graphic design magazine—Vol ume #1— 2011
G191—featuring Les Graphiquants / Klaus Haapaniemi & Mia Wallenius / Will Sweeney / Fletcher Hanks / Patrick Hughes / Visual Editions / Crispin Finn / Black Sparrow Press / Jim Phillips / Astrid Stavro / Alistair Hall / Julia in Profile plus Special Feature—Grafik’s Got Talent
grafik 191 Preview —1
2—grafik 191 Preview
Issue 191 of Grafik is a special celebration of our Talent pages from the last 10 years, as well as being packed full of features, new work, profiles and opinion. grafik 191 Preview — 3
Kaleidoscope is Grafik’s selection of current unmissable events, exhibitions and products
4—grafik 190 Preview
Repeat pattern— Homage to Lévi-Strauss dress by Cinzia Ruggeri AutumnWinter collection 1983– 4
G191—Kaleidoscope 008—Postmodernism at V&A / 009—The Story of the Métro at Musée des Arts et Métiers / Jeffrey Stockbridge at Wapping Project / 010—Designers in Residence at Design Museum / Made for Trade at Pitt Rivers Museum / 011—High Arctic at National Maritime Museum / Images 35 at Bankside Gallery / 012—Allan Ahlberg and ‘The Art of Story’ at The Public / Glamour of the Gods at National Portrait Gallery / 013—Talk to Me at MoMA / 014—Sense and the City at London Transport Museum / 015—Royal Fabergé at Buckingham Palace / The Stuff of Nightmares at Museum of Childhood / 016—Hand.Written.Letter.Project at KK Outlet / Jake or Dinos Chapman at White Cube / 017—Graphic Detour at Graphic Design Museum For regular updates visit
grafikmag.com/feed grafik 191 Preview — 5
Memphis Belle
Postmodernism: Style and Subversion V&A, London 24 September–17 January
From top— Power, Corruption, and Lies, New Order album cover designed by Peter Saville; WET magazine © April Greiman and Jayme Odgers; Homage to Lévi-Strauss dress by Cinzia Ruggeri AutumnWinter collection 1983–84; Super Lamp by Martine Bedin
6—grafik 191 Preview
The V&A’s big autumn exhibition looks set to be a corker. After a summer of modernism at the Design Museum, here comes the perfect antidote to all that form, function, clean lines and white spaces. For those who weren’t there the first time around, postmodernism was a reaction to what had gone before—what started as an architectural movement in the 1970s went on to have a massive influence across everything from art to cinema, music, graphics and fashion over the following two decades. Focusing on the 1970s and 1980s, the exhibition will feature suitably out-there furniture by Studio Alchymia and Memphis, graphics by Peter Saville and Neville Brody, and art by Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol and Jeff Koons, as well as a recreation of Jenny Holzer’s illuminated billboard Protect Me From What I Want. There’ll be excerpts from films such as Derek Jarman’s The Last of England and music videos featuring Laurie Anderson, Grace Jones and New Order. There’s even David Byrne’s XXXL suit from the Talking Heads documentary Stop Making Sense. It’s OK, kids, it was acceptable in the Eighties… vam.ac.uk
The Story of the Métro Musée des Arts et Métiers, Paris Ends 1 January 2012 What is it about the tube? Us city dwellers spend hours on it, we spend hours moaning about it yet when it’s not running we feel like we’ve lost a limb (or two). It’s probably because the underground network is such an intrinsic part of urban living, whether you’re in Barcelona or Beijing. The Paris Métro is one of the densest underground networks, with 245 stations within the city’s 34 sq miles. After Moscow, it’s the second busiest in Europe, carrying over five million passengers a day. This (and many other interesting facts) will no doubt be revealed in a new exhibition at the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris. This interactive exhibition will explore the past, present and future of the Métro, with the chance to experience a day in the life of a train driver for yourself.
Metro train, Paris 1950s
Going Underground
a r t s - e t- m e t i e r s . n e t
Jeffrey Stockbridge Wapping Project Bankside, London Ends 20 August
Room Set
The Wapping Project Bankside is holding an exhibition of American photographer Jeffrey Stockbridge’s powerful prints this month. Stockbridge was born in Woodbine, Maryland and moved to Philadelphia to study photography at Drexel University. The US city has had a big impact on him and provided the subject matter for many of his hard-hitting photographs depicting its socalled ‘urban blight’. Stockbridge’s series showing abandoned houses will be on show at the Wapping Project Bankside. It’s a theme that recurs in his work—Stockbridge was a runner-up in the New York Times Magazine’s Capture the Times photography competition for his series Occupied in 2005. Expect haunting empty rooms, plenty of broken furniture and grime. t h e w a pp i n g p r o j e c t b a n k s i d e . c o m
From top— The Divine Lorraine 5th Floor, No.1; The Divine Lorraine 5th Floor, No.2; The Divine Lorraine 10th Floor, No.1. All by Jeffrey Stockbridge
grafik 191 Preview —7
In this issue’s Profile we meet the young and very accomplished Julia
portrait by Ivan jones 8—grafik 191 Preview
ivan-jones.co.uk
grafik 191 0 Preview—9
This spread— Premio typeface, commissioned for the Wallpaper* Awards, issue 143, February 2011
“The way we see it, our role is to push the clients as much as possible, and the role of the client is to push us as much as possible,” Timm continues. “It can get to be a very tiring environment but ultimately that’s how you arrive at the most successful results.” That questioning approach and correspondingly turbulent atmosphere seem to have spilled over into the workings of the studio itself. In person, the three seem so at ease that it’s difficult to imagine that much in the way of argument goes on within Julia; the reality, they assure me, is much more tumultuous yet ultimately constructive. “I’ve got much better at working with clients since we started working together because I’m used to an environment of constant disagreement and conflict of opinion in the studio,” says Lhuissier. “It helps you learn to make compromises, explain things and push each other.” “The culture in which we work is fuelled much more by disagreement than agreement, and characterised by misunderstanding rather than understanding,” Di Lucente goes on. “It’s a game of trust, because you respect each other’s differing points of view. The result, though, is that you end up analysing every tiny detail in a crazy dialectical exchange that can last way too long. But by the end we know exactly why we’ve made every decision; every aspect of the design is totally conscious.” Within such an intense working environment, it’s little wonder that Lhuissier, Di Lucente and Timm have had trouble handing over control of their work to clients upon a project’s completion, particularly in the case of the bespoke typography around which much of their work is built. “We’re usually so reluctant to design a typeface and give it to someone else,” Timm explains. “It’s so tied to the concept of a particular project and to the ideas we have for its context and use—that’s pretty much how we learnt how to use type. It can be worrying to hand one over to someone else without an idea of how they might use it.” Their newer work, however, speaks to the contrary, and the experience of creating a system of tools for The Invisible Dot seems to have instigated a more relaxed approach to the dissemination of their typographic designs. 10—grafik 191 Preview
A B C
ABCDEFGHIJ KLMNOPQRS TUVWXYZ 0123456789 “.;&*:!?<” ABCDEFGHIJ KLMNOPQRS TUVWXYZ grafik 191 Preview —11
12â&#x20AC;&#x201D;grafik 191 Preview
All artwork by Fletcher Hanks, 1939 –41, as featured in the books “I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets!” and “You Shall Die by Your Own Evil Creation!” edited by Paul Karasik, published by Fantagraphics Books, 2007
Will Sweeney rediscovers a comic book legend in this issue’s Graphic Design Heroes grafik 191 Preview —13
14â&#x20AC;&#x201D;grafik 191 Preview
Indeed, Hanks is now recognised as one of the early auteurs of comics —very few artists of the day wrote, drew and inked entire stories by themselves. The most popular working method was the ‘production line’ method, whereby a comic strip was created by a team of artists taking different roles, speeding up the process, but often creating formulaic and repetitive stories as a result. Hanks’s stories were repetitive too, but in a somewhat deranged and brilliant way—to modern readers, at least. Like many people who have discovered Hanks recently, I find his stories very funny. Of course, this wouldn’t have been his intention—his brief would have been to provide dynamic action and thrilling adventures for prepubescent boys hooked on Superman and Tarzan. But the humour is there, in the same way that many B-movies of the 1940s and 1950s appeal to us for their innocent silliness and child-like inventiveness. Of course, it’s easy for us to laugh at the basic nature of the scripts and the primitive look of the artwork now, but these aspects also add to the otherworldly feel that Hanks’s comics possess and, when combined with their originality and innovation, create a startling effect.
The primitive print quality of these comics is also a big part of their appeal to modern readers—in today’s publishing industry, digital printing enables artwork to be rendered in multiple colours and tones, in high resolution at a relatively low cost to the publisher. In Hanks’s day, comics were cheaply produced and limited to very few solid colours, with the option of using dot halftones to provide variations of tone and shade. In retrospect, this restriction is part of what gives Hanks’s work such an appealing and cohesive look. Most stories share the same palette of bright acid yellow, lime green and powder blue, with halftones throwing up weird mottled purples and garish pinks throughout. These colours tend to give Hanks’s comics a strange attractiveness; like bizarrely packaged cheap sweets or mass-manufactured toys, they take on a childlike psychedelic edge that has parallels in many Jamaican dub and reggae LP sleeves of the 1970s or the psychedelic concert posters of 1960s artists such as Victor Moscoso and Martin Sharp, vivid hues jarring against one another, the offset and misregistered colours throwing up a strange and surreal beauty. The look of these analogue print processes is very much in vogue now, perhaps in part owing to a certain amount of nostalgia for the predigital age. Many illustrators and designers seem to want to emulate the lo-fi feel of Xerox machines or halftone print.
grafik 191 Preview —15
Grafik’s Got
16—grafik 191 Preview
Catching up with our favourite 20 Talents from the last decade: we hear what they have been up to since their original appearance in Grafik. grafik 191 Preview â&#x20AC;&#x201D;17
2009 In 2009 I was doing a lot of editorial. Shooting for magazines like Domino, Lucky, and Travel and Leisure. That was also the year that I started doing more advertising: Target, Cougar Boots, MTV. I also made my first short fashion film for Untitled Magazine. After that, video started playing a bigger role in more of my overall body of work. 2009 was also a big year because I bought a brownstone in Brooklyn, something which, as you’ll know if you’ve ever lived in NY, is not an easy task. 2011 I recently got back from San Francisco, where I spent nine days shooting with Microsoft. Also just finished up a shoot with Anthropologie here in NYC. Work has been moving along and I’ve been really happy with recent jobs. I’ve been shooting with some great clients: Fossil, Call It Spring for Aldo, Toyota, Steven Alan, and Quiksilver. Also, this year my boyfriend and I made a new addition to our family—a one-and-a-half-year-old scruffy-faced mutt named Bass. She’s an Airedale Terrier/Otterhound mix, and we’re crazy about her. Other than that, I’ve been spending time on the house and am in the process of getting the backyard into shape for summer. 2021 Shooting. Enjoying my life. I want to be working enough so that I can take vacations stress-free without feeling like I need to be showing my portfolio in whatever city I’m visiting. I love the work I’m doing now, so I want to continue on that path, making great work and adding to my roster of clients. I also see myself working on bigger productions, doing more video work, and travelling a lot. I still see myself living in New York, but I would really love to start spending a few of the winter months in Los Angeles. What’s your plan B? Plan B is a taco truck by the beach in Mexico, most likely Tulum… Carefree life, laidback, tanned and happy. a n n a w o l f. c o m 18—grafik 191 Preview
Opposite page— Sunkissed, Revista # 192, 2010; Untitled, Clone Magazine, 2010 This page from top— Spring/Summer Shoot 2011, Call It Spring for Aldo Shoes, 2010; Dreamers, Revista #192, 2010
grafik 191 Preview —19
This page, from top— Jiang Shi, personal work; S, personal work Opposite page, from top— Salome, personal work; Dracula, produced for Mondo’s Universal Monsters series, 2011; Furstin der Finsternis, personal work
20—grafik 191 Preview
2007 The first interview that I did for Grafik was done a year or so after I joined my agency, Big Active. During that year I did work for National Geographic, the NY Times and Beck. It was very much the beginning of a new period for me. 2011 A lot has happened during the last four years. I have done a couple of exhibitions at Vanilla Gallery in Tokyo. I also worked for English National Opera, Omega, Stella McCartney, Nike and many other companies. The extended edition of my book, Vania, was published by Gestalten last year. 2021 Ten years is a very long time. I would like to do more work for film. Designing costumes and sets or creating characters for an interesting animated feature. What’s been the best reaction to your work? I once saw two Japanese girls carefully peeling one of my posters off a street wall. They were determined to have the whole thing without any rips. bigactive.com grafik 191 Preview — 21
2007
2011
2021
October 2007 feels like a very long time ago. I was twenty and in my third year at Camberwell. At that time I was so excited by the potential of being a designer, I worked in parallel, completing my coursework and freelancing on the side. That year I was commissioned to do the Cadbury’s campaign—a pivotal moment in my career. I realised that I didn’t really need to worry too much about school, but instead I could focus on being a commercial artist, or designer, or illustrator, whatever I wanted, and I could make it into a career. I was still a swot, though. I loved to nerd out on theory and science, and I think I tried pretty hard to graduate with good marks.
I am sitting in my newly painted studio in Fitzrovia, London. After realising making it all on your own is no fun, I teamed up with a group of collaborators, and we have been working as ISO, a “freelance co-operative”, for the last two years. Together we all bring different skills to the table and it’s a really exciting place to work. I have continued to freelance as a designer and illustrator, and in the last five years I have worked on projects for clients such as Vogue, Kiehl’s, Glastonbury and Nike, to name a few. I have also been given the opportunity to make work as a director, recently signing to Pulse Films, and I have been enjoying the video-making process greatly. I have also been able to contribute, lecture and judge at universities, conferences and awards across the globe, and this has been the most exciting change since 2007, as I get to meet really amazing people from every field, educators, students and other creative people, who all share an enthusiasm for the arts.
Who knows, I will probably be exploring whatever future creative formats have been developed. I don’t want to be left behind. I hope that I will be in an even bigger office, with rainbow lights, walls covered with exciting work, and loads of awesome like-minded people working towards the same goal. That and total world domination, of course.
22—grafik 191 Preview
What’s the first vinyl record you ever bought? Tusk, a secondhand Fleetwood Mac album, at a charity shop somewhere. I started buying records pretty late, in my late teens. I grew up with cassettes, CDs and even MiniDiscs so records weren’t something I had around when I was a kid. katemoross.com
This page, from left— Into the Galaxy by Midnight Juggernauts, record sleeve design, Isomorph Records; Kate Moross Time Piece, custom watch design for Firetrap, 2010 Opposite page, from top left— Jack of All Trades, Risograph print, edition of 100; The Discovery Project, CD design for Jazz FM compilation, collaboration with Jack Featherstone and Max Parsons; Multicolour Tribal, personal work, edition of 45 giclee prints
grafik 191 Preview â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 23
Talent special
Class of
Liz Farrelly investigates changes in the design landscape over the last 10 years. 24â&#x20AC;&#x201D;grafik 191 Preview
grafik 191 Preview â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 25
We feature Klaus Haapaniemiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s beautiful range of textiles & ceramics 26â&#x20AC;&#x201D;grafik 191 Preview
klaush.com
grafik 191 Preview â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 27
Because I’ve taken I’m tough, I’m ambitious, my clothes off in public and I know exactly what doesn’t mean that I want. If that makes I’ve revealed every inch me a bitch, okay. of my soul. 3—Reader
4—New Rail Alphabet
I’m anal retentive. I’m a workaholic. I have insomnia. And I’m a control freak. That’s why I’m not married. Who could stand me? 5 — Neutraface
28—grafik 191 Preview
In this issueâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Font Book we explore remixed typefaces, with a little help from Madonna
grafik 191 0 Preview â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 29
Subscribe online, buy single issues, read the Grafik feed and lots more at grafikmag.com