MARTIN LORENZ

PEOPLEText: Yurie Hatano

This month’s SHIFT cover was designed by Martin Lorenz, a founder of Twopoints.Net based in Barcelona. As a start of year 2007, SOSO will hold his exhibition of his project called “The One Weekend Book Series” during this January. Please enjoy his exciting journey simultaneously with the exhibition, cover and this interview.

Please tell us a bit about yourself.

My name is Martin Lorenz. I am the founder of Twopoints.Net. I was born in Hanover, moved at the age of 18 to Darmstadt to study communication design. After three years I felt the need to change teachers, school and country and moved to The Netherlands, learned dutch and graduated after two years at the Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague with the specialization in graphic and typographic design. My teachers were corporate and type designers of international reputation. So I took the opportunity to specialize in corporate design and rediscover my love to type design. In 2001 I moved to Frankfurt and worked there for 4 years. We, me and my wife, traveled a lot these years and got to know a lot of places. The place we liked the most was Barcelona. The city, the people, the weather, the food, all the things that make life worth living, we found here in Barcelona. So, I learned Spanish and moved to Spain.

We now finally settled down and founded a corporation specialised in strategic design and communication. Besides doing design projects we teach in design schools, but also organize design workshops and give lectures.

Since 2000 we initiate aswell our own projects. The projects we released until now are “The One Weekend Book Series“, “Chinese Whisper”, “Poster Series”, “Color Combinations” and “Cover Of The Week”.

Besides all these activities I am doing a doctoral research on design at the University of Barcelona. This year I’ll start with my doctoral thesis, which I will develop in corporation with other European universities. Often designers and academic investigators live in paralel worlds without being able to exchange information, knowlegde and experience. Even though this would mean an enormous enrichment for both fields. My aim is to expand my investigation and intersect branches as design, sociology, philosophy and economy in order to improve the capabilities of design.

How do you think the difference of art scenes between Frankfurt and Barcelona?

These both cities are impossible to compare, they are just too different. Frankfurt is a nice and cosy city. It has a very small art scene, very much connected to two art schools, the Hfg Offenbach and the Sta’delschule. Berlin seems to be more interesting for Artists, so at a certain point in their career they move to Berlin or other big cities. Barcelona is an incredible energetic place. My friend Boris Hoppek once said that since he lives in Barcelona he do not feel the need anymore to travel around the world. There are so many things happening here. It is like the world is visiting you all the time.


Could you tell us your recent activity including about Twopoints.Net?

Twopoints.Net founded a limited liability corporation for strategic design and communication, we rented a burau in the heart of Barcelona and got an trainee. We hope to employ one more person at the end of the year, so Twopoints.Net would consists of 4 points based at the physical bureau and many others points from our net which work with us occasionally. A good system to manage aswell bigger projects.

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