The 5th international poster competition organized by the Yiannis and Eleni Garedakis Museum of Typography in Chania, has been embraced by artists from around the world. The awards ceremony was held on Saturday, November 16, 2019, along with the opening of the poster exhibition, that will be held at the museum amphitheatre for a year.
The 30 distinguished posters were selected among the 530 valid entries, from 68 countries around the world.
The winners of the competition are:
1st prize Dimitris Lelakis (Greece) with a prize of 1500 euros
2nd Prize Nicos Terzis (Sweden) with a prize of 1000 euros
3rd Breech Asher Harani (Philippines) with a prize of 700 euro
Another surprise-prize was given after a public vote on Lia Merilaine from Finland (700 euros).
The honorary distinctions were awarded to: Jingmeng Bi (China), Alex Egner (Bellingham USA), Trevor Wong (Hong Kong, China), Siddha S Kannur (Mumbai, India), Ivan Mišić (Serbia), Anna Kłos (Poland) , Yen Chu Chian (Taiwan), Giovanni Tavares Pereira (Brazil), Kántor Attila (Budapest, Hungary), Lau Pik Yoke (Malaysia), Erick Ginard (Cuba - Mexico), Alexander Dimopoulos (Athens, Greece), Yimin Luo (China - Canada), Yibing Hu (China), Kerem Acar (Turkey), Irina Goryacheva (Moscow, Russia), Xiaoshen YE (China), Nancy Merou (Athens, Greece), George Patsalides (Cyprus), Maroof Soheili (Kurdistan, Iran) ), Vangelis Argyros (Chalkida, Greece), Zhang Jia Ming (Taiwan), Iia Meriläinen (Finland), Mara Bratanova (Sofia, Bulgaria), Semih Oduncu (Bulgaria), Łukasz Chmielewski (Poland), Maria Begli (Thessaloniki, Greece).
The ceremony was held in the crowded amphitheater of the Museum of Typography with the founder of the museum Yiannis Garedakis emphasizing in his greeting the extroversion nature of the competition.
The jury consisted of:
Yiannis Garedakis (journalist, publisher, founder of the newspaper "Haniotika Nea" and chairman of the Board of the Museum of Typography),
Dimitris Arvanitis (Graphic Desingner, member of AG I-Alliance Graphique International) ,
Lila Kalogeri (illustrator),
Alexandros Kokkolas (graphic designer, professor at Vakalo School of Art and Design),
Spyros Orneraki (cartoonist, illustrator)
Gisis Papageorgiou (cartoonist, illustrator).
Mr. Spyros Ornerakis described the competition as a "treasure", underlining the high level of artistry that existed. He emphasized the difficult task of the committee to decide who would be awarded, and called on representatives of local bodies to support the institution of the competition, which, he stressed, is a global event.
Mr. Alexandros Kokolas spoke about the value and contribution of the Museum of Typography to the education of graphic design students and the preservation of the history of typography while stressing that this is an area that should be supported by all. He characterised the creations of the participants as outstanding and underlined the difficulty of the committee in distinguishing some of them.
Ms Lila Kalogeri said this year's participations in the Poster Contest were perhaps the highest since the institution's inception and noted that many entries that were not distinguished and not included in the top 30 were very good. She also emphasized the artistic integrity of the works and the richness of the visual media used by the participants.
For serious personal reasons, the members of the jury Dimitris Arvanitis and Gisis Papageorgiou were unable to attend the competition, and they sent written greetings, including, among other things, the importance of the competition, the timeless value of the poster and the charm that young people.
A special moment was the greeting sent by the Museum's collaborator, typographer-lithographer and graphic designer Antonis Papantonopoulos, who although hospitalised, managed to send his own message of support to the contest, while describing in a humorous way his personal, multifaceted relationship with the art of the poster.
The winner of the first prize of the competition Dimitris Lelakis, after receiving his prize, spoke about the value of the competition as a step of expression for the young creators while emphasising his international scope.
Following the great success of the 4th International Poster Contest about Typography, with 570 entries from 51 countries, the Museum of Typography in Chania expands its field of interest and invites artists from around the world to participate in the 5th contest themed "Typography - window to the world".
The invitation is mainly for professionals and students of graphic and visual arts who wish to design an original poster inspired by their homeland, featuring the culture, characteristic monuments - symbols, the natural environment, the history, the people, even the things that need to be changed.
The 30 posters selected by the jury will receive honorary distinctions and the top three will receive substantial prizes:
• 1,500 € for the first winner
• 1,000 € for the second winner
• 700 € for the third winner
The awards and prizes ceremony, along with the opening of the exhibition, will take place on Saturday, November 16, 2019, at the amphitheater of the Museum of Typography.
The jury of the competition consists of:
• Giannis Garedakis, journalist - publisher, founder of the newspaper "Haniotika nea" and chairman of the Board of the Museum of Typography
• Dimitris Arvanitis, Graphic Designer, member of AG I-Alliance Graphique Internationale
• Lila Kalogeri, illustrator
• Alexandros Kokkolas, graphic designer (akc creative design), professor at Vakalo art & design
• Spyros Ornerakis, cartoonist and illustrator
• Gisis Papageorgiou, cartoonist and illustrator
Terms of participation
1) Interested parties should send their work from Monday, July 15th to Monday, 30th September 2019 at the email: typography.poster@gmail.com. Participation must be accompanied by a text file with the name of the author, the place of residence and contact details (telephone and email) and - optionally - a short description of the project (up to 100 words). The name of both files should be the name of the contestants in Latin characters.
2) Dimensions should be 50 × 70 cm. PDF, CMYK, image at 200 ppi and not exceed 25 Mb. Otherwise the work should be sent with wetransfer, or similar service. A low resolution (.jpg) file should be attached for web use.
3) The contest is open to anyone who wants to take part with the possibility of sending only one original project created specifically for the competition. Employees of "Haniotika News" SA and the "Museum of Typography by Yannis & Eleni Garedaki" are excluded from the contest.
4) Interested parties can find the Museum's logo at www.typography-museum.gr/logos.pdf
5) The results of the competition will be announced at the awards ceremony that will be hosted at the "Museum of Typography" amphitheater. After the ceremony, the results will be announced in the newspaper "Haniotika Nea", at www.haniotika-nea.gr, at the website of the museum www.typography-museum.gr and on the official website of the museum on facebook www. facebook.com/MouseioTypographias.
Copyright
1. By participating in the contest, creators declare that the data used to create their work are original and do not include third party copyrights.
2. The creators of the 30 projects that will be awarded or will receive a distinction indicate that they do not retain any property rights to the works they will deliver.
3. The "Museum of Typography" will be able to re-use freely, for any purpose and in any manner, whether or not all or part of the material sent by the 30 distinguished creators.
4. Participation in the competition automatically implies acceptance of the terms of this notice.
* The winning poster of the 4th Poster Contest, by Argyris Athanasiadis, was selected to be the poster of the 5th contest.
A Poster exhibition on the theme "Typography: Past, Present and Future" is organized by the Museum of Typography founded by Yannis and Eleni Garedakis, in Patras, in collaboration with the Archaeological Museum of Patras from 8 to 21 June 2019.
The opening of the exhibition will take place on Saturday the 8th of June at 8 pm at the Archaeological Museum of Patras. At that time, the museum's amphitheatre will feature a video with the history and activities of the Museum of Typography.
The exhibition takes place in the framework of the 7th International Conference on Typography and Visual Communication (ICTVC) and is curated by Antonis K. Papantonopoulos, a lithographer and typographer, collaborator of the Museum of Typography.
The exhibition features 54 works selected from the four International Poster Competitions organized by the Museum of Typography, with entries from all over the world. These competitions aim at linking Typography and its history with the present and the future of visual communication.
The Museum of Typography in Chania is the first of its kind in Greece. It has been operating since 2005 and it consists the life vision of its founder, Yannis Garedakis, who, with the support of his wife Eleni, has been collecting machinery and other exhibits that mark the evolution of European typography, for over three decades.
The Museum is developed in two large wings and three separate rooms covering an area of approximately 1,200 sq.m. In its collections, visitors can see original 19th-century printing presses, automatic presses from the early 20th century, type cases and machines of mechanical composition (linotype and monotype) and use some of them.
Rare books, newspapers and engravings link typography to the turbulent history of Crete while the permanent art exhibition "History of Writing and Graphic Arts" by Antonis Papantonopoulos travels visitors to every form of human communication.
Duration of exhibition: 8 - 21 June 2019 - Operating hours: 8 am - 8 pm
The names of the participants are:
01 THANOS VRAILAS, Athens, Greece - 1st Prize, 1st Contest
02 KOSTANTINOS THEOCHARIS, Athens, Greece - 2nd Prize, 1st Contest
03 YIANNIS KORNARAKIS, Athens, Greece - 3rd Prize, 1st Contest
04 PANOS ASIMAKOPOULOS, Athens, Greece – Honorary Distinction, 1st Contest
05 EFTYCHIA ILIADOU, Andros, Greece – Honorary Distinction, 1st Contest
06 SPYROS PITTIDIS, Crete, Greece – Honorary Distinction, 1st Contest
07 ALEXIS VOUZARAS, Athens, Greece – Honorary Distinction, 1st Contest
08 MARIA PETROGLOU, Athens, Greece – Honorary Distinction, 1st Contest
09 GEORGIA STAVROPOULOU, Tripoli, Greece – Honorary Distinction, 1st Contest
10 CHRISTALENI ALIFIERAKI, Crete, Greece – Honorary Distinction, 1st Contest
11 THANASIS BERTAHAS, Athens, Greece – Honorary Distinction, 1st Contest
12 KEIRA RATHBONE, London UK – Honorary Distinction, 1st Contest
13 GEORGIOS KRITIKOS, Thessaloniki, Greece - 1st Prize, 2nd Contest
14 YIANNIS MALLIS, Athens, Greece – 2nd Prize, 2nd Contest
15 KONSTANTINOS KRIGAS, Thessaloniki, Greece – 3rd Prize, 2nd Contest
16 IOANNIS DIVOLIS, Athens, Greece – Honorary Distinction, 2nd Contest
17 DESPINA AERAKI, Athens, Greece – Honorary Distinction, 2nd Contest
18 "STICHIAGRA"PRINTING SHOP, Attica, Greece – Honorary Distinction, 2nd Contest
19 ALEXANDROS KOKOLAS, Athens, Greece – Honorary Distinction, 2nd Contest
20 OLGA TZOLA, Thessaloniki, Greece – Honorary Distinction, 2nd Contest
21 KOSTAS BARTZOKAS, UK & Norway – Honorary Distinction, 2nd Contest
22 EVROS VOSKARIDES, Athens, Greece – Honorary Distinction, 2nd Contest
23 THANOS VRAILAS, Attica, Greece – Honorary Distinction, 2nd Contest
24 JUAN DIEGO RESTREPO, Colombia - 1st Prize, 3rd Contest
25 MURAT ҪIL, Istanbul, Turkey - 2nd Prize, 3rd Contest
26 EVAGGELOS KALOGHROPOULOS, Crete, Greece - 3rd Prize, 3rd Contest
27 AIAS KOKKALIS, Crete, Greece – Honorary Distinction, 3rd Contest
28 SYLVIA CASADO DEL RIO, Barcelona, Spain – Honorary Distinction, 3rd Contest
29 IOANNIS TSIAMANTAS, Karditsa, Greece – Honorary Distinction, 3rd Contest
30 KAMEN GORANOV, Bulgaria – Honorary Distinction, 3rd Contest
31 CARL GODFREY, Bristol, UK – Honorary Distinction, 3rd Contest
32 ERIC GINARD, Cuba & Mexico – Honorary Distinction, 3rd Contest
33 ALISON WATSON, Dublin, Ireland – Honorary Distinction, 3rd Contest
34 ANDREA BARKHUIZE, Cape Town, South Africa – Honorary Distinction, 3rd Contest
35 DIMITRIS APOSTOLIDIS, Thessaloniki, Greece, – Honorary Distinction, 3rd Contest
36 BARBORA MATLOVICOVA & JANA POMYKACOVA, Prague, Czech Republic – Honorary Distinction, 3rd Contest
37 OLIVERA BATAJIC SRETENOVIC, Belgrade, Serbia – Honorary Distinction, 3rd Contest
38 ARGYRIS ATHANASIADIS, Athens, Greece – 1st Prize, 4th Contest
39 JULIA NIZAK ,Hungary – 2nd Prize, 4th Poster Contest
40 YANKOVSKAYA VITALIYA ALEKSEEVNA, Belarus – 3rd Prize, 4th Contest
41 JIA-MIN-WANG, Taiwan – Honorary Distinction, 4th Contest
42 SAEIDEH SHAHMARI KALESTAN, Iran – Honorary Distinction, 4th Contest
43 LAURENT LABAT, Bordeaux, France – Honorary Distinction, 4th Contest
44 MARIO FUENTES, Ecuador – Honorary Distinction, 4th Contest
45 ŁUKASZ CHMIEWSKI, Poland – Honorary Distinction, 4th Contest
46 ERIC LEE YIN HANG, Vancouver, Canada – Honorary Distinction, 4th Contest
47 ΔΗΜΗΤΡΗΣ ΜΠΟΥΚΟΣ - ΓΕΡΑΣΙΜΟΣ ΧΩΡΑΪΤΗΣ, Chalkida, Greece – Honorary Distinction, 4th Contest
48 MAFALDA SOFIA D' ALMEIDA, Portugal – Honorary Distinction, 4th Contest
49 KOSTAS KARAMAOUNAS, Crete, Greece – Honorary Distinction, 4th Contest
50 COLIN EADIE, New York, USA – Honorary Distinction, 4th Contest
51 DANAE ATHANASIOU, Cyprus – Honorary Distinction, 4th Contest
52 AGATA DANILOVA, Belarus – Honorary Distinction, 4th Contest
53 EVELYN DAVIS - WALKER, Georgia, USA – Honorary Distinction, 4th Contest
54 XIAOFENG CHEN, Guangzhou, China – Honorary Distinction, 4th Contest
Typography was celebrated on Saturday June 23rd at the Museum of Typography in Crete, with the award ceremony of the 4th International Poster Contest and the opening of the poster exhibition which was held at the amphitheatre of the Museum.
This year, the entries surpassed every expectation, and reached the record number of 570!
The prizes were awarded to:
1st. Argiris Athanasiadis, Greece (1.000 euros)
2nd. Nizak Julia, Hungary (700 euros)
3rd. Yankovskaya Vitaliya Alekseevna, Belarus (500 euros)
Honorary distinctions were given to:
Jia-Min-Wang (Taiwan), Peter Javorik (Slovakia), Saeideh Shahmari Kalestan (Iran), Laurent LABAT (France), Mario Fuentes (Ecuador), Geray Gençer (Istanbul), Łukasz Chmielewski (Poland), Eric Lee Yin Hang (Canada), Zero Point Developers (Dimitrios Boukis – Gerasimos Choraitis) (Greece), Wei Su (Canada), Mahé Renaut (France), Mafalda Sofia d´Almeida ( Portugal), Kostas Karamaounas, Colin Eadie (United States f America), Levent Tayfur (Turkey), Ayşegül Tuğçe Durmaz (Turkey), Danae Athansiou (Cyprus), Sarah Kngezwitsch (Scotland), Danae Polyviou (Cyprus), Agata Danilova (Λευκορωσία), Evelyn Davis-Walker (United States of America), Yen-Chu Chiang (Taiwan), Gen Harrison (Scotland), Nancy Merou (Greece), Stella Paloungou ( Cyprus), Xiaofeng Chen (China), Luis Rutz (Germany).
The 30 distinguished posters will be presented at an exhibition in the Museum of Typography for approximately a year, until the next contest.
The international poster contest organized by the Museum of Typography is an institution that began in 2014.
With the support of the Region of Crete, the Regional Unit of Chania, the Municipality of Chania and the newspaper Haniotika nea.
The Museum of Typography, Crete, Greece, has the pleasure to announce the 4th International Poster Contest about Typography and Printing, as the greek word “τυπογραφία” to which the museum is dedicated, includes both arts.
Participants are mainly professionals and students of graphic and visual arts, as well as amateurs who can translate their ideas into posters. The thirty posters that will be distinguished by the jury will be presented at an exhibition, hosted at the amphitheater of the Museum for a year, until the next competition.
The aim of the contest is to conect the present and future of graphic arts to typography, printing and their history.
More information, photographs and ideas about typography and printing can be found on the Museum's website www.typography-museum.gr, along with a virtual tour of most parts of the Museum.
The creators of the first three posters that will be distinguished, will also receive money awards:
For the winner 1.000 €
For the second 700 €
For the third 500 €
The posters will be judged by a jury composed of (alphabetically):
Dimitris Arvanitis, Graphic Designer, member of AG I - Alliance Graphique Internationale
Yannis Garedakis, publisher – founder of Haniotika nea newspaper, Chairman of the Museum of Typography
Lila Kalogeri, illustrator
Antonis Papantonopoulos, graphic designer, printer, artist
Tzanetos Petropouleas, graphic designer
Juan Diego Restrepo, graphic designer, winner of the 3rd poster contest
The poster exhibition will be inaugurated on Saturday 23 June 2018, at 7:30 pm. During the event the thirty best posters will be presented and their creators will receive honorary dinstinctions.
Participation terms:
1) All participants must send their creations by Sunday, May 13th 2018 by email to: typography.poster@gmail.com. It should be accompanied by a text file containing the following information: full name, place of residence and contact information (phone and email) and – optionally – a brief description of the project (up to 100 words). Both files should be named with the contestants full name in latin characters.
2) The poster dimensions must be 50×70 cm. PDF, CMYK, images at 200 ppi and not exceed 25 Mb. Otherwise it should be sent by wetransfer or other similar service.
3) The contest is open to anyone wishing to take part with only one (1) project. Employees of “Haniotika Nea SA” and “Museum of Typography” are excluded from the contest.
4) The Museum logo can be found at www.typography-museum.gr/logos.pdf
6)The results of the contest will be announced during the inauguration of the exhibition, that will take place in the amphitheatre of the “Museum of Typography”on Saturday 23 June 2018, at 7:30 pm. After the presentation of the exhibition the results will be announced on the website of the “Museum of Typography” www.typography-museum.gr, on its official facebook page www.facebook.com/MouseioTypographias, in the newspaper “Haniotika Nea” and on www.haniotika-nea.gr.
Regarding intellectual property rights:
1. Creators of the thirty projects that will be rewarded or receive honorary distinction declare that they do not maintain any intellectual property rights on the creations that they will deliver.
2. The “Museum of Typography” may reuse without damage the entire work submitted by the thirty creators mentioned above or part of it, freely for any purpose and in any way, unchanged or modified at its own discretion.
3. Participation in the contest automatically implies the acceptance of terms of the present notice of contest.
Once upon a time, there was a dot, alone on a white piece of paper. Forgotten by the young boy who drew it, every day it asked Earth and Heaven to help it not to fade away. Even that small insignificant dot...
The tender story of the little restless dot that managed to transform into a warm sun and live forever thanks to the Museum of Typography unfolds in Maro Theodorakis' new children’s book “Traces of a dot or else… a dot at the Museum of Typography”.
The book was illustrated by Lila Kalogeri.
It will be released in the next few days, in greek, from the Museum of Typography publications. An english version is planned in the near future.
For the third consecutive year, the Museum of Typography is honored with the Trip Advisor Certificate of discrimination of providing excellent quality services!
Travellers talk about: "One of a kind!", "Modern museum and active!", "A wonderful museum of typographic and printing history - you must visit !" "La storia Europea attraverso le macchine tipografiche", "Excellent Collection", "Must Visit It!", "Find typography treasures in Chania", "WORLD-CLASS MUSEUM!", "Fantastic museum must visit ", "Une parenthèse agréable entre les plages" , "Tidlöst och prislöst".
"Printers Devil" is a song by Leonidas Maridakis, inspired by the Museum of Typography. The video clip, directed by Yiannis Kritikos, was filmed entirely in the museum halls.
The song "Printers Devil", music by Leonidas Maridakis and lyrics by Leonidas Maridakis and Nicole Katsani, is the precursor of the upcoming album "Boat in the house" that will be released soon and will be the third consecutive personal album of Leonidas Maridakis.
Additional credits for the video clip:
Script: Leonidas Maridakis
Director of Photography: Vangelis Katritzidakis
Assistant director: Yiannis Koukourakis
Costume designer: Xanthi Kontou
Technical Support: Dionysis Manousakis
The 2017 edition of the AEPM’s annual conference was hosted by the Museum of Typography in Souda, next to the historic town of Chania in the North West of Crete. From 11-14 May, it brought together fifty-five participants from eleven countries including South Korea. A notable innovation this year was the presence of several delegates from museums with modest budgets which do not normally stretch to this kind of meeting. This was made possible by generous bursaries offered by our hosts on the occasion of an award which the Museum of Typography recently received from the Greek graphic design community for its contribution to printing culture.
Exceptionally, the conference followed hard on the heels of two other recent AEPM events: the participation of a delegation of thirty representatives from European printing museums at a meeting in Cheongju City in South Korea in September 2016 to mark the launching of a project to set up a worldwide network of printing museums; and the 2016 annual conference of the Association which was held in November at the Dutch Lithography Museum. This unusually busy programme of events was the result of the decision taken in 2015 to hold the annual conference in the Spring, as of 2017, in order to bring it into line with the AEPM’s recently acquired status as a Brussels-registered not-for-profit association (Asbl).
The conference was spread over three and a half days with the usual mix of talks, informal discussions and visits. Many new people attended, taking advantage of the event to discover aspects of the printing heritage scene in Greece and share ideas with colleagues from printing museums and heritage workshops from all over Europe. Our host, the Museum of Typography, was of course no stranger to the AEPM, having attended previous conferences at the Musée de l’imprimerie et de la communication in Lyon (France, 2012) and the Tipoteca italiana in Cornuda (Italy, 2015).
The theme of the conference – Making history: collections, collectors and the cultural role of printing museums – was, as ever, fairly open-ended with a broad diversity of perspectives: printing museums old and new, collectors of machines, graphic designers and practising printers with a historic turn of mind, teachers, researchers and printing historians. Of particular interest this year was the presence of collectors of historical printing machines and representatives of several current projects to set up new printing museums. As for the fourteen speakers, they were of a consistently high quality, focused and – it has to be said – remarkably disciplined as they managed to keep to the timetable despite a very busy programme and sessions in different locations (the Regional Press Institute and the Mediterranean Agronomic Institute) owing to the fact that the Museum of Typography’s amphitheatre was not big enough to house all the delegates.
The opening session on the Thursday evening took place in the Centre for Mediterranean Architecture which is housed in the restored Arsenal in the heart of the old Venetian port of Chania. Several speakers spoke to a large audience composed not only of the conference delegates, but also of representatives of the Greek printing and newspaper industry and the many local partners who had supported the Museum in organising the conference.
After the welcome address by Yiannis Garedakis who situated the Museum of Typography and the conference in the context of Crete and its economic activity, the governor of the island and the Mayor of Chania paid homage to the Museum of Typography and its founders Yiannis and Eleni Garedakis. Yiannis Phillis, senior professor at Crete Technical University then made a vibrant case for the importance of museums in general and of printing museums in particular as measures and vectors of intellectual progress, culture and democracy. Alan Marshall, chair of the AEPM, continued with an outline of the origins of printing museums and their evolution in parallel with that of the printing industry and the historical disciplines which underpin their missions and activities. Michael Meimaris, emeritus professor at the University of Athens, closed the session with an evocation of an augmented reality project centred round the Museum of Typography.
On Friday morning, before getting down to the ‘serious’ work of the conference, delegates had time to visit the Typography Museum, located in the nearby port town of Souda, and get acquainted with its collections and activities. It was also the occasion to get to know its staff and collaborators and take the measure of the work which has been accomplished in the thirty years since Yiannis and Eleni Garedakis first started to formulate the idea of starting up a printing museum.
Today, Yiannis is at the head of the country’s leading regional daily newspaper, the Haneotica Nea (Chania News) an entreprise which he started fifty years ago in the difficult days the Greek Junta which for seven years was particularly hostile to any form of press freedom.
He had started his career as a young journalist in Athens where he discovered the work and traditions of the compositors, linotype operators and printers. Over the years, he collected a certain number of printing machines which would later form the basis of the Museum of Typography which he set up with his wife and collaborator Eleni on the premises of their newspaper’s printing plant. For the last thirty years, they have continued to add to the collection, first printing machines representing most of the principal printing techniques and, later, a wide selection of printed documents of all sorts and from all periods in the Greek language. In recent years, the Museum has virtually doubled in size (extending into a former machine hall belonging to the newspaper) and adding new exhibition space, an auditorium, a shop and a café. No printing museum could better illustrate the theme of the conference than the Museum of Typography: a private collection become museum thanks to the will, persistence and generosity of two people actively involved in printing and publishing. (It is worth noting that, to mark the AEPM conference in Chania, Haneotika Nea published a well-produced, informative study of Cretan scholars and printers from the fifteenth through to the nineteenth century (Electra Kambouraki-Pateraki, Cretan scholars and printers.)
Friday’s session covered several aspects of the development of Greek typography and reminded delegates unfamiliar with the history of Greece that printing was not introduced into Greece until fairly recent times, Greek language works being imported during the first centuries of printing from major printing centres elsewhere in Europe, notably from Venice. This of course did not prevent Greek typography from having a rich and illustrious history which was evoked with admirable clarity by the architect and book historian Konstantinos Staikos and Giorgios Matthiopoulos of the Technical Education Institute of Athens, notably through the development of Greek-language printing and publishing, and the development of Greek typographical letterforms from Byzantine writing.
Gerry Leonidas from the Department of typography and graphic communication (Reading, UK) provided a masterly exposition of a methodology for looking at, analysing and describing graphic objects of all sorts: a methodology which would be of very considerable interest to printing museum personnel who are regularly confronted by the need to make the often inscrutable technical and printed artefacts which are their daily lot intelligible for non-specialists. His limpid exposition offered one possible answer to the chronic lack of specialist training for people working in the field of graphic heritage.
The afternoon session approached more directly various questions concerning printing museums and the exploitation of graphic heritage materials. Guy Hutsebaut gave an account of the recent (2016) makeover of the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp, the specific problems raised by exhibiting fragile printed objects in the context of a historic site, and the difficulty of striking a balance between display and conservation and between the clarity of the narrative and faithfulness to a particular historical period.
The two following speakers, Jürgen Bönig and Patrick Goossens dealt directly, each in his own way with the question of collections as the raw material of museums. Jürgen’s case was that of a historical typographical collection – that of the J. J. Augustin printing firm in Glückstadt in Germany which, as of the turn of the twentieth century, specialised in the printing of works in a wide variety of languages and scripts. This unique collection is now the object of a museum in the making which deals not only with the practicalities of printing techniques but also with the cultural diversity of typographical writing systems on an international scale. In contrast, Patrick provided us with an insight into his extraordinary collection of printing machines and the many questions he has to confront with respect to what he collects, why he collects it, and the perspectives for short-term exploitation and long-term survival of his collection. One of the aspects he emphasised was the restauration and practical use of typefounding, typesetting and printing machines as a means of fully understanding former production methods.
The afternoon session also took us to Cyprus to look at projects aimed at giving greater prominence to the island’s graphic heritage. Niki Sioki from the University of Nicosia spoke about several collections of printed ephemera which for the moment are somewhat dispersed and underexploited as such, and how a digitisation campaign might make them more accessible as a tool for studying the history of the island’s graphic production. Klimis Mastoridis, also from the University of Nicosia described several collections of printing machines which have the potential to form the basis of a future printing museum in Cyprus, and the challenges which such a project would have to face.
Friday ended with dinner in a highly reputed taverna on the nearby peninsula of Akrotiri with a moonlit view over the bay of Souda and animated by two local musicians and a group of traditional Cretan dancers. Inevitably the music got the better of the Greek contingent who occupied the dance floor, joined by some of the more intrepid foreign delegates.
The Saturday session was held at the Regional Press Institute, a conference centre located about twenty kilometres from Chania in the foothills of the spectacular and still partially snow-covered White Mountains. After the annual general meeting of the AEPM, Sonja Neumann of the Deutsches Museum in Munich gave us a thought-provoking analysis of the many questions facing printing museums in the information age, based on her work on the reinstallation of her museum’s printing gallery which is currently underway. No sector of museum activity, whether conservation, restoration, exhibition or mediation, escapes the many thorny problems raised by the third industrial revolution and its impact on the forms, functions and interpretation of graphic artefacts.
The following speakers concerned themselves, in very different ways, with the necessarily close relationship between graphic heritage and graphic design. Anastasios Politis of the Hellenic Union of Graphic Arts and Media Technology Engineers revisited the role of typography in modern visual communication, underlining the need to maintain an active link between graphic design and graphic heritage. Sue Walker, from the University of Reading described the many ways in which the extensive historical collections of the Department of typography & graphic communication (UK) are used on a daily basis to give students, for the most part destined to become practising graphic designers, a firm grounding in the history of printing and design history. The success of this approach, which has been followed for over forty years, is attested by the number, not only of highly qualified graphic and type designers to have come out of the Department of typography, but also the number of teachers and former students who have made their mark in printing and design history over the last two generations.
The session concluded with news from several member organisations:
Saturday afternoon and Sunday were given over to visits and excursions offered by the Museum of Typography and its various partners in organising the conference. First stop was the residence of the statesman Eleftherios Venizelos, one of modern Greece’s founding fathers, who was born and spent much of his life in Chania where he had been instrumental in obtaining for the island of Crete its independence from the Ottoman empire and later its full integration as part what we now know as Greece. This was followed by a visit to the Holy Trinity Monastery on the peninsula of Akrotiri which in addition to its wine cellars houses a small permanent exhibition of highlights from its rare book collection.
Sunday took us to the Botanical Park and Gardens of Crete in the foothills of the White Mountains, a magnificent 20-hectare domain which, though barely fifteen years old – it was set up after a disastrous fire in 2003 – offers a fabulous diversity of plants in the three different ecosystems present on the site: sub-tropical, Mediterranean and mountain.
Sunday morning, before the excursion, also gave several members of the newly-elected board of the AEPM and the Typography Museum an opportunity to meet with Dr Seung-cheol Lee and his collaborateur Sora Kim to discuss the initiative of Cheongju City and the Jikji Festival in South Korea to organise a working group to prepare the setting up of the International Association of Printing Museums. The working group – which will meet in October of this year – will include several representatives from the AEPM.
Our three and half days in Chania were dense, with long days and short nights – studious and hilarious by turns, but always convivial thanks to the discrete but well-oiled organisation of the event and, above all, the legendary, and unforgettable, hospitality of the Museum of Typography. Our warmest thanks go to Eleni and Yiannis Garedakis, the Museum’s director Elia Koumi, and all the Museum’s collaborators and partners who helped make the event such a success.
Alan Marshall,
chairman of AEPM
original article: aepm.eu
Τhe "Museum of Typography" was awarded for its Cultural Contribution during the awarding ceremony of the Greek Graphic Design and Illustration Awards (ΕΒΓΕ), organized annually by the magazine + Design, under the auspices of the Greek Graphic Designers Association. The event took place on Monday, April 3rd 2017 at the Onassis Foundation Shelter in Athens.
For this event, the main stage of the Onassis Foundation Shelter welcomed more than 500 from the most talented representatives of Greek graphic design, digital media design and illustration. Among 1300 applications, three judging panels selected the winners in 35 categories, who received honorary distinctions, ΕΒΓΕ awards in each category, the Grand ΕΒΓΕ and the Golden ΕΒΓΕ.
The honorary ΕΒΓΕ award for Cultural Contribution, which is given each year by the Greek Graphic Designers Association to an individual or an organisation for it’s overall contribution to the evolution and preservation of the graphic arts, by unanimous decision of the Board this year was awarded to the Museum of Typography. The award was received by Elia Koumi, director of the museum.
