IN THIS EDITION How I became a book cover designer 05 an interview with Chip Kidd
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New talent: Jessica Walsh
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portfolio 11
A rare interview with a graphic design legend 19 an interview with Massimo Vignelli
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New Talent: Steven Harrington
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On his most iconic works and the importance of ethics in design
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New Talent: Marta Veludo
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portfolio 25
an interview with Milton Glaser
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portfolio 41
The designer who follows his instinct 49 an interview with Stefan Sagmeister
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New Talent: Leta Sobierajski
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portfolio 57
Glossary 65 Index 66
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an interview with Chip Kidd
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How I became a book cover designer
ith a body of work spanning from designing the iconic cover of “Jurassic Park” to writing his own novels, Chip Kidd has worked with some of the most famous names in literature and cartoons. The words and designs of the TED speaker, book cover designer, author and editor have been seen around the world, and Kidd’s advice rings true: “Do it because you love it.”
What’s your coffee order?
What’s the coolest thing you’ve ever done?
Who has been your biggest mentor?
A doppio macchiato.
I accepted an invitation from J.J. Abrams to visit the set of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” and watched Carrie Fisher film scenes from about 5 feet away. I think it’s pretty cool.
There’s several, and they’re the mentors who you actually work with faceto-face and they’re the ones whose work you take inspiration from.
What’s the last book you read? Usually, I don’t have a lot of time to read books that I’m not designing for. I’d say right now the last book I read was “Killing Commendatore” by Haruki Murakami.
It’s obviously tragic given what happened, and you get an idea from whatever year that was.
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I’d say, certainly in school, it was this guy named Lanny Sommese. He was my main teacher in college, taught me a lot about the principles of graphic design and conceptual thinking. Certainly my boss and friend Carol Devine Carson, of over 30 years, is probably my biggest mentor at work.
What do you listen to when you work? There’s this great jazz station out of Newark called WBGO, and that’s mainly what I listen to when I’m at work in my office. There’s also WQXR, the classical station. I’m an old-fashioned, analog radio guy. If I have to do anything that involves writing, then I need silence.
In retrospect, it’s sort of pleasantly boring. I majored in graphic design as an undergrad for four years at Penn State University, and this was right before computers were introduced you’re talking ’82-’86. Basically, when I graduated my plan such as it was, was I wanted to go to New York City and get a job doing graphic design. Other than that I was completely open minded about what kind of graphic design, and did a lot of interviewing around. The first substantial job offer I got was to be assistant to the art director at Alfred A. Knopf Publishing, and that was the fall of 1986. The pay was terrible, but the work seemed interesting and my rent was cheap, so I thought, ‘all right, I’ll give this a shot for a year, year and a half and see what happens.’ It sort of just grew from there, and I will have been here for 32 years and counting.
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Certainly a lot has happened since then, but I’m at the same place that I was and I’m still assistant to the art director, technically, which is fine. It’s just that I’ve been able to sort of create my own sort of position in here in terms of not just designing book covers, but acquiring and editing books of comics, graphic novels.
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In terms of working professionals whose work I just truly admire and learn from, I’d say Peter Saville. He still works today, but he was the art director and designer for Factory Records – so, Joy Division and New Order and that music of the Manchester scene in the late 70s and early 80s – his ability to seemingly start from scratch and not have a signature style is really, really informative to me.
What does your career path look like, from the beginnings until now?
A cover design for Haruki Murakami
Chip Kidd is the designer who created the Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton design
for the original Jurassic Park novel. The design was later carried over into the film franchise. Image: ChipKidd.com
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Do you have a project that sticks out to you?
What does a typical day look like for you?
After 32 years there’s a zillion of them. I’d say, right now in terms of book jacket design, the body of work that I’ve been able to make for Haruki Murakami, and that’s been for over 23 years. I’ve published two novels, I’m working on a third one. I have a new book on Marvel Comics called “Marvelocity” that is just out now, which is the work of Alex Ross.
I’m sort of lucky, as long as I get the work done here that I need to get done, I can sort of make up my schedule as I need to. So, I’m not a morning person at all. I sort of rouse myself up out of bed and get my act together, and get into work hopefully before noon. Once I’m here I’m here, and I do what I need to do and I’ll work until eight or nine or whatever.
Last week, I was on the road with a Japanese cartoonist whom I publish named Gengoroh Tagame, who has a new graphic novel out called “My Brother’s Husband,” and it’s the second volume. I’m his editor and art director, so I was sort of just escorting him around San Francisco to various events. I’m constantly juggling at least four or five things, and one of those things is usually a full-length book, not just a design.
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I have to rise to the occasion each time, and that’s exactly the way it should be.
What has been your biggest career high and your biggest career low? High: “Jurassic Park.” That will be the first line of my obituary, and I’m extremely proud of that. I have absolutely no regrets. There’s nothing where I think, oh my God, I’m so ashamed I did X or Y- I mean, I’m really not. There are books that you work on that you are hoping are going to do really well, but that’s not the same – that’s not saying ‘oh my God, I’m so ashamed of that,’ it’s just like saying, ‘well, we did our best and that didn’t work.’
What has been the biggest lesson that you’ve learned during your career? Keep an open mind, develop a thick skin, and if you get a design rejected you really have to look at that as an opportunity to start over and do something better. I know that sounds very Pollyanna-ish, and sometimes you can and sometimes you can’t, but I think that’s just an important lesson in life in general.
What advice would you give someone who wants to follow in your footsteps? Do it because you love it. Do it because you love reading, and because you love books. I wouldn’t say do it for the money, because I’ve done quite well – I have no complaints – but it’s not the kind of graphic design that you go into to make a killing financially. If that’s what you want, I would suggest going into advertising. And, there’s nothing wrong with advertising, it’s just that it pays a lot more. Interview by Alexander Charchar
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New talent Jessica Walsh
What do you do if you’re offered a well paid, even half-decent job straight out of art school? In an uncertain economy and a landscape of unpaid graduate labor, most would say that you take it. But that’s not what Jessica Walsh did. After turning down a graphic design job with Apple for around $100k per year, Walsh instead took a three-month internship with Paula Scher at Pentagram.
Jessica Walsh Image: Stephen Lepitak
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She’d just graduated from Rhode Island School of Design and was determined to follow her dream of working on a range of projects, as opposed to being under the thumb of a single brand.
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Branding Izze Fusions
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Walsh extended her branding skills to the creation of her own distinct persona. And whether you love or hate the notion of design celebs, Walsh is memorable.
Who could forget the nude photo announcing her partnership with Stefan Sagmeister to form Sagmeister & Walsh, or the continual stream of love life confessions from her 40 Days of Dating
collaboration with Tim Goodman, or her now very ubiquitous bright papermade sets that fans fawn over on design blogs and in magazines?
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Branding Izze Fusions
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an interview with Massimo Vignelli
A rare interview with a graphic design legend M
assimo Vignelli was one of the few designers I had not personally met prior to our interview, and as a result, I approached the date of our meeting with a certain amount of nervousness. It didn’t help that this was also the only interview wherein I inadvertently stood my subject up. That’s right — I mistakenly scribbled down our mutually agreed upon meeting time in the wrong box of my crude, paper calendar and missed the meetin entirely. In fact, it wasn’t until many hours later that I even realized that I kept Massimo waiting for my arrival. Fortunately for me, he took it in stride, even going so far as graciously suggesting it was better that we didn’t meet that day, as something came up that he need take care of while he waited for me to show up.
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Why did you choose to live in New York? It’s a long story. The quick answer is that we started the company with some friends here in the U.S., and we opened an office in New York. The person who was supposed to run the office got sick. I was in Milan at the time and I was commuting back and forth. I got tired of flying over twice a month, and so we [Vignelli and his wife, Leila] decided to come over and run the office for a while and then go back.
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Massimo NY map Still Influences NYC’s
Subway Maps Today.
Image: Max Touhey
Well, I write all the time. Of course, my English is limited and my writing follows my English. But somehow the writing is better; at least there is less of an accent! I am a maniac about being semantically correct. I find that when I write, I automatically look for the perfect word more often than I do when I speak. I want to have the exact word that says exactly what I mean as precisely as possible.
We’re still here after 40 years. [Laughs.] We’re still here. New York is a fabulous city. It’s like a magnet. I can’t leave anymore. There is nothing that can compare to New York. And it is not even beautiful. There are hundreds, thousands of other cities that are much more
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How important, if at all, is writing to your work?
beautiful. But there is only one New York.
What do you think contributes to making it so special?
It’s the energy. It’s the way people walk, it’s the way people talk. It’s the way people live. You know: In New York, people dress in black all the time.
How would you describe it? To begin with, black has class. It’s the best color. There is no other color that is better than black. There are many others that are appropriate and happy, but those colors belong on flowers. Black is a color that is man-made. It is really a projection of the brain. It is a mind color. It is intangible. It is practical. It works 24 hours a day. In the morning or afternoon, you can dress in tweed, but in the evening, you look like a professor who escaped from college. Everything else has connotations that are different, but black is good for everything. My house is covered in black. This sofa’s black. The chair is black.
Have you always been so driven? Yes. It’s amazing, I have tremendous passion. Tremendous. Curiosity and passion. My passion is bigger, but my curiosity is equally as strong.
You never had any aspirations to do anything else? It was always to be a designer? Exactly. I never thought of doing anything else. Not once in my life. Every book that I was reading, every preference was devoted to architecture and design. No technology or philosophy books. Very few novels. I don’t have a literal mind.
What do you think is the difference between a literary mind and a visual mind? A visual mind is interested in anything that you see, and a literary mind is interested in anything you think. A literary mind is interested in people. A visual mind is interested in things, objects, nature. This doesn’t mean that you look and don’t think.
Of course, you do that, too. But a literary mind is more prone to thinking than looking visually. They like to read. They like to analyze things from a psychological point of view. Writers like this write about isolation, and some write about being together. Each one investigates one action of the mind. And the mind, being as complex as it is, is an endless source of investigation.
How would you define elegance of the mind? I would define intellectual elegance as a mind that is continually refining itself with education and knowledge. Intellectual elegance is the opposite of intellectual vulgarity. We all know vulgarity very well. Elegance is the opposite.
I have to ask: What would you consider to be vulgar? Vulgarity is something underneath culture and education. Anything that is not refined. There are manifestations of primitive cultures or ethnic cultures that could be extremely refined and elegant, but don’t belong to our kind of refinery or culture. Culture is the accumulation of at least 10,000. You can really say that intellectual elegance is the by-product of refinement. One of the greatest things about vulgarity is that it tends to continuously disappear. My friend Umberto Eco wrote a book about beauty, and now he’s writing a book about ugliness. He told me the last time I saw him that it was much more difficult to write a book about ugliness than to write one about beauty. It’s the same with vulgarity, in a sense.
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The man who made NYC’s iconic subway map.
Image: Max Touhey
What do you think design is really about? Number one, design is a profession that takes care of everything around us. Politicians take care of the nation and fix things — at least they are supposed to. Architects take care of buildings. Designers take care of everything around us. Everything that is around us, this table, this chair, this lamp, this pen has been designed. All of these things, everything has been designed by somebody.
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I think that it is my responsibility to make the work better than it is. That is my number one priority. The second priority is to decrease the amount of vulgarity around by replacing the vulgarity with things that are more refined.
Massimo and Lella Vignelli at home.
Image: Jessica Mullen
When we work with clients, we make it quite clear from the beginning that we don’t intend to create vulgar things. Most of the time we don’t even have to say this; when a client comes in, they know what we are doing, and they want us to do things for them in this way. So we don’t have too much to fight over! But even in the client discussions, they can see that this is what we want to do.
You let them go? You don’t work with them at all? I never work with middle management. Middle managers are dominated by fear of losing their job, and therefore they have no sense of risk. I always work with the top person, the president or the owner of a company. That’s it.
Only the person at the top can take risk. He’s used to it. That is how he got to the position he is in. He understands what you are doing, and he doesn’t have to report to anybody. He makes his decision, and that’s the way it goes. I don’t believe in market research. I don’t believe in marketing the way its’ done in America. The American way of marketing is to answer to the wants of the customer instead of answering to the needs of the customer. The purpose of marketing should be to find needs — not to find wants. People do not know what they want. They barely know what they need, but they definitely don’t know what they want. They’re conditioned by the limited imagination of what is possible. But very often, when focus groups are conducted, marketers listen to ten people who say they don’t like something, and then they don’t do it. If five people out of ten say they don’t like, they don’t do it. The “researchers” never probe beyond why the people don’t like what they don’t like. This just builds a platform of ignorance. Most of the time, focus groups are built on the pressure of ignorance. Doctors do not operate this way. They don’t conduct a focus group to see if you have cancer or not.
How do you generally start a project? By listening as much as I can. I am convinced the solution is always in the problem. You could do a design that you like, but it doesn’t solve the problem. Design must solve a problem. Then, the design is exciting. But I find it extremely difficult. This is why I respect artists. Without a problem, I don’t exist. Artists are lucky; they can work by themselves. They don’t need a problem. Interview by Debbie Millman
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New Talent Steven Harrington
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Cited as the leader of a contemporary Californian psychedelic-pop aesthetic, Los Angeles–based artist and designer Steven Harrington is best known for his bright, iconic style that encourages a two-way conversation between the artist and viewer.
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Steven Harrington Image: Sjoerd Hannema
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for All star weekend
Steven Harrington collaborates with Nike
There’s a timeless quality to his playful yet contemplative work, which is inspired by California’s mystique, vastly diverse landscape, and thriving mix of cultures. Embracing a multimedia approach, Harrington’s portfolio includes large-scale installations made of plaster and stone, handscreened prints, limitededition books, skateboards, and sculptures. Alongside his commercial work, Harrington has exhibited artwork in Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Berlin, Milan, Barcelona, Tokyo, San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia, Montreal, Melbourne, and Dallas.
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Harrinton’s new collection for Ikea
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Inside out� exhibition at Known gallery recap
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an interview with Milton Glaser
On his most iconic works and the importance of ethics in design O ne of America’s most illustrious graphic designers and renowned graphic artists, Milton Glaser has been breaking boundaries and creating iconic works, such as the “I♥NY’ mark and the Brooklyn Brewery logo, since the 1950s. Born in New York in 1929, he cofounded Push Pin Studios in 1954, a name that became a guiding light for graphic designers everywhere. He later became president and design director for New York Magazine, where he also wrote its most popular column to date, on cheap restaurants in the Big Apple.
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What made you decide to become an artist?
was my primary aim. What I really cared about was effectiveness.
I cannot recall the singular event, but perhaps there’s never a single event. The decision was not a conscious one but came about largely because I enjoyed making things. In fact, there was nothing more pleasurable to me than drawing and discovering I could do things I didn’t know I was capable of.
From your many iconic works, do you have a favourite piece?
Of course, at the beginning of your life, you don’t know what originality is and you derive everything you do know from the existing understanding or history or things you’ve read. I don’t know at what point you become truly original, but the idea of expressing yourself is certainly fundamental to all the so-called creative work. I always wanted the work I did to reflect some aspect of myself, but always knew that it would take some time to find that aspect. At any rate, I have never been conscious that originality
How does it feel to see your ‘I♥NY’ logo so widely used? Did you realise the impact it would have when you designed it? I certainly had no idea of its universal application and it is a profound mystery to me. It is very difficult to understand the dimensions of human preference. Why do you like vanilla better than chocolate? Obviously an individual choice. But works become iconic when they become popular and the reasons for popularity are always complex and peculiar. ‘I love NY’ has lasted far beyond my expectations; it’s lasted so long that I no
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Your artwork for Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits album was inspired by Marcel Duchamp’s selfportrait. Can you briefly outline your creative process for this project? I just start working. I find that once you are on the path it leads you to many solutions. Not all solutions are extraordinary, but at least there is a methodology.
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Doing things differently is a recurring theme throughout your career and has won you much praise and recognition. Have you always strived to be original?
I don’t think of my work as a series of pieces. Rather I always think of what I learned from doing the piece and where it has led me. I see every piece as part of a development of an idea that has to be continued, changed and modified. As I put it in one of my books, one thing leads to another, but this is not an original notion.
longer identify myself as the one that created it, but that doesn’t diminish the pleasure it gives me when I realise it was me.
How do you continue to find new ideas? The problem really is that there are too many new ideas. The question is how do you avoid new ideas as well as deal with the ones you know and make them deeper and more penetrating and more significant. The new is not always the most beneficial realm although in many areas of communication the new is useful because it engages people or surprises people or compels them to ask, what was that question? In any case, the question of finding new ideas is irrelevant.
I Love NY More than Ever, 2001 for the School of Visual Arts. Image: Glasser
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Do you ever suffer from creative block? And if so, what do you do to overcome it? I embrace it. When you are blocked, you know you have something to do. And also it is not a permanent condition. A block basically leads you elsewhere and very frequently that is precisely what is needed. A block comes from doing the same thing too many times and running out of gas. As I frequently quote Picasso, “once you’ve mastered something, you can abandon it”.
How can a designer find the courage to balance commercial pressure with being original and truly creative?
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In a digital era, when “persuasion” has become a dirty word – how does a designer factor in ethics when the client is demanding more clicks and engagement? How do you care about the good of others and still work to achieve some benefit to yourself? That balance is the balance of life and I must say that at this particular time the emphasis has been mostly on the self – on self-fulfilling activities, on ignoring the needs of others. This Trumpian attitude is so persuasive not only in the United States but all over the world. Finally, we must realise we are with others and they are part of our life.
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Well, this is the essential dialectic in the profession and in life itself. Which is what is in it for me? And what is for others? Our great contribution to each other is the fact that we care, we empathise, we are concerned with what other people experience.
That is true in all aspects of life and certainly in commerce. That balance, which is to say what shall I do that is uniquely beneficial to me as opposed to what benefits all others, is a question of life. Unfortunately, it is not frequently asked. My fundamental response is – am I doing harm?
Milton Glaser is among the most celebrated graphic designers in the United State
Image: Catalina Kulczar
Is capitalism and the need for growth too strong a power against ethics in design? There are always oppositions to ethics since the dawn of history. Although, of course, capitalism and its emphasis on money and fame have amplified that idea to a point of overwhelming selfinterest. At one point, we have to wake up and realise that civilisation itself is at stake if this characteristic continues and becomes amplified even more than it is today.
Have you ever suffered from imposter syndrome? I don’t know what you mean by an imposter. Pretending to be what you are not? I certainly use the entire world as a resource and feel that anything should be used as a starting point if it leads you to somewhere. Actually, if you are stealing from someone else it doesn’t lead you anywhere. The purpose of the work, to begin with, is to discover what is real. This is the highest objective of working in the arts. You cannot discover that if you are simply replicating somebody else’s discoveries.
You were born and bred in New York. What is it that you love about the city so much? I have no idea what I love about it just that I was born and bred here. I have the affiliation of familiarity and also the fact that the city is unlike any other place on the earth – a resource full of liveliness, imagination, contrast, contradiction and everything else that is required to avoid boredom. I wouldn’t know where else to live.
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The great thing about drawing is that it forces you to pay attention and attentiveness, in the Buddhist sense, is the one way we have to understand what is real.
What’s changed in the design industry, for better and for worse, since you started? What has gotten much worse is the degree of professionalisation and marketing that now exists in the field. That basically aims at repeating what has succeeded in the past. Attempts to succeed by doing what has already been done has some short-term benefits and long-term disasters. There is a conflict between selling things and making things. If you sell things you always want to begin with what has already been sold. When you make things you hope you make something that has never been made. This fundamental conflict is a dialectic that exists in the design profession and it can not be reconciled.
Do you have any frustrations with the industry today? Yes, many frustrations. Mostly there is too much plagiarism, too much repetition, too little good ideas, too many modest skills, too many people being praised for too little invention.
Do you think computers and the digital revolution are making designers lazy? I don’t know what laziness means here. It is certainly avoiding some difficulty. Avoiding difficulty is not the only way to live and, unfortunately, it also makes people unwilling to engage in the most difficult things in their life.
As a result, I would say it’s not only the computer, but the change of ethos, the atmosphere, the politics and everything else that has made people experience their life as a search, as I said earlier, for fame and money which is ultimately a search that yields no rewards.
Is there any advice you’ve been given that’s stuck with you? Do good work. It’s advice my junior high school teacher once told me after he understood that I was not going to be a scientist. I had chosen the road of art. Nevertheless, he gave me a box of contact crayons and told me “do good work”. Those words have never diminished in my mind.
Do you think drawing is the only way to do “good work”? No, I never said that drawing was the only way to do good work, but its benefit is that it connects the brain to the neurons in your arm and your hand so there is some kind of connection between all the parts of your body that is engaged in observation. The great thing about drawing is that it forces you to pay attention and attentiveness, in the Buddhist sense, is the one way we have to understand what is real. Interview by Katy Cowan
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New Talent Marta Veludo
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Marta Veludo is currently working in Amsterdam as graphic designer and art director. Inspired by popculture, folk art, pound shops and Tumblr and fascinated by inventions, colour, movement and compositions.
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Marta Veludo Image: Danielle Cristofoli
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She designs and conceptualises for both cultural and commercial fields. Whether in the digital realm or on a three-dimensional scale, she combines different disciplines and mediums to build engaging experiences. Oh we nearly forgot to mention her beautiful colour palette?
A fresh identity for the Bookstore Foundation
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Reebok Creative Hub celebrates the 25 years of Ventilator
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A funky pattern design to celebrate Mr.Frank’s 3rd anniversary
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an interview with Stefan Sagmeister
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The designer who follows his instinct
tefan Sagmeister is a designer who has been following his instinct and intuition to the fullest, having gained recognition for his unique, and often provocative, visual explorations. It’s possibly his very personal and almost self-centric way to design that leads to his original approach. On May 31, 19 years after starting his NYC studio he once again surprised the crowds with renaming to Sagmeister & Walsh in a ‘trademark’ Sagmeister fashion - naked in the studio. Do we have to gather in the economical centres of the world in order to do better graphic design?
So, there is now just much higher usage of design and products, but also in the making of them, and in the thinking about them.
Design by its own definition, not only communication design but also product design—from a broader point of view, they’re about the interaction of humans. Now, you have more interactions of humans in cities. Bigger concentration, much higher density than you’d have in the countryside. Consequently, as a designer, I’m invited a lot to different places around the world, and they’re almost without exception cities.
At the same time though, technology allows us to do fantastic work anywhere. And this is true for young designers. I’ve seen colleges outside of cities. They do amazing work that uses the remoteness, as part of their limitations [as designers], and turn it to their advantage. I’ve also seen design companies, being in provincial areas, who do brilliant work.
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So, in the years to come, will designers be more able to live anywhere and do work anywhere? In a sense, I would say, because you can technically do it. But, obviously, the density of information and the experiences will be probably more for the cities than the countryside. So, I could see this working beautifully for a limited period of time, and I’m actually going to move for a year to the countryside to do exactly that—try a different style of working. I will be in Indonesia, quite far away from any urban centre. I’d have to fly to Jakarta or Singapore. That’ll be for a year, but I don’t think that I’d want to do this for the rest of my life.
From a single point of view, even as a student, I looked for jobs that allowed work that I thought was good. And for sure, when we started the studio, right from the start, we tried to do work that we could be satisfied with. That’s what I felt it was best doing.
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Where there sacrifices you had to do to allow yourself this freedom? There were not many sacrifices involved. What I did, was that I designed a situation for myself, where the studio would need very little money. Our overheads were very, very small, so we didn’t get into this “difficulty” of having to have a lot of income and then having to take on jobs that we wouldn’t be happy with.
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Which was there the point in your career that you managed to start working on your own terms? Was it difficult in the beginning?
I don’t think that you can open a studio and do mediocre work to make money and somehow switch over to good stuff. I haven’t seen it happen. Because everything that they [your clients] do, reflects on everything that you do. If you do a lot of mediocre work, it’s going to attract a lot of mediocre clients.
Image made entirely of coins, from the typographic book ‘Things I have learned in my life so far’. Image: Sagmeister INC
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Are you bothered about the distinctions between the arts and design? As a consumer or viewer of art and design I don’t care. As a consumer my question is if it’s good or not, not if it’s art or design. As a do-er [creator/maker of it], somehow I have to care. I’ve been asked here and there about it… and on a daily basis there is a distinction as far as the media, distribution methods and functionality of the pieces is concerned. I think that design pieces at large need to be functional, while art pieces at large don’t have to be functional, just be—they don’t have to actually do anything.
In this way you differentiate your work from a fine artist’s work? Designers are active in the discussion of more ethical and responsible practice. Many seek to work for clients committed to a social responsibility (charities etc). In general however, the designer is working for the industry, and often, it may be questionable how seriously big corporations take contemporary issues (like sustainability) outside their PR and marketing agenda. What’s your view on this contradiction? On the one hand designers are sensitive to issues, on the other hand, they do best in strong economies (capitalism). I’m not sure I have very interesting things to say about it. I do believe that it’s going to be some middle-ground over the two. I think that capitalism long ago has found the middle ground. I talked yesterday to a woman who works at Mercedes.
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I would like to see the design company who puts its entire profit into the same thing. It seems to me, if those numbers proved to be true, that some big industry people are much more responsible than the design community. I do see big businesses having some quite inspiring leadership. Therefore, I don’t see that one has to go above the other. In general, I’m a big believer in the human spirit and I think that, centuries after centuries, we are actually getting better and better. By looking at our past and our progress, it seems that we have a good future.I’m not sure that the PR and marketing of big corporations is the mere drive for a more responsible approach.
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Yes, exactly.
She said that they are investing $14 Billion over the next 3 years in environmentally friendly technology. Now, so much money from this company, I actually didn’t believe her at first and then she emailed her boss to get the actual numbers. Mercedes’s annual profit is $4 Billion dollars. So to put [nearly] 3 years worth of profits, solely into environmentally friendly technologies…
On the other hand, I have seen the design community react to catastrophes in the most superficial and silly fashion. I remember back at 9⁄11, the overall response of the design community in New York was to design stupid logos, and load them to the AIGA website. But I do know a lawyer who organised the law community. They did actual beneficial things for their communities. I don’t think that the design community can claim at all to have a leadership in any of these subjects. And even because it’s quite fashionable to slag large corporations, I sometimes see a much more efficient and much more professional and effective way from individual designers.
Back to graphics, you’re a letterer and you enjoy the craftsmanship. Is it equally important for you, the form of the letterforms and the medium (that dictates the outcome)? Both yes. Actually, even when we produce something that is made out of something, the form is not totally driven by that one medium. I’ll give an example. When we did the world limits swimming around in the swimming pool, we sketched that out before, because I didn’t want this air conditioning, tubing material, that we made it out from, solely to dictate the form of that work.
Is craftsmanship a way to be unique in the digital era? Well, I think it was maybe 10 years ago. Specifically, when modernism first came back, and everything was suddenly cold and machine-like, it made a lot of sense to introduce handwriting, but also to introduce a higher level of craft. Right now, craft in almost all artistic directions is a very hot topic. Start with product design, but in art, crafts coming back big time, you see the German painters, who can actually paint, having an unbelievable career. We went through such a long term, maybe two or three decades, where craft didn’t play a role at all, and I mean consciously it didn’t. People who could paint, consciously did not paint. In general, craft is just a function of knowing your tools really well. Knowing your tools very well, on the one hand can be an advantage. On the other hard, I’ve also seen people hooked back into their tools that they know so well, and they stay in their small little section [world] and can’t really get out to see the bigger picture. Personally, I’m most comfortable to go in and out.
Art colleges in Europe don’t seem to teach much crafts any more, do they? In design education, they are much more about what the world does right now. Interestingly, in most graduate schools, being technically good at something is almost a bad word if you’re talking about contemporary craft. Somebody who is very good in photoshop, is almost universally despised at a grad school. It’s silly. I’m not saying that I’m a friend of people who can do just that and can’t think, but I think a combination of skills matters.
Where do you think design education is going? I could only give you a superficial answer to it, simply because colleges are a very vast system. There are colleges and universities that do a fantastic job. I just came back from the Royal College of Art in London. I saw the work of six design students. And five of them were fantastic, work of a very high level. I also see people in Holland doing work that I can assure you, is far more advanced that anything I was thinking of when I was 23. Much more sophisticated. Their education is so much better, they know much more, they have much more experience than I had at that age. I’m not quite sure why this is. Is it because I have the chance to see these people now? Or because I just never met them when I was 23? But then I see the opposite, people who are being taught by bad professors, and they’re not that successful. So there is a very wide spectrum out there, and if I would be a student now, I would have to do some serious research. Which is relatively easy to do—just look at the work of graduate students, you can tell immediately.
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So, do you think that it depends massively on the school and their practice or philosophy, or the country of study?
In the US if you teach you can do it as a hobby. I do teach 3 hours a week, but I can’t be available to my students during the week. I just talked to [a designer who] I think is the best poster designer alive. He’s teaching in Stuttgart, and he has all he needs, [which] allows him to leave a part of his practice and take teaching seriously. And he does that. And you see the outcome, because he’s available to his students.
On the contrary, in the US and many other countries you have to do either teaching or design. Although there are great designers also doing full time teaching, you have mediocre [medium level] designers who become full time faculty staff. This may be a generalization, but you certainly have people who flee to academia because they’re not that good in real life. Then, of course, they will have the time to lead the students. At the same time, people who are very good outside, they can only come in very punctually. That’s why I think, actually, the current system here seems to work brilliantly, where very good designers can dedicate a serious amount of their lives to teaching. Interview by Spyros Zevelakis
Poster Lou Reed Image: Sagmeister INC
Oh no, of course there are a couple of star schools across the world, and there are some countries that really figured out how to school design education—Germany being one of them. If I would have to pick one, anywhere in [the world] where I can see the most, I’d think of Germany. Considering that these four, five schools, don’t refer to themselves as being the best… I think education here (Germany) is fantastic! If I would live in a country, like the US, where art education is unbelievably expensive, I’d probably go through the trouble to learn the German language and get my education there.
I know that there are protests here because they are now paying €500 a semester here. And you pay $18,000 a semester in the in the US. And education is really good. I talked to teachers that are very good designers, and the government pays them salaries that they can give up a part of their profession, and it’s actually doable.
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New Talent Leta Sobierajski
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Leta Sobierajski is an independent designer and art director based in New York City combining traditional graphic design elements with photography, art, and styling to create utterly unique visuals.
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Leta Sobierajski Image: Herbert Dyer
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The creation of a set of wallpapers for the Google Pixel2
Her work is incredibly diverse, ranging from conventional identities to brilliantly bizarre compositions. As of October 2016, Leta began a design studio with her husband and collaborator, Wade Jeffree, in which they focus their unusual eye on projects ranging from branding, art direction, installation, to video.
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She studied graphic design at Purchase College and has been working independently since 2013. Her client list includes Adobe, Bloomberg Businessweek, D.S. & Durga, Google, Gucci, IBM, The New York Times, Refinery 29, Renault, Sßddeutsche Zeitung Magazin, Target, Tate Modern, and UNIQLO among many others. She has been recognized as an Art Directors Club Young Guns 15 recipient as well as Print magazine’s New Visual Artist, and has given talks at conferences all over the world including North America, South America, Europe, and Australia.
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Exhibition in Tokyo, Music to your eyes
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GLOSSARY AIGA The American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) is a professional organization for design. Its members practice all forms of communication design, including graphic design, typography, interaction design, branding and identity.
BROOKLYN BREWERY Brooklyn Brewery is a brewery in Brooklyn, New York City, United States. It was started in 1988 by Steve Hindy and Tom Potter. JURASSIC PARK Jurassic Park is a 1990 science fiction novel written by Michael Crichton. A cautionary tale about genetic engineering, it presents the collapse of an amusement park showcasing genetically re-created dinosaurs to illustrate the mathematical concept of chaos theory and its real world implications. MARVEL COMICS Marvel Comics is the brand name and primary imprint of Marvel Worldwide Inc., formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, a publisher of American comic books and related media. In 2009, The Walt Disney Company acquired Marvel Ent., Marvel Worldwide’s parent company. PAULA SCHER Paula Scher is an American graphic designer, painter and art educator in design. She also served as the first female principal at Pentagram, which she joined in 1991.
ROYAL COLLEGE OF ART Royal College of Art is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. The only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the world, it offers postgraduate degrees in art and design to students from over 60 countries. TATE MODERN Tate Modern is a modern art gallery located in London. It is Britain’s national gallery of international modern art and forms part of the Tate group. It is based in the former Bankside Power Station, in the Bankside area of the London Borough of Southwark. TUMBLR Tumblr is an American microblogging and social networking website founded by David Karp in 2007 and currently owned by Automattic. The service allows users to post multimedia and other content to a short-form blog. UMBERTO ECO Umberto Eco was an Italian novelist, literary critic, philosopher, semiotician, and university professor. He is widely known for his 1980 novel Il nome della rosa a historical mystery combining semiotics in fiction with biblical analysis, medieval studies, and literary theory.
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INDEX A
AIGA 52
B Brooklyn Brewery 33
J Jurassic Park 09
M Marvel Comics 08

P Paula Scher 10
R Royal College of Art 53
T Tate Modern 63 Tumblr 40
U Umberto Eco 21
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