Before establishing stanza in 2021, we each worked either independently, for studios or in other collaborations, which the following material unfolds. Our on-going engagement with the institutions Overgaden, Walker Art Center and Western Front are now actively integrated as part of our collaborative experience as a design studio.

As one of Denmark’s leading non-profit art institutions focusing on emerging practices, O—Overgaden mounts an irreverent program of new local and international voices in contemporary art via eight yearly grand-scale exhibitions and a breadth of concerts, parlors, performances, and film screenings.

stanza’s Freja Kir developed the new identity for Overgaden in collaboration with the design collective Fanfare in 2020. She has since been in-house designer leading the production of exhibition signage and publications.

The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in Minneapolis, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in the U.S. with a permanent collection of over 13,000 modern and contemporary art pieces, including books, costumes, drawings, media works, paintings, photography, prints, and sculpture.

As a design fellow at the Walker in 2018-20, stanza’s Marie Højlund developed various visual identities for contemporary art shows, including invitations, exhibition design and outdoor campaigns. The work of the design department at the Walker is twofold; working simultaneously as an inhouse design studio developing identities for the Walkers programming, while taking part in developing large scale design exhibitions as a curatorial department, such as Hippie Modernism and Designs for Different Futures. The studios interest in design discourse is reflected through the Walker reader, an online platform for design publishing.

Western Front is an art-centre in Vancouver, Canada and was founded in 1973 by artists Kate Craig, Glenn Lewis, Eric Metcalfe, Michael Morris, and Vincent Trasov, composer Martin Bartlett, architect Mo van Nostrand, and writer Henry Greenhow. Collectively they purchased the Knights of Pythias Lodge at 303 East 8th Ave as a communal space in which to live and work. Artist Hank Bull joined in 1974 and is still a resident.

stanza’s Line-Gry Hørup developed the new visuel identity for Western Front in 2020. She has since been in-house designer, developing various visual materials for exhibitions, fairs, advertisements, signage and film media.

The graphic design of Western Front, up until the invention of the personal computer, was quite impressive and characteristic. Much of their work centred around the production of “media art” which utilise corporate ideas and visuals, as well as applied language from mass media and marketing. A large wooden box with stamps was a common tool in this production, and included stamps with practical phrases but also more beautifully, empty statements such as “Extra Fancy” “Imperial Gage” or “Flemish”. The new logo, “wf” for Western Front, is the latest stamp added the collection.

For the identity Line-Gry Hørup drew two typefaces V-O-I-L-A and Western Front Serif with designer Ronja Andersen. V-O-I-L-A is the first contemporary and bespoke designed typefaces which include characters of the Canadian First Nation languages Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh.

Designer and wood worker Paul Bernhard build the code of the new website, which includes an extensive online archive of the past 50 year’s production of work and events at Western Front.