište was the biggest concentration camp in occupied Serbia in World War 2. I’d like to thank Steven Heller for visiting Belgrade, his excellent article, and I would also like to call on everyone to show solidarity with the initiative to build a memorial centre and holocaust museum on the site.

Ken Carbone

It's always great to see great design in action. Thanks for sharing this and I look forward to hearing the positive results of this endeavor.

Chuck Miller

It's amazing to read stories like this. People not aware of the recent history of their own community (whether good or bad) is a scary reality happening more frequently than we realize. I'm glad to see the actions of designers working to turn an issue like this around. I hope it works and spreads to many other outlets of communication.