Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig

My second story

Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst (HGB) in Leipzig is a special kind of place where everyone looks artistic, it has a huge building, and the city itself suggests that, all in all, design is art, no matter how much I want to deny it.

The School is in my list because my friend is studying photographic art there, and recommended it as a suitable place for learners of classic design and those who are not afraid to work using their hands and heads, to whom a PC is not more than a means, not the best friend, whose portfolios actually consist of collages, experiment projects involving graphics, analog photos and everything else warm and handcraft. Has this description anything in common with me? I think, not. But as you know, fun sometimes begins when you get a challenge and feel scared to begin.

Passing entrance exams there was very exciting, because of all the School’s reputation, my expectations, self-testing and all that. I was preparing my portfolio thoroughly and even went on an open day when the professors gave advice to the applicants. After they had reviewed my project, they told me I had style and a certain level, but it was not clear what I could do “by hand”, not with the help of my computer. So, my “get-to-know” saga concerning paper, paint, scissors, chalk and similar stuff began.

The invitation to the exam arrived at the end of February, and later my friend let me live in his apartment, but without him and without the Internet, which turned out to be for the better. As many as 40 people were invited from several hundred applicants, I even had a nice talk with a few of them, during which it turned out that we had chosen completely different schools, however, our backgrounds differed a lot as well.

On the first day, we started from three o’clock; however, as for the tension, the following four hours cost a whole day — we had to draw portraits. Being a person who had never drawn since the graduation from an art school, I felt tuff and upset. Because in the art school I had only one taboo — people. I cannot draw them at all. Not in a single form. And then I had to draw 39 portraits, each of them — just within five minutes; and then, one more, a more detailed one, for half an hour. It was shocked and trembling. Somewhere on the tenth portrait I told myself: “No guts, no glory!” and it became a bit easier. I drew portraits in squares, circles, yellow, dots, drawing lips or glasses only. By the twentieth portrait, it became fun. I will show you only the “detailed” one, though its a shame, too.

On the second day, we started with composition exercises. From various graphic map components — junctions, lines, points — we had to compose an answer to the question “My way to HGB” on two A2 sheets so that they were made ​​in different styles.

After that, we were given photographic portraits of minor U.S. scams known during the Great Depression, we had just two minutes to get an eyeful of them, and then — two more minutes to draw on the back things we remembered and things we thought was important about them.

As for the interview, I still consider it the biggest failure.

Here is the summary:

— Do you understand that you will have to work a lot?

— Do you understand that you won’t be able to combine work with study?

— Why do you need to study again?

— Interactive? What’s that?

— What is your favorite font? Who made it? What year?

— What is your favorite color? What are its values ​​in RGB?

— Are you confident in your ability to write in German?

At the end, we were given Chinese fortune cookies and wishes of good luck.

Drawing again. Draw portraits of four people who are important to you. My top-4 were: Egon Schiele, Kurt Vonnegut, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Ray Kawakubo. You know, under heavy stress, one isn’t much of a savvy guy.

On the last day, we had to write captions in comic bubbles (which looked like taken from COOLGIRL magazines) concerning our future study in this School and our ideas about it. It was fun.

Most of the time I spent on creating and implementing the meaningful and physical layout of the object, the drawing and the slogan. First, we had to come up with the concepts of them, and then arrange them on an A2 sheet so that they could be considered not as an unambiguous treatment of elements, but some game of meanings. We were given questions to consider, such as:

— If an object can be a slogan?

— Can a slogan consist not of words?

— How are the objects arranged in relation to each other, by implication, by contrast, by color, etc.?

And here is the task from a harsh professor of typography. We had to depict the School hall using letters printed on an A3 sheet, or with any other letters not using line or composition work.

And finally, we had to draw ten items on the desk, that had any meaning for us. Of course, I couldn’t miss a White Russian.

A couple of weeks later, I received a notice that I had been accepted. So, I sent the necessary papers, and again — with not a single problem — I got an admission to classes. However, there was the following proviso: in case I had already been granted a degree somewhere, I had to pay 400 Euro per semester; people say, this can be somehow avoided.

For three days without the Internet, I read two books, finished writing all that was unfinished, and watched The Grand Budapest Hotel in a movie-theater.