Press Release
May 2020
The Design Museum is to reopen to the public on Monday 1 June 2020. There will be a separate announcement on the details related to the reopening. Changes to the exhibition schedule and related events are possible.
Other Words presenting work by Schick Toikka, recipients of the Graphic Designer of the Year award for 2020, will be on show in Design Museum’s Gallery until 23 August.
’What do the most widely awarded and most interesting contributions to present-day graphic design have in common? They all use Schick Toikka fonts.’ This was noted by the jury of the Graphic Designer of the Year Award when choosing the Schick Toikka type foundry and design studio to receive the award for the year 2020.
Schick Toikka’s clientele include the Flow Festival, The New York Times, Sennheiser, Nike and Vogue. Along with work for important clients, Schick Toikka have also collaborated with leading names such as designer Mirko Borsche and artist Nora Turato.
Lauri Toikka (born 1984) and Florian Schick (born 1982) collaborate closely although they are rarely in the same country. They met in 2009 while studying in The Hague in Holland. They first established their type foundry and design studio in Berlin in 2010. Lauri Toikka later moved to Helsinki, while Florian Schick still lives in Berlin.
The designer duo’s prize exhibition in Design Museum’s Gallery features joint projects with artists and designers in various genres and areas in which the studio’s fonts are applied with insight and perception both visually and conceptually. The exhibits include earlier work and projects specifically made for the exhibition.
‘A font becomes meaningful only when others start using them’, Schick and Toikka point out. The title of the exhibition, Other Words, also points to this idea. ‘Only words produced by others give purpose to the work of the typeface designer’.
The works on show all share a certain diversity. As pointed out by Florian Hardwig, a writer specialising in typeface design, this is reflected in an abundance of techniques, materials and approaches.
‘In some cases, the fonts were created as supporting elements for greater works of art or design. Sometimes it’s the letterforms that provided the starting point for creative interpretation. A recurrent theme is the exploration of language and its relation to typeface design. Spatial objects open up a whole other perspective by taking letterforms into the third dimension, whereas when augmented with sound, they are bridging the spoken and the written word’, Hardwig points out.
The exhibition features the following designers and artists: Veera Ala-Vähälä, Hanna Anonen, Sabo Day, Deutsche & Japaner, Juho Huttunen, Antti Kekki, Kalle Korhonen, Saku Kämäräinen, Tuomas A. Laitinen, Ari-Pekka Leinonen, Ville Luoma-aho, Maziyar Pahlevan, Jouko Saastamoinen, Tsto, Nora Turato, Pavla Zábranská.
The exhibition architecture is by Hanna Anonen.
Other Words will open immediately when permitted by the coronavirus situation. The opening date will be announced separately.
The Graphic Designer of the Year award is given annually by the Grafia Association of Visual Communication Designers in Finland in recognition of commendable work and results in graphic or other activity to improve the standard of Finnish graphic design and its recognition.
In association with:
Cmykistävä, Jelgavas Tipografija, Klinkhart, Kunstventures, Lainisalo, Laser Cut Studio, Laserle, Lasitusliike V Aalto Oy, Luova, Vink.
Press Images:
Linkki
For more information, please contact:
Chief Curator Suvi Saloniemi, tel. +358 44 528 63 03, suvi.saloniemi@designmuseum.fi
Graphic Designer Lauri Toikka, tel. +358 50 413 68 66, ltoikka@gmail.com
Head of Communications Päivi Balomenos, tel. +358 40 753 67 25, paivi.balomenos@designmuseum.fi
