As part of a semester presentation on a semester project, student Deniz Can Ercan, in collaboration with lecturer Katharina Drasdo, designed a poster on the theme of ‘The digitalisation of our world’.
As part of the presentation for the semester-long course ‘Experimental Design’, led by Katharina Drasdo, a lecturer at Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences, Deniz Can Ercan, a student on the ‘Information and Communication Design’ programme, collaborated with Katharina Drasdo to create a poster on the theme of ‘The Digitalisation of Our World’. The resulting poster was selected and awarded a prize from amongst 9,600 entries submitted by over 8,000 designers from 74 countries worldwide.
The design focuses on the digitalisation of our world and, at the same time, the longing for tradition. This interplay between digitalisation and longing is embodied by the sculpture ‘The Rape of Proserpina’ by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, one of the most significant Italian sculptors and architects of the Baroque period. The section of the sculpture has been chosen in such a way that it plays with perception and does not clearly reveal to the viewer which sculpture or which detail is being depicted. The texture of the sculpture resembles wax – authentic and reminiscent of human skin – and, in black and white, it is almost impossible to tell whether it is a sculptor’s masterpiece or merely the crude background of a CD cover. The deliberate reduction of the typography to a minimum and the avoidance of large letters are intended to arouse the curiosity of those viewing the poster. The sexualised scene deliberately plays on the fact that the display of bare skin always – and even subconsciously – creates a direct visual connection. It was important to conceive the poster as a dynamic image, with the folders appearing and disappearing – in both analogue and digital form – and symbolising the passage of time. “The poster’s uniqueness lies in the irresistible symbiosis of tradition and modernity, in the fusion of emotion and digitality,” says Katharina Drasdo.
A twelve-member jury, including world-renowned poster artists and designers such as Jessica Walsh (Sagmeister & Walsh), Lex Drewinski and Stephan Bundi, selected the best entries from the entire pool of submissions.
The Ecuador Poster Biennial offers designers a platform where anyone involved in design and visual culture can showcase their work and present it to the finest visual designers.
