Marian Bantjes Lecture

Last night I got to see Marian Bantjes speak at the Walker as part of their Design Insights series.

Her work is really beautiful, super ornamental but often really structured and gridded although it doesn't always appear that way. It was really interesting to hear her talk because she never really classified herself as a designer. She used to have a design studio that was rather successful, but once she left to do this it seems like she stopped calling herself a designer. So that was intersting because it kind of made me think "well what exactly do you call her work? Is it more illustration, design, typography, what isssss ittttttt?".

Oh, and one part I found especially fascinating was how she goes about creating patterns and parts for her patterns. It's a whole intricate and amazing process that seems to make so much sense once you hear it, and it made me think "ooh, good idea, I'll have to try something like that!". She kind of creates a series of pieces like a puzzle but they're interchangeable and inter-lockable in many different ways so you can create billions of combinations and patterns out of a few key pieces. Really cool stuff.

Anyway, yes so it was a nice little lecture, and soon you'll be able to watch it here along with other past lecturers like Daniel Eatock!

Next week is Work Worth Doing, so hopefully that'll be interesting as well!