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03. What was it like working with David Bowie on his past two album covers? 04. How did you meet David Bowie and do you have any plans to work with him again. 05. Do you have any intention to change your "style?" 06. Can I have some free fonts? 07. What’s the main problem you often have with the clients? 08. What do you usually do on your spare time? How does it help your career? 11. Why do you hate Helvetica? 12. How did you come to do the Roppongi Hills logo and do you like Roppongi Hills? 14. And finally how about your book 'Barnbrook Bible’, when is it coming out?
01. We are a couple of years on now from the last interview, this time its going to be questions that people have submitted, I've chosen a mixture, some which I am sure you have been answered many times already, some a little more obscure. Promise you will answer them all truthfully. Uh huh...not wishing to sound like a politician but I will answer them to the best of my abilities at this moment in time.
02. That'll do... first question is a not terribly original one this, but... how has your work or life changed since the last questionnaire? I think things have got a lot worse for freedom of speech and I think things have got a lot better for awareness of problems like corporate power and globalisation, they are on the agenda of every political party now, they may only be making half hearted gestures toward these issues but this is a better situation than we were in a few years ago and things will change because of it, all through history pressure from the public has instigated change and I can see this happening on these issues. However it seems much more difficult to protest, especially in my home country the UK. The kind of work we do has polarised, much more time is taken up with political work, and we have had a number of exhibitions featuring only political stuff. We have also taken our work onto the streets much more, engaging in protest to a greater extent. I think this is because in some respects the world is a lot more extreme in its politics than it was five years ago. In contrast I think that we have had a lot of bigger projects, we designed the corporate identity for Roppongi Hills and Mori Arts Center in Tokyo, plus working on some more 'mature' typefaces like Bourgeois and Priori.
03. So now onto a submitted question, the first one from someone just calling himself ziggyfan “What was it like working with David Bowie on his past two album covers?” It was interesting on many levels. People who love David Bowie's music will be pleased to know that he was a perfect gentleman. He was very astute as to what was right for him and the audience. Also something that was completely unexpected was how self-deprecating and humorous he was. You would imagine with that much adulation in your life it could turn you a bit and make you quite difficult but I think humour is his way of dealing with it. The actual process of working on it with him was relatively uncomplicated; of course I tried my absolute best as you feel that you are adding to pop history when you design an album cover for somebody like Bowie. It was just that he treated me as an equal, listened to what I had to say and if he didn’t agree with what I had done he would say why. I wish others clients were that honest and straight with me. There were also a few bits that I didn't expect, students who want to hijack any talk I am in and discuss him all the time. I wouldn't mind this so much if it was interesting for the other students, but I think most of the time it is not. The other one is receiving letters from people who think they have lived parallel lives to him and want me to pass on letters to him or his contact details, neither of which I am prepared to do. Finally there was one obsessive who kept phoning the studio to ask if we were sending out messages about her and Bowie together in the design. It was a little scary. The phone calls thankfully ended after a couple of weeks. I am sorry if he has to deal with that kind of thing all the time.
04. How did you meet David Bowie and do you have any plans to work with him again. I think it was through Damien Hirst, but I am not sure, David Bowie phoned me up out of the blue and asked to pop around to our studio. I actually did a book for his wife Iman before I worked on his album covers. So I had various conversations with him already. I hope I am not gushing too much about him but he went completely beyond the call of duty for making an effort with me, invited me down to his rehearsal studio and played 'heroes' to me and three other people (one of which was Liv Tyler, yes it was a complete adolescent boy's dream), I also took my mother to new York, David and Iman made sure she was OK, and made sure there was a welcoming present for her when she arrived at the hotel, that was really nice of them. As to working with him again, I am of course more than happy to, but it is up to him. If he is still happy with working with me, I would gladly do the next album. We are possibly doing a little project together soon but I will wait to see if it happens before I say any more.
05. This is sent in from Jude in Sydney, Australia “do you have any intention to change your ‘style?” I don’t really understand that question, if he means by 'style' the way the work 'looks', I would like to let him now that there is no conscious look to it, it is first and foremost based on what I think communicates most effectively. I am not concerned in obscuring content. All of the work I do commercial and non-commercial is an attempt to solve a communication problem. Just because the work does not do this in necessarily the most expected way doesn’t mean that it a 'style' obviously there are certain visual things that appeal to me which I would use more than once, that is for the purposes of either using a visual symbols which I think people can understand or to further the experimentation with that symbol, I have never designed a piece of work so that it looks like it has come from 'me' that would be disingenuous.
06. Next question is actually from many, many students “Can I have some free fonts?” Eh?, Although I am little more lenient about students using unauthorised copies of my fonts, I am not going to hand them out like bloody sweets, so there is no point in them asking. Next question.
07. From janicef in Newport, Wales, “What’s the main problem you often have with the clients?” Well I hope that most of my clients are very happy to work with us but I think some of them don't respect the role of a designer enough. They see you as just a 'service' often. Which means that they will try and change your work because they think they can or think they know better. Usually they don't. However I rarely let things get to a confrontational stage. Always there should be a discussion before things get too difficult. Design is an open process. But you should stand up for what you believe in.
08. From Jin in china “What do you usually do on your spare time? How does it help your career?” I don't have much spare time, however I like to do what many other artistic people do, read books, go to see exhibitions. I make music as well. Friends are of course very important to me. It helps my 'career' by not thinking about being a designer as a 'career', my life and work are not separate. I am not actually interested in any kind of 'career' I just want to be true to the people who commission me and the things I believe in.
09. From Pablo in Argentina, “This question is not really about design, I just wondered what kind of music you are listening to right now?” If I was listening to crap at the moment I am unlikely to admit it but luckily I am listening to The Velvet Underground, they are one of my favourite bands, I also really like The Doors and The Clash and Kraftwerk. I know these are quite 'old' bands, I have to admit that for a few years I wasn’t that connected with the music scene, but recently in Britain there has been some really good stuff coming out. I really like the Kaiser Chiefs, their attitude to the music they make in relation to where they come from is very pure. I hope that my work is like that too, it is a product very much of my surroundings. I, like everybody else at the moment (March 2006) have also been listening to the Arctic Monkeys, (I am disappointed that none of them are real monkeys of course), they also have a really untainted energy in their music. The most talented though I think are Franz Ferdinand, even though their last album cover was appalling, they seem to be at the top when it comes to writing good pop songs. music is really important to me, I think it is one of the first things that got me into design was album covers of the bands I liked, if the cover was good then it really enhanced your experience of the music. The music in turn loaded the graphics with some kind of 'magic'. I didn’t know what graphic design was at the time but I knew somehow when I grew up I wanted to be involved in that kind of thing. I also I have to say listen to lots of comedy, Chris Morris is my hero particularly the 'Bluejam' radio series, for those who do not know his work, go out and find out about it now. The other comedians I like are Monty Python, Ricky Gervais and of course Saint Bill Hicks who was speaking the truth many years before it was fashionable.
10. This is from tel58 in California “There are plenty of designers who claim that they are 'politically correct' they rant about corporations yet they seem very happy to take the money from them and don’t seem to do in their life outside design what they ask everybody else to do in their work. Are you one of these people, for instance do you do charity work? Do you have a large car? Do you turn down work from companies that you don’t agree with?” I am a bit sick of 'political correctness' in design Goodness I hope the person who sent that in isn’t too young, I wouldn’t want them to be quite that cynical if they were still studying now. I have said many times that I don't believe your work is separate form your life, it's part of it, so I regard what I do in design as an extension of my philosophy in the way I live my life rather than the other way around. So in short, although I am not perfect I do try to practice what I preach as a good citizen in everything that I do. We don’t work with companies we don’t agree with, which has cost us a lot of money. I see some of my contemporaries for instance working for companies like Nike and I know they are probably making a fortune. I live in a modest house and get to work on a bicycle I have had for 10 years, or the subway. We do charity work, but not as often as we would like. We often contact charities that we would like to work with because it doesn't happen as often as it should, and a cause you believe in is of course, one of the best motivations for doing good work. I also try and consume responsibly, which is a pain when I can't just go to Starbucks or drink Coca-Cola when it is offered, but although sometimes I lapse, in general I think its worth the effort as it does make a difference. So what we say is not a pose to get more publicity or anything like that, if anything it creates a lot of problems and costs money. Regarding the political correctness, there are occasions when it has gone to far, for the most part though people who dismiss it are too lazy to modify or think about others they may offend or harm with what they say. We should be careful and not lump positive attempts to redress imbalance in society in with a term that has become shorthand for dismissing anything that takes a bit of effort.
11. Ironlamb asks “Why do you hate Helvetica?” Do I hate Helvetica? I didn’t realise. I suppose when I was younger I had a problem with it, but then I thought I was fighting some kind of battle with modernism, it seemed such a dull way to interpret the world. Modernism, from being a socialist/utopian-based movement had become the opposite, the mainstream, in with the capitalists. That battle is kind of over now though which is both good and bad. It’s actually very difficult in the modern world to be certain about anything. I am surprised that it doesn’t result in more design paralysis when I sit down and work. Hang on, actually I do still hate Helvetica, I hate design groups who try and make something look 'cool' by using Helvetica light, its so boring. I also hate a phrase that a few of my art teachers used to say occasionally which was 'when in doubt use Helvetica' it such a lifeless way of looking at typography. of course I appreciate its role in design history and the drawing that went into the actual letterforms but there is so much energy culture and excitement represented through letterforms it is pretty much a typeface I would never use.
12. Daikonman, asks “How did you come to do the Roppongi Hills logo and do you like Roppongi Hills?” For people who don’t know, Roppongi Hills is the largest post-war development in Tokyo and Barnbrook Design did the corporate identity for it. You can see the work we did here. The company that owns it, Mori Building Co. Ltd to be part of an international competition, contacted us. We are not quite sure how they got hold of our name, we are very well known in Japan but I think we are hardly a corporate company. Corporate identity was not something that really interested me; I had always thought it was quite a dull area. However we decided if we were going to do a job on this scale it would be on our terms and do a logo that was relatively new in the world of corporate design. Our solution which won the competition was not logo but a series of logos, all based on the same structure which enforced the brand, but all looked different. We were making a comment about identity, that it doesn’t have to be a rigid reinforcement all the time of the same thing, you can say things quietly but they will still be heard. It was also looking at the idea of a corporation at the beginning of the twenty-first century. We didn’t want it to appear like a huge monolithic organisation, it should represent the idea of fragmentation that has affected all areas of society. It was actually the largest job I had worked on and a real eye opener, at one point I was becoming involved in the naming of the streets, it was a completely different kind of permanence to typography. One small thing that annoys me is that we used a new typeface we had designed called Priori for all the signage for the whole of the area, except somebody decided that they didn’t want to use it in the main building where all the staff work, they used Sabon why, I don't know, and it still annoys me every time I visit it. It seems that it was a silly political decision that the design company that did the interior made. I suppose any job that large there are a lot of people involved and of course there are frustrations, however we are very happy with the result and continue to enjoy working with the people at Mori.
13. I will presume this isn’t the actual Kim Jong-il however'the real KJ-il' from Korea has asked, “Why you did the work about North Korea, what did you hope to achieve by doing it, and did you go there for research?” Well when I start a new project, I do it because I feel there is something I want to say to people - that was the reason for starting the North Korean project. There were lots of questions many others and I have had about this renegade Stalinist state. It seemed like it was locked in a time warp, that the population had been brainwashed in such an obvious 'textbook' way it seemed incredible they fell for it. In the west the official political policy is to condemn this country and I would be one of the first to condemn the regime there, but this situation throws up far more questions than most people are prepared to think about. It is a mirror for us to look at our own society. My interest in North Korea coincided with a time that I was reading a lot by the Czech writer Milan Kundera, he obviously comes from a Communist regime and discusses in 'The Book of Laughter and Forgetting''. He talks a lot about the power of dictatorships being the power over collective and individual memory. It related directly to the way the North Korean dictatorship was trying to control their people. The project didn’t really start until I visited Seoul in 2000 for the Oulim Icograda design conference where I met a journalist there called Ran-Young Kim. She was very supportive and gave me a greater understanding of the subject. The collaboration resulted in an exhibition at the Seoul Art Centre of our political work, called "Tomorrow's Truth". I haven’t been to North Korea, I have tried and a couple of times, however all of the agencies that specialise in travel to North Korea refused to submit my application for a visa, because they had seen the work by 'googling' my name. They said that the North Korean Government does the same thing with all applications. (Yes, even dictatorships use google to check people out) and they didn’t want to jeopardise their relationship with the government there. I hope to still go at some point though.
14. And finally how about your book Barnbrook Bible, when is it coming out? Thank you for asking the question... that I...ahem...suggested that you ask me. I have been working on a book of the studio's work for five years and its still not finished yet, this is because I have to do it in-between projects, so the time I can spend on it is limited, I have also decided to do it the hard way, I am writing all of the text myself and integrating it all with 'seamlessly' with the images, so it is very labour intensive. However, we are having an exhibition at the design museum in London in June 2007 so it will come out absolutely definitely then, promise. Ok that’s about it, hopefully for not for more than five years. thanks very much. | ||
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