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Icograda: Cristina Chiappini and Halim Choueiry
BY
TAXI
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Icograda Design Week in Seattle was an international design forum which took place in Seattle, USA last 9th July till 15th July 2006.
Defining Design on a Changing Planet, Icograda invited 22 international speakers to discuss on the role of design in this global awareness of evolution; how design has and may serve the economy and society and will also address the major topics design faces: cultural, political, economic and environmental issues at work in a global society. Last year’s Icograda Design Week is first in history to be held in USA and is in partnership with AIGA Center for Cross-Cultural Design.
TAXI Design Network proudly supported Icograda Design Week in Seattle as the Major Media Partner. The editorial crew from TAXI Design Network proudly reported the conferences live and delivering to you our interaction with the presenting design leaders.
For every week from April to June 2006, TAXI Design Network conducted exclusive interview sessions on the speakers based on their opinions of design in the growing world of yesterday, today and tomorrow.
Please visit Icograda Design Week in Seattle for more information.
Exclusive Highlight on TAXI Design Network
Interview with Cristina Chiappini
conditions I don’t believe it can work, because one person’s creativity completes the other.
TAXI >> You have been an active member to design festivals. You have been a jury member for the Red Dot Award for three years and now you are the Student Workshop Leaders/Over the Fence presenter for ICOGRADA. In your opinion, how have design festivals can help/inspire emerging designers?
Cristina Chiappini >> Design festivals are always precious moments for both professional and human growth. They enable you to make unique comparisons. They allow you to meet your heroes and to discover that they are normal people too. These encounters open doors on unknown issues, they give the possibility to become part of an international community and therefore make you feel less isolated.
These events can be real vacations if you’re really in love with this profession. I suggest everyone to go to at least one important conference each year. Better in those far away countries where you can see things, especially your own reality, from a different perspective.
Many people that I have met at conferences have become my best friends. I met my present sentimental and professional partner at the Icograda Visualogue Conference in Nagoya a few years ago. These conferences are niche events and people who attend them have many things in common, so they make it easy to make important contacts and connections.
TAXI >> Is there a specific message that you look forward to share over your presentation at Icograda Design Week in Seattle?
Cristina Chiappini >> In an age where too many people learn about sex from internet pornography, I think that it is fundamental to raise awareness and to inform on “real” sex.
This issue inspired one of my recent projects where I play ironically on typographic dimensional relationships between type elements and human sexual organs. Type size, leading and column width values relate to real size dimensions of human genitalia. Amongst other facts, I found that the physiological size of the clitoris extension is 36 to 80 points, and the erected penis tissue extension goes from 480 to 790.
I also speculated on the pleasure spots (female G-spot and male L-spot), the lubrication glands and their anatomical structure in relation to sexual mutilations.
Exclusive Highlight on TAXI Design Network
Interview with Halim Choueiry
to ruin the intensity of the word 'Passion' as a state of mind. I would like to leave the rest of the space for the readers to interpret it according to their individual passions. Just like design actually.
Anyway, Duty makes us do things well. Passion makes us do them beautifully. I don't remember who actually said that but for me it makes perfect sense. The passion that I carry, or drive me if I may say, is deriving from a combination of a passion for design and a passion for teaching. But honestly, when i moved to Qatar almost two years ago now, the first 8 months I didn't take on any professional work because I was still settling down in a new country, and trying to find my way around. And I felt at that time that if worst comes to worst I can stop designing but I can never stop teaching.
TAXI >> Is there a specific message that you look forward to share over your presentation at Icograda Design Week in Seattle?
Halim Choueiry >> " It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye," from 'The Little Prince' by 'Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.'
© 2003 - 2007 by TAXI Design Network. All rights reserved.
Defining Design on a Changing Planet, Icograda invited 22 international speakers to discuss on the role of design in this global awareness of evolution; how design has and may serve the economy and society and will also address the major topics design faces: cultural, political, economic and environmental issues at work in a global society. Last year’s Icograda Design Week is first in history to be held in USA and is in partnership with AIGA Center for Cross-Cultural Design.
TAXI Design Network proudly supported Icograda Design Week in Seattle as the Major Media Partner. The editorial crew from TAXI Design Network proudly reported the conferences live and delivering to you our interaction with the presenting design leaders.
For every week from April to June 2006, TAXI Design Network conducted exclusive interview sessions on the speakers based on their opinions of design in the growing world of yesterday, today and tomorrow.
Please visit Icograda Design Week in Seattle for more information.
Exclusive Highlight on TAXI Design Network
Interview with Cristina Chiappini
 | TAXI >> Collaboration and unity between two designers seem to take the trend these days. Besides the combined idea and generating the maxim of “Two heads are better than one”, how do you think two names can boost the sales of products or image of brand?
Cristina Chiappini >> Certainly two minds are better than one, but they have to be right for each other. This means being able to share a design philosophy, it means constructive interaction, exchange of roles, and harmony that enhances the thought and integrates the limits of the other. I could refer to many but I immediately think of the Swiss design duo Norm (Dimitri Bruni and Manuel Krebbs) and their way of working based on a common ground of disciplinary sensibility and pragmatic rules. This harmony between two designers is hard to reach- something that started from mutual respect and from years of experiences together. Without these |
TAXI >> You have been an active member to design festivals. You have been a jury member for the Red Dot Award for three years and now you are the Student Workshop Leaders/Over the Fence presenter for ICOGRADA. In your opinion, how have design festivals can help/inspire emerging designers?
Cristina Chiappini >> Design festivals are always precious moments for both professional and human growth. They enable you to make unique comparisons. They allow you to meet your heroes and to discover that they are normal people too. These encounters open doors on unknown issues, they give the possibility to become part of an international community and therefore make you feel less isolated.
These events can be real vacations if you’re really in love with this profession. I suggest everyone to go to at least one important conference each year. Better in those far away countries where you can see things, especially your own reality, from a different perspective.
Many people that I have met at conferences have become my best friends. I met my present sentimental and professional partner at the Icograda Visualogue Conference in Nagoya a few years ago. These conferences are niche events and people who attend them have many things in common, so they make it easy to make important contacts and connections.
TAXI >> Is there a specific message that you look forward to share over your presentation at Icograda Design Week in Seattle?
Cristina Chiappini >> In an age where too many people learn about sex from internet pornography, I think that it is fundamental to raise awareness and to inform on “real” sex.
This issue inspired one of my recent projects where I play ironically on typographic dimensional relationships between type elements and human sexual organs. Type size, leading and column width values relate to real size dimensions of human genitalia. Amongst other facts, I found that the physiological size of the clitoris extension is 36 to 80 points, and the erected penis tissue extension goes from 480 to 790.
I also speculated on the pleasure spots (female G-spot and male L-spot), the lubrication glands and their anatomical structure in relation to sexual mutilations.
Exclusive Highlight on TAXI Design Network
Interview with Halim Choueiry
| TAXI >> "Inspiration is a personal experience." How far do you agree with this sentence?
Halim Choueiry >> Inspiration can be found everywhere, i.e you can be inspired by anything. On the other hand, experience is what you get when you don't get what you wanted in a first place. So I guess that I agree. TAXI >> Your students adore you and you have been an inspiration to many. What do you think makes a good design educator? Halim Choueiry >> Passion. TAXI >> This passion... Is the passion deriving for design and or merely passion for teaching, or a combination of both? Halim Choueiry >> Honestly, I didn't want |  |
Anyway, Duty makes us do things well. Passion makes us do them beautifully. I don't remember who actually said that but for me it makes perfect sense. The passion that I carry, or drive me if I may say, is deriving from a combination of a passion for design and a passion for teaching. But honestly, when i moved to Qatar almost two years ago now, the first 8 months I didn't take on any professional work because I was still settling down in a new country, and trying to find my way around. And I felt at that time that if worst comes to worst I can stop designing but I can never stop teaching.
TAXI >> Is there a specific message that you look forward to share over your presentation at Icograda Design Week in Seattle?
Halim Choueiry >> " It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye," from 'The Little Prince' by 'Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.'
© 2003 - 2007 by TAXI Design Network. All rights reserved.