Studio Beautiful Problems is an independent studio based in Istanbul and anywhere else.

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Featured in It’s Nice That, Slanted, People of Print, IDN World, Graffica


Z. Özüm Ak/Co-founder
ozum@beautiful-problems.com

2023-... MA, Ethnomusicology and Folklore, Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Istanbul/Turkiye
(-)2019, Phd, Design, Aveiro University, Aveiro/Portugal
2018, MA, Communication Design, Esad Matosinhos, Porto/Portugal
2014, BA, Yıldız Technical University, Istanbul/Turkiye

Lectures (Sometimes, [Semiology, Presentation Design, Motion Graphics, Typography, Design Basics, Digital Graphics, Senior Project), Articles (Sometimes * *), Presentations (Rarely, * * *), Workshops (Sometimes, * *), Interview (Rarely, *), Self Initiated Projects (Sometimes, *), Exhibitions (Sometimes, * * *), Jury (Quite Beginner, *), Events (Sometimes, * *), Singing ([Public] Rarely, [By Herself] Everyday)

  
 
Yunus Ak/Co-founder
yunus@beautiful-problems.com


2019, MA, Communication Design, Esad Matosinhos, Porto/Portugal
2014, BA, Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Istanbul/Turkiye

Lectures (Sometimes, [Senior Project, Experimental Typography, Exprimental]), Articles ([Published] Sometimes, * *, [Unpublished] Everyday), Presentation (Rarely, * *), Interview (Rarely, * *), Self Initiated Projects (Sometimes, * *), Exhibitions (Often), Workshops (Sometimes, *), Taking Walks (Everyday)




1→ RE: RE: Book 

RE: RE: is a project in which two graphic designers exchanged letters using their typographic vocabulary, text, word, writing that becomes completely abstract, marked, complicated, simplified, meaningless.

The letters occasionally refer to certain reference points in the world of art or design. These references can be deciphered for those who know this world well or, can find new meanings in their own way for those who are not familiar with this universe. This act of correspondence opens to endless possibilities of meaning. The dialogue can seem more obvious when read in chronological order as in the book, but at the same time, countless different pairings can be made. *

Collaboration with Umut Altıntaş



2→ RE: RE: Posters

The letters sometimes refer to certain reference points in the world of art or design. These references can be deciphered for those who know this world well or they can find new meanings in their own way for those who are not familiar with this universe. This act of correspondence opens to endless possibilities of meaning. The dialog can seem more obvious when read in chronological order as in the book, but at the same time, countless different pairings can be made.

Collaboration with Amin Teymouri



3→ RE: RE: Exhibition

RE: RE: project exhibited and launched in Izmir Karantina Mekân. 

Karantina Mekân, Izmir/Turkey
Photos: Z. Özüm Ak, Umut Altıntaş








4→ Between Sky and Earth; Some Possible Times

In her first solo exhibition, Some Possible Times Between the Sky and the Earth curated by Filiz Ağdemir, US-based photographer Nurra Yazıcı brings together the photographs she took at different times and in different places in an experimental narrative. 

The photos are printed one atop the other; their colors and the texture of the paper they are printed on change. Each work is handled with 
a narrative in which it is impossible to reproduce the same work once again. Layered visual patterns that come to life on the surface make utopian repetitions, a pattern of truths and errors visible.

In the design system, where all the steps of the artist's production practice are used as reference, a poster is created by printing at least twice from two different photocopiers. In this way, technical errors become an important element of the design structure with reference to the artist's work. 

In bilingual posters, it is aimed to read the text written in different languages by turning the poster 180 degrees.

http://kiraathane.com.tr/sezon-programi/2023-12-01-gokyuzu-ve-yer-arasinda-bazi-mumkun-zamanlar


5→ The 4th International Istanbul Triennial / Spatial Layers, Undated Dialogues: Borders and Walls as Heterotopic Spaces

The 4th International Istanbul Triennial curated by Filiz Ağdemir, which took place in Yedikule Dungeons in May 2022, consists of the works of 45 artists from different disciplines who deal with the heterotopic spaces of Istanbul in different ways. 

The multidimensional boundaries of Istanbul, where social, political, historical, cultural and environmental dynamics are constantly changing, are at the center of the design concept. This rich network of relationships is visualized by creating a dynamic 3D illusion through the superimposition of 2D images. These layers interact with each other, creating different possibilities on the surface they overlap. Through this transitive and fluid system, the heterotopic spaces of Istanbul that are constantly expanding, stretching, contracting and changing are metaphorized.

Collaboration with Abdu Pala




6→ .notdef

1984 as a void in the fullness of the mother’s womb on an unknown date, in a known place. An attempt to create a “fullness” of a ready-made / given text as a result of a query on the internet about what happened on that date, an attempt to create a “fullness” by reducing and leaving gaps between words, scraping.

.notdef*: Not defined: Undefined, automatic text input, undefined,

A “glyph”, a space that appears when there is a character that does not exist in the typeface.

https://www.hayyacikalan.com/
https://www.instagram.com/hayyopenspace/?hl=tr





7→ 9x5cm Blank Canvas

The business card system designed for illustrator Caner Yılmaz is tailored within its genuine design scope based on singularity generated by the mutual communication formed through each client-illustrator interaction per se. The definitive information regarding the cardholder is noted on every single card in the standard 9x5cm format. 

The handcraft drawings are manually drafted per occasion depending on the variants as client, place and/or other circumstances. Since each business card is specifically designed for its user/illustrator, thence it completes its design process by the illustrator. *




8→ 16x12

“Yunus Ak’s current work is driven “by my own personal memory” he tells It’s Nice That. “It’s structured consciously or unconsciously from everywhere I travel and see, everything I read and taste.”

As a result the designer’s projects contain a plethora of interests, anecdotes and design styles. However typography is a constant element, which attracts his attention most. Currently working on his final thesis on the “format of the book,” Yunuk’s project 16×12 plays with composition and layouts outside of the typical grids of a graphic design portfolio.” *

The project is an amalgamation of what looks like calling cards with various sayings and quotes related to the design industry such as, “unpaid internship,” “how to think like a great graphic designer,” or a suggestion of a never ending e-mail thread in, re: re: re: re:”



9→ From Porto to İstanbul

The project “From Porto to Istanbul”, initiated simultaneously in Istanbul and Porto in July 2017, comprises 31 photographs and 31 interpreted illustrations. Captured within a month in Porto, the photographs underwent reinterpretation in Istanbul through the illustrator's personal perspective, deliberately avoiding direct answers to questions related to what, where, when, how, and who. The project was executed by Z. Özüm Ak and Yunus Ak in Porto, in collaboration with Caner Yılmaz in Istanbul.





10 Circuit Istanbul
Istanbul-based non-profit organization, Circuit, places body and movement at the center of its practice. The construction of its visual identity is based on references from various phenomena, and a dynamic structure that can change according to its rhythm has been designed.

Collaboration with Abdu Pala 



11 Unusual Instruments

A fanzine published in a single edition, containing the pictorial and typographic tones of instruments that make unusual sounds in ordinary times...

Collaboration with Abdu Pala 



12Rejected Editions

Rejected Editions, itself a rejected project, is a fanzine series in which works rejected by collaborators are compiled/reworked and tried to breathe new life into them.

Various illustrators have collaborated/are collaborating for the project.





13 Text-and-Object

Text-and-Object is a fictional workshop created with reference to Orhan Pamuk's Museum of Innocence as a concept.



14Symphony of Noise (Mistakes are beautiful)

The fanzine of cluster fly, crane fly, filter fly, lacewings, house fly, fruit fly, horse fly, drain fly, bluebottle fly, flesh fly, sand fly... and their signature symphony.



15Home’Workshop

Home’Workshop series, which questions conventional learning processes, is a modest playground with flexible boundaries.

In it, a group of 6, who have never met before, join together for fun and learning amidst ignorance, question marks, and the uneasiness of not knowing what to do. They meet irregularly, sometimes in places open to surprises.

In this modest setup, where research/production topics and participants change each time, one might unexpectedly eat popcorn and drink Turkish tea, accidentally cut a finger with a stanley knife, burst into laughter, sketch, or sometimes sing...





16 Poster Selection

A selection of posters designed for different projects and competitions. * * *


17→ Various Format Implementations Interpreted Through Kafka’s Metamorphosis

What is book?
What is codex?
What are the fundamental components of a book?
How does a book change when its fundamental components are excluded?
How do excluded or added components affect the reader-book interaction?

Design experiments examining the impact of book form and reading formats through Kafka's Metamorphosis...



18 Bossa Libre

Designed for Bossa Libre, a group of two Brazilian musicians who are LGBTI rights activists, the business card is a collection of texts and colors in which one is not superior to the other. The richness of the color selection is inspired by the cultural diversity of the city of Rio de Janeiro, the birthplace of Bossa Nova. The symbolic task of wholeness is attributed to the words by deactivating the space between words.




19 Müsvedde

The Müsvedde Project is a time-space-moment output in which the sketches made by the illustrators at a time on ordinary paper during visits to the illustrators' studio are created by adding them to a visual universe chain.



20→ Insane

The poster, designed typographically based on the emotions and connotations of the exhibition brief, deals with two separate concepts of the word "İnsan/e" reduced to one, with a conceptual story created by juxtaposing and decomposing the letter of the word/s.

The default exploding letters of the system, layered on top of each other, the composition which looks as if it has been placed haphazardly, has been placed "there", "just like that" by observing a calculated randomness. 

The "İnsan/e", which creates irrationality itself, harbours the potential to come together again, as in the exhibition, and shout for peace. Just like "the thing" we are trying to do with the letters on the poster.


21 Let Us Remember The Emptiness  

Exhibition titled "Let Us Remember The Emptiness" curated by Saliha Yavuz, aims to bring artists from various disciplines together in Hayy Open Space, Izmir to exhibit their works shaped around the theme of emptiness with blue and the feelings evoked by this color. 

In the design language created, the media where the designs are exhibited are taken as a canvas and a moving empiness/space/gap/blank is created with a blue square. The movement of the blue empiness makes everything visible.






22 Mail Art

Postcards with front and back sides containing dualities...

23→ Borders and Possibilities

What are the limits of a design object? 
How can its connection with the space it exists in be strengthened? 
How can the possibilities of the poster-space relationship be enriched?

The Borders and Possibilities poster designed for the International Poster Competition is focused on these questions. The poster presents a system that emphasizes different aspects of the space and the city in each application area, integrates with the surface on which it is applied and becomes meaningful. With this approach, a framework is created in which an infinite possible visual world can be created.



24 F: Photocopy Publication Project

F: Photocopy Publication Project, curated by Umut Altındaş, presents a playground that invites us to consider the contribution of the limited capacity of photocopy to the creative process, the copy of the original and the originality of the copy.

In the work created for the exhibition, the impact of the machine on the transformation of the work is addressed in an experimental fiction in which the open call text itself is used as a material for artistic production.




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