World Poster Forum

The forum to bring together the world’s most influential designers and poster artists. During the event, ideas, knowledge and opinions about the impact of the poster on our lives will be exchanged.

 

Mervyn Kurlansky

Mervyn Kurlansky was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1936, and left for England in 1958, to study at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London (now known as Central St. Martins). He began his freelance practice in 1961, followed by five years as graphics director of Planning Unit, the design consultacy service of Knoll International. In 1969 he became a partner in the design firm, Crosby/Fletcher/Forbes and in 1972 co-founded Pentagram with Theo Crosby, Alan Fletcher, Colin Forbes and Kenneth Grange, from which he resigned in 1993 to live and work in Denmark. He is equally at home designing brand identity programmes, sign systems, annual reports, newspapers, magazines, brochures, catalogues, books, book jackets, posters, packaging and websites. His clients have included; the Aga Kahn, Akari Therapeutics, the Architects Association, Avent, Barclays Bank, Bionor Pharma, Boosey and Hawkes, the British Library, British Telecom, Caribbean Enterprises, The Capital Group, Cass Sculpture Foundation, Chora Connection, the Copenhagen Post, Danmarks Designskole, Dartington Hall Trust, Dow Corning, Eclipse Entertainment, Eureka (the Museum for Children), Export Promotion Copenhagen, Geigy, the Glass Museum, Golden Days in Copenhagen Festival, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, IBM, ICI, Image Bank, Inchcape, Kenwood, the Latin American Arts Association, Lee Cooper, Longman Video, L’Oréal, Lyons Tetley, Mazda, the Museum of Modern Art Oxford, Novo Nordisk, Olivetti, Penguin Books, Polaroid, Rank Xerox, Reuters, ROR (Ringo Star and Robin Cruickshank´s design firm), Rotring, Ruskin College Oxford, Saint Tropez Fashion, Sappi fine papers Europe, Silence Therapeutics, Thorpac, Solaglas, Shiseido, STC, Sund Capital, Toyota, the Queen´s 60th Birthday Committee, Wilkinson Sword, World Health Organisation,and Zealand Pharma. He is currently design consultant to Pharnext, and Advicenne (pharmaceutical companies based in Paris).

He has won a number of important awards, including a bronze medal from the Brno Biennale of Graphic Design, a gold award from the Package Designers Council, silver awards from the Designers and Art Directors Association, London,a silver award from the New York Art Directors Club, a gold award from Japan’s Minister of Trade and Industry, the Gustav Klimt prize, Austria, 1995, and the Danish IG design prize 1996. In 2006 he was inducted into the South African Design Hall of Fame, and in 2011 he received the International Council of DesignPresident’s award, for his outstanding contribution to design. His work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Design Museum in Copenhagen and the Poster Museum, Aarhus, Denmark, and has been featured in several publications and exhibitions in Austria, China, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Israel, Iran, Japan, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, UK, and USA. He conceived, designed and edited the book ‘Watching My Name Go By,’ the first documentation of New York’s extraordinary graffiti, with text by Norman Mailer and photographs by Jon Naar.


He was also a co-author of four books about Pentagram; ‘Pentagram, The Work of Five Designers’, ‘Living by Design’, ‘Ideas on Design’ and ‘The Compendium’. His book, ‘Masters of the 20th Century – The Icograda Design Hall of Fame’, celebrates the work of the 110 speakers of the Icograda London Design Seminars, 1974 to 1999, of which he was chairman for the three years leading up to its 25th anniversary

Armando Milani

István Horkay (born 1945, in Budapest), is a Hungarian painter, printmaker, digital artist, member of the HEAA. After graduating from the School of Fine Arts in Budapest in 1964, Horkay was invited to attend the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow -Poland, one of the Major Art and Cultural Centers of Eastern Europe, where he received his Master of Fine Arts. He continued his Studies at the Royal Academy of Art in Copenhagen, Denmark. (1968) and did additional Post graduate work at the Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest. (1971) Horkay studied under the Internationally known Artist and Theater Director Tadeusz Kantor as well as Professors M. Wejman, J. Nowosielski, and Palle Nielsen, Danmark. He received Diplomas in Graphic Arts, Painting, and Film Animation. He is member of the Alliance Graphique International (AGI) Horkay’s art is epitomic in the double meaning of the word: a fragment, an incised part of something already in existence, and – just because of this incision – is an injury to the finished surface, to the tangle of writing or a finished picture. This relies on the experience that man, handing himself down through signs, simulates a kind of sense-wholeness. In these series this textual sense-wholeness appears to be ever different as different colors enter the surface at different sites. It is the same and not the same at the same time. “Once the signs are scars, then the wounds will tell tales of some non-alleviated history”

Pekka Loiri

Graphic Designer, Poster Artist, he was born in 1946 Helsinki, Finland. Pekka Loiri has participated in Poster and Graphic design exhibitions and has had solo exhibitions all around the world. He has been awarded dozens of international prizes and has served on several international juries. He has received the Government’s Design Award, the Award of the Finnish Culture Foundation. He’s been elected as the Graphic Designer of the year and granted by the Government’s Art and Design committee in Finland. Loiri is granted the Platinum Top by Grafia, and ProCom Association’s Lifetime Achievements. He has also been awarded the BICM Mexico Medal as well as the Finnish Lion’s Pro Finlandia medal. As a Poster Designer Loiri has been rewarded dozens of awards at home and abroad. He is awarded (inter alia) by the Lahti Poster Biennial, ISPAA Theatre Poster Competition New York, the Colorado Poster Biennial, Osnabruck Theatre Poster Competition, Affish in Liner, Mexico Poster Biennial, Solidarity Poster Exhibition in Prague, Posters for Global Crisis, Trnava Poster Triennial, The Gabrovo Biennial, Ningbo Poster Biennial, Graphis Poster Annuals, AUG-design-Praha. Loiri has also been awarded the Icograda Excellence Award and He is awarded the Finnish Lion’s Pro Finlandia medal. Loiri worked for a long time at the University of Art and Design in Helsinki (nowadays Aalto University) and as the chancellor at the MG school Helsinki. He has lectured, taught and held workshops at several Design Schools and Universities around the world. Loiri serves as a visiting professor at the Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts. Loiri has been invited as an honorary member of the Aalto University in Finland, as well as The Union of Designers Association. He is a member of the Honorary Council of BICM Mexico and The International Council of Poster Design BICeBé. Loiri acts as president of the International Poster Triennial in Lahti.

Iraj Mirza Alikhani

Born 1956, Tehran, Iran. BA in graphic design from Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Tehran. Founding member and member of the 1st board of directors and vice chairman of Iranian Graphic Designers Society (IGDS). Founding member and member of the 1st board of directors of Iranian Association of Advertising Agencies (IAAA). Member of Art Directors Club, NY, USA. Executive board member of 2nd and 7th Biennales of Iranian Graphic Designers. Member of the board of directors of Iranian Advertising Film Festival “Baal”. Visiting lecturer to art universities in Tehran and other major cities since 1994. Starting professional activity in graphic design in 1984. Establishing Ashna Advertising Agency in 1991. Agent and distributor of Graphis Inc. in Iran. The first representative of IGDS in Icograda Regional Meeting, Istanbul, 2000. Member of the editorial advisory panel of “Iridescent”, Icograda Journal of Design Research. Member of the jury of YAKU, 4th international poster exhibition in Peru, 2010. Holding “Composition in Poster Design” expert meeting with Ladan Rezaei and Finn Nygaard, Art University of Isfahan, 2014. Lecture on the occasion of Research Week entitled “Study of the works of Lech Majewski”, Art University of Isfahan, 2016. Invited lecturer and speaker in expert meetings of 25th International Poster Biennale in Warsaw, on “Unique Possibilities of Persian Script in Logotype Design”, The Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, 2016. Jury member of International Organ Donation Poster Competition, 2019. Member of the Honorary Committee of 27th International Poster Biennale in Warsaw, 2021. He has been awarded numerous times and his work has been presented in different institutions and events around the world: “Graphis Logo 1”, Graphis Inc., 1993; “Worldwide Identity”, Rockport Publishers, 2005; “The Book of Signs”, Yassavoli Publications, 2006, “18th International Poster Biennial Lahti”, Lahti Poster Museum, 2011, “Graphic Design History”, Laurence King Publishing, 2011”; The book of “The 5th China International Poster Biennal”, 2011; “Graphis Poster 2012”, Graphis Inc., 1992. “Graphis Logo 8”, Graphis Inc., 2012; “The 23rd International Poster Biennale in Warsaw”, The National Museum in Warsaw, 2011; “Graphis Advertising Annual 2018”, Graphis Inc., 2018; among others His individual graphic works of art are often related to postmodernism by archaic forms, art historical references, stylistic quotations and playful self-reflection. Themes of the natural sciences, especially of geometry and optics appear in most of his works. He is also concerned with the theories of vision and sight such as the way the beholder’s hypothetical expectations influence the visual and empirical perception of spatial constructions. He is likely to experiment with the extremes, paradoxes of the representation of the perspective to create the illusion of space. Also he does experiements to renew the techniques of anamorphosis when he distorts the pictures in such a way that it can only be seen from a particular aspect or in such a way that its new layer of meaning only reveals by the interposition of reflective surfaces. Orosz is a regular participant in international art exhibitions, poster biennials, symposiums and filmfestivals. Film director at the Pannonia Film Studio in Budapest, professor at University of West Hungary in Sopron, co-founder of D.O.P.P. designer society, and Hungarian Poster Association. He was elected to the Alliance Graphique Internationale and the Hungarian Academy of Arts and Letters. He has been awarded many times including: 1990 Gold Medal at the Biennial of Graphic Design, Brno / 1991 First Prize at the International Poster Biennial, Lahti / 1991 Main Prize of “Mediawave” Film Festival, Győr / 1994 Icograda-prize at the International Poster Show, Chaumont / 2000 Creative Distinction Award of European Design Annual, Dublin / 2001 Gold medal at the Annual Exhibition of Society of Illustrators, New York City/ 2007 Pro Ludo Ring, Budapest / 2007 Plakat Kunst Hof Ruettenscheid Prize, Essen / 2011 Kossuth Award, Budapest Utisz (pronounced: Outis, means ‘Nobody’), his pseudonym is used since 1984 and it was also Odyssey’s feigned name in the well-known affair with the Cyclops that ended in the blinding of the monster’s only eye. According to Orosz’s symbolic and ironic name, his art is a kind of attack on the eye. Welcome Istvan to the International Panel of Jurors View More: www.istvanorosz.com

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