THE PAPER ISSUE
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EUROPE MAY ⁄ JUNE 2018
€ 2,50
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WHO IS ANDY ALTMAN
DESIGNBOOM
Why not associates co-founder, Andy Altmann (AA) tells DesignBoom (DB) about how the studio has evolved since it was formed in 1987 how they managed to leave behind their ‘house style’. DB: please could you tell us briefly about the evolution of why not associates? AA: why not associates was formed by myself, david ellis and howard greenhalgh after leaving the royal college of art in 1987. it was never really planned it just kind of happened. all we knew was that we didn’t want to work for anyone else. we landed a job designing a magazine together while at college and it just sort of snowballed from there. looking back I guess we were one of the first multidisciplined design groups as we wanted to work with both print and moving image and then later environmental graphics. DB: how many people work at WNA and how do you divide / share the workload? AA: Today we have nine full time staff and the work is shared between who we think is best at working on certain types of projects and who is available. designboom.com
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TURNER PRIZE
DB: Which have been your most satisfying projects to date? AA: The comedy carpet was possibly the most satisfying as it’s great to watch people wander slowly about the sea of jokes and catchphrases laughing out loud, really engaging with the work and each other. DB: Is there a particular type of project that you enjoy? AA: Those where I can learn something new. DB: Do you think it’s important for a graphic designer to be able to draw? AA: It’s nice if you can but it’s not essential. I can’t. I soon learned that at saint martins school of art in the early eighties. I can draw well enough to get an idea across and most of the time that is enough. but if I need to draw something, I know a man who can!
COMEDYCARPET
Created by artist Gordon Young, and designed in collaboration with Why Not Associates, the Comedy Carpet is a celebration of comedy on an extraordinary scale. Referring to the work of more than 1,000 comedians and comedy writers, the carpet gives visual form to jokes, songs and catchphrases dating from the early days of variety to the present. Sited in front of Blackpool Tower, the 2,200m2 work of art contains over 160,000 granite letters embedded into concrete, pushing the boundaries of public art and typography to their limits. A remarkable homage to those who have made the nation laugh, it’s also a stage for popular entertainment that celebrates entertainment itself. The £2.6m Comedy Carpet was commissioned by Blackpool Council as part of the multi-million pound regeneration of the sea front including vital sea defence works. It was funded by CABE (Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment) as part of it’s Sea Change programme. comedycarpet.com
Blackpool holds a unique place in the affections of generations of British holiday-makers and fun-seekers. As well as its sandy beaches, piers, amusement parks and pleasure beaches, it has many extraordinary buildings devoted to entertainment and show business, including the Grand Theatre, the Winter Gardens and the Blackpool Tower. Connecting these places together is the promenade known as the Golden Mile which stretches the length of the town. As part of the council’s plans to regenerate the town and carry out necessary sea defence works, the entire length has been re-landscaped and three new headlands built. Created as a key work of art for the central headland, the Comedy Carpet will also be a stage for performances and events. Designed in a cross shape, the carpet links the entrance of the Blackpool Tower to the beach and connects the north and south sides of the promenade. Laid out in a grid pattern in strips of 10 slabs each, the work can be read in different directions, from close up and from the top of the tower, with the font varying in size from a few centimetres to over a metre. comedycarpet.com
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ANOTHER LIKELY ARTICLE TEXT BY PETER BILAK - PHOTOGRAPHY BY WHYNOTASSOCIATES
A critical review of the London-based design group’s second collection of work, published in 2004. Peter Bilak’s review, first appearing in Items magazine, poses questions about the role of self-promotional design publishing as he describes the visually stimulating work of a contemporary design studio.
In the early 1990s, Why Not Associates’ (WNA) daring visual style earned them a leading position among London designers. While their work is deeply rooted in local culture and traditions, they soon received recognition and commissions from all continents. The book Why Not Associates?2 presents projects from the past six years, starting where the first book Why Not left off. A lavish hardcover coffee-table book in two different stocks of paper with over 1500 illustrations printed in five inks and a layer of varnish delivers what WNA stands for: immaculate craftsmanship, painterly quality of typography and uncompromising graphic experimentation. While the WNA members suggest that the book documents a move from their earlier flamboyant signature style, the book confirms everything we have come to expect from the group. Ornamental complexity of typography, and graphic gymnastics which sometimes make up for the lack of content are still their main preoccupation. Join our mailing list and get €20 off Typotheque fonts.
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With their highly intuitive approach, WNA programmatically resist any theorizing about their work. The introduction of the book merely summarizes the past few years of the studio, and in the main part of the book we find very brief comments describing the projects but not offering much insight.
WNA has a talent for visual shortcuts. As with their first book, the cover embodies the message and approaches of the group. This time the cover and divider pages present laser cut steel plates of lettering, spelling out the name of the book, publisher, ISBN number and logos, in the background of the metal workshop.
Their Englishness of approach has been noted elsewhere, and it is accentuated by the choice of typefaces in their projects (Gill, Perpetua) and the choice of materials (stone, metal, etc.). WNA is at its best exploring the physicality of materials in public art projects done together with the artist Gordon Young. A Flock of Words is a 300 meter long typographic pavement in the town of Morecambe. Other public interventions are in Plymouth, Yorkshire, London and Carlisle. They make an impact on the local community, and rely on the skills of sculptors, stonemasons, steel cutters, carvers and workers.
The quality of WNA’s output is consistent and undeniably challenging; the book itself however lacks a critical distance and wider cultural significance. This raises a question about current trends in publishing. Undigested collections of images are attractive material to mainstream publishers because of the minimal expenses (little text, no photography costs, images coming for free from the designer’s files).
The projects are attractive to studios as well, because they promote the designers’ work. The projects also seem to have a receptive audience: the ever image-hungry design students, so the publishers are happy, the studios are happy and the audience is happy. This is not a new trend: selfpromo books with minimal research and ephemeral effect have always existed, but their ever increasing rate of proliferation is a matter of concern. It is all the more interesting that the same issue touches WNA themselves in the book. In the introductory text, Altmann, one of the WNA’s partners, is surprisingly ambivalent about the book. He is proud of the studio’s work but wonders whether graphic designers should have books made about themselves at all. That is an astounding altitude considering that nowhere else in the book can we see similar questioning.
It is clear that this book will not help to answer the question. While WNA work has the potential to be experimental and to concern a larger public, this book is disappointingly conventional and locked inside the narrow confines of the design world. whynotassociates.com
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DESIGN
CHARMING BAKER
WHYNOTASSOCIATE whynotassociates.com
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CHARMING
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ABOUT CHARMING BAKER charmingbaker.com
Born in Hampshire 1964, Charming Baker spent much of his early life travelling around the world following his father, a Commando in the British Army. At the age of 12, he and his family finally settled in Ripon, North Yorkshire. Baker left school at 16 and worked various manual jobs and in 1985, having gone back to college, he was accepted onto a course at the prestigious Central Saint Martin’s, where he later returned as a lecturer. After graduating, Baker worked for many years as a commercial artist as well as developing his personal work. Solo exhibitions include the Truman Brewery London 2007, Redchurch Street Gallery London 2009, New York Studio Gallery NYC 2010, Mercer Street London 2011, Milk Studios LA 2013 and Sotheby’s S2 London 2016. Baker has also exhibited with the Fine Art Society, collaborated with Sir Paul Smith for a sculpture entitled ‘Triumph in the Face of Absurdity’ which was displayed at the Victoria and Albert Museum, continues to be committed to creating work to raise money for many charities and has recently been commissioned to be a presenter on The Art Show. His work is in many international collections. Although Baker has produced sculptural pieces in a wide and varied choice of materials as well as many large-scale and detailed drawings, he remains primarily a painter with an interest in narrative and an understanding of the tradition of painting. Known to purposefully damage his work by drilling, cutting and even shooting it, Baker intentionally puts in to question the preciousness of art and the definition of its beauty, adding to the emotive charge of the work he produces. Indeed Edward Lucie-Smith has described Baker’s paintings as having, “something more, a kind of romantic melancholy that is very British. And sometimes the melancholy turns out to have sharp claws. The pictures make you sit up and examine your conscience.” Charming Baker lives and works in London.
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RA x SENSING SPACES
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FILM DIRECTION IN HOUSE EDITING IN HOUSE 2D ANIMATION IN HOUSE LIVE ACTION WNA, LEE MAWDSLEY, CANDIA RICHARDSON
DESIGN
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Marketing material and promotional film for the royal academy of arts exhibition, sensing spaces.
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felix makes electronic music with acoustic sculpture. what do you do? www.converse.com