Permanent Daylight: Art Publication Designed by Re-public.

Dearest Yellowtracers, it is my great pleasure to introduce you to our newest contributor – Miss Jenna Rowe. Hooray! Jenna is a graduate architect, originally from Hobart, currently working and living in Sydney (and sporting an excellent fringe, I might add). This young lady is a bit of a mover and a shaker with a finger in many pies (yum!) – apart from working in a multi-disciplinary role, she blogs, pins, grams with gusto, volunteers with the Emerging Architects Committee NSW (DARCH), moonlights as a freelance graphic designer and makes copper V necklaces like a boss. She will be dropping in once per month, chatting to us about all manner of graphic related things in design – from branding and print, to graphics in architecture and interiors. Sick! Please make her feel welcome. – Mama Yellowtrace x

First of all – thank you to Dana and Team Yellowtrace for having me. I’ve actually been following Yellowtrace since back in March 2010, and as an honorary member from time to time, had even crashed some Team Yellowtrace outings (let it be known that Dana is actually as efficacious in person as she comes across in the written word).

As a precursor, I’m personally addicted to print media. I am a chronic print-media procurer, if it is beautifully designed and produced on nice paper stock – I’m sold. Every once and awhile, I find that I stumble upon a designed project that stops me in my mouse scrolling-tracks. This was the effect that Danish graphic design practice Re-public had on me when I first found their project ‘Permanent Daylight’ within a hot-graphics binge back in 2013.

Whilst ‘collaboration’ seems to be a bit of a design industry buzz-word of late, the success of this project is a direct outcome of the collaboration between Romeo Vidner of Re-public and his good friend, Swedish artist Jonas Liveröd. Working off the back of their successful first publication ‘The Violence’, ‘Permanent Daylight’ is designed in the format of a broadsheet newspaper to highlight a selection of Liverod’s art pieces. A reinterpretation of methods of artistic communication, the publication is a hybrid between print mediums such as book, newspaper and magazine with the intent to deliver an insight into Liverod’s process. The works are also juxtaposed against precedents, references, notes, anecdotes, interviews and other fragments relevant to the work of the artist. Romeo explained that this was advantageous in creating a cohesive overarching structure to house these fragmented elements together, however facilitated the display of the wild and atypical nature of the works.

Romeo and Jonas obviously have a great creative relationship, with Romeo noting that Jonas gave him free reign and total freedom to explore the project at the same time as providing Romeo with detailed feedback. Romeo explains the year-long design process was completely iterative – and he found himself at times becoming completely immersed in the content of Jonas’ artwork, the pair questioning each other on both the artwork and overall graphic outcomes. Romeo commented that through delving deeper into the content of the artwork he was able to understand the message or story of Jonas’ work – ultimately leading to a highly successful outcome.

Second to my obsession with aesthetically pleasing graphics is the design of packaging. The packaging and associated promotional material for the release event was specifically designed to accompany the publication. The three separate elements are linked cohesively with the solid black line, which frames and connects the physical elements of the artwork.

What really got me was the design of the punched diamond square over the quarter fold of the paper, to ensure the publication can be folded without fracturing the paper. You can’t help but admire the beautiful execution of a precise and thoughtful detail.

Since its publication, Permanent Daylight has been honoured with a myriad of design awards; inclusive of the Creative Circle, Special Circle 2013; Creative Circle, Gold Award 2013, Red Dot Award, Red Dot: Best of the Best 2013, Kolla!, (Shortlisted 2013), and Design S shortlisting for 2014, and more recently, Romeo also advises me that the piece can now be purchased via Konst/ig Books. It’s my birthday in a few weeks – just a hint…

[Images courtesy of Re-public.]