A few quotes from an interview with designer Gunter Rambow in Eye Magazine:
On seeing:
“I went to a boarding school run by the Protestant church in Güstrow, which is a town full of wonderful Renaissance, Baroque and Classicist architecture. Everything there is so interwoven that it results in great harmony. During that period I perceived the world with great intensity and stored up a lot of visual material, which I continue to retrieve from my memory.
I still pursue this visual training today. I walk through the streets only looking at windows – nothing else, no cars. And then I see what is happening in them. What kind of flowers, curtains and other messages do they have? Is the window made of a synthetic material, has it been destroyed by renovation, or is it a really old one? From the window decorations alone, I can learn an extraordinary amount about a street and a city. Sometimes I photograph hundreds of windows but I never make a single print. Only the negatives exist. I do not even know where they are, but they are in my head. I recommend this visual training to my students. ‘When it is market day, look at the shoes the women are wearing,’ I tell them.”
On his poster for Antigone:
“In Kassel I gave seminars on the ‘Metaphysics of Things’. In one, for example, everybody had to bring a chair with them. We then discussed the mythology and symbolism of sitting and the chair. God’s throne cannot be represented but the emperor’s throne certainly can. Then a whole world opens up: it was not design but the definition of a chair that was being extracted. We also considered which objects belong in this world of metaphysics: what are the extended meanings over and above pure function? After that I can start developing an intellectual and cultural language. When I set fire to a chair, it burns, and in addition you also read the word ‘Antigone’. We immediately make an association with the king’s throne although we only see a simple kitchen chair. By violating universal rights the ruler is also burning his power.”
On the quality of poster design in 1997:
“Nearly all of it is of a despicably low level, whether it is a cultural poster, commercial poster, election poster even a posterior a concert. I think the reason for this is that there are few design and art conscious decision makers in the business. The advertising agencies are simply financial turnover machines concerned with marketing and sales strategies. Design does not play a big role with them.”