Mitya Kharshak, photo by Gerhard Kassner
The talk starts with Mitya who founded the magazine Projector in 2007 (Npoektop in Russian). It now has more than 25,000 readers online and 3,000 copies printed every issue. He’s part of this emerging Russian designer’s generation who wants to bring design to life to within eastern countries but also share his knowledge’s to an international scale. He is passionate about the Bauhaus movement (1919—1933) closely linked with Russian Constructivism, which we can feel within the covers of his magazine.
Bold, colourful, angular and precise are 4 words which characterize Mitya inspiring publication.
His friend Peter Bankov, is also a versatile designer/artist who created his own publication called Kak, 16 years ago. Kak’s magazine relates to Projector, as it wants to make a change within the contemporary Eastern Europe, he started with barely no money and was (still is) in charge of 50% of the magazine.
Mitya Kharshak (*1977 in Leningrad) is designer, photographer and the founder and editor-in-chief of “Projector” magazine. In 2003 and 2006 he took part in international interdisciplinary design and architectural projects on the topics “Shrinking cities” and “EU-urbanism” in Bauhaus (Dessau, Germany). He is a participant of lots of professional exhibitions and competitions. An author of the book “From psychology of domestic type to graphic archeology” (2006) and dozens of articles on design, visual art and advertising. His works are in the collections of the Russian National Library, the State Museum of Vladimir Nabokov and the State Museum “Tsarskoye Selo Collection”. Lives and works in Saint-Petersburg.
Peter Bankov was born in 1969 in Minsk. He graduated from the Minsk Art College in 1988 and the Moscow State Polygraph Institute in 1993. In 1996 he published [kAk) magazine, which has grown to be one of the key points of reference for the Russian graphic design scene. He is also the founder and creative director of Design Depot in Moscow. For his work in the fields of design and advertising he has received numerous awards on a national and international scale. He now lives in Prague.
Nevertheless, what differs from his friend is the obvious political aspect of it, it made me think of the 1970’s punk movement in London, where people used to create zines, which were at the time self-published political magazines. He hand drawn or crafted each of the hard covers, which some of them were based on an international themes such as: France, The United States, Iran… Mitya and Bankov shown us their desire and passion to share their knowledge and learn from ours.
Héloise Jutteau
