[caption id="attachment_981" align="alignleft" width="225" caption="Sofia Design Week takes over a phone booth..."]<img class="size-medium wp-image-981" title="Friend and Design Week " src="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/dsc09126.jpg?w=225" alt="Sofia Design Week takes over a phone booth..." width="225" height="300" />[/caption]

I had a great time taking in some of the exhibitions that are a part of<a href="http://sofiadesignweek.com/en_index.html" target="_blank"> Sofia Design Week</a> yesterday.  The week runs from June 5th to June 12th and I've already been driving my friends crazy talking about how much fun I had yesterday.  I went to see the exhibits at the French Cultural Institute, at a gallery/show room on Denkooglu St (Senza Showroom) as well as the exhibits in the Sofia Art Gallery (a space that I like more and more every time I visit).

What's great about this week is that there's a little bit of something for everyone.  The exhibits I saw yesterday were extremely varied in both quality and in content.  So if you see something you hate move on, there are 22 different exhibits.  I think that its the range of what's being shown that's noteworthy.  There are graphic design posters, there's functional product design (tables, chairs, lamps) and there are installation pieces.  <!--more-->

I loved the furniture created by both Autoban and Patricia Urquiola.  In part this may be because my parents own an antique store and I've grown up with lots of beautiful and quirky furniture but I also this exposure to furniture helped me get a sense of the lines, shapes and styles that the designers where playing and experimenting with.  Autoban mixed birch plywood and creative new chair designs to make a product that has clean lines and is both functional and beautiful.  They also brand their wooden pieces with a stamp much like Stickley did during the Mission  furniture movement in the States.  Patricia Urquiola on the other hand was working with a range of nontraditional mediums to make tables and chairs.  Her pieces incorporated steel and mixed fibers, metals and plastics to create looks that were reminiscent of wicker furniture and woven-cained chairs from the turn of the century but which were absolutely modern.

[caption id="attachment_982" align="alignright" width="300" caption="One of the posters in Helvetica"]<img class="size-medium wp-image-982" title="Helvetica Posters" src="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/dsc09120.jpg?w=300" alt="One of the posters in Helvetica" width="300" height="225" />[/caption]

This said one of my favorite exhibits was "Helvetica Forever--Story of a Typeface" at the Sofia Art Gallery.  It was funny, clever and engaging.  There were posters made beginning in the 1960's using only the typeface helvetica.  A typeface that is supposedly functional, easy to read but utterly boring.  This exhibit really turns this idea upside down.  And to future illustrate this, there are also little suitcases full of other print materials--tee shirts, candy wrappers, product packaging and other advertisements--which show the range and possibility of a font like helvetica when a designer mixes color, size and creativity together.

What I really got a kick out of yesterday was the sense of design and humor that are on display all over the city.  Sure some of the installations take themselves a tad too seriously but that's to be expected.  This said, I think that this is the kind of thing that a city like Sofia needs more of and I am really happy to see the range of works on display and the fairly large number of people checking out Sofia Design Week on a Friday afternoon.

Oh and be sure to pick up a map--either a tri-fold map or a newsprint version.  It will help you navigate the different design spaces around the city.  And of course, it's well made.  Thank-you Helvetica.

[caption id="attachment_984" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Helvetica Forever "]<img class="size-full wp-image-984" title="Helvetica Forever " src="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/dsc09112.jpg" alt="Helvetica Forever " width="500" height="375" />[/caption]