Die amerikanische Autorin Lisa L. Cyr präsentiert in ihrem neusten Buch "The Art of Promotion" alle überragende Arbeiten (Kundenmailings) der vergangenen Jahre. Auch wir von MAGMA dürfen uns mit unseren Arbeiten in die Liste der "kunstvollen Promotions" einreihen.
Text über MAGMA (English only!)
"Every year we send out something from our office to friends and clients," says art director Lars Harmsen. "After September 11th, we really didn't feel like having something big, expensive, and obviously self-promotional to send out. It was a time to look at things from a different angle." Wanting to refocus people's attention, MAGMA developed an interesting tool they call Wahrnehmungsgerät typ 21/7-klein. In German, Wahrnehmung means "perception" and Gerät means "tool." "It is a perception tool to see the smaller things of this world, reducing things to what is really important," explains Harmsen. "It is a small piece that has a lot of political meaning for us." The 21/7-klein was added to the name for a mechanical touch, similar to how one refers to an engine of a car. This "engine to see things," as coined by Harmsen, is quite simple but very meaningful in a time when many people are feeling introspective.
Designed to crop out distraction, the perception tool forces people to narrow their focus and look within their own communities to see how they can make a difference. The grommet hole and rounded edges of the device help highlight the firm's logo, an oil tower. "The idea behind our logo is to say that our research is done very deeply and our work is very rich - tearing out of the ground," offers Harmsen.
The piece sits nicely inside an orange slip holder. The semicircle die-cuts that adorn each side make the piece easy to access. The text and graphics that provide operating instructions to the viewer are not offset printed but photocopied onto Colorit by Schneidersöhne. "To offset print was not necessary. It is not important to have things printed in fancy ways," says Harmsen. "It is the idea that counts." In a palette of orange, silver, and black, the ingenious device is an innovative way to communicate the firm's beliefs and philosophies.
"There are two different categories of promotion," concludes Harmsen. "There is one that uses a brochure to show off past work. Then you have another approach where the dialog is much more intelligent. It is more of an idea or visualization of how your agency behaves or sees things. In my opinion, the latter is a more communicative approach." The promotion was delivered in the firm's corporate stationery.
DESIGN FIRM > Magma
ART DIRECTORS > Lars Harmsen, Ulrich Weiß
SPECIAL TECHNIQUES > Buchbinder Meister Ludwig Weiß
Text über Starshot (English only!)
Starshot, a company that specializes in the sports and leisure market, was formed when a retired biking professional, Kai Stuht, joined forces with MAGMA, a cutting-edge German design firm. "In the beginning, the idea of Starshot was that Kai Stuht would go out and take photographs of biking - specifically mountain and racing stars," explains creative director Lars Harmsen. "The pictures, along with one editorial interview, were put together in a small magazine like booklet and sent to various trade publications in the biking industry in Europe and the United States." Each booklet came complete with a CD-ROM containing both the text and images so interested publications could easily integrate the content into their magazine. "We saw that selling to magazines was a hard business, and we had to be on the phone a lot," adds Harmsen. "So we decided to create our own magazine, and that is how we came up with Byke Style Mag."
With complete creative freedom, the design team at Starshot push themselves each issue to produce something innovative, boasting the latest techniques. Byke Style Mag 4, for instance, opens with an orange fluorescent ink accent by a holographic foil-stamped logo that is also embossed off the surface in select areas. To make the cover photo pop, the same holographic material is applied to the surface as a gold foil stamp. Inside, the excitement continues as foil stamps are creatively mixed with fluorescent, metallic, and process offset colors. To achieve different tones of silver Byke Style Mag 5, also an experiment in production, uses glitter to accent key graphics and action imagery. To achieve the effect, glitter is added to a gloss varnish in varying degrees. The varnish and glitter mixture is then applied through a silk-screen printing process to various areas throughout the magazine. According to Harmsen, the glitter works best on a darker solid or an area of continuous tone. Because the magazine uses an array of techniques and equipment, the layout must be carefully planned to make everything come together smoothly in the end. In many cases, each thirty-two page signature must go through numerous processes: offset printing, silk-screen printing, and foil stamping. "I need to know exactly which colors and techniques will be printed on each page. It is a lot of work because of the different printing machines being used," comments Harmsen.
The magazines are distributed free to the public through large bike retailers, mail order companies, and railway stations all over Germany. "We made a joint venture with a bicycle builder who has a big distribution net," notes Harmsen. A total of twenty-five thousand magazines are distributed four times a year. "They are a great way for us to explore and show our work," Harmsen concludes. "We have gotten projects from well-known companies in the industry who have seen our magazine." They were recently asked to design a signature line of aluminum water bottles for SIGG Switzerland's 2003 collection. By creating a vehicle for their work to penetrate the marketplace, Starshot built name and market recognition in the industry, attracting top clients to their doorstep.
FIRM > Starshot
CREATIVE DIRECTOR > Lars Harmsen
DESIGNER > Tina Weisser
TYPE DESIGNERS > Lars Harmsen, Boris Kahl
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