Anette Lenz visu­al­izes MCBW 2022

Plans for next year’s Munich Cre­ative Busi­ness Week (MCBW) are well under­way and the pre­sen­ta­tion of Anette Lenz’s new key visu­al rep­re­sents a major mile­stone. Guid­ed by the theme Mov­ing Hori­zons, MCBW 2022 is orga­nized by bay­ern design and will take place from May 14 to 22. An assort­ment of work­shops, con­fer­ences, sym­po­siums, webi­na­rs, exhi­bi­tions, and streams will be offered at var­i­ous loca­tions through­out the city. Com­pa­nies and indi­vid­u­als inter­est­ed in join­ing MCBW as pro­gram part­ners can reg­is­ter now.

Mov­ing Hori­zons – desire meets design
The year 2020 was shaped by desire – desire for nor­mal­cy, for bal­ance, and first and fore­most, for solu­tions to a mul­ti­tude of chal­lenges fac­ing soci­ety. Cli­mate change, sus­tain­abil­i­ty, and equal rights are omnipresent top­ics that have man­i­fest­ed in the pub­lic dis­course. In all of this, design is society’s mir­ror – dri­ving change and inspir­ing trends. “Design­ers take people’s desires on as a task, dis­cov­er sur­pris­ing gate­ways and turn them into expe­ri­ences. MCBW 2022 focus­es on the top­ics that stir our soci­ety today and will con­tin­ue to do so tomor­row. The event looks beyond the hori­zon. It fus­es desire and design and opens up space for inno­v­a­tive solu­tions,” says Nadine Vicen­ti­ni, the new man­ag­ing direc­tor of bay­ern design. The focal theme Mov­ing Hori­zons was select­ed to high­light MCBW 2022 as a plat­form for places of long­ing that set out to expand, chal­lenge, and shift hori­zons through design and to dis­cov­er and rediscover.

Key visu­al – Anette Lenz visu­al­izes MCBW 2022
The MCBW 2022 key visu­al was penned by Ger­man graph­ic design­er Anette Lenz, one of the most influ­en­tial design­ers of our time. Lenz, who lives in Paris, has made a name for her­self through her unique play with typog­ra­phy and col­or and her rep­re­sen­ta­tions of a new form of visu­al com­mu­ni­ca­tion in pub­lic spaces. Her inter­pre­ta­tion of Mov­ing Hori­zons trans­fers society’s desire for change into visu­al ele­ments: alter­ing notions of let­ter­ing, del­i­cate details gain­ing strength, heavy sec­tions dis­solv­ing into grace­ful ones, let­ters stretch­ing hor­i­zon­tal­ly. New gate­ways, inter­spaces, and oppor­tu­ni­ties become vis­i­ble. Ver­ti­cal planes struc­ture the space and add rhythm. The mul­ti-col­ored sys­tem was designed to be com­ple­men­tary; the vari­able over­lay ensures tan­gi­ble depths and stark con­trasts that enter into dia­log rather than oppos­ing each oth­er. Lenz explains: “The inten­tion behind the new MCBW key visu­al was to envi­sion trans­for­ma­tion and emo­tion through graph­ic means and to por­tray a type of new begin­ning fol­low­ing the mot­to Back to Basics. This way, text can turn into pic­ture and unite col­or, struc­ture, and lines.” Depend­ing on the chan­nel, the key visu­al will be inte­grat­ed in an ani­mat­ed form so its organ­ic nature and ver­sa­tile dynam­ics can unfurl.

Suc­cess­ful intro­duc­tion of hybrid events
Because it was MCBW’s tenth anniver­sary and due to the COVID-19 sit­u­a­tion, in 2020 the event took place in both dig­i­tal and ana­log forms for the first time. The pro­gram themed Shap­ing futures by Design was com­prised of a vari­ety of cre­ative con­cepts for web stream­ing, vir­tu­al exhi­bi­tions, and design walks avail­able to vis­i­tors up close and remote­ly. For the largest design event of its kind in Ger­many, this step meant nav­i­gat­ing unchart­ed ter­ri­to­ry. Lisa Braun, direc­tor of MCBW, val­ues the devel­op­ments as pos­i­tive: “We went through an exten­sive change process over the past year that includ­ed redesign­ing events and restruc­tur­ing our MCBW team. Inspired by the favor­able expe­ri­ences we had dur­ing MCBW 2020, we now look for­ward to the upcom­ing event which will direct our atten­tion to new hori­zons and beyond.” Dig­i­tal event for­mats will remain key parts of MCBW in the future.

New pro­gram part­ners wanted
Despite the pan­dem­ic, MCBW 2021 offered a wealth of con­tent and appeal. More than 90 part­ners and their events, exhi­bi­tions, and activ­i­ties were essen­tial to MCBW and guar­an­teed diver­si­ty in action. MCBW is a net­work, a plat­form, and a mul­ti­pli­er bring­ing togeth­er com­pa­nies, agen­cies, and cre­ative peo­ple in the fields of design, mar­ket­ing and archi­tec­ture and enabling them, among many oth­er ben­e­fits, to become part of the pro­gram. Com­pa­nies and indi­vid­u­als inter­est­ed in join­ing us as a pro­gram part­ner in 2022 can select from among a num­ber of pack­ages and are wel­come to apply by Feb­ru­ary 11, 2022. Details about ben­e­fits and reg­is­tra­tion are avail­able here and on the MCBW website.