Critical Daily    Critical practice in graphic design

Recently Bratislava is struggling ugly trash cans, ubiquitous advertising and inappropriate solutions of urban space for some time. We walk daily around these public spaces and most of the time we may not even notice them or we pass them wirh disgust. But public space is a place where we live, play, work, have fun everyday, it is a place that belongs to all of us and noone in the same time. Therefore how it looks, is influenced by the behavior of us – citizens, bur we often does not even know how we should behave.I think the public space should create a comprehensive presentation something like a business card of the city and the people who live here. For tourists it is the most important indicator of a nation's cultural consciousness. I am stranger in Bratislava and this value is for me in this respect is almost zero. 

I created a campaign specifically focused on those who are moving in public places. I placed all sorts of signs with messages on the selected areas in Bratislava that are most problematic. I have conceived four different levels of communication - calls for action, questions, announcements and PF wishes. The headlines had reflect a variety of problems - from affordable queries, questions if people feel good, to appeals not act like pigs. As a main medium of communication I created a object that looks like a dog poo. It should attract the attention, make people stop and think about their behaviour in public space.

The aim of my project was not to find concrete solutions for specific location, but to critically point out. Because lot of people don’t consider these issues sufficiently serious. The first step in my opinion, should be to get into a serious topic as people's awareness. For example to create a suitable platform that would work as a communication point between the city, the citizens and the opinions of experts. One positive finding lately I see in the emergence of similarly focused projects organized by the citizens themselves. This could be a good way to present the topic of public space as a serious subject and Bratislava municipal authorities (not just experts) would finally take it seriously and go to some action. 

This poster was created during the course Critic – Critical practice in Graphic Design at Department of Visual Communication at Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava. Tutored by Katarna Balážiková. The course foucuses on practicing and developing individual or collaborative critical projects.