Commentary – football meets design

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Flags are how ideas about football are made visual. Made at home and taken to the stadium, fan flags are immediate, reactionary and provide a snapshot of current feeling. Flags celebrate triumphs, commemorate occasions, they are made to antagonise rival supporters and bemoan poor performances. When a team wins the league there will be flags made for it; if the fans want rid of the manager, someone will be getting the spray paint out.

Football flags are not just found on the terraces; the sponsors are producing them too. Berlin is currently full of official UEFA Champions League banners; football’s rational visual medium appropriated to communicate the various corporate ownerships around the final.

Commentary is a project looking at football’s relationship with visual culture. This is our first exhibition and it is aimed at ‘mapping the landscape’. We have asked some of the world’s leading visual communicators to create flags based on their relationship with the game. Just as a look at the flags around a stadium would provide an overview of the club and an insight into the hopes and concerns of its fans, we intend this exhibition as a snapshot of where football meets visual culture.

Talk by Jon Hannan and Dan Byrne introducing the project and its themes
Thursday, 4 June, 19:00
Exhibitions 4–12 June, Tue–Fri. 10:00–18:00

designtransfer
Universität der Künste
Einsteinufer 43
10587 Berlin-Charlottenburg
10 Uhr – 18 Uhr
*Gallery closed Weekends and Mondays

More about the project.

@ Supermundane