Anatomy of Design

2

Dino Merlin is a famous Bosnian singer; Burek is the title of his CD and also the

name of a traditional Bosnian pie made in a coil (and resembling a few other

familiar objects) and stuffed with meat—a common delicacy. It may seem like a

peculiar theme on which to base the music and graphics of an entire CD, but

when reduced to a fundamental graphic icon, the burek is a hypnotically

mnemonic mark (and in Bosnia, a totally recognizable thing) that, if nothing else,

triggers comfort. Like many of the world’s most effective logos, this design’s

virtue is its stark simplicity that draws on cultural and visual references packed

into one seemingly abstract container. Although the literal reference to the

burek may not be understandable to all who see it on this page, its graphic

nature nonetheless projects a contemporary ethos owing to the reductionist

symbols found on many CD covers today.

Yet this logo is but one element of a complex visual narrative that is

unpacked as the CD booklet pages are turned. Only then does it become clear

that Merlin’s CD is celebrating and perhaps also riffing on fast food, fast culture,

and fast rhythms—and the speed with which governments, societies, and

cultures shift from one way of life to another. At least that is one macro

interpretation. On a micro level, using the burek as a leitmotif, the CD design

decidedly parodies modernist visual idioms—notably those ubiquitous

international sign symbols that have been integrated ad nauseam in so many

fashionable design projects from CDs to posters—but further comments on the

folly of design simplicity itself.

Simplicity has certainly ebbed and flowed as a reflexive graphic conceit.

In 1968, the Beatles’

White Album (see #35), so called because there was

absolutely nothing on its pure white cover (although the actual title of the

album is simply

The Beatles), proved that when minimalism is taken to its most

logical extreme it is even more eye-catching than a comparable LP with type

and image. Simplicity works best when it rises from a heap of complexity.

But this is not the entire message of the CD design. It is also a not-so-

subtle comment on socialist realism, which was turgidly representational and

antiabstract. It was anything but pure simplicity, but it was conceptually

simplistic. Reducing human endeavor to but a couple of cardboard cutouts,

socialist realism was a flattening of difference into rigid conformity. But since

the late 1980s, when

glasnost and perestroika (“the new openness”) loosened the

grip of the iron fist, graphic design styles in the USSR became more abstract

and socialist realism became the object of ridicule and parody. The heroically

posed figure once representing the strength of the Soviet state and the

conformity of the proletarian mass was adopted as pastiche, quickly becoming

visual cliché suggesting false uniformity. As an object, the burek is also a

symbol of this uniformity. Lines of fast-food laborers dispensing bureks can be

construed as a satire of how the communist proletariat has transformed into the

capitalist proletariat. Whether this is or is not an accurate reading of the

designer’s motives, the graphics are decidedly inspired by socialist stereotypes.

This symbolism is furthermore a component of a more tightly woven graphic

pastiche that also employs conventional instructional diagrams, which recently have

become a trendy illustration trope. Here, a step-by-step schematic on one of the CD

booklet spreads reveals as simply as possible the complicated procedure of making a

burek, described in traditional Bosnian slang. Few graphic genres are more

recognized than these linear how-to guides—and often, few are more indecipherable

(which is why they are a favorite of humorists). This presumably helpful diagram

suggests that even the most complex aspects of everyday life can be reduced to

one-two-three, and that is what the graphics of Dino Merlin’s

Burek appear to critique.

Burek

Designer: Trio/Fabrika

2004 Burek—Dino Merlin, CD cover

cd,d: Trio/Fabrika

Dino Merlin is a famous Bosnian singer; Burek is the title of his CD and also the name of

a traditional Bosnian pie made in a coil (and resembling a few other familiar objects) and

stuffed with meat—a common delicacy.

Icon Record Covers

Instructional Charts

Staggered Formation

Firm Stance

ANATOMY OF DESIGN