For a long time I have been collecting pictures of shapes that appear around me, shapes that I then arrange and work with in various ways. However, it wasn’t long ago that I discovered theories that cover this called GRAPHIC EVENTS (Graphic Events: A Realist Account of Graphic Deisng). Graphic Events is a term for designs that happen by accident, develop over time, or come together of things that don’t really belong together. 

A sticker on a lamppost that has been partially scratched away, a torn poster, weathered advertisements, fog damage on a window, a scratch on a container or a scribble on a wall. These so-called events leave a trail of beautiful, unexpected forms that tend to be forgotten in everyday life, something we see, but pay no attention to.

Some years ago, I started collecting pictures of such forms/events wherever I went, and it turned into a picture book. The shapes and forms in the collection often end up in prints one way or another. Now they have become a series in the show “Another Þrykk Up My Sleeve” (þrykk being a word for printing in Icelandic). The shapes and forms are used and put together in a variety of ways – sometimes they dance together or entangle each other.“

Einar V. Guðmundsson Thoroddsen is a Hague-based graphic designer, illustrator, and printmaker from Iceland. His work varies from editorial design, printingmaking (mainly RISO & screenprinting), type design, illustration, and the occasional identity & logo. Throughout his studies at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague - KABK, he pursued and achieved an equilibrium between humour and seriousness, which is evident in his art, design, and daily life.