• Summer School as School 2017
Course 9: Memory and Typography
Course leaders: Toledo i Dertschei
19 - 24 July, 2017
Maximum number of participants: 10


In 2007 Toledo i Dertschei made a typographic research on partisan memorials erected between 1945 and 1991 in the west Istrian peninsula. Using pencils and transparent paper they transferred the typography of 12 monuments, mostly from a time before the digitalization of type.

They started to create new words with this appropriated typography and asking some questions: A monument is a form. It represents a political/ideological position. In most cases typography is a part of it, but which role does it play regarding the relation between content and form? What tells us the selection of a typeface and which connotation does it evoke in the viewer? Does the typeface correspond to the content of the monument?

In the case of the istrian monuments they found out, that the older monuments used quite modern typefaces in contrast to the more recent ones that were set in antiqua typefaces. We made a installation with the sheets and showed it in a little gallery in Sv. Lovrec to the istrian people.

In 2011 Toledo i Dertschei published the work in a different form in Bildpunkt. In this magazine Toledo i Dertschei are part of the editorial staff and constantly write articles about typography.

Toledo i Dertschei want to continue this investigation in Prishtina with the participants of SSAS and find different forms to deal with memory and typography.

Biography
In their role as designers the team of Toledo i Dertschei are particularly interested in the question of how society is designed. Such thoughts about the role of power and the representation of that power not only continuously inform the work of the two graphic designers but also increasingly affect their critical approach to their own discipline. Eva Dertschei and Carlos Toledo are as preoccupied with investigating language and letter as they are with employing them in a way that lends an effective voice to themes and initiatives which are not adequately represented in public debate. In this work, content is always more important than style and visual effectiveness (which is naturally defined on a case-by-case basis) more important than elegant design. Their work is always political, often striking and sometimes propagandistic, but in every case it is intelligent and reflective. It ranges from the design and conception of a series of exhibitions such as “Remapping Mozart” which was held to mark the 250th anniversary of the composer’s birth in 2006, to the graphic and editorial responsibility for the magazine “Bildpunkt” for the IG Bildende Kunst and the voluntary visual and continual support of the “First of March” initiative, which seeks to mobilise opinion against the prevailing migration policy in Austria.

Toledo i Dertschei live and work in Vienna. Since 1996 they run a studio in Vienna. They are member of IG Bildende Kunst and design austria.