Design research: Poster World. The richness of Swiss graphic design revealed by artificial intelligence
Apr 30, 2023 — 7:00 AM - 3:00 PMSTCC - niveau Garden, halls 3 & 4
STCC - niveau Garden, halls 3 & 4
Description
Posters are a reflection of our society: human representations, political posters, aesthetics of a generation, consumption, etc. The Museum für Gestaltung in Zürich has one of the largest collections in the world, with 360,000 objects. But how to share this type of cultural heritage? How to allow visitors to understand the originality or the strength of graphic compositions, capable of attracting the eye, arousing an emotion and transmitting a message in two seconds?
The result of an EPFL+ECAL Lab design research project, Poster World reveals the secrets of posters. The installation presents three similar posters. Sometimes obvious, sometimes hidden, the similarities reveal a fundamental element: colors, composition, line of force, etc. By touching the interface, the visitor can view the similarities or choose others and even rearrange the view of the collection according to the chosen parameter.
Thanks to artificial intelligence, Poster World manages 8 billion possible combinations! Work in collaboration with EPFL's Digital Humanities Laboratory and the Computer Vision Laboratory has shown us how to train artificial intelligence with museum content rather than with international databases with unclear origins.
Poster World has given rise not only to a public installation but also to very useful knowledge, for example: how to arouse the interest of both informed and novice audiences, or how artificial intelligence can serve the curation of an exhibition rather than replace the human.
