How many times have you heard that design was more about the process than the final result? And yet, how many times has the final result influenced the way you viewed, understood and appreciated the process through which it was brought to light? While we can undoubtedly affirm that design is so much more than the physical form of an object, nevertheless, without it, all the social, cultural, economic, technological, productional implications of a designed object couldn’t be brought to light. This is precisely why Studio Formafantasma’s work is so powerful: because it fuses thoughts, ideas, critiques and concepts into an exceptional, intriguing physical form.

Usually developed for specific events and exhibitions, all of their projects have never been shown together. Thus, the exhibition “Prima Materia” currently on show at the Stedelijk Museum in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, appeared the perfect occasion to analyse their past projects, sense their poetics and delve in their design process. In fact, the title of the exhibition itself is a sort of a key for all of their projects, where “Prima Materia” refers to alchemy, or the transformation of everyday raw materials into precious goods, a method used for their Botanica, Craftica, Autarchy, Baked or Moulding Tradition projects. In revealing the process which glues together all the different project, the designers have divided the show in two parts: videos, sketches and material samples along the entrance corridor give a look at the duo’s thought and work processes before the finished pieces are viewed in the main space.

To understand their projects, in fact, one must take into account their personal and professional histories. Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin met while studying in Florence and later went to study together at the Design Academy Eindhoven, the hub of speculative, critical, experimental or socially and politically engaged design, that has characterized Dutch design production in the last three decades. In fact, Studio Formafantasma fits perfectly within this strand of design production, while still developing projects whose subtle poetics might appear the opposite of those explicitly bold objects produced by Droog.

In fact, Farresin and Trimarchi have told us a while ago that they really enjoy not belonging to anything or anywhere: “We always say we’re bastards, because if you put together Dutch and Italian design, it seems like nothing can come out of it or have a strong identity.” On the contrary, all of their projects have a strong identity that informed their practice since the very beginning and which draws on the past and exploration of traditional crafts in “offering an alternative vision to today’s consumer society and the role that design plays in it”.

“Prima Materia” runs until the 15th of June at the Stedelijk Museum in s-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands.

On the 28th March the definite public opening of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam was finally announced. The grand opening is scheduled for the 23rd September 2012, and it’s to be followed by a grand retrospective exhibition of Mike Kelley’s work. 
Years of delays on the construction site raised a lot of criticism from both the press and the public, and finally at the end of last month it was possible for the curious and the art hungry people in Amsterdam to take a tour in the new building. The new museum was slightly anticipated by a new corporate identity, and already debated projects by Mevis and van Deursen.

The now almost 70-year-old museum was initiated with the direction of Willem Sandberg – an incredible graphic designer himself – in 1945, and the graphic design that followed each of the museum’s exhibitions has become almost as important as the exhibition itself. Designers allowed to place their hands on those projects weren’t that many. After Sandberg’s tyranny Wim Crouwel came along, designing the modernist ‘SM’ identity that stood proudly until 2010.

It should have been followed by Experimental Jetset’s SMCS logo, but it was actually replaced by the capital T designed by Mevis and van Deursen for Temporary Stedelijk. 
Mevis and van Deursen’s logo might seem a bit goofy at the first glance for hard-core modernist habitues. It plays with the iconic idea of the capital initials, as with the Temporary Stedelijk’s capital T, filling it with the museum’s full denomination. Hence, it becomes both an image, an icon and almost a phrase. After the initial moment of wonder you can’t but be amazed how Mevis and van Deursen manage to surprise each and every time.