Design To Go—Greece

Submitted by Diane Burk on

Design To Go

In this week's installment of Design To Go, Diane Burk travels to Greece, visiting Athens, Crete and Thessaloniki. At the crossroads of Europe, Africa and Asia, Greece lies on the Balkan Peninsula and shares borders with Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria and Turkey. It is widely considered the place where Western Civilization originated and the birthplace of Western democracy and philosophy.

 

May 2017—June 2017: Greece

 

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This informal design blog began as I departed for a year-long, around-the-world trip in October 2016. As well as a personal gap year, this travel time allows me to take a professional design sabbatical, following more than 30 years as a Graphic Designer/Art Director in the museum design world. "Design To Go" is a casual record of my design-related findings on the road, likely to be eclectic, various and somewhat random. Some of the things I come across that stimulate my design thinking might be of interest to others. My goal is to return to San Francisco in October 2017 inspired with fresh perspectives and energized to restart my design career. In design, anything is possible!

—Diane Burk, Design To Go

  • Street Art (Athens): The birthplace of democracy has a lively history of political protest. Athens is a messy, layered melange of random tagging, occasional murals and posted political posters.
  • Graphic Design (Athens): I saw many examples of poster design on the street. "Apropos documenta" gives this typography an additive treatment.
  • Museum of Typography (Crete): The Greek word for "typography" means both typography and printing. The Museum of Typography provides a history of both.
  • Mini Museum (Crete): The Mini Museum is a reminder of our universal desire or need to display (revere) objects that have meaning to us. The most basic "homemade museum" is just one step away from "home," our most personal repository and display area for meaningful objects.
  • Street Signs (Crete): Formidable street signs, chiseled in stone.
  • The Power of the Postcard (Greece): Postcards are still for sale, but almost totally out of use. But, postcard photography still shapes our perceptions of a place and its culture.
  • Archaelological Museum (Thessaloniki): It's painful when I find something interesting right at closing time. I didn't have time to explore this exhibition about figurines.
  • Graphic Design (Thessaloniki): Similar to Athens, not much stands out in the general smear of tagging.

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