Welcome home: CASA C ALMA. a new yoga studio built on grounding, connection, and community. The brand identity builds on one guiding idea: all ways welcome. The design represents a home of many shapes and colors, because casa means “home” – and this one is for everyone. Each form stands for uniqueness, belonging, and togetherness. That sense of softness, openness, and welcome is exactly what the design aims to reflect.

The house-shaped forms translate the idea of “home” into spatial orientation. Materials create a balance between openness and clarity. The typography remains clean and reduced, giving the system a calm and timeless presence.

The exhibition Porodica i domaćinstvo: lepršava svakodnevica Dušana Bekara (“Family and Household: The Fluttery Everyday Life of Dušan Bekar”), staged at the Nikola Tesla Technical Museum in Zagreb in the fall of 2024, presents for the first time numerous pieces from the rich œuvre of graphic designer Dušan Bekar.

Dušan Bekar (1931–2019) was an influential art director and one of the members of the development line of Croatian graphic design in the second half of the twentieth century. Raised on the foundations of international modernism, Bekar began his journey in 1949 at the Ozeha agency as an eighteen-year-old, and over the next five decades he developed a unique vocabulary made up of illustrations, typography, calligraphy, photography and three-dimensional objects.

The idea for the retrospective arose from the lesser-known fact that it was Bekar who created the visual identity of the first international Porodica i domaćinstvo (“Family and Household”) exhibition held in the fall of 1957 in the premises of the Technical Museum on Savska Street as part of the Zagreb Autumn Fair (and again in 1958 and 1960). In July 1957, in a juried competition in Belgrade, Bekar’s conceptual poster design was awarded the first prize”. The winning entry was a “meander-house” drawn in single stroke. It became the trademark of the event and served as a key visual in the promotional materials.

Thematically, the 2024 show relied on the exhibits that formed the backbone of the 1957 revue exhibition, which addressed the organization of family life within then newly created urban units and the general improvement of the quality of life of our citizens. As we can read in the magazine Čovjek i prostor (“Man and space”) from the same year, it dealt with topics such as furnishing and organizing living spaces, with an emphasis on furnishing the kitchen and preparing food, furnishing the bathroom and maintaining hygiene, clothing and maintaining footwear, and equipment for travel and leisure. A children’s fair was held as an integral part of, “oriented to meet the needs of the youngest citizens”.

The exhibition posters are based on the “meander-house” key visual which is primarily supplemented by illustrations made especially for the 1957 exhibition, as well as some later illustrations that complement the theme of the lifestyle of the time.

The choice of colors is directly based on the colors of the original billboards, while the typeface choice – Neue Plak – is based on using a modernized version of the fonts used at the time. The handwriting font – Flirt Script – was chosen to resemble as much as possible the calligraphy that Bekar used at that time when creating advertisements and similar materials.

Concept and design by Alira Hrabar Bekar and Dušan Bekar (junior) at BEKAR HAUS. See also the post about the exhibition posters.

The exhibition Porodica i domaćinstvo: lepršava svakodnevica Dušana Bekara (“Family and Household: The Fluttery Everyday Life of Dušan Bekar”), staged at the Nikola Tesla Technical Museum in Zagreb in the fall of 2024, presents for the first time numerous pieces from the rich œuvre of graphic designer Dušan Bekar.

Dušan Bekar (1931–2019) was an influential art director and one of the members of the development line of Croatian graphic design in the second half of the twentieth century. Raised on the foundations of international modernism, Bekar began his journey in 1949 at the Ozeha agency as an eighteen-year-old, and over the next five decades he developed a unique vocabulary made up of illustrations, typography, calligraphy, photography and three-dimensional objects.

The idea for the retrospective arose from the lesser-known fact that it was Bekar who created the visual identity of the first international Porodica i domaćinstvo (“Family and Household”) exhibition held in the fall of 1957 in the premises of the Technical Museum on Savska Street as part of the Zagreb Autumn Fair (and again in 1958 and 1960). In July 1957, in a juried competition in Belgrade, Bekar’s conceptual poster design was awarded the first prize”. The winning entry was a “meander-house” drawn in single stroke. It became the trademark of the event and served as a key visual in the promotional materials.

Thematically, the 2024 show relied on the exhibits that formed the backbone of the 1957 revue exhibition, which addressed the organization of family life within then newly created urban units and the general improvement of the quality of life of our citizens. As we can read in the magazine Čovjek i prostor (“Man and space”) from the same year, it dealt with topics such as furnishing and organizing living spaces, with an emphasis on furnishing the kitchen and preparing food, furnishing the bathroom and maintaining hygiene, clothing and maintaining footwear, and equipment for travel and leisure. A children’s fair was held as an integral part of, “oriented to meet the needs of the youngest citizens”.

The exhibition posters are based on the “meander-house” key visual which is primarily supplemented by illustrations made especially for the 1957 exhibition, as well as some later illustrations that complement the theme of the lifestyle of the time.

The choice of colors is directly based on the colors of the original billboards, while the typeface choice – Neue Plak – is based on using a modernized version of the fonts used at the time. The handwriting font – Flirt Script – was chosen to resemble as much as possible the calligraphy that Bekar used at that time when creating advertisements and similar materials.

Concept and design by Alira Hrabar Bekar and Dušan Bekar (junior) at BEKAR HAUS. See also the post about the exhibition catalog.

A captivating Op Art poster for the Theater der Freien Volksbühne from 1969. Since 1963, this West Berlin branch of the Volksbühne Berlin used a venue on Schaperstraße, which today is known as Haus der Berliner Festspiele. Striped on the outside, the depicted house has open doors and windows, allowing a glimpse into the turbulent inner life.

The poster is by Jürgen Spohn (1934–1992). Born in Leipzig and also known as Hans Jürgen Spohn, he studied graphic design in Kassel, under Hans Leistikow and Hans Hillmann, among others. In 1961 Spohn moved to West Berlin and began his freelance work as a graphic designer and children’s book author. In 1972 Spohn was appointed professor at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Berlin (today UdK Berlin).

The typeface is Herold, which started life in Berlin at the Berthold foundry in 1901. The pattern of concentric circles reminds me of Stripes (see this ad for Tonibral), but that multiline face didn’t exist before 1973. Spohn used this pattern already in 1967 for another poster design.

Cover for Every Scene Needs A Center, the fifth album by indie pop band Tullycraft from Seattle, Washington, released in 2007 on Magic Marker Records.

The typography references the 1970s, with ITC Souvenir and very tight spacing. Design and illustration by the band’s lead guitarist Corianton Hale.

[More info on Discogs]

Contemporary/Modern Brazilian Houses of the architecture photographer Leonardo Finotti is the catalogue of the 10+10 exhibition in Bratislava, Slovakia in May 2013.

"Leonardo Finotti as quickly integrated in to a group of architectural photographers in brazil, focusing on Europe and Latin America, has succeded in puting together a certainly unique collection nowadays." — André Correa do Lago, diplomat and architecture critic

It is a two-cover book, connecting the two books of photography, the Modern and the Contemporary.