by Raycho Stanev

NagledNa – Visual Stories first edition, 2015© raycho stanev, 2015published by nagledna+7, trakia str., asenovgrad 4230, bulgariaprinted in www.2x2.bgНА-N00-00-001

Order from: info@nagledna.net

by Raycho Stanev

nagledna+ promotes graphic design as an essential element of effective com-munication, and encourages an active personal and societal attitude to book, typography, poster and illustration. we have a network of partners and friends across bulgaria and abroad.

nagledna+design & publishing

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Bulgaria has a strong typographic tradition which reached its high point in the 1970s and can be seen even today in old neon signs. Raycho Stanev traces the visual history of his country and produces some very contemporary designs under the umbrella of Nagledna.– Christine Moosmann, Novum Magazine*

* Novum – World of Graphic Design is a German monthly magazine featuring the best in contemporary graphic design, illustration and typography.

8 [typography]

Handmade outdoor advertising signs from socialist times have lost their function and little by little disappear off the face of Bulgarian towns. They are graphological cultural heritage and selected copies can be preserved, even as a basis for creating a new, substantive image of the Cyrillic alphabet in the typical Bulgarian style.– Dr. Rudolf Bartsch, Goethe institut Sofia

www.svetlo.nagledna.net

* Starite tabeli – www.staritetabeli.blogspot.com

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Raycho, Rado and Evgeni are three friends who share the same childhood experiences from the socialist era and who have grown up in times of transition: a transition between two political systems, between analog and digital technologies, between old media and Internet. They belong to a generation that while saying good-bye to childhood games, witnessed drastic changes in public space. More than twenty years after the end of socialism, the beautiful neon signs above closed-down former cafes, restaurants, cinemas and shops are among the few remnants that carry on the spirit of that time. They are abandoned, forgotten, rusty, nostalgic – and completely invisible for most of the people. The three young men decided to take down some of these old letters and to inject them with new life. And that’s how Bright Future was born.Will it become something more than a political cliché? Is there a bright future for the streets we walk on every day and how can we enter it with polished shoes?– Documentary, 45 min Author Evgeni Bogdanov

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Using various letters from old neon signs, we at Nagledna re-write well-known slogans from the near past. We update them not by alternating the words, but by replacing the fonts. Thus, we write political propaganda via fonts designed for flower shops, cafes, underwear stores, etc., which removes its apparent seriousness and highlights the absurd. We are interested in the relationship between a font and the message written in it. – 12 political slogans were published on 12 issues in the daily newspaper 24 Hours (19 October - 9 November 2012)

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Working indifferently is no good!(a sign in a labor collective)

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Speech is the most intrusive irritant!(a slogan in a hospital)

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Contemporary city dwellers are people on the move; and contemporary art is a type of propaganda which makes them move at an even higher speed. Nagledna Studio has been inspired by the typography of the well-known socialist-times magazine Nagledna Agitatsya (Visual Propaganda) and adds rhythm to the movement today by bringing elements from the past to the present. Nagledna’s main field of activities is related to the letters; their central activity since 2010 has been to explore images that have an active presence in the urban environment. They find them in the neon-light sign of the past which they turn into portable and sometimes interactive monuments that re-write themselves.During the festival Sofia Contemporary* Nagledna installed a sign of (old) neon lights on the facade of the National Palace of Culture in Sofia.– Lilyana Karadzhova, Abitare Magazine

* Sofia Contemporary presents diverse artistic means, traditional and new media, urban and interior spaces for and with art. The festival discusses various attitudes to the problems of our time, territory, gender, social and political frustrations as well as affiliations.

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Advertising Factory is a workshop organized by Nagledna Studio for making lamps out of restored neon letters.– Sofia Design Week, 2012

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Graphic design and architecture inevitably intertwine in modern cities. The question, however, is to what extent they complement or obstruct each other, whether buildings can serve as an inspiration for typography and vice versa, and who takes care of integrating them and when. The Graphitecture presentation by studio NAGLEDNA traces that synthesis by showing both good and bad examples from Cuba through Europe to Kazakhstan, collected during various travels.– Grafitectura, Architecture Seeks Society Sofia Architecture Week, 2012

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In 2011, while working on the project My Street in Havana, we visited Casa de las Americas – the cultural organization of the Cuban government. We were very surprised when we saw the poster exhibition Liberta occupying the entire second floor of the building. What an incredible way to ignore the censorship of the government and all its associated institutions controlling the freedom of speech! Totally avoiding print and electronic media and directly posting in the heart of socialist propaganda. – Nagledna in Cuba, 2011

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www.godina.nagledna.net

We have always been interested in the relationship between text and graphics as well as in the way processing affects perception. The Year of Our Discontent throws light on 12 important political actions that generated a wave of public discontent. We made a series of posters in response to the protests that took place at Eagles Bridge (Sofia, 2012) and were poorly covered by our “free media“. Bringing all the posters together, we want to show them as being much more than a collection of individual grievances; we want to show them as organized “noise“. We believe that this visual perception of politically charged materials places a sharp focus on the events from last year. We also shot 12 interviews with people speaking on each of the subject featured in the posters, thus creating a collective memory of what happened.– Nagledna via The Gaudenz B. Ruf Award*

* The Award is financed through a fund established in Switzerland. The aim of the Award is to promote and propagate artistic expression in Bulgaria in the field of visual arts and to focus in particular on the younger generation.

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political posters

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We live in a memoryless society with no mentors. Аnd we are all forced to look for new forums in order to talk with one another.– Diana Ivanova, Media

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I think the whole world is in a crisis. A crisis of ideals. A crisis of values. So the economic crisis is a derivative. – Manol Peykov, Financial Crisis

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I’d like to see more people reflect on what forests are. They aren’t a place we enjoy going to because it’s nice and pleasant. Forests are a vital factor for our survival, health, well-being.– Magdalena Maleeva, Forest Act

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15% of the Earth’s population, the people in the Global North, have access to 73-75% of the Earth’s wealth. Something is clearly wrong. ACTA is part of this: preserving status quo. The poor should remain poor, because the rich need them to be.– Asen Nenov, ACTA

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The problem with stray dogs is very susceptible to a populist interpretation by the media. And that’s what usually happens. – Sabina Panayotova, Street Pets

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We have a rich diversity of local strains adapted to our own environment. Let’s leave GMO in labs, where they belong. And let’s not think that someone else will solve our problems. – Desislava Dimitrova, Genetically Modified Foods

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It’s a principle of democracy that elections should be fair and free. However, elections are often full of coercion, pressure, and sometimes violence. – Antoaneta Tsoneva, Elections

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A new generation is growing which doesn’t know, doesn’t have the physical experience of watching out, not talking, keeping your thoughts to yourself, looking out for tapping devices. So it can easily fall into the trap of a future system. – Vessela Nozharova, National Security

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Even now, when we believed that our trust in the purpose of courts could be restored, our trust in sharp delineations between what’s good and what’s evil, it’s become clear we’ve been misled again. And even our political art has become superfluous.– Marin Bodakov, Justice

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As for Bulgaria’s situation in terms of transportation fuels, we have only few resources. So we rely heavily on importing them. We must find ways to escape this.– Genady Kondarev, Fuel

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The way prospecting was planned and the contracts signed – it happened behind society’s back, which gave rise to serious doubts whether they’d benefit society.– Zornitsa Hristova, Shale Gas

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Are we aware of the danger of a clash? Even if it’s just a local one, in our district. How risky, how ugly it can be. – Ruslan Trad, Nationalism

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BRIgHT FUTURe IN THe YeaR OF OUR dISCONTeNTThe exhibition visualizes the projects Bright Future and The Year of Our Discontent in their complete form. These two projects took off in 2011 as a series of workshops, initiatives, presentations and projections addressing current political issues. Through them, we shared our ideas and opinions about our social reality and the constantly changing urban space. We also offered a platform for our audience to express their thoughts. We employed proven methods of propaganda – political typography, posters, movies, clothing as well as other old advertising techniques combined with contemporary means, so that the messages could reach as many people as possible. The documentary exhibition here traces all these different stages.– Sofia Arsenal - Museum For Contemporary Art

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The fact that I am also making contemporary art has always helped me in designing books with contemporary literature. Literature and art share many similarities, what differs is the medium –writers use words, artists use imagery. – Raycho Stanev, ReCover documentary*

* ReCover documentary online: www.recover.nagledna.net

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(un)serial thoughtsI was nine years old when I read my first book – Emil of Lön-neberga by Astrid Lindgren, published in the Otechestvo Pub-lishers’ Smehurko series. This was not just my first book, it was also my first encounter with a book series. Series give you a key and direction in navigating the vast ocean of published books, in which it is so easy to get lost. Some of the books I remember vividly from my childhood are Yan Bibiyan by Elin Pelin, Toshko of Africa by Angel Karaliychev and Patilantsi by Ran Bossilek, all from Narodna Mladezh Publushers’ Yan Bibiyan series. What they did was spark my love of books and reading. Years later, in high school, I read and reread the hard-bound novels of Jack London and John Steinback. I’ll avoid listing every book I read as a teenager, but I want to draw attention to the consistent visual identity of these series, which had a strong link to the stories contained in them.Freedom and limitations, it’s always a question of balance when you design a book series. I’ve admired the work of David Pearson for Editions Zulma and Penguin, as well as Mikey Burton’s design of the Rest, Relax, Read classic novels series. But recently, I find myself going back more and more often to the children’s and adolescents’ books published in Bulgaria in the 1960s and 70s. I think of this not as a nostalgia for the past, but as a nostalgia for the beautiful. For that which remains unaffected by time and fashions. You might also call it the classical. There is a lot to learn from the achievements of those before us and perhaps the least is that technological limitations have sometimes spurred the designer’s imagination to great lengths and produced fantastic results. — A conversation between Raycho Stanev and Marin Bodakov, Kultura Weekly Issue

[books]

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* faceoutbooks is a space about the challenges and outcomes of a project, a venue created to appreciate the practice of book cover design (USA).

Raycho has a feeling for the books he works on and manages to capture their spirit.- Manol Peykov, Janet 45 Publishing

[books]

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Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

Whoops! by John LanchesterMaverick by Ricardo Semler

[6th cohort series]

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Just a quick note to tell you that I love the cover. Super!– Mohsin Hamid* about The Reluctant Fundamentalist

* Mohsin Hamid is the author of three novels: Moth Smoke, a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award; The Reluctant Fundamentalist, a New York Times best seller that was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and adapted for film

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Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

Solo by Rana Dasguptalet the great World Spin by Colum McCann

[otvad series]

The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid

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* faceoutbooks is a space about the challenges and outcomes of a project, a venue created to appreciate the practice of book cover design (USA).

I love book series myself. It’s fun to think through how the series should look as individual books and overall – emily Weige (faceoutbook*)

[books]

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The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

Help, I made my wife pregnant by Ray KluunThe Memory artists by Jeffrey Moore

[otvad series]

Cockroach by Rawi Hage

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* On his blog the Caustic Cover Critic, James Morrison tracks down, posts, and comments on beautiful and bizarre book cover design — from current titles to finds from years past.

BaCk TO THe gOOd STUFFSorry about the gap between posts: obviously being featured on The guardian’s website has made me too self-satisfied to post. But after that last post’s cavalcade of shit, how about some good stuff?These covers are the work of Bulgarian designer Raycho Stanev for the local translations of a number of well-known books, each using strong, bold illustrations and vivid blocks of colour. — James Morrison, Caustic Cover Critic (Uk)*

[books]

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The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri

Smell by Radhika JhaUnaccustomed earth by Jhumpa Lahiri

[indian series]

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Since 1979, the year of its re-birth, granta has published many of the world’s finest writ-ers tackling some of the world’s most important subjects, from intimate human experiences to the large public and politi-cal events that have shaped our lives.– www.granta.com

[books]

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[granta magazine]

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*Rawi Hage is a Canadian writer. Hage has published journalism and fiction in several Canadian and American magazines, and in the PEN America Journal. His debut novel, De Niro’s Game (2006), won the 2008 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award

The images you sent are fantastic!!! Just amazing. – Rawi Hage*

[books]

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[carnival - picture stories]

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[carnival - picture stories]

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This is so beautiful, and I am very moved. Thank you for sending me this lovely gift. – Rana dasgupta*

*Rana Dasgupta is a British Indian novelist and essayist. He was awarded the prestigious Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for the novel Solo, it won both the region and overall best-book prize.

[books]

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[drawing into the unknown]

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[drawing into the unknown]

We’ve always used the World Wide Web as a main stage for our interactive installations that deal with memories from socialism and not only...– Nagledna via Slanted*

* The blog and magazine Slanted call for a debate on the subjects of typography, graphic design, illustration and photography as an experimental field.

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VISUal PROPagaNda aims to recall the visual methods used during communism for the purposes of political propaganda and to find the place of the letters in that process. In order to function better, the complex world of the communist society needed norms to rule human behavior. How were these rules communicated, how did the mechanism for their creation evolve over time? Visual Propaganda is a space for memories and stories from the time of communism. – Nagledna’s lecture in ECAV*, Sierre (Switzerland)

* Located in the heart of the Alps and in the center of Europe, l’Ecole cantonale d’art du Valais offers high quality education in graphic design.

[web]

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www.propagnada.nagledna.net

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* Diana Ivanova is a journalist, writer and cultural manager. She lives between Sofia, Bonn and Gorna Bela Rechka.

[web]

STORIeS aBOUT 1968 – A project by Raycho Stanev, Diana Ivanova and Radoslav Stanev, a former solider from the Bulgarian occupation troops in 1968. What does it mean to return forty years later to the place where one was supposed to “abort” the Prague Spring? The goal of this journey is not so much to reconstruct the events that took place but to see if the conversation about the past is possible as well as our own involvement in it with different generations and people in Europe today; to see what effect this journey has on the dialogue, whether it changes something.– Diana Ivanova*, Capital Newspaper

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www.68.nagledna.net

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THe gReaT eXCURSION: Critical Debate & InstallationRaycho Stanev’s interactive installation contains memories of Bulgarian Turks, hundreds of thousands of whom were expelled from Bulgaria in 1989. A shameful, hidden chapter of European history, almost unknown in the West, it is a reminder of what happens when DNA, rather than our shared humanity, is the focus of attention. The Great Excursion gives a fascinating and disturbing insight into what happens to a community when politics takes over from reality. Is it where you’re from, or where you’re at that matters?– Sandra Hall, Friction Art (Bass Festival Birmingham)

* Sandra Hall is a Co-Director of Friction Arts (Birmingham). She design-ing creative spaces for important conversation between disparate groups, people, grassroots and strategic stakeholders. Creative consultation leading to meaningful engagement, projects, artworks.

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www.89.nagledna.n

et

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I travel a lot – I participate in some festivals, programs, projects and so on. There I can learn a lot more about the places I’m visiting and their inhabitants. I’m not just a tourist, I’m working and I’m doing something for the place, together with local people. Which is actually very important to me. It’s good to know the people because it helps you learn more about the place. People define a place, not the architecture, monuments or sightseeings.– Conversation with Natalie Herrmann and Raycho Stanev, Lomography Magazine (Berlin)

[web]

www.fisheyer.nagledna.net

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Re-ISTaNBUl is a collection of conversations with local artists talking about Istanbul, pictures of them as well as small videos shots – small city fragments which form my impressions from Istanbul and give a human touch to this enormous city.– Apartment Project, Istanbul

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www.re-istanbul.nagledna.net

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OVeR CITIeS is an interactive diary from Sofia and Havana. Sounds, videos and pictures mix in this inter-active collage. – ArtUp Media Art Collection from Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey

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www.thecity.nagledna.net

HelVeTIa is an interactive diary of my 30 days traveling in Switzerland. Pictures, sounds and notes that I collected dur-ing the journey.– Helvetia exhibition, I push your button, Zug (Switzerland)

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www.helvetia.nagledna.net

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deTaIlS OF PIaZZa – the installation resembles a game – eight sounds and eight pictures (all gathered from the square) as main elements which placed together structure a kaleido-scope. The viewer can discover his/her own impression with one move of the mouse which brings about а change in the main pictures, on the one hand, and in the sound, on the other hand.– Vellano Arte - Simposio Artistico Internazionale, Vellano, Italy

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www.details.nagledna.net

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Using social media as a stage for discussion is a good way of protecting freedom of speech. Side-stepping print and TV media and directly posting critical artwork in Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter, you can easily voice your ideas without any censorship.– conversation between Nagledna and Sandra Naumann, future-past-future exhibition, transmediale 2014

[web]

* transmediale is a Berlin-based festival and a year-round project that draws out new connections between art, culture and technology. The activities of transmediale aim at fostering a critical understanding of contemporary culture and politics as saturated by media technologies.

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NagledNa translates as visual... demonstrative or descriptive. The name derives from Visual Propaganda, a project on which Raycho Stanev has been working for some years now and with which he wishes to grasp the phenomenon of visual propaganda and to investigate his own relationship with it. In fact, in the 1970s and 1980s, there was a Bulgarian magazine of that name.– Christine Moosmann, Design Criticism from Sofia

We all used to work for big companies but we felt a growing need to have greater control over our projects, so in 2007 Raycho Stanev created NAGLEDNA studio, to be joined later by Evgeni Bogdanov, Radomir Dankov and Penka Dincheva. We have several long-term clients who keep the company ‘alive’, clients who share our belief that creativity and conceptual thinking are better than the blind acceptance of world fashions. At the same time, we keep investing everything we can in our own ideas which often grow into long-term, multilayered projects. Our projects have featured in a number of festivals, galleries and international magazines. We have exhibited our works in Bulgar-ia, Germany, Italy, Norway, Switzerland, Turkey, Macedonia, India and Cuba. In 2010, we exhibited installations and organized public debates at BASS Festival Birmingham and TINAG London. In 2011, we had our representative at the 12th Istanbul Biennial, and in 2012 we participated in the first edition of Sofia Con-temporary Festival. Featured in various books and magazines, our projects have won the appreciation of Novum (The World of Graphic Design), Slanted (Typography and Graphic Design), Chois Gallery (The World Best Graphic) and Caustic Cover Critic. We keep daily contact with our audience by generating new and interesting content on our website as well as through the social networks. We believe that personal attitude is vital to our work as it brings character and makes the results more memorable – both in Bul-garia and abroad. – A conversation with Nagledna and Tochitza Publishing, in the book Culture and Entrepreneurship – 11 Good Practices from Sofia

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RADOMIR DANKOV is a full-licensed architect with a broad professional experience. Since 2009, he is a member of NAGLEDNA’s team working as a freelance interior and exhibition designer. His main personal challenge is the preservation of cultural heritage and the sustainable urban development. At present, he is accomplishing a PhD thesis at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and attending a specialization at Ecole de Chailyot, Paris in the field of architectural restoration.

[afterword]

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PENKA DINCHEVA is a young and gifted artist who graduated from the National Academy of Arts, Sofia, with a degree in Graphic Art. She took part in several exhibitions and in 2006 won First Prize in a student competition for small graphic forms. For some years, she worked with Raycho Stanev on book cover projects. In 2012, Penka joined Nagledna’s team and realized her first major exhibition for the project Carnival.

[afterword]

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EVGENI BOGDANOV has been working for more than ten years as video editor and computer systems operator on various TV programs and documentaries; sound designer, cameraman and video editor for web/interactive/animation projects; daily news author and editor at the website of a music magazine; freelance photographer and blog writer.

[afterword]

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ANETA DINCHEVA is cheerful and capable project manager. She co-ordinates Nagledna‘s numerous projects keeping a vigilant eye on its finances and external communication. A graduate of the University of National and World Economy, she combines her long experience as an office manager with her studies in art communication at Nagledna’s resident programs. She also took part in the research project teams for Details of Piazza and Re-Istanbul; together with Sandra Hall she organized the Critical Debate on The Great Excursion in Bass Festival, Birmingham, and in TINAG, London.

[afterword]

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RAYCHO STANEV is an illustrator, designer and founder of Nagledna who lives and works in Bulgaria. His projects include various art installations and illustrations presented in Sofia, London, Berlin, Zurich, Ankara, Delhi and Havana. In his work, Raycho explores his own and his country’s past and present, personal memories, heritage (communist) policies and urban cultures. In 2005, he won the Prize of Creative Commons for an art project licensed under CC. In 2008, he received the Special Award of the Union of Bulgarian Artists in the First Biennale of Bulgarian Design. In 2010, he was nominated for the BAZA Award for Young Contemporary Art; and he was a guest artist at ECAV School of Art and Graphic Design, Switzerland. Recently, Raycho participated in the 12th Istanbul Biennial of contemporary art and in the 14th Transmediale.

[afterword]

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