Jury awards Rudo Spemann Prize for innovative typography
19.08.2019
The Rudo Spemann Prize is awarded every two years at the Klingspor Museum in memory of the outstanding writer and calligrapher R. Spemann (1905-1947), whose almost complete estate is part of the museum's core collection. The idea of awarding the prize goes back to the founding of the Klingspor-Spemann Foundation, which brought about the establishment of the museum in 1953 between the founding families and the city of Offenbach.
The competition, from whose entries prize-worthy works are selected by a jury, aims to promote and demonstrate the technique of handwriting in the broadest sense between ornamental design and the individual shaping of personal handwriting as a living means of expression.
More than ever before, the museum received 82 entries for this year's competition (students, trainees, pupils). They challenged the jury (all members have been involved in the field of lettering art for many years) with a broad spectrum of works in terms of content and form. All of the works met the requirements of the call for entries, which called for a statement on an aspect of current social and cultural life, expressed in written form. Handwriting was to play a decisive role in this.
Prizewinners
The first prize (€ 1200) went to Susanne Mader, Augsburg University of Applied Sciences; two second prizes (€ 400 each) were awarded to Carolin Kasche and Sonja Schwab, RheinMain University of Applied Sciences Wiesbaden; Junjian Wang, Offenbach University of Art and Design, received a well-founded commendation.
Award ceremony
The certificates were awarded to the prizewinners during the opening of the exhibition AUSDRÜCKLICH SCHRIFT at the Klingspor Museum on September 18, 2019 at 7 pm.
First prize: Susanne Mader, Bavarian swear words
"Himmi Herrgott - seids liab; Zum Deifi noa moi - liab sei jetzt; Liab sei zefix ." Whether heaven or hell - in both spheres, there are obvious and traditional reasons to complain. Anger makes room. Spread across three brown boards, S. Mader stylizes the dynamism and vehemence of the insults in the form of subtly applied letters that closely resemble examples of Fraktur. Across these cascades of words, the remarks advising the lover run as long, drawn-out loops of letters. Mader writes: "The starting point was the naturally/traditionally (hence the broken script) "grumbling" and swearing Augsburg or Bavarian, who is called upon to show a little more empathy for a more respectful society with the help of his own words. The very modern, soft handwriting provides the necessary forward-looking contrast." The figurations, which are based on counter-movement in terms of both content and form, captivate with their play on the poles of design in the past and present. A highly coherent typeface testifies to wit, irony and at the same time a veritable mastery of graphic design.
Second prize: Carolin Kasche, Everyone has a right to an opinion
From a blood-red background, white, grizzled lettering strikes the viewer's eye. The abrupt, jagged typography makes its appeal strikingly obvious.
The universality of the message permeates the designer's personal stance - this is symbolized by the four capital letters of the word MEIN melted into the background to fill the entire page. All parts of the text are skillfully distributed across the surface, determined by the size of the main message and the smallness of the secondary message. The reader is swept along.
Second prize: Sonja Schwab, Microplastics
A waterfall, as if dusted, carries the raining strips of fine, stretched lettering. They form the word microplastic. The fact that an even greater contamination of water as a habitat is taking place subliminally, as it were, on a small scale, becomes visually perceptible from the finely dosed coordination of formal and colorful means.
Justified recognition: Junjian Wang,The border in the heart
The most rudimentary elements, black sharpie on gray cardboard, the cheapest adhesive tape made of transparent plastic - this is how the writer creates a sea of words that reads in the current dramas of people who are cut off from the path of coming together, belonging and the future at borders, fences, walls and sheds. No image could be more vivid than this arrangement of words, which vividly illustrates the unworthy condition of people in many countries. The litany in simple radicalism carries the rousing graphic signal.
