{"id":12715,"date":"2018-06-18T11:54:51","date_gmt":"2018-06-18T11:54:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.45symbols.com\/symbols\/?p=12715"},"modified":"2025-06-25T14:35:52","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T14:35:52","slug":"phaistos-talks-marion-fink-june-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.45symbols.com\/symbols\/phaistos-talks-marion-fink-june-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Phaistos Talks
Marion Fink\u2014June 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Marion Fink is Professor of Visual Communication at the Academy of Art and Design Basel (HGK Basel) and participated The Phaistos Project \u2014 Forty-five Symbols in fall 2017 with her information design class, situated in the 5th semester of the BA program at the Visual Communication Institute, within the Basel School of Design. Photo by Simon Mader, Basel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“Communication technology and spreading social platforms have allowed everybody to be a consumer and producer at the same time.”<\/h2>\n

TPP45S<\/span> What originally made you want to become a designer and how would you describe your education (in or out of school)?<\/p>\n

MARION FINK<\/span> The beginnings of my studies led me to architecture and law, but I couldn\u2019t get away from the idea of designing in my career. Growing up in Ulm, Germany, my imagination of design was influenced by the Ulm School of Design (Hochschule f\u00fcr Gestaltung Ulm) \u2013 it was closed down in 1968 but still boasted an ongoing local and global reputation. Otl Aicher, as one of the leading design figures and teachers in Ulm, was a big inspiration. He represented the attitude that design is a problem-solving-oriented discipline, which must always fulfill a functional dimension in addition to an aesthetic one. Therefore, I chose to study Visual Communication at the University of Design, in Schw\u00e4bisch Gm\u00fcnd \u2013 geographically in the middle of nowhere, but methodically and philosophically regarded as the successor of the Ulm School of Design. <\/p>\n

After four years of education, I was seeking an urban and cultural contrast and, so, continued my studies at the Royal College of Art, in London. Compared to my basic education, the postgraduate program was a big shift \u2013 the designer was no longer just the mediator, but, above all, also the author. The quest for extending and disrupting the tools, intent, context, and role of graphic design was an integral part of my studies. Today, I benefit from both backgrounds and often evaluate how a project deviates from one or the other to calibrate the next effort.<\/p>\n

TPP45S<\/span> What made you become interested in teaching?<\/p>\n

MARION FINK<\/span> Teaching was a coincidence. When offered a position as a part-time lecturer at the Kingston University straight after my master\u2019s degree in 1999, I started to teach in tandem with Ben Duckett out of curiosity and as a possibility to finance our own design practice. Being almost the same age as my students, I lacked teaching experience and, so, focused more on the inquiry than on the advice. I made a virtue of necessity, so to speak. This discourse-based method naturally fosters each student\u2019s individual strengths and talents and goes beyond the mere transfer of knowledge. That\u2019s what I still find teaching interesting today.<\/p>\n

TPP45S<\/span> In which class did you assign the Phaistos Project (program, discipline, level, etc.)? <\/p>\n

MARION FINK<\/span> I assigned the project in my information design class, situated in the 5th semester of the BA program at the Visual Communication Institute, within the Basel School of Design.<\/p>\n

TPP45S<\/span> What was your initial response looking at the Phaistos Disc? Did it raise any questions? Did it inspire pedagogy and preparations for your class? <\/p>\n

MARION FINK<\/span> In recent years, information design has been influenced by big data connected to the question of how to conquer information overload. Data visualization and mapping experienced enormous renaissance but were often valued for their aesthetic instead of their communicative qualities. The Phaistos Disk and its underlying research inspired me to look at information design on a semiotic level, with the focus on the sign as the most basic graphic constituent of any visual information. In the accompanying lecture series, I wanted to sensitize the students to the dialectic between word and image, abstraction and iconicity. Culture and writing historian Antonio Loprieno, for example, has spoken of an ideographic return (2007). He describes the contemporary movement towards the iconization of writing in the age of digitalization \u2013 that writing culture, particularly linear-alphabetic writing culture, seems to reflect back on the original medium of its genesis, the image. <\/p>\n

TPP45S<\/span> Could you describe the biggest challenges for your students during the process?<\/p>\n

MARION FINK<\/span> I was surprised that the whole class received the assignment very positively. To structure the 14 weeks of the semester, I defined three separate submissions; an online submission of the digital set of 45 symbols; a submission of silk-screen printed posters; and a submission that could be defined individually. All three submissions were shown within a group exhibition at the Basel School of Design\u2019s Open House, in January 2018. I think the sequence and diversity of submissions was the biggest challenge for the students. However, at the same time, I could see them gaining a wide range of competences: identifying a topic, developing an individual visual language, and finally, transferring this into a meaningful context or application.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Celine Pereira presenting Human Database<\/a> (left); Franziska Krenmayr & Madelene Imhof presenting The PET Proof of Identity<\/a> (right)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
Patricia Grabowicz presenting Chews a character<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

TPP45S<\/span> What were the most positive and beneficial experiences of your students? Were there teachable moments? <\/p>\n

MARION FINK<\/span> At the beginning of the semester, one of the students had a very impassionate \u201cI-hate-pictograms\u201d attitude and wasn\u2019t motivated at all. But, she managed to overcome her struggle and developed a very surprising sign system, negating iconicity in favor of abstract and indexicalic forms. In the end, her work addressed a broad audience, and was published on the 45 symbols\u2019 globalmurmurs website as well being chosen for this year\u2019s visualizing-knowledge symposium<\/a> at Aalto University<\/a>, in Helsinki.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Try To Trace The Tracks
by Johanna Buehler<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Although this was an extreme example, I saw every student go through a learning curve within the understanding of signs, pushing their formal and semantic potential beyond the iconic pictograms designed by Otl Aicher.<\/p>\n

TPP45S<\/span> Knowing that your students will be active members of the creative community for the next fifty years, what are the core values, competences, skills or ethics you would like them to build during their undergraduate\/graduate studies?<\/p>\n

MARION FINK<\/span> Design is currently facing a paradigm shift: communication technology and spreading social platforms have allowed everybody to be a consumer and producer at the same time. Young designers have to find ways to make a difference to those prosumers. In my opinion, it is crucial to create work that matters and is engaging, rather than just racking up likes and being instagrammable.<\/p>\n

TPP45S<\/span> What are you currently fascinated by? This could be, for example, a book, an article or a designer\/artist inspiring your teaching and design practice.<\/p>\n

MARION FINK<\/span> I find such personalities as Erik Kessels inspiring \u2013 a Dutch artist, author, curator, designer and co-founder of KesselsKramer. This is, first, because he breaks open the anachronistic thinking of traditional creative occupations and, second, because he questions the usual pursuit of perfection by embracing the art of serendipity and mistakes. One recent example was the Erik Kessels & Friends exhibition\u200aat the NRW-Forum<\/a>, in D\u00fcsseldorf: he identified and curated \u201cfabulous failures\u201d, as he calls his collection of amateur photography, and revealed social structures as well as personal narratives. He manages to reduce design to the most minimal gesture \u2013 observing and selecting.<\/p>\n

Besides that, Five Angels for the Millennium\u200a by Bill Viola<\/a>, which was shown in the Tate in 2001, was one of the most impressive installations I have ever seen. <\/p>\n

\n
\"\"
 <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Professor Marion Fink<\/b>
Diploma-Designer, Master of Art (RCA, 1971).
Marion Fink is a full-time lecturer at the Visual Communication Institute, within the Basel School of Design at the Academy of Art and Design Basel (HGK Basel) as a department of the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW). Her creative practice and teaching focuses on typography, editorial design and information design. She is also responsible for the coordination of the bachelor\u2019s program. Within the two master\u2019s programs (Visual Communication an Iconic Research and International Master of Design University of UIC\/HGK), she teaches in the field of publication formats, in the context of curatorial practice.<\/p>\n

Marion Fink studied from 1994 to 1997 in the Visual Communications department of the University of Design, in Schw\u00e4bisch Gm\u00fcnd, and, from 1997 to 1999, in the department of Visual Communication, Art and Design at the Royal College of Art in London (mainly with Margret Calvert and Lol Sargent). From 1998 to 1999, she was a scholarship holder of the German Academic Exchange Service. Upon graduation, she worked as a designer in London, in such offices as Pentagram and MetaDesign, and as a guest lecturer at Kingston University and the London College of Printing. Afterwards, she worked as an Art Director at Mutabor in Hamburg and at KMS Blackspace in Munich. In 2002 she founded together with Marc Ziegler and Prof. Xuyen Dam the design office MarX, in Munich. In 2004, she was appointed to Basel. In addition to her full-time employment there, she was a lecturer and member of the Masterboard at the Institute Integrative Design\/Master Studio of the FHNW, lecturer at the Institute for Aesthetic Practice and Theory at the FHNW and led workshops at the Faculty of Design at the University of Applied Sciences Munich and the Summer Workshop Program of the Institute of Visual Communication at the FHNW. Currently, she works as a lecturer, designer, author and member of international design juries.<\/p>\n

Publications:<\/p>\n