A play of signs

“What is most important is to create projects which give pleasure and perform their function”, the 32-year-old Magdalina Stancheva says. For her, the world is a free space where there is always room for a good idea. When she was 24, she realized that she was going to devote her time to graphic design. She completed a degree in Communication Design at Fachhochschule Duеsseldorf and presently lives and works in Germany.

Text by George Toshev
Photos by Minko Minev

One of Magdalina’s important projects is the study of the life and work of Stefan Kanchev – we saw the results of her research at an exhibition during the Sofia Design Week, in June. As a graphic designer, she creates print graphics, identity, visual communication and orientation systems. Magdalina often works together with Bulgarian and foreign designers. In her opinion, joint work enriches and leads to unexpected results. She can find inspiration everywhere. “Sometimes, it is a reaction to what is happening – art, objects, things I have collected, people, formal abstract play or some conversation.” Sometimes, ideas are born while she reads. Magdalina has an invaluable collection of books on intertextuality. Echoraum is her favourite free project. It stems from Borges’s “Library of Babel”, works by Vilem Flusser, Italo Calvino and Hubert Fichte. “In visual communication, too, texts have to cry out and whisper, to run and loiter, they have to appear quietly and kindly as an aesthetic experience.”
The Bulgarian established her name in Germany through projects for different campaigns. She believes that success is the result of a job well done. Sometimes, a little bit of luck is also needed. Her attendance, of several months ago, of Design Week Next Identity, inspired her for new projects. The forum in Sofia proved to be an important impulse which fired many people with enthusiasm. “This is only the beginning of an important change which is much needed in Bulgaria. Everyone who inhabits some visual environment is capable of, and responsible for, questioning it and suggesting alternatives.
Putting Bulgaria on the world map of design is a pressing issue. We should not steal well-tested ideas and apply them locally, but we should rather create new ones. I think that Bulgaria is ready for that.” She sees the work of Stefan Kanchev as the basis of our own identity in graphic design and that is why she is devoted to the mission of not letting him fall into oblivion in his native country. Magdalina documents and systemizes an enormous number of Kanchev’s sketches and projects. Her book on Stefan Kanchev has also been completed. It contains posters, book covers, stamps, magazine title pages, first day covers, stamps, logotypes, TV graphics and sketches. The book is accompanied by an exhibition which will be presented in Germany. Magdalina is presently working on a digital archive and also on a film.