UPH Visual Communication Design (DKV) has committed to ensure its quality and expand its exposure to a global scale. Various efforts have been made by the faculty to prepare its graduates to have international qualifications. One of these efforts were realized through a recent exhibition called Type Unite ‘Language Relations’, which was held on September 23-27, 2019 at UPH Campus, Lippo Village. This international exhibition showcased a total of 80 works by students from eight countries. Each country showcased a total of ten works, and among the chosen ones from Indonesia, six works were created by the students of DKV UPH, two came from ITB students, and two were made by Trisakti University students.

“This year is our first time to participate in Type Unite. Why? Because we feel that if we were to join this kind of event, the works exhibited should come from one of our courses in UPH. Whereas, the Experimental Typography course has only been created in 2018. That is why we have only decided to join the event this year. Surprisingly, the first output of this course was able to be showcased in an international exhibition like this,” said the Head of Department of DKV UPH.

According to Alfian, an exhibition like Type Unite enables audience to see the works of DKV UPH’s students along with the works of other students from various countries. This will validate their work because it means that their work has an international acclamation for its quality, strength, and uniqueness.

Irwan Harnoko, S.Sn., M.Ds., the founder of Worldwide Graphic Designer and Type Unite, explained that this event is an exhibition of students works from various countries which focuses in typography technique and has been held since 2016.

“This year, we have eight countries who participated in Type Unite. They are Turkey, Indonesia, Ecuador, Poland, United Arab Emirate, South Korea, Hungary, and the United States. This year’s Type Unite decided to choose ‘Language Relations’ as its theme. We believe that it holds a message that human beings are able to connect their nations’ culture – in this case, language, through one artistic media: poster. We are able to share our cultural diversity with others despite many barriers, with language being one of them. However, it should not be an obstacle anymore because we can understand each other through visual language that explains, and communicate message through art,” Irwan, who currently teaches Experimental Typography in DKV UPH, explained.

In addition to the poster exhibition, there was also a guest lecture by David Bieloh, M. F. A. from Central Washington University (CWU), United States during the opening event. Bieloh did a live lecture through Skype, and in his lecture, David discussed how poster becomes a language that conveys a certain message.

“Language comes in different shapes but it has one purpose, that is to communicate a message. We can take poster as an example; a poster contains visual language that is used by the designer to flexibly communicate a message through one simple picture,” Bieloh explained.

Bieloh emphasized that the design of a poster requires great attention because basically, it is the form of language that the designer used to communicate with their audience. That is why, a design can really determine audience’s response.

Furthermore, Bieloh explained that visual media contains expressive messaging, which means that visual media can be understood as a result of a thorough thought process, poured into picture or visual portrayal.

This becomes the reason why visual media often becomes a tool to deliver message, especially when we are dealing with social issues, we need visual media to raise social awareness. We can see the example from the creation of social posters.

Right after Bieloh’s explanation, all participants did a tour together around the exhibition. Through this exhibition, DKV UPH along with all the parties involved in Type Unite hopes that this event will be able to show the relationship between culture, nations, and the language system; that despite our differences, we all can appreciate these works through visual language. (mt)

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