An Architect on a (Not)Temporary Design Assignment

author Ranko Novak
written by Petra Černe-Oven

 

Considering Ranko Novak’s busyness, it is altogether understandable that this text came about somewhere between Hvar, Ljubljana and London, on a boat, in an airplane and in the borderlessness of virtual space. Three characteristics that fight for prevalence where Ranko Novak is concerned – being out of reach, being busy, and reliability – were formulated precisely many years ago by one of his students who said: “He’s so quick, that you can’t seem to catch him anywhere, except of course when you need him. Then he is always there.”

Everyone who wishes to get a more accurate idea of the professional activities of Ranko Novak would need to grapple with a table of contents of his works in the last thirty years, and this currently contains around 45 densely typed A4 format pages. These pages contain more than 240 integral design solutions, 146 trademarks and logos that are not part of the extensive integral design projects; 214 posters; 43 calendars; 384 books, monographs and other publications; 29 packaging designs; 30 samples of small graphics; 82 exhibit designs. This entire production has resulted in numerous solo and group exhibitions, publications, articles and awards.