MER VYN KUR LAN
UN TITL ED ONE an arrangment of pixels to simulate the form of a magazine. volume one, issue one. www.jimmyball.com/untitled
Generally, a first issue like this starts off with a grand vision of what it’s all about, and all that blah blah blah. This one is not so grand. Untitled will be an irregular digital publication of things I find interesting. People, books, places and so on. So why not a blog? Truth is, I don’t have that much to say. And I prefer the visual flow of a book or magazine. And while this issue may be short on visuals, that will change. On the subject of change, each issue will also have a dramatically different look and feel this issue takes it’s cue from Mervyn’s work for The Image Bank, where I was priviledged to work for him on many projects. Enjoy.
Mervyn Kurlansky was born in Johannesburg, South Africa and studied at the Central School of Art and Design in London in the early 60s. In 1969 he joined Crosby/ Fletcher/Forbes, and from there co-founded the international design consultancy Pentagram. He left Pentagram in 1993 to live and work in Denmark, and recently relocated to Devon, England. Mervyn’s work is in the permanent collection at the MoMA in New York, and has been published worldwide, and won countless awards. He is a past president of ICOGRADA, as well as past chairman of it’s Design Seminar series and member of the Alliance Graphique International, a Fellow of the Chartered Society of Designers, a husband, a father and one of the nicest men you will ever meet.
My first question is an echo of your 1999 ICOGRADA Design Seminar poster - how did you get here and where are you going? As a teenager at high school, we had to do military training every Thursday afternoon. My school was affiliated to the signals core, and apart from learning to march, we had lessons in radio communication - I also played trumpet in the school military band as well as in a jazz band with my school mates I had always enjoyed drawing and my mother encouraged  this and sent me off to private oil painting lessons. After Graduating from high school I went straight into compulsory military peace time training over a three year period When I completed my training, I was faced with making a career decision; attending university and studying fine art, music or architecture or whatever, or getting a job. By this time I had had enough of institutions and mistakenly thought that university was more of the same. Besides something was stirring in me that as yet had no name in my part of the world - Graphic Design - later to be known as visual communication. The closest was something they called commercial art and adverting. However what was being done in South Africa in this field did not inspire me at all. There were no art or design schools at that time and the situation seemed hopeless. However a friend of the family who ran a printing firm, offered to take me on as an apprentice in the commercial art department and it was here that I received my basic training in designing for print. Some three years later – it was 1958 and I was 22 years old,  I left South Africa for England. My attempts to get work in London met with
some resistance - the London design industry considered South Africa to be at least 100 year behind the times then, and was not about to risk employing anyone who had no London experience. I had enrolled in litho printing evening classes at the Central School of Art and Crafts, as it was known as then, and on the advice of the teacher, I had an interview with the head of the Graphic Design Department who thought I had talent but had no idea how to use it. His simple question, `What do you really want to be?´ And my simple answer, `The best graphic designer (if that´s what it´s called) that I can possibly be! And his concluding remark, ´Then attend art school full time´, sealed my fate. My early teenage influences in radio communication, art, music and my apprenticeship in design for print, came together during the next eighteen months, under the guidance of some remarkable teachers and fellow students, and my career in visual communication was launched. The majority of my work has been two dimensional except for the occasional foray into the realm of three dimensional design such as when designing way finding systems or packaging. Now I am drawn more towards three dimensional design and in particular, sculpture. So where am I going? Back to art school I guess!
...THE WORLD IS IN CRISIS AND I BELIEVE ...THE WORLD IS IN THAT DESIGNERS CRISIS AND I BELIEVE ARE THE ONE GROUP THAT DESIGNERS OF PEOPLE WHO THE ONE GROUP ARE UNIQUELY OF PEOPLE WHO POSITIONED TO ARE UNIQUELY BRING ABOUT THE POSITIONED TO MUCH NEEDED BRING ABOUT THE TRANSFORMATION MUCH NEEDED IN THE WORLD. TRANSFORMATION INTHEWORLD. ...THE WORLD IS IN CRISIS AND I BELIEVE THAT
DESIGNERS ARE THE ONE GROUP OF PEOPLE WHO ARE UNIQUELY POSITIONED TO BRING ABOUT THE MUCH NEEDED TRANSFORMATION IN THE WORLD.
You serve on many juries for student and professional work; what are you seeing in today’s designers that excites you? If we are still talking about graphic design/visual communication, in which case my answer is, not much. This, I think is inevitable. The industry reached maturity in the late 20th century and we are now mostly just cruising and recycling.  It´s impossible to be innovative when thinking in the old paradigm. However hope is in sight. Your next question offers an answer.
Through your teaching and practice you are (and have been for decades) a very visible and vocal design advocate, so the next question is: Can design truly change the world - and what does that world look like? In the latter part of the last century, in the so called western societies, design helped to bring about the change that was needed at the time. This was the growth of business and the generation of wealth which led to the advanced stage of consumerism we are witnessing today, and to globalisation with all its benefits and disadvantages. At its worst, we see that consumerism and globalisation are destroying the biodiversity of cultures and of species and bringing about dramatic and devastating change in our climate patterns. We know, the world is in crisis and I believe that designers are the one group of people who are uniquely positioned to bring about the much needed transformation in the world. Not only do they have the imagination but they also have the ability to manifest their ideas, not only can they imagine a future, they can also make it happen. The questions are: Do we have what it takes to rise to the challenge? Will we embrace the principles of sustainable living, which means making the effort to learn what those principles are? Can we change our design aesthetic to meet the real needs of people? Do we have the courage to stand up to our clients and decline to do anything that adds to the destruction
WE WILL WE WILL CREATE CREATE NATURAL, NATURAL, LOCAL LOCAL ABUNDANCE ABUNDANCE NOT NOT SCARCITY. SCARCITY. WE WILL WE WILL HAVE A NEW HAVE A NEW AESTHETIC AESTHETIC BASED ON BASED ON VALUES VALUES OF SOCIAL OF SOCIAL JUSTICE AND JUSTICE AND SUSTAINABLE SUSTAINABLE LIVING. WE LIVING. WE WILL HAVE WILL HAVE A CRAFT A CRAFT RENAISSANCE. RENAISSANCE. WE WILL CREATE NATURAL, LOCAL ABUNDANCE NOT SCARCITY. WE WILL HAVE A NEW AESTHETIC BASED ON VALUES OF SOCIAL JUSTICE AND SUSTAINABLE LIVING. WE WILL HAVE A CRAFT RENAISSANCE.
of our planet and the species who inhabit it, or does our economic need drive us to acquiesce to the pressure to conform to the needs of the business world alone? There are some designers who have been bold enough to take up the challenge. William McDonough is one, and there are many others. I recommend his book Cradle to Cradle, Written with Michael Braungart, if you have not already come across it. So yes to your question, can design truly change the world. As to what it will look like much depends on the individual practitioners. Here, though, are some ideas that are being experimented with in pockets around the world: It will give power back to the people. We will do things locally, such as grow our own food, develop safe, clean energy systems. Local initiatives will network globally. We will create natural, local abundance not scarcity. We will encourage and nurture biodiversity. We will eat less food and more healthy food. We will turn waste into food. We will use materials that are either biodegradable or recyclable (that means we can still have our high tech stuff). We will have a new aesthetic based on values of social justice and sustainable living. We will have a craft renaissance. We will create an abundant life for all.
You wrote an interesting essay in Pentagram’s Living by Design on packaging - it was written in the mid-seventies and while you discuss the benefits to packaging, you also talk about post-consumer waste and sustainability when perhaps only a handful of people could even conceive of the problems that would create for us today. Can you talk about your philosophy and practice on environmental/sustainability issues, and on The International Centre for Creativity, Innovation and Sustainability - ICIS as well as your and Karen’s (Blincoe, Mervyn’s wife) involvement there as well? Although I was aware of the problem then, I must confess that I did little about it, other than to give voice to it. In hindsight, I think it may have been a missed opportunity. However, as I have said, design was on a course to help develop commerce, and Pentagram was at the forefront, pioneering an aesthetic that was of its time. It wasn´t until the eighties when I met Karen, that some designers were beginning to pioneer a new aesthetic, which had the environment at its centre, and she was one of them. When we moved to Denmark in the nineties, we decided to take action, to live according to our shared values, which was then, mainly about the protection of our environment. We bought a small farm, surrounded by woods, and started organic farming. We created a lake with fish to attract wild life to our land, such as deer, foxes, heron and ducks. Karen attended a course in Sustainability at the Schumacher College in Devon, England which ran courses in holistic science and deep ecology, based on Ghandian principles of teaching and learning. This inspired her to leave her job as Head of Visual Communication at Denmarks Design School and start up ICIS, which is an educational platform running courses in sustainable design, professional and personal development and leadership, in which I have played a minor role. Two years ago she returned to Schumacher College to take up the post of Director. ICIS is currently running a pilot study with several educational institutions in Europe, to develop models for teaching sustainable design.
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In his essay for your book, Masters Of 20th Century Design, Steven Heller wraps up with an interesting point about balance, specifically between the client and self, I am curious as to how you approach that balance in your work. At Pentagram we shared a philosophy that was first articulated by Charles and Ray Eames in the late fifties: That if you consider the area of interest of the design office, the area of interest of the client, and the area of interest of society as a whole, then it is in the area of overlapping interest that the designer works with enthusiasm and conviction.
Today I would say that the new challenge for design is that it fulfils the following criteria: Financial responsibility, environmental responsibility, social responsibility and something that is difficult to define. It has to do with respect or reverence for all things. Some may call it spirituality (not to be confused with religion).
IDESIGN THINK THAT ALL I THINK THAT ALL DE-I SHOULD SIGN SHOULD ASPIRE ASPIRE TO THE TO THE LEVEL OF ART. LEVEL OF ART. I ALSO BELIEVE THAT ART I THINK THAT ALL ALSO BELIEVE THAT IS AT ITS MOST POWDESIGN SHOULD ART IS AT ITS MOST ERFUL WHEN IT TO CAUSES ASPIRE TO THE POWERFUL WHEN YOU TO THINK, WHEN LEVEL OF ART. I IT CAUSES YOU IT CHALLENGES YOUR ALSO BELIEVE THAT THINK, WHEN IT MUNDANE VIEW OF THE IS AT ITS MOST CHALLENGES YOUR WORLD. POWERFUL WHEN MUNDANE VIEW OF THEART WORLD. I THINK THAT ALL DESIGN SHOULD ASPIRE TO THE LEVEL OF ART. I ALSO BELIEVE THAT ART IS AT ITS MOST POWERFUL WHEN IT CAUSES YOU TO THINK, WHEN IT CHALLENGES YOUR MUNDANE VIEW OF THE WORLD.
I had read that you are a painter and jazz musician, and in the same article you mentioned Malevich, whose work (along with Ad Reinhardt) I admire a great deal, so I was very interested to hear more about your artistic tastes and how Art has had an impact or influence on your life and work?
Profoundly! Someone said (embarrassingly I have forgotten who), that all art aspires to the level of music. I think that all design should aspire to the level of art. I also believe that art is at its most powerful when it causes you to think, when it challenges your mundane view of the world. So too is design at its most powerful when it does the same.
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To continue that idea - design at it’s most powerful - would you verbally curate a handful - a mini gallery exhibit - of works that have impacted you? 1 During my student days in 1960 our class was take to an exhibition at the Whitechapel Art Gallery by the teacher of the foundation course who was a fine artist by the name of Peter Coviello. There was an exhibition on at the time, of the work of Malevich. I was awestruck by the work although I was not sure how to relate to it. Peter told me it was like hearing a foreign language for the first time. You might either like the sound of it or not, but if you wanted to understand it, you would have to learn the language I was inspired by what Peter had said. I have always been fascinated by the structure of things be it natural or manmade and I guess this comes out in my work. 2 Another great influence that occurred during my art school days, was when I came across a book on the work of the architect le Corbusier. Inspired by his grids, I decided to create, as a school project, a series of grids for myself, based on the golden mean. This experience resurfaced time and again in my professional career, and I found myself creating grids for much of my work 3 During a visit to New York in the early seventies, I took time out to see a retrospective of Van Gogh´s paintings at the Metropolitan Museum. This was the first time I had seen any of his originals and I was simply mesmerized by the sheer energy in the environment captured in his brush strokes. It taught me to look more closely at things. 4 The year before I left South Africa, I had been given a Graphis Annual full of wonderful images. Two in particular
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leapt off the page and virtually exploded in my head, and I knew what I had to do next. They were examples of the work of the Swiss Graphic designer Joseph Muller Brockman, and the seed was sewn for leaving my home country for Europe to study Graphic Design 5 Within a short time of arriving in London, there was a film showing at one of the cinemas entitled, Man with the Golden Arm starring Frank Sinatra. Quite a good movie but it was the poster that made the real impact on me. I discovered that it was by an American designer by the name of Saul Bass. He became my second design hero, and some years later, a true friend. 6 I visited New York for the first time in 1965 and went to see the world fair. The IBM stand consisted of a giant golf ball as used in their typewriters. Visitors were seated in a huge stand which was then elevated into the inside of the ball through an opening in the base. The inside became an auditorium and several screens of different sizes were suspended from the ceiling on which different parts of a film were shown. The viewer was able to see various scenes taking place in the past, the present, and the future all at once. From that day on I saw reality completely differently The designers were Ray and Charles Eames 7 I could go on forever finding examples of great works that have inspired and influenced me but I will stop here with my fourth design hero, Herb Lubalin, who also became a great friend of mine. His work for the magazine, Avante garde, was awesome as was his mural at CBS in collaboration with Lou Dorfsman the then art director of CBS graphics. And that´s another story.
Here is an interesting quote attributed (correctly or not, I can’t say) to Isamu Noguchi: “We are a landscape of all we have seen.” Given that design (and drawing, photography and painting) is more than the act itself, and essentially about seeing - can you describe your landscape? I don´t know if this is the type of answer you´re looking for but here goes: I think that what we see is conditioned by our programming, whether it comes from early childhood experiences or our DNA, therefore what we see may well be an illusion. Having said that my landscape is about a sense of abundance and enrichment. I feel very privileged. I am forever optimistic and hopeful. I am working on being at peace and learning to accept things the way they are, or the way I imagine them to be. My experiences have been profound, magical, mystical, mysterious and beautiful. I regard the evil in the world as a manifestation of our denial of that which is within us all, to some degree or other. The challenge for me is how to conduct myself through this obstacle course with dignity and faith, integrity and authenticity.
Thank you Mervyn! It has been, as always, a pleasure to talk with you. It has been interesting and quite enlightening, and am very thankful you have shared your time with me. For more information or to contact Mervyn, visit www.kurlanskydesign.dk October 2008 Note: the interview was originally planned to run in Taxi in early 2009 but got lost in an editorial team change, so here it is.
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