Lars Harmsen

Bastard Choose My Identity Lars Harmsen

What happens to design when cultures merge and traditions dissolve, when everything is "bastardized"? The authors of Bastard set out to learn the answers on a high-speed 21-day research trip to seven hot spots of globalization on three continents, including Mexico City, L. A., Tokyo, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Dubai and Frankfurt. Over the course of hundreds of meetings with artists, musicians, designers and authors, they collected enough prints, books, photographs, audio interviews and notes to fill an encyclopedia. The comparatively slim Bastard, which comes in at just under 400 pages, offers a portfolio from around the world. In the course of collecting it, Christian Ernst found himself coming around to this globalization thing: "Everyone is afraid of standardization. When everyone has the same design books does that mean young designers everywhere will use the same design? No--people are individual and influenced in different ways. They're simply different, and that was definitely a relief to discover!" Bastard has been designed in more than 50 unique typefaces created by typographers all over the world. A selection of those fonts, a musical sound track and 50 high-resolution images are all included on the enclosed DVD.