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We interviewed ADC Design Sphere winner Santos Bregaña for the summer newsletter. He and partner Anne Ibañez Guridi are the “giant forks” (to be explained…) that make up Laia, a design studio based in Basque Country. A ten-year collaboration between Laia and Mugaritz, a restaurant of the Basque region, yielded a remarkable, successful, sustained and award winning design program. Santos spoke with us about his Basque roots, the relationship with his client, the work done for the Guggenheim Bilbao Restaurant, revealed his favorite dish, while explaining how a small studio like Laia wowed the ADC's Design Sphere jury.
This year Marc Gobé, ADC Design Sphere jury chair and President and Editor of Emotional Branding LLC, and his jury elevated Laia's work for Mugaritz, along with TAXI Canada's work for Telus, as outstanding in this new category that honors sustained programs of design innovation for clients by a single design firm. Interviewed by Regan Murphy, regan@adcglobal.org.
ADC: Tell us about Laia and how it got started.
SB: Laia emerges from a symbiotic relationship between two very different designers. Anne possesses a magical gift, her very own x-ray machine, which allows her to see what others cannot. I'm more of an unorthodox academic who experiences regular epiphanies. Our process combines endless conversations, Anne's vision, and my insights from which books to objects are created. We are more interested in the process (phenomenon) than the
result (object).
"Laia" is the word for a traditional Basque agricultural tool resembling a giant fork that was used in pairs to work the land without the aid of a plow. The studio's name recalls the poetic notion of collective work (traditionally done by rows of men and women using laias simultaneously) and conjures up visions of the harvest. We choose to interpret this gesture as a compromise between the traditional (still very important in the Basque Country) and globalized modernity.
ADC: You began working with Mugaritz since before the inception
of the restaurant. What's it like to have such a close relationship with your
client?
SB: When we met Andoni Luis Aduriz, the restaurant's chef, Mugaritz was still a small work village. Since then we've become friends with Andoni, having both fruitful and difficult times. Now he is highly regarded and considered one of the best cooks in the world - not surprisingly he acquired a new level of public notoriety. (Everyone wants to be his friend.)
Our professional relationship has worked because of the following ingredients: similar aspirations, hours and hours of conversations, hard work, commitment, and a deep trust in each other's work. Andoni demands no rebellion and that one must give oneself over to an hour and a half of his gastronomical prowess while at the restaurant. Over the years we requested that he do the same with Laia and the result has been good. However, collaboration of this type requires ground rules and common goals be established in advance.
ADC: The identity and design for Mugaritz were cohesively executed while
simultaneously retaining the organic and natural essence within a relatively
small budget. What was the most unexpected or difficult part of the journey?
SB: A restaurant often reflects daily life in society: the paradise of the dining area contrasted with the hell of the kitchen. Mugaritz's "engine room" takes you to
unexpected places of pleasure and features many apprentices, often
attached to great chefs. They are the small anonymous heroes, who through
their quiet work make possible the drama, the comedy, the epic and, sometimes,
the tragedy that happens while dining at restaurants.
The most difficult part of this trip has been the hidden part of the iceberg; the hours and hours, days, weeks, months and years that we have invested to progress projects, especially Mugaritz. At Laia there are only two designers without apprentices. We're forced to control all the work. We have dedicated ourselves to the work and at this moment we are bit exhausted. I have to clarify; Mugaritz was a dangerous bet from the beginning. Restaurants are notoriously difficult to make profitable. From the outset we had to work with the constraints of a small budget. Surprisingly, the limitations caused us to be more creative, ultimately delivering concepts and objects that would not have morphed as they might with deeper pockets.
ADC: Mugaritz's chef, Andoni Luis Aduriz, 36, is quite young with the average on the staff being 28. As every element seems to have been considered works for this project, did the age of the staff figure in?
SB: It is true that Mugaritz's staff is young. Without a doubt, youth works in our favor. Young people are generally more malleable and have an easier time with new things. Nevertheless in Euskal Herria (Basque country), tradition is as heavy as a stone slab. Euskal Herria has always seemed like a great grandmother; always careful that no one escapes established rituals and scolding if one is late. But for us, this has been one of the greatest keys of success: our designs refer to these traditional roots, while being novel and innovative at the same time.
For example, we reintroduced "Basque Ball", a local traditional game for use in Mugaritz's merchandising. It is a beautiful object that relates to the region's past, presented in a simple cardboard box with a "trompe l'oeil" image that mimics an ancient façade.
ADC: Now that your studio has designed Mugaritz's name, logos, website, porcelain dishes, cookbooks, merchandise, centerpieces, literally everything. What's next?
SB: We are pausing and taking a deep breath to reflect. We are assembling new ideas and putting them into a tenth anniversary book about Mugaritz. Receiving the ADC Design Sphere has been very exciting, encouraging us to tell the story of the efforts that have been made for the restaurant, from graphic design, to objects, to interior design, and of course, the thought process. We are already working towards creating a new gastronomical establishment for Andoni in the Spanish city of Saragossa. The new restaurant will be named "Lanbroa," or "fog" in Euskera. This will be a completely different type of place, in which we will only approach the nominative and graphic brief.
The future for Laia is to be determined. There are pending exhibitions in Capri, Valencia and London. We have nearly fifty projects on our list. New collections of porcelain, books, newspapers, the design for a keyboard and mouse, a book in the "film noir style" for children… too many things! Who knows? Perhaps it is time to drop everything and turn to gardening.
ADC: Laia also designed the image campaign of the Guggenheim Bilbao Restaurant. What was that like?
SB: In the case of the images and graphics for the Guggenheim Bilbao Restaurant, the process was adapted to the strong personality of the place. We were more limited creatively than with Mugaritz, but in exchange, we were able to work in a globally recognized location and an icon of 21st century architecture. We designed books, signage and, of course, the menus. The restaurant's promising young chef, Josean Martinez Alija, has forged new directions and has the talent to become one of Europe's foremost cooks. Everyone who travels to Bilbao should visit the Guggenheim Restaurant… (Not to mention the space that great architect Frank Gehry designed for this "fast food" restaurant)
ADC: What's your favorite dish at Mugaritz?
SB: This is the most difficult question to answer. There are some dishes that should be reserved solely for the Gods. I remember a memorable dish of grilled scallop foie-gras with a seaweed broth over rice. From a purely gastronomical perspective it is three simple ingredients with scallops grilled to perfection elevated by unusual flavors - but the result is perfection!
ADC: And now, your three favorite...
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ADC Traveling Exhibition
Tuesday, August 12 - Thursday, September 4
Founded on the basis of the original exhibition in 1920, the ADC Annual Awards is among the most prestigious in visual communications, honoring the best work of the year from around the world in advertising, design, interactive media, photography and illustration. Today the 87th exhibition is comprised of Gold, Silver and Distinctive Merit winners, selected by international juries from thousands of entries received worldwide. Categories of distinction include advertising, broadcast, design, photography, illustration, and interactive, as well as the new ADC Hybrid and ADC Design Sphere.
The Art Directors Club 87th Annual Awards Traveling Exhibition will be making its first stop at Escola de Panamericana Arte e Design in São Paulo, Brazil. The exhibition will be hosted from August 12 through September 4. Stay tuned for more venues! ADC Young Guns 6 Opening Party and Exhibition
Thursday, September 4th
ADC reveals Young Guns 6 - come celebrate with the fifty winners of the ADC Young Guns 6 class! Their winning work will grace the gallery walls, and winners will claim the newly minted ADC Young Guns Cube.
Thursday, September 4 7:30-9:30pm @ADC Gallery 106 West 29th Street, NYC $20 ADC Members $26 Non-Members This event sells out quickly; those without tickets will be held at the door until space becomes available and admitted once those with tickets have entered. Register and buy your tickets online to make sure you get in. RSVP by clicking here. Become an ADC Young Professional member between August 11 and September 4th and get in free! You will automatically be added to the RSVP list. Learn about membership here. The ADC Young Guns 6 exhibition will be on view from Thursday, September 4 through Thursday, September 18. View photos of the 2006 ADC Young Guns 5 Opening Party here. Sponsored by: 
Seminar at Noble Desktop
Tuesday, September 16
Adobe Camera Raw has become a very powerful image editing tool. It's not just for people with digital cameras that can shoot as Raw. It also works with TIFF and JPEG files and it is part of Photoshop, Adobe Bridge and Lightroom. If you haven't heard of Camera Raw, don't understand it, or simply want to learn more cool things you can do with it, this seminar is for you. Noble Desktop wants to show you how to improve your images by harnessing the "raw power" of Camera Raw.
Tuesday, September 16 6-8pm Noble Desktop 594 Broadway New York City Click here to sign up! Adobe Presents the Backstory: ADC Young Guns Live
Thursday, September 18
Join us for a panel discussion with members from the latest class of ADC Young Guns as they present and discuss their work. Stay tuned! Speakers will be posted on adcglobal.org on September 4th when ADC Young Guns 6 winners are officially announced.
Adobe Presents the Backstory: ADC Young Guns Live Thursday, September 18 @ADC Gallery 5:30 pm Adobe Workshop 7:00 pm Presentation ADC Members $10 Non-Members $15 online, $20 at the door. Sponsored by:  RSVP online by going here. The Assassination of Art, When Politics and Art Collide
Wednesday, September 24
ADC hosts 'The Assassination of Art, When Politics and Art Collide' a
panel discussion about 'The Keller Gates Project' with artist Yazmany Arboleda.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008 6:30-8:00pm @ADC Gallery 106 West 29th Street, NYC ADC Members Free Non-Members $20 Students $10 Refreshments will be served. RSVP online by clicking here. CLICK.NY CONFERENCE: Advertising and Interactive Media
Presented by Creative Review and the Art Directors Club Wednesday, October 1
No need to travel to London any longer; U.K-based Creative Review magazine
is bringing their annual Click Conference to New York for the first time.
Click is a one-day conference on advertising and interactive media featuring
some of the most forward-thinking leaders in the industry: Sergio
Gordilho/Africa Propaganda, James Cooper and Johnny Vulkan/Anomaly,
Alessandra Lariu/McCann/She Says, Michael Lebowitz/Big Spaceship, Alex
Lieu/42 Entertainment, and Benjamin Palmer/The Barbarian Group, to name just
a few. Moderated by Liz Danzico of Happy Cog and the School of Visual Arts.
Creative Review magazine has been identifying and championing the best in visual communication for the past 27 years. Creative Review is a leading voice on new trends in graphic design, advertising, new media, photography, illustration, and typography. Join us for stories, discussion, inspiration and analysis about the changing landscape of advertising and the new ways that people have meaningful experiences with brands. Wednesday, October 1 @ ADC Gallery 106 West 29th Street, NYC Visit www.click-conference.com to sign up.
ReConstitution 2008: A Live Remix of the Presidential Debates
Tuesday, October 7
Experience the presidential debates live in a completely new way. ReConstitution is a live audiovisual remix of the 2008 presidential debates. This nonpartisan hybrid of video art and performance exposes the themes, content and structure behind the sound and images of the debate. The legibility of the content is preserved, upholding the debates as a vital information source for voters. Each spoken word is catalogued, analyzed and displayed with the transformed video signal - the visuals react instantaneously to the physical movement of the candidates, the tone of their voice and the words they speak, weaving an exciting and unpredictable narrative.
This concept and the supporting software are the brainchild of three media artists who form the group, Sosolimited. Comprised of 3 MIT graduates, Sosolimited has performed and installed work internationally, and has garnered a number of awards and accolades throughout the art world. One member of the team, John Rothenberg, is also an ADC Young Gun 5. Complimentary drinks served before, during and after the live performance. Tuesday, October 7 8:30-11pm @ ADC Gallery 106 West 29th Street, NYC Reserve a ticket here. ADC Members $20.00 Non Members $25.00 For more information visit http://www.reconstitution2008.com/ Press contact: info@hotbreadent.com
ADC Series: Opposites Attract
Featuring Margo Chase and Carin Goldberg Thursday, October 16
Organized and moderated by Armin Vit and Bryony Gomez-Palacio, founders and partners at UnderConsideration, this series brings together individuals whose paths or current career milestones are unique and interesting but completely opposite. All create amazing work despite their differences.
Thursday, October 16 6:30-8:30pm @ADC Gallery 106 West 29th Street, NYC This series continues on: Thursday, November 13 ADC Members $21 Non-members $30 Students $15 Sponsored by Veer RSVP by going here. ADC Hall of Fame Festival
Monday, November 3 - Friday, November 21
Save the date - more details to come!
Save the Date: ADC Holiday Party
Tuesday, December 16
Join us for a festive night of food, drinks and gift-giving.
December 16, 2008 6-9 PM @ADC Gallery 106 West 29th Street NYC Admission: $20 or a new, unwrapped toy to benefit The Children's Aid Society. Click here to RSVP. | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Forms in Modernism: The Unity of Typography, Architecture and the Design Arts 1920s-1970s
By Virginia Smith
Forms in Modernism: A Visual Set is a book that uses typography as the unifying discipline through which to understand, analyze, and compare forms. Virginia Smith presents developments and correlations in multiple areas of twentieth-century design from typography, to fashion design to architecture. Smith rehabilitates design and typography by showing that early practitioners were thinking deeply along the same lines as the more vocal architects.
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Henry Wolf Summer Photography Workshop
Henry Wolf, photographer, long time ADC member and ADC President from 1989 to 1991, bequeathed funds to the ADC to underwrite a summer photography workshop for High School students. The workshop was an introductory course, which exposed the enrolled students to digital photography and brought them face to face with professional photographers.
This year the program benefited 13 New York City high school students and took place on July 14 to July 18 from 9:00am - 4:00pm everyday. The workshop culminated in a exhibition of the students' work on July 19th. The students were lead through assignments by NYFA Fellow Susan Berkowitz and Young Gun Winners Geoff Green and Carlo Van De Roer. The students shot a new assignment each day, visited the ICP and toured galleries in Chelsea, and upon completion of the program each student was awarded a digital camera. The Art Directors Club looks forward to continuing and expanding this workshop next year! | ||||||||||||||||||||
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"Politics '08," on display at the Museum of American Illustration at the Society of Illustrators
September 4 - October 4
This exhibition will showcase the original art from today's top illustrators surrounding this year's primaries and general elections. With recent coverage of the debates, a growing awareness in politics has piqued the media's interest in political illustration and caricature once again, creating an array of important and controversial images. Through magazine websites and artist's blogs, illustration is bringing Americans together online to discuss the politics of the day, stressing the importance to vote in the upcoming elections. Art from magazines and newspapers of all political affiliations will be represented in this exhibit, allowing artists to express their views on the 2008 election in print and in a variety of new media.
Curated by former Art Director at TIME Magazine, Edel Rodriguez, the exhibition features the work of political illustrators including Steve Brodner, Philip Burke, Tim O'Brien, Hanoch Piven, Stephen Kroninger and Barry Blitt. Original art used for print by Rolling Stone, The New York Times, TIME Magazine, The New York Observer and the controversial New Yorker cover of Barack and Michelle Obama will be on display along with the printed publications. In an interview with the Nation, illustrator Steve Brodner explains the importance of political illustration: "They are an important part of the mix. They are a way to encapsulate ideas, to make them clear and find what is compelling. We look for meanings, for passions, for true things. If you can have all these factors working simultaneously, you are a master." Founded in 1901, the Society of Illustrators is a nonprofit educational organization dedicated to "the promotion of the art of illustration - past, present and future." Visit the Society of Illustrators for more information. For more information about the exhibit contact Kate Feirtag at kate@societyillustrators.org. ADC's Mad Ave
Watching AMC's Golden Globe-winnning series Mad Men? Brush up on your knowledge of the advertising industry's history. Become a member of the ADC before August 31 and get a complimentary copy of ADC's Mad Ave!
Mad Ave: Award Winning Advertising of the 20th Century features some of the most memorable campaigns in history, selected from eight decades of Art Directors Annuals by many of the industry's leading creative directors and copywriters with their commentaries. Each chapter features commentaries from some of the industry's most recognized writers and art directors from each decade. From Jay Chiat to Shelly Lazarus, contributors' insightful views lend a critical eye to the complex history of this "art form of persuasion." For ADC member discounts off books visit the ADC store. New MFA in Interaction Design Offered at SVA in Fall 2009
A new advanced degree program focused on the design and business of digital media will be offered at the School of Visual Arts in New York City beginning in the fall of 2009. An MFA in Interaction Design will focus on the critical role of the designer in creating useful and usable digital products and services. The department will be chaired by Liz Danzico, an expert in information architecture and usability, who conceived the program with Steven Heller, a design historian, New York Times columnist, and co-chair of the MFA Design Department at SVA. For more information click here. | ||||||||||||||||||||
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ADC Welcomes New Members
Adams Malcolm Louis: NY NY
Adinegoro Bambang: Secaucus NJ Alexander Barbara: NY NY Amaral André: Brazil Arroyo Monrouzeau: Puerto Rico Atiyota Ese: Nigeria Barrow Jacob: Australia Beckwith Charles: Brooklyn NY Bennett Lisa: San Francisco CA Boys Emma: San Francisco CA Brothers Robert E.: NY NY Capezzuoli Lisa: Astoria NY Carpenter Rick: Chicago IL Chang Terri: Jersey City NJ Choi Yon Joo: Jersey City NJ Di Mento Sarina: Brooklyn NY Flisram Sara: West Linn OR Gallentine Todd: Jamaica Plain MA Garfinkel Lee: NY NY Imperiale Warner Daniele: Brooklyn NY Jones Spencer: NY NY Juberg Christopher: San Diego CA Kang Jeannie: Jersey City NJ Kawamura Masashi: Netherlands Kwak Ki Won: Jersey City NJ Lauton Diego: Brazil Livengood John: Seattle WA Logaras Jerry: Brooklyn NY Matos Nancy: NY NY Mehling Lisa: NY NY Merwin Josh: NY NY Messianu Luis Miguel: Coral Gables FL Monteiro Mark: Venice CA Morton Evan: UK Muramatsu Yuki: Bronx NY O'Loan Helen: Australia Pufe Stefan: Germany Rockwell Alan: Canada Russell Alan: Canada Ryan Kate: NY NY Simon Andrew: Canada Sloan Pat: NY NY Souza Rozely: Chicago IL Suh Deena: Brooklyn NY Talerman Elizabeth: NY NY Testani Mitzie: Conshohocken PA Tupper Andrew: NY NY Valkova Roussina: Astoria NY Waite Jeremy: UK Wood Ray: Brooklyn NY Weber Njoschi: Germany Yamamoto Hiroki: Tokyo Yeung Karen: Hong Kong Yoo Hyo Jin: Korea | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Consider the ADC gallery for your next event
The ADC Gallery can accommodate up to 430 guests and is handicap accessible.
Location: 106 West 29th Street (Just West of 6th Avenue) Closest subway stops are 1/9 or R/W to 28th St. For more information click here. For further questions or to make an appointment, please contact Olga Grisaitis at olga@adcglobal.org. | ||||||||||||||||||||
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About the ADC
The ADC is the premier organization for integrated media and the first international creative collective of its kind. Founded in New York in 1920, the ADC is a self-funding, not-for-profit membership organization that celebrates and inspires creative excellence, connecting creative visual communications professionals from around the world.
Mission
To promote the highest standards of excellence and integrity in visual communications for the industry and to encourage students and young professionals entering the field. In short, to provide "visual fuel."
Mandate
To provide a forum for creative leaders in Advertising, Design, Interactive Media and Communications to meet, learn, participate, and explore the direction for these rapidly evolving industries.
Not Yet A Member? Join Now.
The Art Directors Club 106 West 29th Street New York, NY 10001 212.643.1440 www.adcglobal.org
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