Baka Gabriela

(CPT)
Concept, branding, website design
2019

The Center for Philosophical Technologies brings together philosophers, designers, artists, scientists and critical and creative practitioners to interrogate, critique, and reconceive the relation between philosophical inquiry and technological development in the 21st century and beyond. ( ) (The CPT) thinks about technologies broadly, from advancements in AI, biotechnology, and planetary infrastructure design to technologies for storytelling, ecological communication, and community building, in order to envision technical practices that are critically engaged, ecologically embedded, and speculatively framed. ( )

Logo: Reflecting the center’s dynamic DIY approach, the logo builds on the acronym (CPT) whereby letters can be arranged freely within the system and are framed by parentheses. Our research into language and expression of ideas through typography led the conceptual rediscovery of parentheses: They allow writers the freedom to provide additional and clarifying information, inserting relevant thought, always providing context and content.
This variable branding system can be used both statically and animated, adapting to various formats and spacial contexts, but moreover, it can easily be typed out and used together with research texts, or claims, creating connected streams of thought.

Identity: The website backgrounds build an analogy to Arizona’s desert landscape, embodying a view to the far horizon. We used blur, to emphasize the intersection of disciplines at CPT and the vast information clouds those disciplines are made of. The floating forms show an abstracted version of the constantly moving (philosophical) thinking process.
The resulting compositions of the logo, loose type, and bubbles create a brand identity, that should invite free associations in the poetic vastness of philosophy and gestalt.

Made in Fukushima
2019
Art Direction, book design, information design, data visualisation

Made in Fukushima aims to communicate this long-term project of soil decontamination, utilising rice straw grown on decontaminated fields in the very crafting of its paper. The publication presents the stories of farmers whose livelihoods are affected by both the actual contamination and the residual stigma around Fukushima that deters buyers from purchasing the local rice crop, despite it being approved by strict official and independent tests.

With the publication of Made in Fukushima, METER hopes to elucidate its research by turning a complex and data-heavy scientific topic into something digestible. As Moby Digg puts it: “The researchers identified the problem that no one really understands the depth of the data and the effectiveness of their work. We turned this abstract data into something that’s visually appealing but also easy to understand. We use basic forms: the grid is always square and all the data points are circles in different sizes. This very reduced visual language really focuses the attention on what’s important.”

Homo Sensorium
2019
Baltan Laboratories
Identity, 3d shapes, motion, social media, flyers, stickers, banners and exhibition design materials.

Homo Sensorium is a sensorial experience, exploring human perception and technology. Baltan Laboratories Dutch Design Week 2019 program investigates the blurring borders between synthetic and organic, sense and perception, human and machine. The program’s name derives from the concept of Homo Universalis, a person whose expertise spans a significant number of different subject areas, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific problems. The branding for this project uses a visual language developed by 3D forms. Both the movement and appearance of the shapes resemble some of our sensual body experiences, like breading, smelling, or adjusting to our surroundings, stimulating our vision.

Meltdown Flags
Visualizing Global Glacier Retreat
2019
Website Design, Infographics

Meltdown Flags is a climate data initiative that visualizes the effects of global glacier retreat by reducing the amount of white in the flags of countries with glaciers.

Glaciers are a source of life—they provide vital drinking water, help generate power for millions of homes, and are our most valuable indicators in understanding the future of global climate change. Without glaciers, we would live in a very different world. A complete meltdown would bring sea-level rise to a record high, and eliminate 69% of the world’s drinking water. Although not every country may have a glacier, every country depends on their survival.

The goal of this project is to educate about the importance of glaciers, provide solutions to reduce emissions, and put pressure on politics to deal with the climate crisis. Meltdown Flags is an open-source climate data project initiated by environmental technology company METER. Data sources include METER, UNESCO, NASA, World Glacier Monitoring System (WGMS), United Nations Environmental Programme, the University of Zurich, and the University of Innsbruck.

Handsewn flags take the message to the streets. In December 2019, Meltdown Flags made their first appearance at the COP25 in Madrid. Since then, they have become a symbol of protest at climate demonstrations and events around the world.

A website provides more information and ways to act. Visitors can visualize the degree of glacier retreat by country, as well as access more data and information. They can also calculate and offset their carbon footprint. By downloading the flags and custom typeface, they also take part in the initiative.

An interactive exhibition concept adds another dimension. Lenticular installations of the Meltdown Flags help visualize the glacier retreat depending on the position of the viewer. An Instagram AR filter activated by the flags allows visitors and app users alike to immerse themselves in the data. Meltdown Flags show the past, current, and future state of meltdown. Created custom typeface visualize this accelerated melt process through three developed cuts. Starting from 1995, the year of the first United Nations Climate Change Conference, to 2050, the year set out by the UN to reach net-zero emissions and limit global temperature to 1.5 °C.

EHAM – creating a feeling of home.
Rebranding and website design.
2019

EHAM is a family-owned carpentry business rooted in Bavaria, Germany. Building high-end kitchens, doors, staircases from the best woods and sourced with care. Detailed work and high-quality products make EHAM a unique creative undertaking. By creating custom designs tailored to the likings of their clients – both in private and public sectors – EHAM translates their dreams with dedication and honesty providing full service along with project management, an in-house interior design team, as well as a wood workshop and showroom.

Logo
With the brand redesign, we aimed to create a cohesive image between the work that EHAM produces, their values, their identity and bring freshness into EHAM’s world. Dealing with a family business with a long-standing tradition, we decided to engage the client in the redesign process.

Starting off, we wanted to maintain some of the key elements of the old logo, such as and crossbars in letters “E” and “H”.  Based on these letterforms we created a custom variable font, morphing between the old and the new. With the help of a developed tool, the client could gain a greater insight into the scope of the rebranding and actively choose one of the morphing stages, which could be further developed into a new logo form.

Identity
Our first association with the logo were “joints” – the elements in between wood pieces, glued together, visible in floors or walls. For us, these elements symbolised connection and underlining precision. We decided to incorporate those symbols into the new identity. We used the thickness of the letter as the starting point for the gutter between images, allowing for more architectural, modular and constructed layouts. The final grid system derives from letterform “E” by activating the left margins and distances between sections as composition elements. This results in a clean and tidy design, which plays with structure and building forms within white space, calling to attention the intricate interplay of wood structures and architectural choreography.

Website
In order to amplify sensory perceptions and the quality of EHAM’s work in the digital space, we put a focus on imagery. To seduce viewers and pull them inside EHAM’s world, we specifically art directed the imagery and videos on the site combined with chosen typography. A warm color palette associated with wood, creates a natural and inviting feeling. The new identity expresses elegance and lightness balanced with originality, while referencing the use of material by EHAM in their detail- and quality-driven work.

Anywhere, Anytime
2019
for Fictional Journal
Posters, social media materials, animated 3d objects in Cinema 4d, type animations in After Effects.

Work is commissioned contribution to the exhibition “Add to the Cake: Transforming the Roles of the Female Practitioner”, curated by Matylda Krzykowski and Vera Saachetti in Kunstgewerbemuseum Pillnitz Castle, in Dresden Germany.

Concept:
The idea of Utopia brings about an omnipresent sensation of unattainability, evoking a world anchored to linear thinking, colonialist progress, and one single voice – as opposed to multiple and heterogeneous perspectives. Publishing often follows a linear or cyclical progression of time, acting as a binary construct: linear time manifests in a linear progression; cyclical time refers to nature and is often associated with femininity. To imagine futures, we must practice what Feminist Futures of Spatial Practice calls a more “embodied Utopia” (Grosz, 2001), aided by the creation of a space which “is both nowhere, at no time and anywhere at any time”. Instead of adding layers – another form of linear progression – we propose to collapse layers of time and dialogue through Fictional Journal.

The journal is an open-ended space for publishing, in constant becoming, where past, present and future issues merge, inform and challenge each other. The journal is a platform for equality is without beginning or end; it aims to challenge time as a patriarchal concept, collapsing and exploding it to include many voices, perspectives, and opinions. Our fiction is pragmatic: it already lives in the world today, tomorrow and yesterday.

Indorse
2018
Branding, visual identity, website design, type design

The aim of Indorse is to empower people to learn and give access to sharing both professional and social skillsets. It is a revolutionary blockchain-based online platform, which is secure, non-biased and free of charge. For data security, it uses the new model of tokenization and unlike other traditional platforms, Indorse has built a network where users have full control over their data.

Encouraging personal growth
By continuing the idea of personal growth and combining it with the will to embrace individuality, we have created a branding system constructed from basic shapes, which not only visualizes an abstraction of the abbreviated IND, but also states that ‘each of us is unique, colorful and different’ in a unique way.

Connecting through clarity
Custom icons stay consistent with the rest of our identity system. Their geometric shapes make them easy to understand, which allows us to communicate with users in the quickest, concise manner.
Symbolizing skill
Our logo embodies the different factors needed on the journey towards success. It’s shaped liked a trophy to show the importance of skill validation. It also makes up the Indorse “I” and underlines the balance that is essential to the skill mastery process.

Communication
Promotional materials are covered up to 80% by the identity’s visual elements, where the logo and other shapes are used as a mask for photos of people. This approach connects geometric patterns with human elements and brings people into focus. By doing so we underline, that behind each skill stands a real person and Indorse is a platform for various individuals, where skills are their online representation.

Rewriting the rules
Indorse specially tailored typography brings the playful Indorse essence to each one of our key messages. It breaks free from the norm and encourages our users to think out of the box and try something new.

Mapping out individuality
The visual system is designed to display user data. By keeping the visuals abstract, we gave the brand a distinctive look, while particular graphics can be used to illustrate more complex data. By using the custom developed the generative tool, users can access individual patterns that reflect the skills they have. As users add more skills and validate them, their patterns transform.

FICTIONAL JOURNAL.COM
2016–Ongoing
PR Communication materials / Print materials / Website Design

Fictional Journal (FJ) is a platform and online publication investigating the design’s involvement within society. Triggered by fascinations and questions on urgent political, social and economic happenings, FJ opens up issues for debate, action and imagining.  Moving between digital and physical formats, the journal experiments with ways of triggering and sharing a multitude of responses, acknowledging the design’s fluid presence within everyday life while extending critical perspectives on its practice.

Design:

The homepage presents the FJ’s current issue, with its related happenings, editorial text, cultural references, which helped frame the issue and the most important design responses, which were either commission or submitted through an open call. Each issue is uniquely created in collaborating with different institutions, has its own theme and identity color.

Overlaying of elements like images, text or contributions, combine with the blur effect helps to create a multilayer narrative, with no hierarchy, so the reader can be created their own journey through the content. 

Designed layouts are flexible, so each contribution, could look unique and be presented in the best possible way. Taking advantage of the full width of the screen and dividing it between areas for notes, images, and main text, with a combination of serif typeface Saol Display and Grotesk font, enhanced the online reading experience.

Baugeld Spezialisten
2017-ongoing
Concept, branding, signage, website and graphic design
Made at Moby Digg Studio

Baugeld Spezialisten is a consultancy, which mediates and helps people in getting loans to buying a home or apartments. Moby Digg have re-conceptualize their brand and create new visual identity based on duality of the word „perspective“. That means client’s perspective, and their individual needs, ideas about their dream house and as well as architectural perspective. This idea is essential for consultancy that helps in fulfilling dreams of  individuals.

BS consultancy enjoys with their customers the life in their own four walls as an expression of individuality and the associated feeling of freedom. Through honest empathy, experience (as well as competence) and clarity, BS provides exactly the security that customers want with a life-like decision.

With this idea of a human /client perspective as a center, the new design is rich in atmospheric images of enjoyable individuals in their living context. Minimalistic black and white color pallet of the rest of the design elements, allows photographs to convey and create a friendly, welcoming feeling, and by doing so, design relates with the client’s needs and expectations. To underline, that the dream of owning a house is unique, website features specially commissioned interviews with people, showcasing their living space and revealing stories connected to it.

Baugeld Spezialisten
2017– ongoing

Concept, branding, signage, website design and development, photo art direction
Made at Moby Digg Studio

A grid-based identity for finance consultancy company in Munich. Baugeld Spezialisten aims to bring the idea of a person’s ‘dream home’ to reality, by focusing not only on the financial hurdles, but also on the human and emotional perspective. The final result is a beautifully minimal, monochrome design with a highly flexible identity system that can easily be adapted to any new or existing format. The geometric logo is inspired by this combination of rational and emotional perspectives. The square acts as a frame, the circle as the ‘focus’ and the perspective as the human point-of-view. Combined together they form a grid, and therefore build a bridge to the conception of many ideas: The drawing-pad.

With this idea of a human /client perspective as a center, the new design is rich in atmospheric images of enjoyable individuals in their living context. Minimalistic black and white color pallet of the rest of the design elements, allows photographs to convey and create a friendly, welcoming feeling, and by doing so, design relates with the client’s needs and expectations. To underline, that the dream of owning a house is unique, website features specially commissioned interviews with people, showcasing their living space and revealing stories connected to it.

Webpage in a understandable way introduces users to finance processes, company’s believes, revealing clients ratings and opinions, as well as providing individual, professional solutions and tips. Integrated customer build calculators, emphasize transparency and quickness of BS practice. Those online tools allow directly, in a visual animated way, to check monthly credits rates for buying/ renting real estate.

Design focus on communication between consultant and customer, allowing to get in touch either by chat, phone, or choosing your own consultant based on geolocation, rating or experience.

SIMA DEHGANI– PORTFOLIO WEBSITE
2017
Concept and website design developed at Moby Digg Studio

Sima is a photographer based in Germany. Her main work is portrait and documentary photography. In her art projects, she is interested in new ways of visualizing social issues.

Main objective of this project was to create a minimalistic website, with a lot of white space, where the main focus lies on the photographs. Dots on the top of the screen comes from the point of the letters ‘i” in the photographer’s name. Those points also symbolized a shutter trigger in the camera, that’s why whole page navigation is happening thought them. Left point leads to the home screen and the right one to about page.

Inside the project page order of the images was chosen to create a story, which ends with project information. Line bar on the left shows, how many images are left to view.

2018

A5 landscape, 60 pages, 1000 copies, offset-printed

The catalog features information about Onomatopee, book distributions, zines, frontlist, backlist and reduces positions. To be viewed at the gallery, book fairs and send to bookshops.

DO IT WITH OTHERS
FESTIVAL AT ONOMATOPEE
2018

Festival identity including 3d models, animations, social media, posters, and foldable invitations.

A festival delivering new directions in independent get-togethers and alternative education; including talks, book launches, food, drinks, exhibition-openings, and performances.

Jim Ricks: Alien Invader Super Baby – Synchromaterialism (VI)
2018
Onomatopee

One thing will always lead to another.

Artist Jim Ricks’s synchronic sequence of images or objects rests on opportunities to visually connect politics and/or aesthetics and/or history and/or philosophy from one to another. As a formal quest, this fundamental empirical and practice-based research within the ranges of our visual culture conceptually triggers actual cultural migration and identification.

In his ‘Synchromaterialist’ series, Ricks visually reveals the inevitability of migration and of the inherent viral state of nature, and the nature of existence – what is inherently human – through the perception and reorganization of the everyday.

He takes over the book format – following on from the exhibition methodology –to drop the unexpected organics of the Synchromaterialistic. This book reaches and branches out to be all forms a book can be. It includes a number of collaborations, and footnotes as inserts and explorations in print – sticker, newspaper, leaflet, cookbook, coloring, bookmark, and a book within the book with a text by art and design critic Max Bruinsma, describing the Synchromaterialist approach.

What goes around comes around.

BOOK SPECS:
Size: 215 x 153 mm, 136 pages
Binding: softcover, threat-sewn and glued
Color: full color, over 200 full-page images
Details: lenticular A6 on the cover, various inserts.
Editor: Jim Ricks, Freek Lomme, Gabriela Baka
Author: Max Bruinsma, Freek Lomme, Abdel-ilah Salhi, Jason Mills
Price: 23€

Onomatopee’s Dutch Design Week Identity
2017
Onomatopee

Concept, designing social media posts and animations,  stickers and brochure with the gallery program.
Brochure size: 98x210mm, offset printing, 750 copies

Website for Heistch Art Gallery
2017/2018

Concept and Website Design made at Moby Digg Studio

ANDREA BÜTTNER
Exhibition Identity for Walker Art Center, 2015

Various materials: vinyls, folded gallery guide, invitation, exhibition labels, title wall, web-images, custom logo font
Offset printing: Allegra, USA

Personally, I was particularly captivated by the complex details in Büttner’s prints and woodcuts (many of which can be seen here). My initial design sketches for the visual identity explored the combination of typography and woodcut patterns and an attempt to use fragments of Büttner’s works and her carved forms/line-work. What I found interesting was the complex markings that were left-behind by the sharp edge of Büttner’s carving tools and which range from hairline markings to triangular, gouge-like markings.

An important step in designing the visual identity was finding an appropriate typeface—ideally a classical, but not boring, serif typeface. The chosen typeface, Noe Display, responds to the pronounced and crafted feeling of Büttner’s work. Designed by the type foundry Schick Toikka, the typeface is a Transitional-style, high-contrast headline typeface. Noe Display’s sharp triangular serifs and terminals give it strong and distinctive characteristics, echoing the similar shapes which occur within Büttner’s etchings and woodcuts.

To emphasize a connection to Büttner’s sharp woodcuts within the typographic treatment, I slightly altered the height and appearance of the umlaut. Rather than keeping the two dots that typically appear within the umlaut, I instead swapped-in two triangle shapes that derived from the top, triangular part of the letter “t” in Noe Display. These triangles also replaced the dot above the letter “i”.

Intrigued by the small details in Büttner’s work, I then decided to respond by creating my own level of typographic detail through a series of customized punctuation marks that would subsequently be embedded within the texts associated with the exhibition. As a base for the punctuation, I used the same Noe Display-derived triangle shape to then create a comma, colon, period, and apostrophe. The resulting punctuation marks, which appear throughout the typeset materials connected to the exhibition, make a small intervention on the space, yet are elements that may go easily unnoticed upon first glance. This subtle intervention was made in order to focus more attention on the detailed and contemplative nature of Andrea Büttner’s work.

A LINE, HOWEVER SHORT, HAS AN INFINITE NUMBER OF POINTS
Andrés Ramírez Gaviria, 2016

Book design:
size: 21 x 26 cm
128 pages, 9 sections
quantity: 500
offset printing: Paul Gerin GmbH & Co KG
paper: Munken Lynx 100g (B&W Pages) and Claro Bulk 135g (image Pages) cover: Munken Lynx 300g

This catalog was published on the occasion of a solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, 24 February—29 May 2016. The work of Andrés Ramírez Gaviria borrows cultural references from the histories of art, design, science, and technology, reconfiguring them through methodologies that imagine alternative modes of perception and thought. The notion of decoding information and issues of communication is highly present in the artist’s works. The book cover and title pages play with this problem of decoding through readability by the individual letterforms that act like points on a grid. This also simultaneously refers to the title itself and the structural arrangements of the work.

SUMMER SALE AT ONOMATOPEE
2018

Identity for the summer sale including: 3d models, animation, social media banners and posters.

Onomatopee is a curating and editorially led public gallery and publisher that is particularly known for its self-initiated and transdisciplinary projects.

YEB WIERSMA.COM
2015/2016
Concept and web design, CSS stylesheet, portfolio, cv, grant application, and business cards.

A website for a Dutch artist, whose body of work consists of exercises in reading, movement, and acting as engaging catalysts to re-enter the present in a more compelling, playful, and vital manner. The diversity of these various forms relates to the ways in which we understand and perceive the world and the serendipitous interactions that influence our human condition. Wiersma’s work often involves collaboration, combining efforts to re-arrange language and use different media to create new narratives. As the work is heavily referential an important part of the design was emphasizing another referential form, the footnote. Hovering a cursor over the footnotes enlarges and duplicates images. In this way text and images overlay each other, creating a cohesive unity with her artist practice.

Selected Flyers
2015-2016
Onomatopee & Walker Art Center

AVANT GARDEN (ANNUAL BENEFIT)
Walker Art Center, 2016

Concept, identity, postcard, accessories, invitation, event design
Paper: 130# Options 100%
PC White Vellum Cover
5 Pantone color+ black
blue foil stamp

This year’s event will mark the opening of the Walker’s new entry pavilion, which includes an extended lobby, restaurant, and accompanying art acquisitions. Coinciding with the museum’s expansion, the identity for Avant Garden (AG) 2016 is based on the Walker’s outstanding architecture, which has many unique construction elements such as skylights, windows, and slanted walls. The design process started with gathering images of the building and architecture plans. I outlined the windows and skylights from the images and filled them with a pattern similar to the rainbow terrazzo/marble stone used on the Walker’s floors. This flexible pattern used at various scales evokes associations with confetti and the various architectural elements of the Walker’s interior architecture.

AVANT GARDEN (ANNUAL BENEFIT)
Walker Art Center, 2016
Concept, identity, postcard, accessories, invitation, event design, poster, interior design

Folded Invitation:
Paper: 180# Options 100%
PC White Vellum Cover
5 Pantone color+ black
silver foil stamp+ die cutting
send in A6 & A7 Envelops

The colors in (AG) identity are taken from diverse aspects of the Walker’s building and from the new acquisitions in the lobby and Sculpture Garden: the yellow and copper from a new illuminating entrance, the oranges and pinks from a Frank Big Bear work, and the Reflex blue from a Katharina Fritsch sculpture.

The chosen serif typeface: Gletscher, balances the playful and illustrative feeling of the architecture-inspired pattern, giving a more elegant feel to the identity. The secondary typeface —relates to the diagonals used in the dramatically sculptured ceiling skylights.

Onomatopee
2016
Exhibition materials

Publication & PR materials: 21 Objects for Hesitation and Reimagining Their Many Selves
Onomatopee  2015

Booklet:
Dimension: 148 x 210 mm
Paper: 100gr cyclus offset recycyle
Pages: 32 pages with self-cover
Editions: 400
Details: Red staples
24 pages in black and white and 8 in colour

Posters: A3 size printed in black on Risograph.
Flyers: A5 size, printed digitally on recycle paper

Publication, printed on occasion of a performative exhibition in Onomatopee, Eindhoven. Each day one of the 21 ceramic objects is place outside of the gallery space, to be taken by passing by person or visitor. The publication features selected works of the artist and two essays, which reflects on her new body of work.

AUTOMOTIVE WEEK
Commission for Kade 05
2015
Branding: logo, website, flags, business cards, flyers, badges, ect.

Identity for Automotive Week in Helmond, NL. This identity relates to smart mobility, new automotive technologies, and eco-friendly cities. The logo is a dynamic typographic solution based on the letter ‘A’ which bends to create ‘M’ and by rotating  ‘W’  creating abbreviation AMW (Automotive Week).

PASSINGS TO PRESENTS.
Silence and Golden in the work of Filippo Minelli (first artist monograph)
Onomatopee 2014

Specs:
Dimension: 17 x 24 cm
Cover: Soft
Paper: Muncken rough 120 grams
Pages: 128
Editions: 1000
Details: Japanese Binding, perforation, inside pages in full color, outside pages in grayscale.

Texts are featured on neutralized “white cube” pages, which allow you to focus on the text. Images are purposely hidden between perforated pages. Discovering images inside Japanese folded perforated pages evokes curiosity and surprise. The book encourages interaction and invites you to tear apart pages, adding character and a feeling of uniqueness. Once open, the book never looks like it did in the beginning.

IDEAS AND THOUGHTS
by Helmut Smits

Book published alongside artist exhibition at Onomatopee, 2013

Dimension: 140 x 100 mm
Softcover: Wibalin Buckram cover
Paper: Muncken rough 120 grams
Pages: 144
Editions: 2500
Details: Type in foiled print, 70 black illustrations

The sketches in the notebook ‘Ideas and Thoughts by Helmut Smits’ capture bright solutions and inventions in the conditions of our daily routines, perceived both within our social and our visual horizon.

TOOLSHOP

Communication & display

at Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven 

2013 – 2014 (on display)

 
Installation, communication

and display furniture including:

– Communication system

– Materials, tools to use

– Designing furniture

– Wooden panel system

‘Toolshop’ is a room inside of the exhibition, where visitors could come and choose their tour, which had coinciding tool, displayed there. I have designed wooden panel system, with holes that could easily adjust to all display needs. Alongside, I designed simple furniture, and communication materials, which were printed on the wooden panels, while vinyl stickers were used on  the wall. The main goal was a clear and simple communication that encourages visitors to pick up a tour.