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What a year it has been, what an adventure, what a ride! Throughout everything that has happened in 2020, the Type 7 team has been nothing short of humbled by the response we have received from you, our community. Every day we get to work on this project feels like a gift, and your support and passion makes it one that keeps on giving - especially as we all navigate the many curveballs that this year has thrown at us. Ultimately, we feel more connected with you than ever before. Over this year, we’ve done the one thing that we do best: drive forward. We have had the privilege of highlighting the passion of architects, automotive enthusiasts, artists, and designers from around the world. To be honest, it still feels like we are only just getting started. This printed book you are holding in your hands is the physical embodiment of our passion for this project, and it holds inside the covers what we believe to be our best work to-date; made as we navigated through an unprecedented year for the world at large. Each story in the pages that follow has been hand-picked, curated, and expanded by our team for your pleasure. During quarantine in London, we picked the brain of legendary Porsche rally pilot, cinematographer, and commercial director Jeff Zwart. Jeff imparted some invaluable advice on chasing your dreams and finding your path in life and the feature represents our most ambitious printing project to-date: a quad-foldout feature detailing the breadth and depth of his career. We worked with cult-status artist Daniel Arsham to document the development and final product of his completely customised Porsche 930 Turbo project, and we’re proud to be the first publication to tell its story. The Riva family, whose wooden boats have dotted the coastlines of the world’s most illustrious waterside locations for the last 70 years, granted us special access to their historical archives – you’ll see why this brand has become synonymous with the idea of summer glamour. Our friend Benny Marjanac walked us through the Porsche Museum’s “secret” hidden bunker, filled with the best and the brightest of Porsche’s history, many details of which have never been revealed like this before. And if that wasn’t enough escapism, we worked with legendary designer Marc Newson to showcase one of his most interesting projects: the development of “Kelvin 40”, a personal aeroplane concept originally commissioned by Foundation Cartier. These are only a few of the stories we are proud to share in Type 7: Volume Two. So we hope you will enjoy the reads and images that fill the pages that follow as much as the team enjoyed working on them. Once again, it feels like we’ve only scratched the surface of the stories we want to share with you. Sincerely, the Type 7 team. FRANZISKA JOSTOCK TED GUSHUE NAT TWISS THOMAS WALK JULIUS SCHÄFER
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photos by NAT TWISS & JOHNNY DOWELL words by NAT TWISS
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On first glance at Johnny Dowell, or King Nerd as you might know him, you don’t immediately see the nearly two decades of craftsmanship that have led him to be the designer and master engraver of fine, intricately detailed, and completely one-off items he is now. It’s on digging a little deeper, as we did when we met earlier this year in the impossibly twee London neighbourhood of Muswell Hill, that you slowly start to realise you’re talking with a master of their craft. At 18 years old, Dowell waved aside a spot at the legendary art and design school Central Saint Martins for an apprenticeship at the 205year old Mayfair gunsmith James Purdey & Sons. Here, he began to discover the ancient art of engraving - something he’ll happily admit he had never really given much thought to before. All it took for Dowell to make the decision was browsing a simple product catalogue: “I basically chose to go to Purdey’s instead, just because my uncle had the catalogue.” He explains, “I’d never even picked it up before, and then I looked, and I was like, ‘Oh, this is quite cool. I’ve never seen stuff like this,’ and that was all it took. A family friend that’s also an artist told me that ‘Not everyone goes to Saint Martins and comes out as the next Versace. You’ve either got it, or you haven’t. And if you really, really want to do design or fashion you don’t have to go there for it. You can do something else, and try it again at a later stage.’ So from that conversation on, I said ‘I’m going to try Purdey’s.’ I ended up staying there for fifteen years, but even after a year or so, when I hadn’t learned everything, I knew I didn’t want to spend my life just engraving guns, a lot of engravers just stick to what they were taught to engrave. And I’ve never really been interested in shooting.”
+ ‘Tears of Hope’ is a limited edition design by
Johnny that was created to support frontline health workers, with all proceeds going to the NHS.
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Since leaving his position at the gunsmiths, his master-crafted designs and engravings have graced everything from the backs of watches in one-off commissions to limited edition runs of headphones in collaboration with Master & Dynamic. Now, instead of working with the “house patterns” of traditionalist gunsmiths, Dowell has elevated and managed to combine the artisanal and very exclusive nature of his work with contemporary luxury fashion. “I just always customised my jeans, my Nike Air Force Ones, when I was younger,” Dowell continues. “I haven’t been to New York for a while now, but I used to go over there all the time to see extended family. And I was massively into hip hop - I still am. At that time, there was Dipset, Cam’ron. You know, when Nas and Jay-Z were quite big, and they were all releasing sneakers when Nelly was rapping about them. I used to bring things back with me and customise them. I’d do something, and I’d keep it for myself. I’d go to college all the time with them on, just because I wanted to have something no one else had. I suppose it’s a bit similar now with my design and engraving because I still make things that no one else has. I think long gone are the days where people produce a design on a T-shirt, and they get 5,000 made, or whatever. It just doesn’t make sense, does it? People throw away their T-shirts so quickly. I want to make something that people are like, ‘Oh no, I’m going to keep that forever.’ My personal Snoopy Omega Speedmaster is like that. People can offer me ten times what I paid for it, and I’m never going to sell it - I’m going to give it to one of my children at some point. I did it because it was something nobody else would have. Because Richemont owns Purdey’s, I was always around luxury products, like expensive Chloé bags, or IWC - all these luxury companies that would release, I don’t know, 200 bags made out of some ridiculous and exclusive material. They’d be gone, literally, in an hour. I’ve naturally gone down that path with what I do because an engraving can take hundreds of hours. My design work is just as important though, and some of my upcoming collaborations are going to be my happiest moments. These are items I used to wear or want to own when I was young, and soon I’m going to have collaborative projects, packaging, and be able to give it to my family and say: ‘I’ve actually designed this’. That’s where I want to go - I don’t want to just be some guy who engraves watches or guns. I always said when I left that ‘if I never engrave a gun again, I’ll know I’m doing everything right.’ People have a habit of doing what they know, and I want to do what I love.”
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+ This meticulously detailed and completely custom Leica M6 camera was designed and hand engraved by Johnny for GQ photographer Gavin Bond. No metal surface of the camera has gone untouched.
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+ right Death Spray Custom also created a vintage-inspired racing helmet to compliment the car, in matching livery to the rest of the 930A.
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photos by SAJIN PARK words by JAMES BANNISTER
There’s a chance that the idea of creating a space to combine all of one’s passions in an inspiring, aesthetically pleasing fashion has crossed the mind of most of us at some point. Chances are, that even if we all did, it wouldn’t look quite as considered as designer Tommaso Spinzi’s Milano loft. The interior and product designer channels his lifestyle and interests into everything he does, with all things automotive playing a key role: “Over the last few years since I moved back to Milan, I have been working on some new concepts still rooted in interior and product design but infusing more elements from my own life,” he says. “For my design work, this is predominantly in the form of furniture, and I’ve now turned my loft into more of a gallery than anything else.”
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