A new volume of Ymt, a Nordic magazine about Visual Communication

Visit here: https://ymtmag.no/2021/

The design of Ymt this year was in the capable hands of second year students, class of 2019–2022, of Visual communication in the Design department at KMD. Theirs is the honour of conceptualising and giving form to the magazine‘s contents, and managing the complexity of collaborating on publication design these strange times plagued by a pandemic and all manner of social and physical distancing.

Distances … seemed to be the only logical theme for this Ymt, which—to remind earlier readers of the magazine and inform new ones—means hint or hints and is a New-Norwegian word. The word Ymt, and the magazine, are designed to allow for ambiguity, search, unfolding and uncertainty. To really open up for a creative discourse through the textual and the visual languages.

When disoriented or lost ‘[b]eing able to perceive distances is key to daring exploration. So is mapping and having a measure to go by. The conceptualisation of Distances as a theme communicated through the Editorial Design of Ymt 3 has developed in a way that seems especially communal and constructive. In a way the publication has become a world of its own, populated by its makers, who are inviting you to join them there and handing you a map and a compass to navigate by. Perhaps the flow they have reached through the design work is a consequence of feeling appreciation for each other more strongly than before? A realisation that it is hard to be, think, and do alone? Perceivably distances when explored and mapped become less imposing and less daunting? Perceivably the liminal spaces we now find ourselves in offer less polarization, less of a need to other, more empathy, more connection, and a better understanding of proximity?’ (Ísleifsdóttir / Huus, Editorial: Mapping Distances, Ymt 3, 2021).

Ymt 3, in the printed version, was published in an edition of 300.
These are the contents of Ymt 3, published in 2021:

• ‘Mapping Distances’, editorial, Dóra Ísleifsdóttir and Åse Huus.

• ‘Distances from People’, Mimi Hemsett.
• ‘Designing for Empathy’, Ashley Booth.
• ‘Hjem’, Silje Fugleberg.

• ‘Polarised Reality’, Julian Schlicht.
• ‘Liminal Space’, Sammy Hemerik.
• ‘On Image, Insanity, Dream, and Distance’, Anette Højlund Pedersen.

• ‘Grönsinkavägen’, Kasja Bøyum.
• ‘A Perspective on Distances and MA’, Anne-Liv Seim.
• ‘Mind the Gap’, Arianna Molina.
• ‘We are the Earth’, Ronja Maria Rodriguez Solbø.
• ‘Is Loss of Nature a Loss of Proximity’, Irene Alteskjær.
• ‘Shiny Pretty Things’, Hilde Kramer.

Ymt 3‘s content is strengthened by and elaborated on through illustrations by: Signe Wohlfeil, Embla Müller, Jonatan Berntsen, Luiza Macedo Portela, Mia Ellisiv Almaas Ewings, Synnøve Areklett Garmann, and Ronja Maria Rodriguez Solbø.

 

About the course

Ymt is designed and produced by second year bachelor students in their third semester of study. Ymt contains what has recently been questioned in our field in this academy and region, with contributions from alumni students from the year in MA Design, research projects by academic staff, and original content by second year BA students in the course Editorial design and visual identity. Ymt is not prescribed when a new student group starts to work on each volume. The student-designers are encouraged to explore all avenues of investigation into how the content (including their own contributions to the contents) may best be served through editorial design and publication means.

Ymt introduces and invites students to design journalism, editorship, and authorship, and to how the nuanced visual language of text and image may be employed in a field which requires multimodal articulation. The making of Ymt creates a situation for students, who’s forte is not to write (or even talk), where autonomy is stimulated and ideas and thoughts are voiced in the visual language and through design writing. The students are invited into a creative conversation—professional dialogue and discourse—within a flat democratic structure of hierarchy. The students can contribute content to Ymt, but their main mission is to read and internalise contributions by academics, practitioners, and MA students and alumni, and Research fellows and convey these authors’ meaning through the design.

Teachers in the Editorial design and visual identity course in which Ymt is made are Dóra Ísleifsdóttir, Åse Huus, Magnus Nyquist, and Albert Cheng-Syun Tang 湯承勳. Gustav Kvaal, Hilde Kramer, Charles Michalsen, Ingrid Rundberg and Sunniva Storlykken Helland have been guest teachers in the course. Jan Edgar Hartvedt from Bodoni printers in Bergen has been printing consultant in the course.

 

About the publication

Ymt is an experimental publication about Visual Communication as a field of knowledge. Ymt is available in a limited edition print and is open source online here.

It is available on Facebook as ymt magazine, and on Instagram as ymtmag. Ymt is in English.

#ymtmag on Instagram

Ymtmag on Facebook

Ymt 3 online archive,Ymt 2, and Ymt 1

Ymt is edited by Dóra Ísleifsdóttir and Åse Huus. Peter Jones and Victoria Squire, editors of Message—an international academic journal about Graphic communication design—are on Ymt’s Advisory board.

Ymt is created in an Editorial design and Visual identity course with second year BA students of Visual communication, who work with content from academic staff at KMD, MA alumni, and contributors from the field in the Nordic and Baltic region and the makers’ wider network.

Ymt has received support from Grafill, Papyrus, Bodoni, and from funds within the University of Bergen and KMD.

ISSN 2535-6399 (print) ISSN 2535-6402 (online)
Ymt, print and online, is archived and available through the Norwegian National Library.

Ymt is published by Visual communication, Design, Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design, University of Bergen © Ymt 1, 2019; Ymt 2, 2020; Ymt 3, 2021*

* Publisher‘s disclaimer, and a statement about authors‘ ownership
Each contributing author has sole responsibility for the content of his or her article, including all text, images, and references. Each author is sole owner of their contribution as submitted. The designed and published contribution is owned by KMD Ymt‘s publisher. Any errors that result from the editorial design of the magazine are due to it being designed as BA coursework assignment and KMD, including all staff, does not accept responsibility for any errors or consequences thereof. Contributors, authors, are aware of this risk when submitting to the magazine, and submission is a declaration of understanding and agreement.