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The Week in Germany: Culture

October 20, 2006

Beyond the Hamburglar: Cutting Edge Character Design Conference in Berlin

This week, an army of plush freaks descended on Berlin and set up headquarters at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele. Ranging from amoebic to geometric, armless to multi-tentacled, the character creations taking part in this year’s Pictoplasma conference showed that character design has moved far beyond the walking fruit and hamburgers in top-hats into a world of limitless fantasy.

A characters in the Berlin S-Bahn, Photo: Pictoplasma

Pictoplasma, the Berlin-based design group that has documented and advocated for one-eyed monsters, oversized microbes, and other furry anthropomorphs since 1999, brought these characters to life from October 11 through 14 at its second conference. “Get into Character” was the official slogan of the happening, which brought about 1,000 designers, performers, fans, and representatives of the marketing and advertising world together to participate in workshops and performances.

The spirit of the conference was interdisciplinary. Designers, dancers, choreographers, photographers, and videographers met to exchange information about how to bring these improbable creatures to life. At the “Get into Character” workshop, attendees built basic masks using simple materials in exercises designed to impart the basic elements of character design. The high art of character was also on display in choreographer Jared Gradinger’s character chorus line piece at the closing event at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele.

Pictoplasma has already found a large worldwide audience for character fans. This spring, the group will release its third illustrated encyclopedia of character design to follow up two earlier additions that have already sold a total of 75,000 copies. Character fans who want to support character art can adopt a character for 300 Euros through the “PictoOrphanage”, which channels the funds directly to artists to help them realize nascent character concepts.

The character "Helper" at a photo shoot, Photo: Pictoplasma

Links:

Pictoplasma

PictoOrphanage

Photo Series in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

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