Graphic on Architecture

The interplay between graphic art and architecture is a discipline in itself. Visitor orientation and guidance systems require a detailed analysis of the architecture of the building, and the operational and movement sequences of the building's users confront graphic artists with a set of requirements which differ from their normal area of operations in a number of points.

Since it was founded in 2001, the Copenhagen studio of the graphic artist Rasmus Koch has, beside corporate identity, book and magazine design, typeface and web design, been occupying itself with the graphic design of visitor guidance systems, exhibitions and installations. In this field the Rasmus Koch Studio is one of Denmark's most successful design studios, in particular because of its work for international art and cultural facilities such as the 'Kunsthalle Basel', the 'Kiasma Museum of Modern Art' in Helsinki and the 'Statens Museum for Kunst', Copenhagen.

The visitor guidance system and corporate identity for the 'unges laboratorier for kunst' and the art laboratory for young people at the 'Statens Museum for Kunst', Copenhagen are excellent examples of the operating methods and unique signature of this graphic artist. The typical slanting design of the barrier tape and the temporary look of the stencilled writing generate the atmosphere of a workshop, a laboratory for young art.

In 2000 and 2003 the Rasmus Koch Studio won the Danish Design Award with its typeface and graphic design for the Danish Film Institute. The fact that the typeface is broken down into individual elements means that the content of the text does not immediately become apparent. It's not until the elements begin to overlap during the animation, in other words when we watch the trailer and the animated website, that the whole text can be deciphered as the lettering turns into characters and an image.

Thanks to their own interest in art and architecture and a feeling for the content of the work as a whole, Rasmus Koch and his team are able to work closely with customers in developing their ideas and creating perceptive and well thought-through results.

And when Koch and his colleagues, fascinated by their craft and its significance, start up the old printing press in the cellar of their studio this only confirms the impression which his work makes – that of a graphic artist of the old school.