Lieblingsmakel & What A Mistake

What a Mistake

This Bachelor’s thesis in Information Design wants to draw attention to problems of our society such as stigma, dissatisfaction with the own body, striving for perfection, etc. The investigation followed the question whether there is this prescribed degree of perfection and whether the imperfection is not already utterly perfect in itself?

“What A Mistake” is intended to encourage people to deal with their less popular peculiarities and to put them into a positive light. The direct integration of the opinions of others was very important in this project. The goal was to show that everyone can set up their own definition of perfection. A big concern here was to use the space of social media, which often only leaves one in real doubt.

Through an anonymous online questionnaire with the question: “Which flaws do you love about yourself?”, a lot of good, and most of all very honest answers were collected. A poster series was illustrated and designed with these responses. By extensive research, interesting suggestions could be found for solutions on how not to be discouraged by one’s quirks but rather take advantage of them.

Text & Photography: Katharina Diem

Lieblingsmakel

“I love my stuttering” or “I love my very shy breasts” are just a few of the answers that were posted online to the question “What flaw do you love about yourself? ” which ran alternating with body images from 20.5.-18.6.2019 on the BIX façade of the Kunsthaus Graz.

Every human being has something that bothers him or herself – be it a physical characteristic or a certain quality. We are born with annoying flaws that seem to affect our attractiveness and sometimes our self-esteem. Our society is often solely responsible for the fact that we criticize certain characteristics and thus cast a shadow on these even before we can form our own opinion about them.

It is precisely these “blemishes” that give us an identity, give us something unmistakable and do not allow us to disappear into a mass of people standardized according to ideals. Lieblingsmakel should encourage people to accept their “flaws” and at best to love them and share them proudly with the whole world – for example on the BIX façade of the modern art museum in Graz.

A website, stickers including the URL, a magic mirror with some of the answers and content for Social Media for the art museum were created to promote the project.

Text & Photography: Katharina Diem