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Open Day 2020 designed by Eleonora, Michelle and Victoria MXC IG IG IG
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The Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam hosts an Open Day in January each year and a small group of students from the graduating class from the Graphic Design department get to design the campaign as a part of their course. It was spring and quarantine when Clarisa spoke to Eleonora Šljanda, Michelle Parrott and Victoria Allakhverdyan about their campaign for the Open Day 2020.
How did you choose or end up making this campaign out of all of the ones that are offered during the year, what drew you to it?

M E V It was quite a quick decision, at the moment we thought it would be a good time frame to work within, and we were attracted to the idea of the crowd that the Open Day campaign communicates to.
How did you build the team?

M E V We had always wanted to work together throughout the three years we’ve been in school together but we never got the chance. We liked each other's way of working, and were curious to see what could come of a collaboration of our methods and approaches.
How did the process go from idea to print? We'd love if you elaborate a bit further on the idea development please, as you also received very good response for it?

M We made SO MANY SKETCHES.
E It is about making sure that this idea is clear enough, how do you make sure that this is still appealing as a design? You still want to make something big design-wise and go further aesthetically, try to not stick with Arial... We really wanted to design, but our design was actually the whole idea, not only the look.
M To get to that level of brutalism and pared down pure communication mixed with evocative aesthetics was extremely difficult...how to not overcomplicate the idea or how to communicate it in the simplest way possible while still having cool or interesting graphics was super difficult, and we went through so many iterations to try to figure that problem out, and it was actually kind of, the first thing that had to be printed was the ad, and we made that poster...a completely different poster than most things that we had worked on before, like two days after it was due.
V Yeah exactly! We were almost considering not to include that sketch, remember?
M Yeah, we were like oh I don't know...and then people just reacted to it.
E At one point we were even like “how are we going to make it?” But even at the school’s board meeting they really trusted us. Before we actually started calculating how we were going to put those stickers on the windows, we were quite clueless.
V Yeah actually we were really hopeful at the moment, we really didn't calculate anything for the board meeting, we were like "yeah and the stickers are gonna be like all over the place..."
M We had budget restrictions and we kind of supposed that it was going to work... We went for something extremely improbable that involved a lot of problem solving, so...how did the process go from idea to print was...
V A rollercoaster...
M The idea was solid from the beginning and to materialize it was extremely difficult.
E We didn't actually print anything. There was one poster, but the whole campaign was actually calculating, measuring the surfaces and the buildings, sticking vinyls in the cold, working with the material. It was really physical.
Did you experience any difficulties or tension in the group during the process of idea development or execution?

M Yeah, that's kind of what made it good, that we had different opinions and arguments but we had a lot of really healthy disagreements.
E We all felt like if there's something more reasonable than other ideas, if we were still uncomfortable, we kept on going until we all agreed that it's good. We were always pretty critical. We knew when it was the best we had at the moment, but also when it wasn't.
M We were also really good at putting our egos aside, and seeing like oh that's genuinely a good critique of my idea or like, fighting for something when you really did believe in it.
V But overall we had a healthy chemistry!
M We were also really supportive towards each other, all of us had breakdowns...I never felt alienated or resentful towards any of my groupmates. I actually felt quite grateful for I was always like thank God I'm working on this with these girls!
E I remember you were already back home in California and we were skyping, and Vica was in my bed. It was really nonstop together.
V Yes Michelle, you also had to wake up at really weird times!
M That was the worst time of my life! I couldn't sleep because everything that was supposed to be happening (print deadlines and emergencies) was at like 3am my time so I had to be prepared in case something goes wrong, I had alarms set up and you called me at like one in the morning and I would go upstairs quietly to not wake my parents up and edit the blue on the hand, just like collapsing like yeah no we got this, all of us deranged....
What have you learned from your experience?

E I think what I personally learned...was just a different way of designing. This whole idea that we're designing actual surfaces, that was in a way very similar to designing a publication or a poster. But at the same time very different. We created a system for placing the stickers on the windows so we could easily navigate through them, which isn't visible at all in the campaign but was so much of the actual work we did.
V We also learned that we have a lot of helpful people in school who are not in the spotlight but were the most cooperative.
M They were the most helpful in coming up with technical solutions to actually make our crazy idea happen, for example Rien had to give us this crazy device to help us access the higher row of windows, and that's not something they had to do...That was really impactful for us.
E We should also mention that we learned how to make the liquid that made the sticking process easily adjustable and very efficient.
M Oh my god yeah we got so good at sticking vinyls!
How do you feel about the Covid-19 pandemic affecting your graduation?

M I feel great.
E It also feels like this is the last time I could try something big, different than publication and fail with it...like I failed a publication several times but I want to fail in another way, like if I were to do something sculptural or something physical [it’s uncertain whether there will be a physical graduation show, at the moment our department plan on releasing a publication].
M And it's also not necessarily cancelled, there's a lot of uncertainty, which I mean, is affecting the way that we work on our projects, and it's also really changing the world afterwards, so I feel actually quite grateful and lucky that our graduation happens at a really historical moment therefore how we react is marked in history, how we react to the new parameters of the world and to the parameters that the covid pandemic has given us is necessarily part of the work and that makes it historical, so I think we're actually extremely lucky in a way.
E On one hand definitely, I also feel the same way. Of course, as you said, the historical part is a big plus, but I also think even though it's easy to find advantages, it's mentally a bit hard to work, it's hard to stay equally productive, even though it feels like you’re working more, it's somehow not the same progress.
M Yeah, it's been difficult to actually like... work.
V It also makes me wonder whether an exhibition is necessarily the ideal format for graphic design works, or maybe just my works.... I think the solution that our department came up with is quite obvious in a good way, it makes sense to me.
And the fact that your identity for the Open Day is still visible on the school building? (Normally the identity only stays visible for a few days)

M In terms of the Open Day, the pandemic definitely had an effect on taking down the campaign. The administration is quite angry with us, we were supposed to take the vinyls down a long time ago...
V But the videos, did you see them?
M Yeah it was so good!
V It looks like the ruins of the school and that's like the only thing that's left.
M I was like this is so iconic, it looked so great in those video backgrounds, because when they were making those covid-19 announcements and it was the Rietveld building and it said RIETVELD huge behind it, it's like a graphic design blessing from the gods that it was still there.
E It looks better now because they closed the blinds.
V Yeah true, the curtains are completely gray.
E And that's something we didn't expect from our design, but when it's closed it's like a completely new design, it works in a different way.
M It was just such a good video background...so iconic!
V They wanted us to keep it a little bit after the Open Day in the first place, but now it has been there for way longer.
M Yeah, so actually it served a purpose as communicating to outsiders beyond Open Day, it was a really iconic advertisement for the school.
Are you drawn to any specific style or approach within graphic design, or designers/work you admire?

E If I were to say something, I would say I don't have one particular person or work recently, I rather admire certain solutions and methods.
M I actually like encountering graphic design in the streets, I think I get most of my inspiration from "non graphic designers'' figuring out text and image, or like memes and the internet and how they've managed to communicate with text and image, I'd say that's actually the approach that I admire and am interested the most in.
E People who create memes and mockups!
M Yeah I think just memes is my answer to that question
V I often find inspiration in Sergei Dovlatov’s writing. Also the Rijksakademie Open Studios is something very motivating to me every year.
Is there anything you wish you’d seen more or less of within the field of graphic design?

M I don't care...actually there is something I'd like to see less of...like why is web design and 3D modeling the only lucrative path for graphic designers? That's so annoying. I wish that our world wasn't headed in such a digital direction that these seem to be the only options.
E It's still developing, changing, and discovering itself. The way I imagined graphic design in the first year when I started studying and the way I see it now is so different, and I think I want to see it growing, changing, and expanding.
V In terms of visuals and aesthetics, I usually find myself drawn to simplicity and catchy, straight forward ideas. But now that I think about it, I wouldn't necessarily want to see more of it. I like it in contrast with more excessive and complex things, it feels more fresh when opposites complement each other...
M Yes, I do like the variety that exists...but I would also love to see more really esoteric stuff and more interesting developments in language, like the creation of language, I think that would be cool to see, instead of falling into familiar patterns of what you're supposed to make.
If you’re working on something interesting at the moment that you wish to notify people of, here’s a good opportunity to do so:

M I’m currently working on a podcast, it’s going to be called Multifemale Megamix.
V E We are currently working on the Facts & Figures publication together, which will come out later this year (hopefully).
What are your hopes and wishes after graduation?

M E V For now, we all just hope and wish to graduate! We’ll worry about what’s next later. First things first.
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