The Selection Jury met on 17 and 18 March 2014 on the premises of the Moravian Gallery in Brno. The jury assessed each submitted work on the basis of its originality of approach, how innovatively it deals with specific tasks, and its aesthetic and functional qualities, while bearing in mind the limitations of available exhibition space. More about submissions …

• Linda Dostálková (designer, teacher, CZ)Established studio The Bestseller Creative Platform (together with her sister Daniela Dostálková, in 2005). She is the head of the graphic design department Text Form Function at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Ostrava. She currently studies at the Werkplaats Typografie in Arnhem. She graduated from scenography at the Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Brno in 2003, studied new media at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw from 2001 to 2003, and from 2000 to 2001 architecture at the Faculty of Architecture of the Technical University of Liberec. The concepts behind her work are often derived from her studies of performing arts. She is interested in implications of scenography to graphic and exhibition design.
• Joris Kritis (designer, teacher, BE)Joris Kritis (1983) studied graphic design at Sint-Lucas Ghent and was a participant of the Werkplaats Typografie between 2006 & 2008. Since 2009 he is working as an independent graphic designer. From 2009 till 2011 he was designing the arts review Metropolis M in collaboration with Julie Peeters and in 2010 they restyled the graphic identity of the Beursschouwburg in Brussels, which won the public prize in the Cobra Power of Print competition.
  
  Clients include The Royal Museums of Fine Art, Brussels, Contour, Mechelen, the Appel Curatorial Programme, Amsterdam, ROMA Publications, OFFICE Kersten Geers David Van Severen, Canadian Centre for Architecture, Piet Zwart Institute, Architecture Workroom Brussels, BOZAR, Brussels, If I Can’t Dance …, Amsterdam, Elisa Platteau Gallery, EPFL, Lausanne, The Flemish Architecture Institute, etc.
  
  In 2011, his work has been selected for the Brno Biennale and with the book Changing Cultures of Planning, he won the Prix Fernand Baudin, as well as a bronze medal in the Most Beautiful Book of the World-competition in Leipzig. The Flanders Architectural Review 2012 was selected for the Best Designed Books in the Netherlands.
  
  He has been teaching in the Gerrit Rietveld Academie since 2011, and has given workshops in Ghent, Oranjenstadt and Talinn.
• Mikuláš Macháček (designer, teacher, CZ)Graphic designer, studied at AAAD in Prague and ABK in Maastricht. Following an internship at Studio Dumbar (Den Haag, NL) a member of Studio Najbrt (Prague, CZ) for eight years. In 2011 he establishes studio zetzetzet, together with Sarka Zikova. The studio is focused on graphic, interior and product design. Currently for the third year, Mikulas Machacek is a head of Studio of graphic design 2 at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Brno.
• Marek Pokorný (curator, CZ)Marek Pokorný (b. 1963) is a curator, publicist and a cultural manager. In the 90s, he was active as a curator and art critic in daily press, from 1995 to 2000 as an editor of Detail – a magazine for visual culture. In 2003 and 2004 he was the main curator of House of The Kunstat Lords of the Brno House of Arts. Between 2004 and 2012 he was a director of the Moravian Gallery in Brno. He curated a wide range of exhibitions of contemporary art, including projects for Czecho-Slovak pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2005 and 2013). Since 2013 he is a member of PLATO – platform for contemporary art Ostrava. He is a chair of the organisation committee of the International Biennial of Graphic Design Brno.
• Indrek Sirkel (designer, teacher, EE)Indrek Sirkel (b. 1984) is a graphic designer, teacher and publisher based in Tallinn, Estonia. After graduating from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy (Amsterdam) in 2007 and a one year residency at the Jan van Eyck Academy (Maastricht) he has mainly worked on publications for several Estonian cultural institutions. From 2007 he is teaching at the graphic design department of Estonian Academy of Arts.
  
  For his graduation project he compiled 37 Assignments – a book about teaching graphic design at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie. He is currently working on the new revised edition, which will be launched at the Brno Biennial this year.
  
  In 2010, together with the artist Anu Vahtra, he founded Lugemik – a small independent publishing initiative based in Tallinn, Estonia. Lugemik publishes books and other printed matter, working closely together with artists, writers, designers and printers. In 2013 Lugemik opened a bookshop in Tallinn; it is built into an old Soviet-time garage on the premises of the Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia (EKKM).
  
  Publications designed by him have been selected among the Most Beautiful Books of Estonia ten times in the years 2005–2013. In 2012 he received the award for Best Young Designer (the SÄSI award) in Estonia. In 2013 Lugemik was granted one of the Cultural Endowment of Estonia awards.

Verdict of the Selection Jury of the 26th International Biennial of Graphic Design Brno 2014

Linda Dostálková

Participation in the Selection Jury gave us the opportunity to view a large number of inspirational approaches and methods. Criteria placed on contemporary graphic design are subjective, and what is considered “graphic design” is permanently changing its contours. To define them before a selection would mean that we anticipate the nature of the entries. I believe that students today carefully choose the context in which they want to see their work. They are led to contemplate the direction of their activities and what makes their artworks exceptional. The exhibition concept of the Biennial curators is, in particular, visitor-friendly; visitors are invited to produce their own interpretations of contemporary graphic design in art schools.


Joris Kritis

The jury did not use any particularly specific criteria in selecting for the biennale exhibition. The works submitted were very diverse both in context, medium etc., so it did not make sense to have any formal criteria. Rather, we selected very intuitively and based on what got us excited and interested. It was a very positive surprise that so much of the selected work and admitted work was of such high quality, that the investment of the students in their projects was very genuine and deep, and that a lot of works were experimental in nature.


Mikuláš Macháček

I deliberately didn’t set myself any concrete selection criteria, as they did not seem important for the concept of a students’ exhibition. I’d say that we chose the individual artworks chiefly by intuition, and the committee members mostly agreed. What was surprising, though, was the unusually high, almost professional standard of the pieces. Yet at a students’ biennial I would welcome more experimental works defying categories. Clever wackiness is represented, at least in my opinion, by several videos that will be part of the show.


Indrek Sirkel

I was very happy to be part of the jury. The overall quality of the submitted works was really high. Maybe my biggest surprise was that there wasn't so much “student” student work – weird, funny, cheaply made, crazy experimentation. Instead I found myself looking at professionally produced graphic design. The second observation I made was the lack of actual reactions to school assignments. We didn't see so many groups of work, where you could recognize the original task given by the teacher. There were a few cases of “investigative projects”, but mainly “independent work”.