SLOBODAN SELENIC (1936-1994)
Pioneering work in the field
of design in Serbia (1960 -1990)
author: Ajla Selenic
I am aware this modest retrospection will be entirely insufficient to completely present exceedingly abundant and imaginative, life work of my father. I can only hope to initiate the presentation of that outstanding work in the field of design in Serbia, in many ways unique, and to encourage a profound consideration on the meaning of a dialogue between past and present, especially regarding the meaning of continuity in creative work.
Since an interest for design recently arose in Serbia, following an international influence of certain world processes and growing applications of new technologies, it would be worthwhile making a retrospective insight into the Serbian design just twenty to thirty years ago, in order to remind ourselves of some designers who were working rather lonely, in more difficult conditions, without much support and understanding for their work and nevertheless with an integrity and inspiration, creating visual poetry of their environment with an authentic sensibility, with works based on a conscience and recognition of the genius loci of their living space.
In 1961, after graduating from the Applied Arts School in Split, when Slobodan Selenic arrived at the town of Jagodina (at that time named Svetozarevo), a town previously unknown to him but where he had anyhow resided until the end of his life, many of its inhabitants had not yet heard of a profession called designer. He was not discouraged, instead he consciously accepted to live in a provincial town as a challenge, firmly believing that it is more important how one does live and fulfills the meaning of own life rather than where one is living it. His life was filled with uncompromising sincerity and truthfulness, genuine integrity, perfectionistic devotion to his work, boundless inspiration and effortlessness in creating, and more than anything, with an immense openness, insightfulness and love for people.
The reason Slobodan Selenic came to Jagodina, was for employment as a designer with the Cable Industry of Svetozarevo/FKS, the leading Yugoslavian industry at that time, where he accepted his task of cultural endeavor with full sense of responsibilty for sophisticating and heightening the perceptivity for the beauty of the world around us. Even though FKS, as a world wide cooperative industrial corporation posed numerous and challenging tasks in the realm of a visual presentation, my father have been fulfilling them even more ambitiously, rising the level of visual presentation much higher than anyone had expected, and striving to realize some innovative concepts which were all ahead of his time.
The range of his design tasks was enormous and included - the entire graphic and visual presentation of all products (which in the sixties meant drawing by hand all graphic elements, using only classical drawing equipment), large product catalogues, all marketing material, design of all needed graphic material, special publications and books about FKS, planing and designing various exhibitions and spatial presentations at industrial fairs throughout Yugoslavia, and finally, designing the most exclusive interior spaces within company. Especially noticed and highly appreciated in public and professional circles was his work on the concept and design of the Annual Calendars of FKS, which he initiated and successfully developed for more than twenty years as a distinctive cultural mission. That series of calendars of a high artistic level, not only visually presented the Cable Industry and his own creative work, but even more so, the cultural treasures of our country, to the world.
Beyond all that work at Cable Industry of Svetozarevo/FKS, which would deserve a special research and presentation, my father was asked to design many even more inspiring creations for the town of Svetozarevo, numerous institutions, cultural events, offices, restaurants and some of the leading companies all over Yugoslavia. He worked tirelessly on these projects, in his own studio in the evenings, with inexhaustible creative force, complete devotion, and, as always, the perfectionism that characterized all of his designs.
Being a witness to his work since my early childhood, at first sitting under our kitchen table, on which he used to work in the beginning and listening to his conversations with clients and numerous guests, then later, when I reached the level of a working surface, assiduously following each movement of his hand ( while he always surprised me by suddenly painting a dot on my nose), I remember most of his works and keep in my memory wonderful colors and images which blossomed in front of my eyes, as well as the echo of the inexpressible intensity of the conversations that followed his work. In some way, besides my mother and me, the whole town was the witness of Slobodan´s work, thanks to his great nature of openness and sociability, which resulted in many people always being around him. While he was unceasingly drawing, a circle of various visitors was constantly present in his studio: the joyful and good-humored ones, the serious, those pondering over the greatest questions of life, the particularly educated ones as well the warmhearted simple workers. Slobodan´s enormous talent was his ability to bring them all, so different, close to each other. Incredible mystery of his working concentration was in some kind of extraordinary power and capacity to spend entirely sleepless night filled with work and insightful conversations and still to continue the next morning to his office at FKS without a slightest sign of tiredness. The culmination of intensity in his work lasted from the middle seventies, when he opened his own studio in the attic above our apartment and where he completed all of his most important projects until the beginning of the nineties, when the entire situation in our country suddenly underwent profound and sorrowful changes and brought many things to an end.
Typography in graphic design
(illustrations 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
It is necessary to mention that a very restricted choice of works presented here is adapted especially to the themes related to typography, therefore it can not give a complete insight into the entire creative opus of Slobodan Selenic in the field of graphic design.
Slobodan Selenic had not especially focused on typographical themes in terms of research, nevertheless, in many of his works he achieved interesting typograhical solutions as a main conceptual approach to a certain task. Considering that his works were created in a rather spontaneous and impulsive way, as he usually worked on several projects simultaneously, typographical solutions were designed to serve a certain project, used only partially and not brought to the final form as a complete typographical font, as in the case of the FKS Calendar´s cover from 1976 (4), where a typographical idea was only envisioned.
One of the interesting methods which was developed in several works was covering the surface of letters by multicolored graphical texture, or often by a photograph, which reveals some essential aspect of the theme presented. For some period of time that concept appears in different variations, which, considering every time an entirely new context and modes of expression, creates in each specific work a distinct graphical language. In one of the early works from the end of the sixties, on the cover of the exhibition catalogue of sculptor Dragan Aleksic (1) only the initials of the artist´s name appear, which indicates the essential structure of his works, by highlighting the surface of the carved wooden relief. Similar method used on the covers of series of calendars FKS, devoted to the selected group of prominent Yugoslavian museums (6, 7, 8) made in the end of the seventies and beginning of the eighties, creates an outstanding compositional effect, focusing on the textural qualities of distinctive items which insinuates the richness and beauty of the museum´s treasures which the publications contain.
Use of the very simple typeface Helvetica in many cases, draws one´s primary attention to the details of texture. Some solutions with even more of simplicity appear on the covers of product catalogues of FKS (9, 10), where only a thin, simple outline is superimposed over a photograph of structural details as a background.
Logotypes (illustrations 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23)
The choice of presented logotypes is, as well, only a very reduced part of his entire production of design works for the visual presentation of many companies, created either as ordered works or as rewarded competition works. Besides many excellent, sophisticated solutions involving supreme simplicity, which could be independently presented within a distinctive theme, the chosen works and sketches particularly illustrate the typographical aspects.
The most often used concept in creating typography for projects involving visual identity
usually communicates some essential feature of the company – as in the example of Resava, the Textile Industry (11) where letters are shaped in a soft, curved manner, insinuating the soft movements of the textile; or in the case of Industry of Lacquered Wire, Bor (15, 16) – insinuating the form of round wire spools. In case of the logotype for the Industry 14th of October from Krusevac, the winning entry in a design competition in 1973, shape of a letter “O” is insinuating the movement of hands digging the ground, as an archetype notion, relating to the occupation of that enterprise.
Interiors (illustrations: 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33)
To provide at least a limited insight into the immense span of my father´s creativity, variety of his works and their scales in terms of spatial dimensions, capacity for an extraordinary preciseness in miniature graphical works as well an absolute mastery in hand drawing and painting of large wall compositions, few of his interior design projects will be as well presented here.
The examples chosen here are restricted only to the specific parts of interiors – wall compositions, in different painting or relief techniques, which represent connection of Slobodan´s work in the realm of graphical design and excellent knowledge and supremacy in wall painting, which he has specialized during his studies. With that coalescence of skills and excellent talent to create unique spatial solutions in interiors, he developed a distinctive style as a poetical synthesis of graphical images and painting, which was mostly the predominant element of his interior design concepts, as well an extraordinary event and refinement of the cultural and art life in Svetozarevo.
Between the sixties and nineties of the last century, the town of Svetozarevo was visually completely transformed by Slobodan Selenic´s work. A great number of public spaces, restaurants, hotels, shops, offices and agencies was designed by him and have existed for many years. The identity of the town was enhanced and enriched by many of this works, the concept of which was often based on and related to some important historical facts and collective memories, which even its citizens had sometimes neglected or forgotten. One of the themes worthy of research and remembering would certainly be a history of social and cultural life in the famous coffeehouses of the old town of Jagodina, which had mostly ceased to exist, due to the lack of any cultural strategies and public policies of preservation in the last period of time. In memory of that colorful life, which included many well known writers and poets, Slobodan created wall compositions in “Sarena kafana”, devoted to famous Serbian writer and painter Dura Jaksic (29), and to the other poets of Jagodina (27, 28), whose verses were given a sublime visual interpretation.
After the premature death of my father in 1994 all of his works could have disappeared for one reason or another; all his creative opus which over several decades was generating a poetical vigor and spirit to the daily life of one town by extending messages of beauty and poetical essence of life, by the blossoming colorful images and perception of the treasures of our cultural and ephemeral heritage, far and wide to the world. It is entirely dependent on us, who are following after, how much of the treasures, beauty and radiant memories we will save for the future generations, and shell we be able to construct together, timelessly connected, something great which will open an awareness of the deepest meaning and entirety.