A breath of fresh circulated in Cyprus on March 6th, 2015 with a group of talented and full of life graphic designers, bringing together graphic design professionals and students to share ideas and listen to expert speakers share their graphic stories. Aggeliki Michalopoulou-Karra and Miltos Karras, organizers of the “Graphic Stories Cyprus“, initially wanted to change the stigma of graphic design in Cyprus and subsequently make contact with the community of the creative people of the field. Their was an air of excitement in the historic settings of the newspaper’s “Politis” headquarters. Graphic Stories was evidently a successful event.
The three day event included speeches by renowned designers from both Cyprus and abroad. The lectures designed to explore the current trends of design but also contributed to a sense of search and reflection on the future of visual communication. The academic Klimis Mastoridis, designers Dimitris Sotiriou, Periklis Hristoforidis, the founder of Creative Club Cyprus Renos Demetriou and the internationally renowned visual designer Charis Tsevis left the best impressions on the large audiences whoparticipate in the wonderful event by the GSC.
As part of the Graphic Stories program a two-day workshop was held to create artistic posters entitled “The art of the poster as a vehicle of ideas and visions.” The workshop participants had the opportunity to experiment and explore the relationship between form, design, color and printing using, collage, silkscreen, linotype and monotype under the guidance of George and Helen Tsaggaris Panayidou. The 16 unique posters, created by the participants will be accommodated on the ground floor of the newspaper “Politis” 13 to March 28, 2015.
Furthermore, 70 of the best posters of the International Reggae Poster Contest (IRPC) 2014 were exhibited at the headquarters of the newspaper “Politis” from 6-28 March 2015. Among the exhibited posters were those of Georgia Charalambous, Maria Agathokleous and Darina Andreyeva, 2014 winners from Cyprus. The organizers of IRPC, Michael Thompson and Maria Papaefstathiou, who traveled from Greece, attended the exhibition opening on Friday, March 6 and made a presentation about the contest successes and the grand vision to establish a Reggae Hall of Fame Museum in Kingston, Jamaica.
The IRPC posters were mounted on the walls, columns and tables surround by the exotic printing machinery and typesetting relics from a bygone era. The organizers of the events were quite honored by the presence of Mr. Pantelis Leptos, Honorary Consul of Jamaica in Cyprus. Mr Leptos toured the exhibitions and was very impressed by the high standards and grand vision of the contest objectives.
Entertainment included classic reggae and dub selections by the legendary DJs Haji Mike, from Nicosia, Cyprus and Rankin Johnny from Athens, Greece.
