Lost & Found is a longstanding series of presentations in Amsterdam organized by Julia van Mourik. Together with various collaborators and guests, a variety of material is presented in various forms; from lectures, to films, music, etc. Since it’s inception in 1997, a wide range of graphic designers have made invitations for Lost & Found (there is usually a new designer asked to make each one). For the March 2010 program, I was invited to design the invitation together with Merel van den Berg.
With no clear theme set for the March 5th event, we decided to focus quite literally on the name Lost & Found. We did so by dividing everything on the invitation into these two categories.
The most obvious application of this was using the front and back of the invitation to display two images, whose contents would contrast in scale in order to convey each word.
‘Lost’ was represented by a swallowing image of the moon’s surface, too big for the page, so as to not give the viewer an instant sense of the Moon as an object, but an abstracted landscape.
On the back side, along with all of the infomational details for the evening, was a focused line drawing of two fingers holding a small round object – as if it were just found. A contact lens, to be exact – as was the original context of this found graphic, on the sign of a optician in the west of Amsterdam.
The original sign, which was redrawn to represent ‘Found’ can be found at an optician on the Kinkerstraat, in Amsterdam West.
Typographically, the invitation was also divided into ‘Lost’ and ‘Found’ categories. This was subtly presented, using two typefaces that are proportionately similar, yet different in their core characteristics.
All absolute information, such as names, times, phone numbers were presented in a rational sans-serif (Univers). This represented ‘Found’ content. All other text which supported this information was considered ‘Lost’ and presented in a humanist type design (Optima).
Along with the invitation itself, designers are also asked to make a ‘leader’ for the event – a short video based element which can be projected in the venue whilst guests arrive and settle into the space.
Reinforcing the idea of scale representing the name Lost & Found, and taking into consideration the fact that much of the material shown at the events are found material (hence the name), it seemed that a natural candidate for the leader would be a depiction of the Eames’ Powers of Ten.
Charles & Ray Eames’ Powers of Ten, made in 1977, depicts the relative scale of the Universe in factors of ten over a running time of around 9 minutes.
Given the context in which leader is presented, and the function which it serves for the event, the film was not shown in it’s original form.
It was played without it’s original score and narration, and looped continuously until the evening program began. It was also given the same monochromatic treatment as the printed invitation, in order to create a visual relation between the two elements.
The invitation was printed by Drukkerij robstolk in Amsterdam, on 80grs. Royal Print Gloss. The format was B3 (353mm x 500mm), folded twice to B5 (175mm x 250mm).
Visit lost.nl for more information on Lost & Found and to view the vast archive of previous invitations.
