Gestalten.tv

Infographic guru Nicholas Felton sets the pace for today’s data-based visual narratives through his ultra-detailed Personal Annual Reports and a substantial contribution to the Facebook timeline redesign. In the recent Gestalten workshop, participants were able to pick his brain and explore the fundamental methods of data gathering along with visual storytelling techniques. Here with Gestalten.tv, Felton shares his wisdom on data visualization, articulates the history and catalyst effect of his “Feltron” reports, and of course, reveals the appeal of working at Facebook.

Monocle is one of the most successful magazines to be developed in the past decade. Armed with an unmistakable sense of aesthetics and journalistic tenacity, its team—led by editor in chief Tyler Brûlé—has created an intelligent publication that continually inspires a global readership who are interested in everything from diplomacy to design. For its first-ever book, The Monocle Guide to Better Living, the editorial team looks at one of their core themes: how to live well. An indispensable guidebook to contemporary life, it surveys locations, products, and ideas to create the ultimate reference for inspirational ways to improve your life.To be released in September 2013. Available to pre-order now at http://shop.gestalten.com/monocle-guide.html

Monocle is one of the most successful magazines to be developed in the past decade. Armed with an unmistakable sense of aesthetics and journalistic tenacity, its team—led by editor in chief Tyler Brûlé—has created an intelligent publication that continually inspires a global readership who are interested in everything from diplomacy to design. For its first-ever book, The Monocle Guide to Better Living, the editorial team looks at one of their core themes: how to live well. An indispensable guidebook to contemporary life, it surveys locations, products, and ideas to create the ultimate reference for inspirational ways to improve your life.To be released in September 2013. Available to pre-order now at http://shop.gestalten.com/monocle-guide.html

Blank Slate provides graphic designers and advertisers with 1,000 photographic templates of everyday objects for the true-to-life and convincing presentation of their designs—from shopping bags and bottles to brochures and a variety of other products. Because all of the templates shown in the book are also available as digital files on a free included DVD, any creative can easily use them to present his or her work in the way that gives clients the most concrete grasp of how their corporate designs will function in the real world. Gestalten.tv demonstrates how this could look like.

The masterful paintings of American artist Dan Witz transform everyday subjects into intimate hyper-realistic depictions of the banalities of life, allowing us to suspend our disbelief long enough to enter the fascinating world of art. Rooted in New York's punk rebellion, culture jamming, and the scary urban blight since the early eighties, this Brooklynite is not only a painter and street artist, but also a musician in the 1980s. His works have been exhibited in galleries throughout Europe and the US. In Gestalten.tv's latest feature, Witz sheds a light on Bar Shrines, Lamps and Other Paintings of Light, his first solo exhibition at Gestalten Space in Berlin, and why he rather likes his spectacular street art to serve a conscious purpose than to merely brand an ego.

Beyond the messenger and fixed-gear scenes, contemporary bicycle culture is more fashionable, diverse, and alive than ever before. According to Dustin Nordhus of Berlin's Cicli Berlinetta, "people who live in a big city are becoming aware that it's nicer to have a beautiful bicycle than a car." Gestalten.tv talks to Dustin as well as bike enthusiast Anna Valtonen from Pelago Bicycles, who are featured in Velo-2nd Gear. Along with presenting their stories and their outstanding and unconventional bicycles, the video shares different perspectives on why, according to Standert's Max von Senger, the bicycle is evolving into "an object of desire for everyone."

"With great power, comes great responsibility." As the Creative Director of Advertising and Graphic Design at MoMA in New York, Julia Hoffmann leads a creative team that designs and implements the institution’s powerful visual communications. While Julia was hosting a workshop with us, Gestalten.tv took the opportunity to speak with Julia and bring you insights into her works with Tim Burton, her views on visitors’ hidden creativity, and her "ego-less" approach to making art shine like a star.

In a recent two-day Gestalten workshop, participants worked closely with Jessica Hische (a letterer, illustrator, and crazy cat lady known for her silly side projects and occasional foul mouth, as she jokingly describes herself) to develop a full vector alphabet and learn about drawing type in a short amount of time. Hische has been named a Forbes Magazine "30 under 30" in art and design as well as an ADC Young Gun and one of Print Magazine's "New Visual Artists". Gestalten.tv took the chance of a very brief break during the workshop to let Jessica talk us through some of the pros and cons of the letters B/E/R/L/I/N. Her work is profiled in Hand to Type, Playful Type 2, and Precursor: The Creativity Watchlist.

"Design is my conviction and my religion," says Iranian designer Maral Pourkazemi. For her master thesis project "The Iranian Internet" at the University of Applied Science in Potsdam, she created a beautiful infographic which contains six content panels to explain the complexity of online censorship in Iran. Including information on the general Internet usage, Iran's national web project, namely the "Halal" Internet and its evasion, the Iranian blogosphere, the cyber police, criminal hackers, and the systems of governance, the six panels decipher the Iranian Internet between freedom and isolation. This thesis has become a much talked about design activist project. Gestalten.tv sat down with Maral Pourkazemi to talk about her infographic vision and how she has made an ugly topic accessible through visual storytelling.

Albio Nascimento and Kathi Stertzig are initiators of an unusual design studio: The Home Project. Based between Berlin and Faro, Portugal, the studio is dedicated to making objects informed by vernacular cultural research and originating from the relationship of people to their places. The Home Project’s exquisitely simple glassware, basketry, and ceramics are made by local artisans and craftsmen in the southern Algarve and Alentejo regions. Shot in Portugal and in Berlin, Gestalten.tv introduces you to a perfect example of responsible design innovation.

Albio Nascimento and Kathi Stertzig are initiators of an unusual design studio: The Home Project. Based between Berlin and Faro, Portugal, the studio is dedicated to making objects informed by vernacular cultural research and originating from the relationship of people to their places. The Home Project’s exquisitely simple glassware, basketry, and ceramics are made by local artisans and craftsmen in the southern Algarve and Alentejo regions. Shot in Portugal and in Berlin, Gestalten.tv introduces you to a perfect example of responsible design innovation.

'Impulsive people know no limits.' This translated lyric could be the slogan of Deichkind, a German band that manages to constantly and boundlessly reinvent itself. Gestalten's eponymous photobook Deichkind by Nikolaus Brade documents the daily life on tour of one of today’s most exciting and successful live acts in Germany. Each band member, mystically and theatrically disguised, becomes a seamless part of the Deichkind performance phenomenon that continues to pack sold-out concert halls. Gestalten.tv spoke to the crazy yet disciplined band about self-promotion, anonymity, megalomania, and losing weight. The limited, hand-signed special edition of the book will be available soon.

Oliver Jeffers is a world-famous creator of picture books for children, such as the award-winning Lost and Found. With his captivating paintings, collages, installations, and collaborative works-presented in his first monograph Neither Here Nor There-Jeffers also tells deeply incisive stories and poses provocative philosophical questions. Gestalten.tv met him in the wake of his current exhibition HERE OR THERE at Gestalten Space to learn about kids as critics, the art of storytelling, and, of course, quantum physics.

Despite, or because of, the ubiquity of televisions and computers, picture books have remained popular with kids and parents. These books have also not lost their appeal for illustrators and publishing houses-not least because a hit children's book can serve as the lucrative basis for TV programs, video games, toys, or other merchandising. In addition to its presentation of cutting-edge visuals from around the world, Little Big Books offers insightful texts for those who hope to create or market visual content for children. These include interviews with experts about the educational aspects, make-up, and psychology of children's picture books as well as the significance of children's book awards and practical advice on publishing rights and licensing. The publication is rounded out with an introduction that puts current work into the historical context of classic books by the genre's seminal pioneers.

In today’s world where information is practically unlimited, we are faced with the fundamental challenge of how to extract, interpret, and create meaning out of the data and information overload. A new generation of designers are tackling the challenge head on and using graphic design, infographics, illustration, and photography to convey information in the most elegant, entertaining, and informative way. Gestalten has always been passionately following and documenting the evolution of visual storytelling through our and Data Flow and recent Visual Storytelling books and now it's in the form of an exhibition. The “Small Stories Bigger Picture” exhibition at the Museum of the Image (MOTI), curated by Gestalten’s Sven Ehmann and MOTI curator Dennis Elbers, reveals how image-makers create and share visual stories from various roles and perspectives—as poets, journalists, researches and agitators. Gestalten.tv was recently in Breda, Netherlands to interview the curators and several of the designers—Catalogtree, Peter Orntoft, Floris Kaays, and Vahram Muratyam—in the widely successful exhibition, on show until December 9th.