Marian Bantjes

The widely admired typographic artist, illustrator and designer, Marian Bantjes, recently gave a lecture at the Corcoran Gallery of Art + Design. Several of us had the opportunity to attend.

Wearing the many hats of artist, designer, typographer and illustrator, Marian Bantjes considers herself a graphic artist. Known for her complex and labor intensive typographic illustrations, some of her more well known commissions include the store display for Saks Fifth Avenue and Wallpaper Magazine.

Marian Bantjesʼ work encourages the viewer to linger, decipher, pause and contemplate. Its beauty attracts the viewer and the details draw you in further. At first glance, it is easy to dismiss the work as pure ornament, but you soon realize that there are hidden messages and subtleties intertwined with the intricate line work and object placement. It is the antithesis to what is considered successful graphic design today because it is not straightforward, clear and apparent—it does not attempt to cater to todayʼs world of expected instant gratification. Still, she maintains a sense of calm in the overwhelming amount of detail by adhering to a strict grid—a nod to her training as a typesetter.

In discussing her latest work, I Wonder, Ms Bantjes brought us through her process. Unexpected sources of inspiration ranged from the mundane and ugly (street signs in her hometown), to the very beautiful (religious art and iconography), to the overlooked (childrenʼs pasta art). Her work, with meticulous detail and intricacy often associated with illuminated manuscripts, aimed to bring honor to each of these art forms. The end result is a designerʼs dream—a union of concept, story and graphics in a way that one could not exist without the other. Through careful deliberation and much exploration, this is what we ultimately aim to achieve—work that instills a sense of wonder which is in fact, entirely by design.

— Greg