DIE NEUE SAMMLUNG | Fokus: Gesicht

Ikko Tanaka: Faces. Posters. Wall title: Mirko Borsche, Bureau Borsche, Munich. Photo: A. Laurenzo, Die Neue Sammlung

Point, point, comma, stroke

Everyone is familiar with Smileys – they are the most frequently used and most popular of the emoticons, also known as emojis. To symbolize an Emoticon normal characters on a keyboard are combined with one another: Points, commas, strokes … In e-mail communications or in text messages and other digital short messages, together they form faces and serve to express emotions, moods and feelings – or at least intimate these. This can range from a smile with a wink, loud laughter, or sticking out your tongue gloatingly – and can even include crying, anger, fear, disgust, coolness etc.

For the presentation Ikko Tanaka. Faces. Posters, Munich-based graphic designer Mirko Borsche created the German-English exhibition title attached to the pillar in the rotunda at the entrance to the exhibition. The large letter “C” in the words FACES GESICHTER is in both instances replaced by a smiling face in the form of a minimalist emoticon that consists of only a bracket and a colon. Namely in order to represent the letter “C”, in this instance an inverted one, meaning an

( : instead of an : )

Incidentally, in Japan or Korea emoticons are not depicted horizontally, but presented vertically.

^!^ *_*

There is a correspondence to Mirko Borsche’s design idea on the other side of the pillar in the form of the Japanese title, created by Japanese graphic designer Tetsuya Ohta in Tokyo. Like an East-West dialog.

Design +. Fokus: Gesicht