JUS Project
The JUS project presents a series of graphic designs depicting cult technical products made in Yugoslavia between 1950 and 1990.
Outstanding achievements in design and technology are part of the forgotten cultural heritage of the former Yugoslavia. It is about modernist architecture, exciting products in terms of quality and innovation, sensibly placed in the time and space of that time. Original, accessible, and useful products were created as a result of domestic know-how and were mainly intended for most of the population, the so-called working class.
JUS is an art project named after the renowned abbreviation for the Yugoslav Standard.
Our vision is to encourage and remind young artists, engineers, designers and the general public that the attitude towards creation, design and manufacturing in the time of Yugoslavia was considerably more advanced and modern then later acknowledged.
JUS presents the achievements of our recent history’s technical heritage from the days of our youth in a unique and graphically sophisticated way. Virtually every member of our generation still recalls Gorenje refrigerators, Tomos motorcycles, Bagat sewing machines, not to mention Zastava’s legendary car called Fičo.
Authors
Original product illustrations drawn with passion and love.
The concept of the JUS Project and its illustrations are the creations of Darko and Marko Miladinović. The Miladinović brothers, who have been working in the field of visual communications, design and the creation of novel brands for over 25 years, have combined their knowledge and love for retro design solutions from the era of socialist Yugoslavia, this time in the form of the JUS Project. Researching forgotten and too often discarded documentation of cult products, followed by illustrating these carefully selected items, can only be driven by a great passion for design and retro-chic culture. New devotees and fans later joined the enthusiastic JUS team, which now also consists of architect Gregor Zupan, who helps illustrate JUS products, and Tina Miladinović, who oversees sales, digital support and the brand’s social media presence.
“We revive the achievements of our history’s technical heritage from the days of our youth in a unique and graphically sophisticated way.”
POP icons about JUS
“We don’t want what belongs to others, but we will not give what’s ours.“
Magnifico
The JUS project presents cult domestic products, which my generation cynically neglected and preferred to choose foreign ones because in our primitiveness we thought that we would be worth more in that way. "We do not want someone else's, but we will not give our own" was seen as a platitude, and "fraternity and unity" as a boring and worn-out phrase, proving to history that we were not really worth what we had. That makes this project even more important, as it offers inspiration for new generations and a reminder for ours.
Saša Lošić
Every specialised field comes with its own items and products. We had ours. We had no idea that 50 years later these imperfect, unrepresentative technical products would become part of our personal nostalgia, the topography of our cultural and emotional consciousness, part of an era, a place where we once lived. The JUS Project, a series of graphics by Darko and Marko Miladinović, tells the story of a certain period, a certain generation and a certain way of life that took place in former Yugoslavia and manifested in technical products of an entire generation.
Rambo Amadeus
This exhibition is of special significance for me and for my generation, which was biologically created during the SFRY. It is also important for me for the additional reason that my artistic alter ego, Rambo Amadeus, was also designed and created in this country, the SFRY, so the Rambo Amadeus brand can also be exhibited with the other exhibits. With the difference that Rambo Amadeus, as a brand of the SFRY, somehow managed to survive the state collapse in which it was born and continued to operate in the territory of the former SFRY, where it continues to operate successfully today. For the younger generations, the exhibition is particularly valuable because young people will be able to see how industrial production under socialism was of higher quality, more functional and longer-lasting than the goods produced today under the market capitalism.
JUS presents the achievements of our recent history’s technical heritage from the days of our youth in a unique and graphically sophisticated way.
