Beñat Arregi.

Begitik

‘Begitik’ (a wordplay that means ‘from the eye’ in standard Basque and 'look!’ in the local dialect) was a collective exhibition of nineteen Basque artists, held in Mondragon during November and December 2015.

Gosariak

‘Gosariak’ (breakfasts for the soul) is a one-off project of music band Gose, writer Joseba Sarrionandia, sculptor Iñigo Arregi and painter Juan Luis Goikolea.

Different generations and artistic personalities have collaborated to produce an outcome where text, music and image merge into each other.

I was in charge of the visual identity for the project and the layout of the final product, created in close collaboration with the authors.

Map of Basque speakers

The map analyses the current extension of the Basque language, depicting both the number of speakers (area of circles) and the degree of use (colour shade) for every municipality. An interactive map in CartoDB can be accessed here.

The bar chart looks at the 25 municipalities with the highest use of Basque. As seen in the map, larger cities concentrate the highest absolute number of speakers (light green), yet the relative use of Basque (dark green) is lower than in many smaller towns.

Finally, the scatter plot highlights a very clear exponential correlation between declared language competence (x axis) and recorded use (y axis).

Erlea

Erlea (‘Bee’ in Basque) is the literary magazine of Euskaltzaindia, the Royal Academy of the Basque Language. The publication is curated by writer Bernardo Atxaga.

This series of photographs illustrated Issue 2 (2010), which was devoted to Ireland and included the Basque translation of texts from Irish authors. In the opening pages of the magazine, a photograph taken in Co. Antrim provides a background for Seamus Heaney’s handwritten interpretation of an ancient Irish syllabic verse.

Nortasuna

This project is a collection of Basque lettering found in commercial signs of restaurants and shops of San Sebastian’s old town.

The ubiquitous lettering is part of the urban landscape of many Basque towns. Inspired by ancient stone carvings, it experienced a widespread revival in the 1970s and 80s after the end of Franco’s dictatorship, as a symbol for Basque identity and tradition.

Over the years, this style has arguably acquired ‘kitsch’ or even conservative connotations. This exercise is a light-hearted exploration on the formal traits of the lettering and its symbolic meaning today.

Football stadium in Irun

Stadia are often the biggest constructions within a city, as shown by aerial photographs, and so football grounds are popular measurement units for large spaces. Besides their geographical and spatial reference function, they often act as cultural and social catalysts for the city, and are strongly tied to the idea of spectacle.

Greeks and Romans built their stadia and amphitheatres in prominent locations with a bold urban presence. Today we tend to build them in the outskirts, reflecting the structure and operation of the contemporary city.

The project is based on a real brief (a new football stadium for Real Unión), in a no man’s land formerly occupied by Spanish-French border facilities, which were dismantled following the Schengen Agreement. A recent masterplan aims to turn this well-connected area into a facility hub at territorial scale, serving the people at both sides of the border.

Showcase furniture item

The 2014 ICAD Upstarts exhibition was held in the Science Gallery as part of Dublin’s Design Week, under the theme ‘Making Waves’. I was tasked with the design of a bespoke piece of furniture for displaying all portfolios and catalogue sheets. The original idea for the catalogues was that visitors would get a folder with introductory information in it, to be completed with individual inserts available at each upstart’s space. The budget was extremely low and the assembly time was limited: access to the venue was only granted on opening day.

I envisaged an elongated piece of furniture to be built of corrugated cardboard. The shape would be designed for achieving maximum structural strength with the least use of material: vertical cardboard sheets would be intertwined to ensure stability, and the counter would have a zigzag shape to increase bending resistance. Each upstart would get a generous valley-shaped space for placing their bio, portfolio and catalogue inserts, suiting the idea of ‘assembling your own catalogue’. If placed next to the glazed wall of the gallery, the structure would be visible from the street and would work as a branding item for the exhibition, helping attract attention.

I adapted the design to the dimensions of the most suitable cardboard sheet size available (1060 x 1450 mm), for maximum ease and speed of fabrication. I drew and dimensioned every piece for a quick cut & assembly process using concealed packaging tape, and built a 1/5 scaled model in cardboard demonstrating that the finished piece would be solid and stable.

Irish _______ of Modern Art

This project was created during week #6 of the ICAD Upstarts programme. The brief from Design Factory asked for a new brand identity for the Irish Museum of Modern Art that breaks the rules, incites conversation and has life beyond the corner of a website and the back of a business card.

A radical name change is proposed: the word ‘Museum’ is replaced by a line made of underscores, creating a gap that becomes a device for interaction. The idea is strongly language-based and plays with the concept of subtraction. Its implications go well beyond the print and web applications; the omission of the word ‘museum’ compels us to rethink what the institution is about and to define its role in an atypical way. It might also pave the way for a broader scope than a traditional art museum. The identity appeals to a progressive audience that is willing to engage with uncertainty.

Boundaries

This proposal was created for the 2014 ICAD Upstarts Exhibition. The brief from Red Dog asked for a visual brand that could extend to the exhibition/experience design within a tight budget.

The intended audience of creatives allows for a more exploratory identity. ‘Boundaries’ is proposed as a theme for the exhibition, with a focus on their stimulating aspect (questioning their common perception as limiting entities). The idea is built through a physical device that gives a structure and a theme to the exhibition. The structures are designed to be built with ordinary sheets of oriented strand board (OSB), which come at a lower cost and have a more ‘raw’ texture than plywood. These boundaries are extended to the whole exhibition space through the use of detachable tape over walls, floors and ceilings. Following the idea of boundaries acting as support elements, the proposed type has been projected onto three-dimensional surfaces.

Métro

I carried out an experiment by dissociating the text from the graphic elements in the Paris Métro map.

The map without station names turned out to be surprisingly usable, though only for those that are already familiar with the Métro.

The text-only version works as a typographic map of Paris.

Flag wallpapers

A series of wallpaper patterns created from national flags.