THE NO ISSUE THEME ISSUE. Second Birthday Edition. PART ONE.
THE NO ISSUE THEME ISSUE. Second Birthday Edition.
*“You told us fancy dress!”
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------CANDY is an independent venture developed to showcase exceptional creativity worldwide through original innovative formats. All informations and visuals contained within this document remain the copyright of the creators, they are simply being shown for the purpose of presentation. No elements of this document may be used, reprinted or transmitted without the prior consent of the publishers and the people featured in the piece being featured. Should any credits be wrong, please contact us and we’ll set it right next issue, you have our word. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Introduction. 50. Aidan Kelly. Alan Clarke. Andrew & Chris Judge. ALLCITY. Allison Leach. April Gertler. Asbestos. Bob Dob. BRENB.
C100. Chloe Early. Clíona O’Flaherty. Conor&David. Frankenstyles. Greg Dunne. Helvetica / Gary Hustwit. Ice Cream For Free. James Jean. Jeremyville. Keith Shore. Jesse LeDoux. Jon Burgerman & TADO. Kanardo. Laura Levine. Lili Forberg.
Loveworn. Marie Louise McCabe. Noel Bowler. Oliver Jeffers. Patrick O’Brien. Peter Evers. Philip Dunne. Phunkstudio. Richard Gilligan. Reginald de Coster. Rekal. Serial Cut. Stanley Donwood. The Designers Republic. Third Eye Design. Tiffany Bozic. Todd Hido. Toygiants. Two Faced. Wes Trumble. Will St. Leger. Wrongwroks. Zoogloo.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------GO ON, SEND US STUFF, THE POSTMAN IS FAT AND NEEDS THE EXERCISE PLUS WE’LL POP A MENTION IN THE NEXT ISSUE!! POSTAL ADDRESS: c/o DYNAMO, 5 UPPER ORMOND QUAY, DUBLIN 7, IRELAND. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------HTTP://WWW.CANDYCULTURE.NET / HTTP://WWW.CANDYCOLLECTIVE.COM © 2007 ME&EYE // HTTP://WWW.MEANDEYE.COM -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Introduction. How time flies eh? It only seems like last week when I fretted and agonised about thst very first edition of Candy magazine. Was it any good, would people get what i was hoping to make it, would anyone even hear about it? 2 years on and I’m still agonising over every little detail, every move, every decision but over this time I’m fortunate to have met an amazing group of people who speak honestly and guide us all to where we’re going, yet we still don’t know where this trip’s final destination is, maybe there none. If you were to say 2 years ago that we’d have produced 10 magazines, let alone 24 and counting SweetTalks all over the world, met lots of my creative heroes and a whole lot besides I’d have scoffed straight back at you but here we are... Bigger, better, bolder and still all about what we set out to achieve, ie, to be a truly independent entity focussed on showcasing exceptional local and international creativity in interesting ways. It will never be about the money, if that was the case we’d be buried a long time ago. We’re here to serve all imagemakers doing good work and we’re also about showing the rest of the world some of the great things that happen outside of their very own homes. We really hope you’ve enjoyed the ride so far as much as we have, I honestly don’t think we’ve even begun to scratch the surface of the possibilities ahead of us but thanks to your support we’re sure we’ll keep doing this for years to come. Better go before I go all Gyneth on your asses, enjoy the 2 birthday special editions and keep up to date with all our goings on at our new site http://www.candycollective.com If you’re ever able to make one of our events do be sure to say hello. Better still, get in touch and we’ll show you how to bring some Candy coated fun to your own hometown.
Front cover & following page. ‘Portrait with Russell and Whitehead (World’s apart?)’ by Oliver Jeffers. http://www.oliverjeffers.com This page. Alan Clarke for Candy at Ultrashock. http://www.stateofshock.net Next page. Richard Seabrooke for Candy at Ultrashock. http://www.stateofshock.net
Keep well and thanks for everything, you’ve been brilliant! Richard Seabrooke. richard.seabrooke@dynamo.ie
WE ARE TWO YEARS YOUNG AND THIS IS WHAT WE HAVE DONE: PUBLISHED 10 ISSUES OF CANDY MAGAZINE WHICH HAVE BEEN DOWNLOADED HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF TIMES WORLDWIDE. PRODUCED 24 LIVE SWEETTALK EVENTS IN BELFAST, BERLIN, COPENHAGEN, DUBLIN, LIMERICK, LONDON & NYC. CURATED MAJOR PROJECTS WITH SONY PSP, HABITAT IRELAND, BLANKA & MANY MORE. YET OUR ORIGINAL GOAL REMAINS TRUE: TO SHOWCASE THE VERY BEST IN INTERNATIONAL CREATIVITY IN INNOVATIVE AND UNIQUE WAYS. THANKS TO EVERY PERSON WHO HAS SUPPORTED ALONG THE WAY, WITHOUT YOU WE’RE NOTHING. WWW.CANDYCOLLECTIVE.COM
Staff. Contributors. Thanks. Support.
Contributors.
Thanks.
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Nicky Gogan & Eoghan Kidney / Darklight.
Siobhan O’Kane.
To absolutely everyone who has supported us over the last 2 years, we couldn’t even start to name names as there’s simply been too many people. We really hope it’s been as good for you as it has for us, we never believed this possible and every day we’re astounded how far a little positivity and a bit of effort has gotten us. We’re here for you always, thanks for being there for us!
niceandnasty@eircom.net
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nicky@darklight-filmfestival.com eoghan@delicious9.com http://www.delicious9.com -------------------------------------------------------------
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Timothy Saccenti. niceandnasty@eircom.net -------------------------------------------------------------
Wes Trumble. Staff.
wes.trumble@dynamo.ie
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Richard Seabrooke. richard.seabrooke@dynamo.ie -----------------------------------------------
Aidan Kelly. aidan@aidan-kelly.com -----------------------------------------------
Asbestos. me@theartofasbestos.com -----------------------------------------------
BRENB. hello@brenb.net -----------------------------------------------
Cameron Ross / Nick Merrigan. cameron@newmedia.ie nicholas@newmedia.ie -----------------------------------------------
Simon Roche. simon@fieldmice.ie -----------------------------------------------
Lucy Corscadden. lucy@meandeye.com -----------------------------------------------
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Postal address. Richard Seabrooke / CANDY. c/o Dynamo, 5 Upper Ormond Quay, Dublin 7, Ireland. -----------------------------------------------
Music Makes Me Happy.
YOU CAN NOW VIEW FOOTAGE FROM OUR ST. PATRICK’S DAY SWEETTALK IN MANHATTAN AT HTTP://WWW.VEER.COM/IDEAS/SWEETTALK/ THANKS SO MUCH TO ALL THE SPEAKERS, THE GREAT PEOPLE AT VEER AND THE SOLD OUT AUDIENCE WHO MADE OUR FIRST OUTING TO AMERICA SUCH AN INCREDIBLE EVENT.
WORLD EXCLUSIVE!! THE WORLDWIDE RELEASE OF ANDREW & Chris Judge’S NEW comic! FREE TO DOWNLOAD AND ENJOY RIGHT NOW!! AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD NOW HERE... http://www.candycollective.com/downloads/theteam01.pdf for More information on ‘The team’ visit http://www.chrisjudge.com
Blanka and Candy in association with Veer present ‘50’ celebrating 50 years of Helvetica
50 image makers, 50 original works 50x50cm, each an edition of 50. Epson archival Giclee prints £50 each available via http://www.blanka.co.uk
1957 Spin – Max
1958 Vince Frost – A Popular Face
1959 Bleed – Xerox 914
1960 Ros Shiers Butterfield 8
1961 The Designers Republic – Gagarin star club positive space
1962 Farrow – 1962
1963 Antoine+Manuel – I have a dream
1964 Ian Wright – Sam Cooke ( 1931 - 1964)
1965 Fabio Ongarato – supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
1966 Experimental Jetset – Blow up
[The Brief] Each artist was allocated a random year [1957 - 2006] from Helvetica’s lifetime. From this they were asked to create an image based on an event of creative or cultural significance which occured during their allocated year.
The artist were asked to consider the relevance of Helvetica when creating their final piece, there were no other rules applied other than if they used a typeface it must be Helvetica.
1967 Parra – Incense and peppermints
1968 Kam Tang – Illuminating Faces
1969 Build – a
1970 Hamish Muir – 1970
1971 Fred Flade – 8200 seconds
1972 Ben Drury – '72 Adieu
1973 Darren Firth – I love New York
1974 James Jarvis – Autobahn
1975 Rinzen – ß
1976 Airside – Cray–1 online
The 50 exhibition runs at the Design Museum in 2 installments 1957 - 1981 : 19 July - 9 August. 1982 - 2006 : 10 August – 31 August 2007.
It then travels around the UK and then on to NYC, Dublin, Copenhagen, Paris, Sydney & Sao Paulo. For more information keep visiting http://www.candycollective.com
1977 Niklaus Troxler Black power
1978 Jonathan Ellery – Umbrella Murder
1979 Oliver Jeffers – The year of Brighton Beach
1980 Glenn Leyburn – Moscow 80
1981 Barber Osgerby – STS-1
1982 Alan Kitching – Robotypes ’82
1983 Conor & David – 1983
1984 Michael Gillette – Typsetters apocalypse
1985 NBStudio – A is for Apple
1986 North – Mir
Candy & Blanka would wholeheartedly like to thank the people who have supported this project and helped make it happen: Veer, Epson, GF Smith, Victionary, Build, Newmedia & Generation Press. Thanks so much.
1987 Cartlidge Levene – Established 1987
1988 Luca Ionescu – Acid house
1989 Jenny Mörtsell – Martika
1990 Emmi – Free
1991 Marc Atlan – That same year…
1992 Alexander Gelman – 42nd President
1993 Hellovon – Debut
1994 Image Now – Exit Teen Spirit
1995 Neue – Choose Helvetica
1996 Kiosk – Hello Dolly
View the full collection bigger at http://www.candycollective.com/ 50
Buy now at http://www.blanka.co.uk
1997 Kim Hiorthøy OK Kasparov
1998 Geneviève Gauckler We are the champions
1999 Adrian Shaughnessy – Y2K
2000 Winkreative – They misunderestimated me
2001 Commonwealth – Cortlandt St.
2002 Angry/Aad – 20:02_20/02_2002
2003 Phunkstudio – “To The Fairest” from Eris with love
2004 Luke Prowse – H for
2005 Vaughan Oliver – Thief of fire
2006 Rob Ryan – 30.7 million
THE FUGAZI PHOTOGRAPHS OF
GLEN E. FRIEDMAN 112
page hard cover
order now at http://www.FugaziBook.com
AIRSIDE FOR CANDY’S SECOND BIRTHDAY. http://www.airside.co.uk
Alan Clarke.
We all feel the sense of technology in our day to day existence, you cannot go through a normal day without being affected by the rush of numbers or digits and the blinking of the world, non-stop. As if we have left an age behind and forgotten totally how things were, simple, often difficult, hard working and full to the brim with stories and yarns hand made and told in whispers, hushed tones, traditional and somehow more exciting. Alan Clarke's work is steeped in this liquid. It's got great life to it, animated yet still and full of extraordinary detail and depth with a huge imagination driving its look to beyond fairytales and winding flames of myth. There are travelling shows and freaks in the alehouses, a strong man and a fancy lady, small people hide amongst the big people, flying through the sky are whales and eerie men tell his tales perched on tree stumps on the outskirts of the woods you dare not enter. Every child’s dream is to be an adult and every adult's wish could be to drift backwards to the lost youth of these drawings.
Interviewee : Alan Clarke. -----------------------------------
Interviewer : Richard Seabrooke.
Opening page. ‘The magic bees’. Previous page. ‘Something beginning with P’.
This page. ‘Fuckin’s Octopus’ & ‘Van Gogh's yellow chair’. Following page. ‘The mermaid’s cave’.
This page. ‘Squid charmer’ & ‘Nick Cave’. Next page. ‘Ronan in Pigalle’.
How long have you been illustrating? How did it start? I have been drawing since my hands were big enough to hold onto a crayon, but i got my first paid commission when i was in 2nd year in school, it was a picture for an ad in the Wicklow People. When did you decide to go full-time with it? I got my two big commissions when i was in my third year of colouring-in college, and i have been doing nothing else since. You’ve been incredibly successful yet you don’t have a website. What’s your secret to success? People like my work, I suppose. I don't really advertise myself at all, except when i'm having an exhibition or something like that, so it's just word of mouth, visual mouth, if you take my meaning. You’ve recently won awards for the wonderful work you did on Eddie Lenihan’s ‘Irish Tales of Mystery and Magic’. Care to tell us more about that project and the awards bestowed upon you? Your folks must be delighted.. It's a fully illustrated collection of seanchaí and folklorist Eddie Lenihan's stories. I did about 150 illustrations, many of them full colour, in about four and a half months. It was by far the most intense period of work i have ever done, but the book has been very well received, so it was worth it. It won 'Best illustrated Book' from the Irish Book Publishers Association, and was nominee in the children's book category in the Irish Book Awards. and yes, my mammy is very proud.
You’re also responsible for work for many successful published books, magazines, journals and suchlike... How do you go about working with these various people, do you have a method or is each job different? Most of the time people don't know what they really want at all, so the best results come when i'm left to go off and work with minimum interference. I steer clear of anything that involves committees, focus groups, market research panels, or any of that kind of shitehawkery. You work in many different media and styles. What usually dictates the final method of execution, is it part of your process of working through a job or do you sometimes just feel like working a particular way? If it's commissioned work the client can request a certain medium or it can be down to time constraints, but mostly it's whatever suits the target audience and the subject matter. For my own work I execute them in whatever medium I think best suits the idea, if i feel i should be painting with sheeps blood and lime juice, then that's what i'll do. Aswell as these many commercial jobs you are incredibly prolific in self-initiated work. Why do you find you need to do this type of work, couldn’t you just go fishing? These days i do as much, if not more, self initiated work than commissioned work. With the self initiated work there are no compromises to be made and i can give my imagination free reign. >>
This page. ‘Armchair Empress’.
This page. ‘Fionn and the sharks’, Trip to China’ & Tickling O'Flatharta’.
Next page. Various greeting card illustrations.
Who would you consider as heroes or inspirations in your life and work? Anyone who can recognise how ridiculous 99% of everything is, and as a result keep things in perspective, is my hero. Artistically though, here is a selection of people whose work i admire: Edward Gorey, Harry Clarke (no relation), Flann O'Brien, Joe Sorren, W. Heath Robinson, Oscar Wilde, Lizbeth Zwerger, Aubrey Beardsley, Egon Schiele, Thomas Hood.
How would you describe the Irish creative scene at the moment. Who’s floating your boat and getting you all excited? I suppose its in fairly good shape. Plenty of people swanning around the place with spare money to spend on art, and plenty of good art to spend it on. Irish people are becoming more visually aware now too, and mediocrity is becoming less acceptable, which is important because there's an awful lot of shite out there too. In the illustration field in Ireland, PJ Lynch is head and shoulders above everyone else, his work is beautifully executed and timeless. I also think both Oliver Jeffers and Chris Haughton are very very good, both their work is bold and beautifully designed but in very different ways. How do you find working in Dublin? Do you think that you would have received more attention / success if you were elsewhere or is the world so small now through technology that location is irrelevant? I like Dublin, my work is informed much more by people and their behaviour, than by other artists work or any art scene, and in that respect Dublin and Ireland in general is a treasure trove. Illustration is undoubtedly valued more, both financially and artistically, in other countries, but I'm very happy doing what i'm doing, and I like to meet people that i'm working with, technology makes everything very impersonal.
You’ve been offered the chance to collaborate with anyone (living or dead), who would it be? Edgar Allen Poe, Spike Milligan, Tom Waits, or Barnum & Bailey. The ultimate commission you have yet to do? I don't really know, but I wouldn't mind having a go at any of the following: - Illustrating Flann O'Brien - Drawing a picture in the sky with one of those little aeroplanes that shoots coloured smoke out the back - Designing theatre sets - Illustrating Edgar Allen Poe - Designing the Brown Thomas Christmas window - Illustrating some of the classic fairytales You can’t illustrate anymore, someone has robbed all your tools. What would you be instead? I would be a stonemason or a cowboy or a blind harpist, or some combination of the 3.. What does the future hold for Alan Clarke? Dinner, I'm starving.
Previous page. ‘Mermaid’. This page. ‘Cake’. Next page. ‘Sideshow’.
Previous page. ‘Scary stories for kings’ & ‘Women’s mini marathon’.
This page. ‘untitled....unsure, undreamed of, unpossible, unctuous’ & ‘ a day in the country’.
ALLCITY is a London based creative collective. ALLCITY was founded by illustrator Owen Phillips and photographer Dav Stewart as a collaborative project. The aim is to push their work in new directions by combining different mediums and skills and working with people across a wide variety of creative professions. The final outcome of a brief is never predetermined; ALLCITY acts as a platform for creative freedom. With many exciting new projects planned for 2007 the ranks are already expanding, including set designer Jo Lee and graphic designer Victoria Walmsley.
ALLCITY grew from a philosophy of exploration and experimentation, drawing inspiration from many sources including border and youth cultures. Equally comfortable working for large organisations, ALLCITY also sees self initiated work as a vital role, constantly realising ideas and learning new techniques. This piece was produced exclusively for Candy. http://www.allcitycreative.com http://www.owenp.com
Art Direction: Owen Phillips / ALLCITY Illustration: Owen Phillips Photography: Dav Stewart Photography Assistant: Tom Weddell Set Design: Jo Lee Model: Nicole@Fierce Models Make Up Artist: Cristina Homles Thanks to StolenSpace, Nina@Fierce Models, STIKA & TINA.
Photography: Dav Stewart / ALLCITY
Art Direction: Jo Lee / ALLCITY Photographer: Dominico Angelo Aleandri Makeup Artist: Rachael Louise Jones Set Designer and Stylist: Jo Lee
You’ll live with the stink of the streets all your life.
I like the stink of the streets. It cleans out my lungs. ’Noodles’ Once Upon a Time in America Art Direction: ALLCITY Illustration: Owen Phillips Photography: Dav Stewart Models: Beth@StolenSpace, Tom W
ALLISON LEACH
The vibrant work of Allison Leach is unmistakable; it really does strike you from a distance. So many great colours and even the composition while excellent lends itself to the individual or scenario with a sense of lightheartedness, not so serious but exact and very well thought out. Returning to NYC from the UK she has been very hardworking as a professional since 1994, with work for the greatest publications, Elle, Esquire, Vanity Fair and the New York Times, Big Marketing and advertising giants like Saatchi and Saatchi, Ogilvy and Mather. She keeps good company and that's only the mark of excellence. Candy loves her 'Urban artists' a very rare look at the greatest toy figure and character makers around, we'd give our left leg to see Tim Biskup covered in chocolate and the result is we're one leg down. Again with a sense of humour she shows us her take on dog lovers with 'Lucky Dogs' a love of her own with Hamish always prominent in the life of this photographer. In saying all this there's a telling selection of work on her site from around the world as she would call it ‘Expeditions’, which seem to us to be a search for other ideas and a sense of wonder about elsewhere, Maybe there's a new photographer in the making. Interviewee : Allison Leach. ---------------------------------------
Previous page. ‘HardscrabbleHattie’.
Official site : http://www.allisonleach.com ---------------------------------------
Interviewer : Richard Seabrooke.
This page. ‘AviatorExplorer’.
How long have you been taking photographs, how did it start? I started taking photos in Junior High (about 12 or 13 years old), when my father gave me my first camera, a 35mm rangefinder Canonet. What was the first thing you remember shooting? I remember travelling to Mexico City with my family and photographing a little girl on the street with her father. They both were thrilled to pose for me, and the little girl became so excited she peed her pants. My family was horrified I caused such a commotion, and just kept on walking... How would you describe your approach, what makes you unique? Well, unlike the story above, I like to make my subjects comfortable! And since I photograph people, I like it to be a collaborative process. I also don't wish to make it a very serious affair, but rather a look at the humorous or absurd side of things. However, I do not do this at the expense of the sitter, but with their cooperation and collaboration. I wish to celebrate the people I photograph, rather than exploit them for a darker purpose. If the sitter is not happy or comfortable with a portrayal, I would never coerce them to continue. So many people fear having their photo taken (in fact, that's usually the first thing every sitter says!), so my challenge is to make them feel comfortable with the process and actually enjoy it. If I focus on giving them a great experience on set, then we all win.
Who would you consider as inspirations or heroes? Well, initially my great love was Henri Cartier-Bresson! Then later, Irving Penn, Diane Arbus, Annie Leibowitz, Chip Simons and Mark Seliger. Lately I've been very inspired by the fine art team of Kahn and Selesnick. Who's been your most favourite celebrity so far to shoot? Emma Thompson was an absolute doll. She is such a lovely person! When I was assisting a photographer in London, I wrote to Emma and asked if I could photographer her for my portfolio. She promptly wrote back and invited me to shoot her in her dressing room at the Shaftesbury Theatre. I met her there, and she was more than generous with her time, and when I was finished and packing up, she told me she thought I would be a great photographer because I made her feel so comfortable!!! Bless her! I later sent her a thank you note for the sitting, and then she sent me a thank you note for the thank you note! When I sent her a print, she sent me a very sweet note telling me how much she liked it and how she was going to frame it. All of this, of course was very important and reassuring to a beginning photographer, as I'm sure she knew. When she won her first Oscar, I wrote her asking for permission to use the photographs of her for commercial usage, and she wrote back immediately giving me her full blessings. She could not have been more kind.
And the worst? Why? Willie Nelson walked off the set after three frames! It was a shoot for publicity shots promoting an album he was releasing. However, he had apparently made clear to the record co. he would do no publicity. After three frames were shot, he asked what the photos were for --- the art director said "for publicity", and he immediately walked off furious! The greatest commission you have yet to do... A twelve-page spread in Vanity Fair of all the fabulous nobodies in the world! As well as the many celebrities you shoot for major published media you seem really interested in people from different leanings in life, Misfits and Characters on your site. What do you find so interesting about these people that maybe missing from your day-to-day work? In our commercial media, there is a definite caste system to whom gets photographed and whom does not. The cultural craze for celebrities leaves the majority of people out of sight. This industry neglect has propelled me to focus on the "unseeables" --- those who do not fit the very narrow definitions of "glamour" or "beauty", but who in their sincerity and originality, are even more valuable and heroic. I try to honor these "subversive" characters in a humorous and fun way, thereby questioning and satirizing what is commercially acceptable. I adore these "misfits", and in no way wish to bring a dark or sinister gaze to them. >>
You're also into shooting dogs with their owners. What do you like so much about doing just dogs as opposed to shooting all pets? Well, I rescued a cocker spaniel just after 9/11 in New York, and have become besotted with all things dog. His name is "Hamish", and he is definitely a "special needs" dog (i.e., aggression issues, incontinence, flatulence, the list goes on...), but that makes me love him even more. Dogs are so genuine, which again makes them such a refreshing change to our image obsessed culture. They just make me smile! Do you think the old adage is true that owners and their dogs do take on similar traits or am I still drunk? You're still drunk! (Of course, I've been known to be flatulent from time to time!!!) Have you any plans to publish your work in the future? I've been working on a picture book called "The Misfit Explorers" for some time now. It's a celebration of fictional explorers who never got anywhere nor found anything. It's a reminder that life's about the journey rather than the destination (again, more commentary on our goal orientated society!). I've been looking for a writer to collaborate with, but haven't found the right one yet. Anyone interested? Would you ever consider getting into moving image where you could bring your wonderful characters to life? Usually, I would have said, "no", because I am so in love with the object-ness of the two-dimensional image. But now as digital is taking over, I think photography is losing some of its charm, its uniqueness --- so, yes, I now would consider getting into moving images and perhaps being less precious about the still image. When you're not shooting, you're happy mostly when you're... travelling and immersing myself in different cultures (although, I'm usually doing a lot of photographing then, as well!). Perhaps, it's just when I'm lost in my own thoughts and in my own world.
Previous page. ‘NileExplorer’ & ‘UnderseaExplorer’. This page. ‘NorthwestPassageExplorer’.
What does the future hold for Allison Leach? I'm starting a new business venture with a partner called "MISFIT INDUSTRIES". It will have a product assortment featuring a small group of my misfit characters. Part art, part pop culture. From our brochure: "Misfit Industries presents an ironical, cynical, satirical view of what is considered “ideal” in our culture. By celebrating the misfits, we reject the facile, fatuous, shallow currency of celebrity culture. It is a celebration of the failures, the losers and mediocres that comprise the majority of the world. Why should just the beautiful, talented, and hardworking have all the fun? Misfits of the world unite! The new cultural revolution is here!" Kooky, huh?!!!
Previous page. ‘LyleofArabia’ & ‘AfricanExplorer’. This page. ‘AntarcticaExplorer’ & ‘AmazonianExplorer’.
This page. ‘BearWarrior’.
APRIL GERTLER.
One day April Gertler said that was that and decided to move to Europe from her far away native land on the west coast of America, San Francisco California. Ending up in the post industrial eclectic landscape of Berlin, swapping trams for trams, sunshine for the odd shower of snow and tilted streets for the winding endless alleys of Germany's capital city in middle Europe, It could be considered the move of her life, unleashing a creative dragon unslain and hungry. It’s easy to get to new places when you can get flights very cheap on the WWW. In the pursuit of definition, to know the right and wrong of a situation to seek out the end of blurriness and pick out where the line starts and where it stops. Gertler has created a multi layered scape of information that covers all aspects of what a heart desires. Its a document that looks into the secrets, the tells and tales of a weird wonderful world. The world outside your own door People and birds co-exist to get along harmoniously in a world sometimes unusual and exciting, bright and Fumbling around in the dark, making noise and getting into trouble, but that’s okay, nobodies perfect right?
Interviewee : April Gertler. ------------------------------------------------
Official site : http://www.aprilgertler.com ------------------------------------------------
Previous page. ‘Thomas22’.
This page. ‘Thomas04’.
Blog :
http://aprilgertler.blogspot.com/
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MySpace :
http://www.myspace.com/aprilgertler
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Interviewer : Aidan Kelly.
How do you feel as an American in Berlin working and trying to exist? Its a tough city right? Ever feel homesick? It is a tough city, but I have somehow found a little pocket here for myself. It is interesting to be here as an American. I feel more American than I ever did in the States - being an expat means that you are forever representing your entire country, which I find totally amusing! I realize how much my culture plays such a key role in every aspect of my life. There are so many Americans here though, it somehow feels easy until you start having to deal with the red tape! I only feel homesick for friends and family... and OK the weather too! I'm a California girl! What makes you feel the happiest personally and then regarding the work you try to do? What makes me the happiest is interacting with people, in addition to making my work. When I have those fluid moments in the studio or in my head - it is an exhilerating feeling.
Can you tell us about influences other than people that help you get ideas for work? My influences can really range from good food - like I had a piece of mochi (Japanese dessert) last night that made me want to do a gig!! - to a soft warm wind. But I would have to say that the biggest influences for me are the details of the everyday. Details that are created which some people pay attention to and others don't. For example: the band-aid on someone's heal which is slipping out of their shoe, or the way a pipe has been incorporated into a building so it "fits in" more. I am really interested in small nuances and how those nuances are experienced by others. I guess you could say this constitutes for a lot of people watching and general observation.
You think it was necessary to leave san Francisco and Oakland after college and get to Europe. Was that how it went? Actually that wasn't how it went. I finished art school in Oakland and was managing a small letterpress and design company that I had started with a partner. About 3 years went by and I decided to apply for graduate school. I ended up doing a graduate summer only program in upstate New York at Bard College for 3 summers. During those 3 years I got a small grant to come to Germany for an exchange program at the Staedelschule in Frankfurt. After I finished my semester abroad I went back to the States, finished Bard and promptly returned to Germany.
But necessary to leave... well I realized that my options were fairly miserable in the States if I wanted to live and work as an artist.... so maybe it was necessary in some ways. I was interested in a quality of life I knew I wasn't going to be able to find in New York as an artist living and working there. >>
This page (left to right). ‘Base 1’, ‘CPH4’ & ‘SLB2’.
This page (left to right). ‘Deer7’, ‘Deer5’, ‘Deer3’ & ‘Deer6’. Next page. ‘Diane2’.
Can you talk about your work ‘still life’ in respect to peoples perceptions of the world. Do you think we like to be deceived? The work you are referring to: ‘If Only’, is not about being deceived. I am very open about the fact that those works are photographed in various Natural History Museums. The work ‘If Only’ is more of an exclamation mark regarding how we as humans seem to want to control our natural environment. I chose to concentrate on birds with that work because they have played a really fundamental role for me in my own life, but also I find them particularly fascinating when you consider how similar they are to humans; they build nests, they beautify themselves to attract others, they deposit their eggs in other birds' nests and they migrate... we do all of that! But birds in particular are animals that are of course, not about a static moment. There is such an irony that I find both sad and really sublime when I see these dioramas. I liked the idea of perpetuating their absurdity and beauty by photographing them so as not to reveal that they were photographed in a natural history museum - to make the viewer question the likely hood of the scenario. In terms of liking to be deceived...well I think their might be a casual willingness for deception, as the truth is painful.
You consider yourself an artist as opposed to photographer, or maybe painter, collages seem to form a big part or influence in your work? It is always so important that we are labeled, and quite honestly I find it a bit hopeless these days. I, like many other artists, am interested in many things, and I find it to be too limiting to say that I am a photographer. I think the word "artist" is just a bit more open ended. But in terms of collage, well I started out making collage and doing books. It was out of necessity as I didn't have money to buy film or paper when I was in art college, even though I was technically in the Photo Department. So I just made do with what I could find. Collage has continued to play a very important element in my work. If I am not making collage directly then my photography work is definitely informed by my ideas of the juxtaposition of images. I also think that what we see everyday is a collage. Layers upon layers of things plastered on top of one another... it seems so obvious.
How important do you believe collaborations with others are to the eventual outcome and look of your own work? Collaborations with others are an integral part of my working process. Because I get so much from interacting with people, I really enjoy talking things through with a collaborator. Negotiation and compromise play a significant part of the process as well which I enjoy (of course it depends on the person I am collaborating with!). My work personally of course takes on a different look when I am working with someone else as the work is no longer "mine" but it is "ours" and I find that transformation very satisfying. Currently I am working on 3 different collaborations with 3 different groups of people. They have all taken on an interesting dialogue that I am not sure I would have arrived at myself. For example, my longest term collaboration is with an artist who is based in New York, Elise Gardella. We have been exchanging Polaroids since the fall of 2001. It has been very simply a Polaroid conversation. The idea was rooted in the notion of corresponding with images. We chose the Polaroid format because we felt it had both the object-ness and immediacy that we were looking for. We are on Polaroid #128. Hopefully Polaroid won't go out of business in the near future as we have a project to continue! In your ongoing project ‘Diane’ what made you centre on the one individual? Is there a long standing friendship? Is that important for that particular project to work and seem intimate? If I were to choose which type of image making I enjoy the most I would have to say the portrait. It is the most complicated and the most challenging for me, and again it goes back to my love of interacting with people. The intimacy that comes with photographing someone - at least for me is a private experience between me and that individual. I seek out a sense of calmness and trust in the the individual I am photographing it becomes a moment of convergence for me when everything lines up. Considering that I mostly photograph people I know, the interesting thing is that sometimes that doesn't happen at all with certain people and with others it happens immediately. That said, of course there was a long standing friendship with Diane which allowed me to make that project happen. But that project was a special case in that Diane herself is an artist/photographer and has photographed herself countless times. But, I have another project which is in a similar vein, titled ‘Build- Up’, that depicts my boyfriend at the time, juxtaposed with images of a sky-scraper that was being built across the street from his flat in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. The intimacy level of that project is even more dramatic as the scenarios all take place in his flat. >>
This page (clockwise from top left). ‘Owl1’, ‘Margaret’, ‘Owl4’ & ‘Franci’.
Who would you like to work with in the future? My sister. She is also an artist. We have never done a project together. Any new work that you are excited about that you can fill us in on? You’re currently working on a music project? I always like to have a variety of pots on the stove. Yes, the music project you are mentioning is in it's third incarnation now. It is called ‘me2u’ (which references shortened texting language that I have gotten so used to using!). It is basically an opportunity for me to share songs from people I know here in Europe, compile a CD (in an edition of 100 copies) and then give those CD's away to people I know in the States and finally repeat that process from the States. This third incarnation of the project is called ‘me2u #3. I have a friend in a band.’ I think this version is self explanatory! I guess you could say it is sort of a low-tech version of myspace!! Another project I am working on is a collaboration with Kevin Titzer, an American based artist. He came over to Berlin from the States to work with me on a collage project and now we are preparing for a show. The process that we developed was very exciting and the work ended up being very hilarious and playful.
Previous page (left to right). ‘Thomas05’, ‘Thomas23’ & ‘Thomas08’. This page. ‘Diane1’ & ‘Diane3’.
This page (left to right). ‘Thomas12’ & ‘Thomas13’.
ASBESTOS
THIS NEW WORK FROM ASBESTOS IS PAINTED ONTO FOUND OBJECTS THAT ARE RESCUED FROM THE SKIPS, BUILDING SITES AND FOOTPATHS OF THE CITIES HE VISITS. THE MAIN DIRECTION IN THIS WORK FOCUSES ON THE HANDS OF STREET ARTISTS AND FRIENDS AND SERVES TO DRAW OUT THE EXPRESSION AND PERSONALITY THAT IS INGRAINED IN EACH AND EVERY PAIR OF HANDS. THEY’RE THE TOOLS THAT SEPARATE US FROM THE ANIMALS, THEY CAN CREATE AND THEY CAN DESTROY, THAT'S WHY THEY'RE SO FASCINATING TO PAINT. EVERY PAIR HAS ITS OWN UNIQUE GRAIN THAT HIGHLIGHTS THE PERSONALITY OF ITS OWNER. ALL THIS PIECES AND MORE CAN BE SEEN ON HIS NEW SITE THAT'S JUST GOT A SPRING CLEAN. HE'S GOT THE PLUMBING'S FIXED, THE FLOORBOARDS DON'T CREAK ANYMORE AND EVERYTHING HAS HAD A FRESH LICK OF PAINT. SO PULL UP A CHAIR AND MAKE YOURSELF AT HOME. STICK ON THE KETTLE WHILE YOU'RE AT IT AND HAVE BEW WHILE YOU TAKE A POKE AROUND.
HTTP://WWW.THEARTOFASBESTOS.COM
BOB DOB
The last time we made it to America around Paddy's Day we thought although it snowed fairly heavy for two days that the land of the free and extremely brave looked just like it did last time. But now that we think of it that was New York City, nowhere near legendary mid American havens like Dallas, Wyoming, Kansas or somewhere in Colorado. What in the lords name has happened in America? Is it a fallout of a huge genetic explosion, the hometown don't seem the same, it’s all a little weird, a little creepy like some psycho rockabilly comic store is replacing the town locals with cute mutant hybrids, heavy heads, chain smokers, a guy called Luey who picks up loose chicks, morbid teens and cheese heads with philosophical tendencies. Are we getting TV stations back home that are lying about what it’s like in midAmerica? No such thing as OCC, PBS and ‘I love Lucy re-runs. Is Bob Dob a real slice of apple pie? I got to start smoking and combing my hair.
Interviewee : Bob Dob. ---------------------------------------
Official site : http://www.bobdob.com ---------------------------------------
Interviewer : Richard Seabrooke.
When did you first realise you wanted to be an artist? I was in my twenties. I was majoring in music and taking a few art classes. Then I switched completely and transferred to Otis College her in Los Angeles. How would you describe your style? Narrative based. A little whimsical I guess. What do you see as your ambition for the work you do? What do you hope to bring out of the viewer who gets to see your pieces? I love to tell stories with my work. So if the viewer can create their own story looking at one of my paintings then I've been successful. Were your folks supportive or would they have preferred you to be a doctor or a zoo keeper or something, maybe they wanted you to further your punk music calling? My parents were very supportive of both me playing in a punk band and being an artist. My Dad is almost too interested in my work. He's very excited for me. How's the California art scene at the moment. Who would you consider as it's leading lights? It's still very exciting out here in L.A. Mark Ryden is the name that comes to mind when you think of the current artists showing around here. Others include, Jeff Soto, Greg Simkins, Tim Biskup, and numerous others.
Does your approach to work change when taking on client commissions as opposed to working on personal work? Absolutely. However, a good art director will allow you to have total creative freedom. I can always tell when one of my illustrations is being over art directed compared with one of my personal paintings. The ultimate commission you have yet to receive? I'd love to paint one of my characters life size like the old masters. I have it all worked out . Just waiting for the person to commission it. Do you listen to music when you're working or do you prefer silence? I listen to music. I'll put my iTunes on random. Silence is good also but mostly I have something going. What music is rocking the Bob Dob soundsystem these days? Everything from The Misfits to movie soundtracks to Jazz guitar. I like it all. Heroes? Traditionalists Villains? Terrorists
Where do you get your inspiration? Movies, classic animation, illustration. Just talking with people and listening to their stories inspires me.
The governments of the world have come together (for once) and outlawed art in all it's forms, music included. What do you think you'd be if you couldn't be creative, what would you become? I'd have something to do with animals. Originally I wanted to become a Zoologist.
First page. ‘Good fortune’.
What does the future hold for Bob Dob? I have a solo show I'm painting for right now at La Luz De Jesus in October. I have a few vinyl toys coming out with Strange Co this summer which will be very cool.
Previous page. ‘Rampage’. This page. ‘Z’.
This page. ‘Desire’ & ‘Luey Skeletal’. Next page. ‘The man who laughs’.
C100. The great work from C100 includes such luminaries as Vice magazine, Levi Strauss, Prada, Compost Records, Burton Snowboards and Columbia Sportswear, Puma, Adidas to name just a small few. Their collaborations on many levels reads like a client list to die for, it might be easier to list those who they have not worked for! What they say about themselves: C100 is a design studio working on a range of projects including creative direction, design and illustration for music industry, sports, arts & culture, fashion and advertising clients. And to look closely at the work they have accomplished since way before 2004 you can see why they are regarded so highly. With a mixture of organic hand drawn styles alongside technical and sharp graphics there's a sense of past and future about C100's extensive work, a sense of looking forward to what graphics and communication may look like in the future by doing what they do best now and yet using classic ways of representation are still used, multi layered icons and free flowing lines clash with hard edged type and blocks of colour in striking layouts. There is the well-worn assumption that the Germans are very good at this kind of thing, we found proof.
Interviewee : C100. ---------------------------------------
Official site : http://www.c100studio.com ---------------------------------------
Interviewer : Richard Seabrooke.
Previous page. C100 for HighContrast exhibition, Zurich06. This page. Flyer designs.
When and how did C100 begin? C100 started in 2003, founded by me, Christian Hundertmark. This was after I left the collective “Designliga” with whom I worked the years before. During the time between 2004 and 2005 I also joined the collective “Backyard10”, who I left in 2005 again. Since then I’m busy building up C100. Today C100 is basically me, an assistant, an intern and my dog Mogly. Plus a couple of freelancers. How would you describe C100 and their approach? What makes you different to others? That’s a tough one. We try to bring as much enthusiasm into our work as possible and try to do the best we can, but maybe that’s what many other serious design studios also do. But we don’t only say that we really mean it! How would you describe the Munich creative scene at the moment? Who, along with yourself, is doing Munich proud? It’s pretty good, there are some good studios, illustrators and artists, though it’s smaller compared to cities like London. My personal favorites are The Purple Haze, FPM Factor Product Munich, Flying Fortress, Sat One, Hamansutra. Does your approach change when working for corporate clients as opposed to working for friends on record covers, club media, etc.? No, we always give our best and our approach is always aiming to make the best possible, and I think our clients can feel this attitude.
You seem dedicated to continuously changing your styles within your work. Why do you feel it’s important to do this, would it not be better to develop a house-style which you could stick to? There is a certain C100 style in our works you just have to look really close. ;-) but we aren’t stuck to one certain style, I guess this would bore us. There are so many styles and techniques to explore, which makes working much more thrilling. With every new work we also try to surprise and challenge ourselves, the client and the other people who see it and see what comes out in the end- i don’t want to do the same more the once, in my opinion each design should be unique. That’s what makes our job so thrilling. Do you work mostly on your own or is collaboration part of your method? If so, who’s been the most interesting person you’ve worked with? If not, why do you choose to work alone? Actually most of the time C100 is just me working on my own but lately also did projects with The Purple Haze, like an exhibition about Flyer design last year and a new book project. It’s great fun to work with him as he has the same enthusiasm like I have. To answer your question I didn’t choose to work alone but it’s rather difficult to find persons who want to go the same path like want, and on the same quality and output level. That’s why I already changed studios two times, maybe it’s because I’m very focused and it’s difficult to keep track. We’ll see what the future will bring. >>
I think this is one of the secrets why we are successful and happy in what we do. This page. Zerwick poster. Next page. C100 for Prada.
This page. Apoptygma Berzerk CD design.
Previous page. Flyer designs. This page (left to right). Marsmobil CD design & Vรถlkl snowboard designs.
This page. ‘The Art of Rebellion’ Volume 1. Next page. Feraud/Marsmobil limited edition packaging.
Favourite job so far? Why? Concept wise: Probably the “Art of Rebellion” books because I had the chance to meet so many great people during the work on the books. Design wise: The Marsmobil CD Covers , as I really like the final design and it was a really nice to work with them, besides that the music is really good, too! The ultimate collaboration you have yet to do? Sorry, I don’t know. Good question but difficult to answer. Fashion and music seem to be 2 things you’re particularly fond of. Care to elaborate on what you find so interesting about these from a creative point of view? Maybe the reason for this is the fact that these are things that are very important in my daily life as well and in which I’m always interested what’s going on. This makes working much more easier, especially in music when you like the music.
Do you have a particular ambition for your work? What do you hope to achieve through something you have produced? My main ambition is to make both me and the client happy. If people are happy with the work I did I’ve reached my aim. Mission accomplished. You were responsible for both of the ‘Art of Rebellion’ www.the-art-of-rebellion.com books which dealt with “urban art activism”. Care to tell us why you felt this was an important subject to make books about? This was due to the fact that urban art is an important part in my life. Starting out as a graffiti writer in the late 80s Graffiti was a thing my life was focused on for years before I started to study design. Then in the early 2000s I got busy in streetart again and felt the same vibe and motivation like 10 years before. But unfortunately there weren’t any books about this new phenomenon so I thought some one has to do the job.... Who would you consider as heroes or inspirations? Too many to name and constantly changing: at the moment: Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Banksy, NB Studio, Yacht, Inkunstruction, Mambo, Universal Everything, Sat One, Grandpeople, Yes, , Faile, MM Paris, Syrup Helsinki,.... What’s rocking the C100 stereo at the moment? I make a list of ten: Bloc Party, Alix Perez, Mos Def, Cinematic Orchestra, Gomma, Maximo Park, CSS, Artificial Intelligence, Massive Attack, The Herbaliser. Pretty different sound, constantly changing- similar to our studio’s style , hehe ;-) What’s does the future hold for C100? Doing more art projects, basically just have a good time!
This page. ‘The Art of Rebellion’ Volume 2. Next page. Forum snowboards detail.
Chloe Early. Interviewee : Chloe Early. ---------------------------------------
Official site : http://www.stolenspace.com ---------------------------------------
Interviewer : Asbestos.
Chloe Early is an Irish painter who has been living and working in London for the last couple of year who’s had two sell out shows in Dublin and London is the last twelve months. She works in oils painted onto large sheets of aluminium and creates urban environments that are harsh and intimidating with looming concrete structures inhabiting an abstract background. Suspended in each of her paintings is a lone female figure, frozen in time and poise as she dives through this urban space. This figure is a symbol of freedom and “a piece of glitter in the dust” that acts as lone and defiant voice in this desolate landscape. With a background in textile design there is also a subtle use of pattern in her work that serves as a counter balance to the foreboding urban intensity. Her work speaks volumes about our relationship with the metropolis and offers hope from within this chaos Previous page. ‘Champion’.
This page. ‘Feather’.
This page. ‘Parachute’.
Can you tell me a bit about your background and why you started painting? Do You have a formal art background or are you self taught? I suppose I started drawing and painting in earnest from about age 16, around this time is when I realised that there was a place called art college and that I wanted to go there, before that I had been quite focused on something literary, bookish and studying English. I chose to do textiles in NCAD for a reason I am still not quite sure, I was attracted to the idea of the process of learning skills, the touchy feely aspect of fabric and the emphasis on colour and texture. During the course it became obvious to me that I wasnt a designer and in that way textiles didnt suit me, I continued with my own work and a sort of painterly approach to textiles and as soon as I graduated began oil painting again. How has your work been influenced by your background and how has your work changed since your move to London? I think there is a duality in my work, when I was doing textiles they looked like paintings and now I am doing paintings, they have quite a print textile look with the pattern and colours. I used to think you had to be one thing or the other, either fine art or design. Now I know that there is an interesting place at the crossover in genres, being a hybrid can be fun and making work with contradictions is something that interests me. London has made me bigger and braver as an artist , what you compare yourself to here is the best, I always fall a long way short of where I want to be but by constantly pushing myself I make some small steps of progress. What artists have inspired you and your art? Matthias Weischer, David Schnell, Ryan McGuiness, Peter Doig,
I was amazed when I first saw your paintings in the flesh and even more so when I realised that they were oil on aluminium, how did you discover this unique method and does it in some way contrast with the femininity in your work? It was as a result of trying it out, a friend gave me some pieces to work on and I liked it so I stuck at it. I thought it was a good contrast to the way my paintings look, which can be quite soft and subtle at times, it provided a clean edge to frame my painting and also tied in in some way with the architectural subject matter. What is the process you have to create a piece? I begin with a couple of purely abstract layers, colour, pattern and mark making, then I choose the architecture and put it in, this is where the problems start, trying to make a painting that is both abstract and representational, it has to make some kind of pictorial sense but at the same time I want the paintings to be more than landscapes. It is a domino effect of decisions, of what to leave in and what to leave out. I always like to include some reference to nature, some sense of conflict or dialogue between the two, and that I usually put in after the architecture. Then I work it up in layers and at the very end put the figure. Its a weird process because the figure is so important to the final reading of the painting but I live with and work on the painting for months without her presence. At the end it is a relief when she appears as a tiny but vital focus for the paintings. >>
Next page. ‘Bulldozer’ & ‘Jet’.
Your work contains solitary female figures in urban environments, can you fill me in on where this subject matter comes from? Ive always been interested in landscape, place, geography, building, the marks we leave. The urban environments in the paintings are harsh intimidating places large looming walls etc and I wanted something to conteract this seriousness, for me she is a piece of glitter in the dust. I see her as celebratory, a homage to freedom. She is a risk taker but always suspended in that initial moment of action and exhaltation. I see diving as a death defying act, an attempt to free yourself from gravity and the downward pull of the earth, and she, in the painting is defiant, a beacon of hope in a hopeless landscape. Are the urban spaces you create in your work real or are they flights of the imagination? They are all taken from photographs so I suppose in that sense they stem from something real but in the process of becoming painted and juxtaposed with other elements they become imaginary.
When you're painting a body of work, do you know when its finished or are you always striving to do a little bit more? There is a shaky moment around finishing a painting, I know I should stop but I always want to be a bit better. Do you find it hard to part with your artworks after exhibitions? No , the idea of being stuck with everything I have ever done would be a more depressing prospect. I like to work on paintings, when they are finished I am not so interested in them. I do have some favourites and it is always nice to know that they have gone to a good home. Who would you most like to paint your portrait? Seeing as Conor has already done me the great honour, I will say Jenny Saville. If you were going to be executed what would your last meal be? Christmas dinner how my Mum makes it.
This page. ‘Hoist’ & ‘Goliath’
Next page. ‘Pilot’.
First page. Yellow and black plastic hat from The Price is Right, Aungier Street Dublin 2, Ireland. Customised top (original pieces: silk prom dress and rayonne top from Les Puces de Saint-Ouen Paris France). Eye mask created using matte black shadow and black cream liner. Lips are played down using new MAC lipstick in Honeymoon. Previous page. Vintage sequin jacket from Circus Store, Powerscourt Dublin 2, Ireland Tel: 00353 (0)16724636. Create abstract shapes on the eye by using Liquidline from Mac in Black Track. Lipstick From Laura Mercier in Chianti topped with the new Chanel Brilliant Lumiere in Flourescent.
This page. Hat from flea market Borghetto Flaminio, Rome, Italy. Customised collar (original blouse piece from ‘Peoples Market’@ Topshop). On brows try an opaque shadow used wet to achieve this sort of drama. Skin is perfected with Kevyn Aucoin’s Airbrush Foundation available starting in August at Queen Beauty Emporium on Aungier Street, Dublin 2, Ireland. Next page. Sequin top stylists own.
Photography by Cliona O'Flaherty. http://www.clionaoflaherty.com
Assisted by Aoife Herrity. T: 00 353 877793653
Makeup by Christine Lucignano. for Queen Beauty Emporium.
Model Beth @ http://www.Morgantheagency.com Styling by Aisling Farinella. http://www.aislingfarinella.com
Conor & David
There are two new kids in town, two wide boys in Dublin that seem to have found an oil well of ideas in the middle of a cities renaissance and single-handedly [well they have 4 hands really] represented a new vibrancy in Dublin design. Conor&David are very clean, there's no mess in the office where they work, everything has a place and everything's in its place, including how they feel about how their work looks. There's the clarity to the design projects they work on, simplicity no matter the brief. They've completed tee shirts for Coors Light but they sit very well alongside the NCAD postgraduate yearbook or the Guide for Tacita Dean’s work at the Hugh Lane Gallery. Website design for Fabulous Beast, Matthew Thompson and the excellent communications of WorkGroup, maybe they would be well known for there balloon ampersand and more recently a piece for the new '50' exhibition inspired by 1983 [one of the years Helvetica has been in existence, being 50 years old], but what we think Conor&David should be remembered for is not only the strength of work but the simple idea that these boys are Irish and proud of it.
This page. ‘& poster’ and making-of. Next page. ‘Oedipus’ poster and cd cover.
Interviewee : Conor & David. --------------------------------------------------------
Official site : http://www.conoranddavid.com --------------------------------------------------------
Other links :
http://www.fabulousbeast.net http://www.thirtythreetrees.com http://workgroup.ie/ http://matthewthompsonphotography.com http://www.coudal.com/swapmeat/swapped.php
--------------------------------------------------------
Interviewer : Richard Seabrooke.
When, how and why did Conor & David happen? When: First day of business was March 1st 2006, but the seeds had been sown as early as 2002 in our final year of college in NCAD. March 1 2006. How: We gave notice to our respective employers, registered the business, found an accountant who loved numbers and order more than we loved letters and grids, rented a studio, sat at our desks and turned on our computers. We then stared blankly at the screen in a cold sweat suddenly realising you can’t do brilliant design for non-existent clients. We left our respective jobs, found a studio space and a handful of clients, and got to work! Why: We had both been working in quite different studio environments. I had been working for Zinc Design since my foetal graduation from college and was going through an angry teenager phase of the ill-defined middle-to-senior designer limbo. It had always been my plan to work for myself, and since shortly after college it had been the plan to work with Conor. I’d learnt a lot from previous jobs and had started to have a clear idea of the way I wanted to work based on that. Plus, it was time for a change. What do you believe each of you bring to the partnership that makes it work? Patience, calm (most of the time), method, structure, typophilia (it’s an illness) and a tolerance of David’s unending flatulence. We’re both very much from a print design background and in terms of those skills we have a big crossover. Conor’s knowledge of type and typography is encyclopedic. I’d know more about web stuff and I’m into photography. Personality-wise we’re very different. I’m inclined to be either very happy or very unhappy about a job at any given time; Conor is generally more calm. That combination of skills and personalities is pretty healthy I think.
Who and what would you consider as inspiration? So much… I gather a great deal from various sources. I’m a avid reader of Dot Dot Dot (eds. Stuart Bailey & Peter Biak), which is a fascinating collection of low-brow and high-brow articles ranging from the purely ridiculous to the utterly compelling, I guess it’s a non-design design magazine – if that makes sense? I’m inspired by the patience and commitment of some type designers, particularly Adrian Frutiger. It really shows when a typeface is rushed and ill-considered. I admire the tenacity and honesty of Erik Spiekermann, he’s had rough time but always seems to bounce back stronger than before. My friends and family certainly have a big impact; between their personalities and interests, the music they’re listening to and the things talked about. I’m not a big reader of design books but I do spend a lot of time checking out design, film and music related things online so that is part of it too. How have you found it being a young start-up in Dublin / Ireland? What have you faced as your biggest challenges, maybe it’s really easy to get up and running? It’s certainly not easy. Do we give people that impression? We’ve had our ups and downs. The first few months were extremely stressful, it was a shock to the system to be anxious about not being busy as opposed to the opposite. So, I’d say our biggest challenge was getting clients. Then in the space of a month we went from being semi-idle to extremely busy and there hasn’t been much of a let-up since. >>
This page. ‘50’ print, Ruby de Mure identity, SweetTalk poster & festival merchandise.
This page. Conor & David for NCAD, various pieces.
Do you think it would have been easier to set up somewhere else? I always thought of setting up in Barcelona, having lived and worked there before. It would probably have been harder. We knew very little of the bureaucracy of setting up a business in Ireland let alone a foreign land. What we had in Dublin were family and friends to support us. Not for us – we’re both from Dublin and many of our clients came through people we’d have met or known over the years. Arriving in a new place with no connections would have been near-impossible I think. If you were to give 3 pieces of advice to aspiring independents what would they be? 1. Get plenty of experience working for someone else prior to going solo. 2. Start small, grow slowly. 3. Check your spelling, grammar and punctuation. 1. Work in a good studio and try to learn as much as you can. 2. Value your work, but don’t be too precious about it. 3. Start saving now. How would you describe the Irish creative scene at the moment? One word sums it up for me: Flourishing. Vibrant! In all aspects of creativity we’re on top form these days. There’s a greater sense of what’s possible, of not having to look outside of Ireland for the best people or the most interesting work. Being confident and not casting yourself as the underdog is a really positive change for Irish creatives. Candy has been important in this process – by showing Irish work in an international context it not only makes others look at us in that way, it changes the way we look at ourselves. It’s hard to say whether it has instigated change or is just documenting it, but ultimately it’s part of the process and that’s what matters.
This page. ‘Playboy Of The Western World Beijing’ media. Next page. Conor & David for http://www.pspandme.ie
Do you think that Irish creativity has a certain style or sensibility about it, like say the dutch or english, or is there something else that holds us together? I don’t think there is an Irish style. In terms of design we don’t have a huge history, but we have thousands of years of storytelling experience. This is not only part of our creativity but what it is to be Irish. This ties a lot of Irish design work together – although I’m not sure how our work fits into that. Who would you consider as instrumental in getting Ireland’s creative quality to this point? Who’s rocking this little isle of ours? I think we’ve always been a creative and resourceful race, so I guess our ancestors. In terms of design, I guess you’d have to give credit to the designers who broke free from the Irish advertising culture back in the 80s, chiefly the folks in Design Factory and Designworks. There is the obvious Dutch influence, well documented by Conor Clarke. Currently Candy is, without a doubt, the dominant promoter of Irish talent. It brings together all creative disciplines, whereas before it was like a céilí in the local community centre, everyone too shy to ask someone to collaborate with them. I’ve seen really nice work from Angry, Atelier, Brian Coldrick, Daddy, Zero-G, Detail, Clare Grennan, Designworks, Frankenstyles and M&E in the recent past. It’s tough to say who has got us here as that history extends beyond my knowledge and beyond design anyway. But the work that’s around is great and seems to constantly be getting better. >>
This page. Tacita Dean identity & media.
What are your ambitions for your work? What do you hope to achieve by doing things your way? Continued progress and learning with some fun and money thrown in along the way. We’ve been teaching part-time in NCAD and LSAD recently and would love to keep that up as a refreshing contrast to the studio work. I’d hope that we could produce good work and get paid doing it – so ambitions wouldn’t extend much further than producing better work and getting paid more! That’s what I hope to achieve at the moment. There is a degree of planning out the future of the studio, but mostly we’re concentrating on what’s on right now. As a nation of storytellers I believe your work brings your thoughts, ideas and conversations to its audience quite succinctly. Do you feel it’s important to tell stories within your work, sometimes beyond the initial brief, in order to engage the viewer even more? There are subtleties to some of the work that only we truly care about. Most of these are in grid structure, typeface choice and their relationship with the imagery. Occasionally we come across an enthused client eager to understand the bricks and mortar of the project, which is great. For us the most important story is the client’s, so we try to focus on that and get out of the way of the content. Our task is to engage the viewer by making that content irresistible in the most appropriate way we can find. The reason a lot of our work feels succinct is that it’s the result of a process of subtraction where only the most important or relevant things are left at the end. You take on a wide breadth of work for a diverse range of clients. Why do you feel it’s important for C&D that you run this gamut, surely you could just do one thing very well and succeed anyways? I don’t think I’d want to design the same type of thing for the rest of my life, be it a singular industry, format or subject matter. That’s not a possibility in Ireland anyway. As far as we’re concerned we already only do one thing: we deliver an approach that we can adapt to whoever comes our way. Having a range of clients means that we’re always investigating new methods and fields, and that keeps it interesting.
This page. Website design for http://matthewthompsonphotography.com http://www.workgroup.ie & http://www.thirtythreetrees.com
You were responsible for a marvelous balloon ampersand. Care to tell us where you got the idea and how you came about doing it and producing it as a poster print? When we decided to work together I felt a huge relief, both mentally and creatively. In January, wanting to celebrate, coupled with an obsession with wanting to create sculptural type, I drew a vector illustration of the ampersand from balloons and emailed it to David. I bought the black balloons the next week. It wasn’t until June that we had the time, money and location to shoot the shot. We rented out the Back Loft in La Catedral Studios in The Liberties for the day, borrowed a medium format Yashica 24, inflated the balloons and began assembling with a little help from my sister Órfhlaith. The poster was printed by BUD in Potsdam, just outside Berlin. It arrived on a large crate which was a struggle to get up the two flights stairs to our studio. A few weeks before we started up, Conor emailed me an illustrator file in which he’d drawn out an ampersand in balloons; he wanted to photograph it in a warehouse. I didn’t really understand until about 6 months later when we were actually making it. When we got the shots back I was delighted, it was my very first time using a medium-format camera and it had turned out well. At the time we had just set up the WorkGroup website, so we had the perfect venue to sell the poster. We got a load printed so that we could give them away to friends. We had also planned to send them out to people we admired all around the world but we never got round to it. It seems to have travelled well anyway. We’ve been sending them all over the world to people which I really get a kick out of. Most recently; Coudal Partners are producing a smaller format limited edition print of it on archival photo paper which will be ready soon. Due to global warming Dublin will submerged under water in 3 hours and Morgan Freeman will be coming in a kayak in 2 hours time. You can bring yourselves and 3 things... What do you bring? The back-up hard-drive, underpants and a toothbrush. Embarrassingly, the first thing that sprang to mind was my laptop. So I guess I’d take that, although I’m not sure how useful it would be in the absence of an internet connection (or electricity for that matter). I’d bring my glasses as I’m blind without them and they’d last longer than contacts. Lastly I’d bring a DVD of ‘Chain Reaction’ and make Freeman sit through it a few times, give him a taste of his own medicine. We could watch it on my laptop. This page. Website design for http://www.fabulousbeast.net
Heroes... I admire my parents. Finbarr, Anne, Patrick, Anne, Michel Gondry, Albert Folch, Hi-Res!, Bowie. Villains... Peter Saville’s self-indulgent pretension can grate on my nerves.
This page. ICAD awards event design.
The lady who walked out in front of me as I cycled down O’Connell street on a sunny Saturday afternoon a few weeks back. I managed to avoid her but clipped her shopping bags, which along with me went flying. She gathered her stuff and walked on leaving me with a broken forearm. You’ve just hired a new person, his name is Bentacorous, he wants in on the name. What do you do? It would have to be Bentacorous & Conor & David, to keep it alphabetical. Then we’d have to search for a fourth partner whose name begins with A, to satisfy my anal compulsion for order. Seriously though, we’ve already decided on this issue, but we’ll keep that to ourselves for now. This eventuality has crossed our minds. Although Conor & David & Bentacorous has quite a ring to it, we’d probably say no for now.
What’s on the C&Decks at the moment? We have music set up via wireless in the studio so I tend to listen to whatever David has playing. I nerdily listen to Typeradio along with LCD Soundsystem, The Knife, Grizzly Bear, The Go! Team and Hot Chip. The Advantage, The Shins, Eddie Holman, Ratatat, Pretty Girls Make Graves, Cap Pas Cap, Boards of Canada, Cat Power, Rare Earth, Foghat, Interpol, Isley Brothers, Bjork, Ice-T, The Buzzcocks, Wu-Tang Clan, and of course Hall & Oates, Steely Dan and a splash of ghettotech. Add to that whatever reggae and rap I’ve scrounged from friends in the recent past and you’ve got the full tip of the iceberg. What can we expect from you guys in the future? Work for an international interdisciplinary conference, a plastic surgeon, an architectural practice and further work for current clients, with a much-needed holiday in South Africa in amongst the madness. I hope to finish kerning a typeface I’m working on pretty soon. Hopefully more work that we’re proud of for loads of new clients, as well as for our current ones. We have more self-initiated projects on the way too, a typeface, a book and a load of posters among them. No more balloons though.
FRANKENSTYLES
Previous page. Frankenstyles custom for Buck. This page. Prints.
Next page. Pages from ‘The Tender Trio’. http:/ww.thetendertrio.com
Street art and it’s offshoots of subculture, graffiti, the upsurge in photocopy cut-outs, monotone graphics and cryptography in text and abstract iconography has spawned an art movement equal to the fauvist or abstract expressionism. It’s fuel for fire is that it will never have total respect from the art establishment, who wants that, really who cares. Just back a few months from a stint in LA, Frankenstyles has come a full circle and returned to his native Dublin to possibly gather his thoughts, take a breather and see what's next. His work is heavy street but he’s shrewd enough to know that it takes more than one pony to do good tricks. There's his work for adverts and illustration in print media that shows there's more to the moniker than meets the eye. It's clever and varied with just enough ingenuity to capture the imaginations of boardroom execs but it’s feet are still on the ground and respectful of the rules of cool.
Interviewee : Frankenstyles. -----------------------------------------
Official site : http://www.frankenstyles.com -----------------------------------------
Interviewer : Richard Seabrooke.
When did Frankenstyles come about? Was it a reaction to something? My website and work under that name originated when I left college and started working at my first design gig in late 2003. The website was a reason to create work and also develop in areas that my job didn't allow. It was a reaction to being creatively bored I guess. It has since grown to incorporate my commercial work. How would you describe your work and style? What do you hope to achieve in your work? Overall I'm trying to balance my love of typography, illustration, design and create concept driven content. Professionally I have been fortunate to find a place where all of those things meet: motion graphics. Outside of design for broadcast, I'm interested in street art, screen-printing, apparel design and sitespecific installations. I like creating work that blurs the line between illustration and design. I hope that all the areas I'm interested in bleed into and feed off each other, the sum of which is my style I guess. I'd like to create memorable intelligent solutions with a sense of fun. Who would you consider as heroes & inspirations? Heroes: Niall Sweeney, B+ (Brian Cross), DJ Mek, Chris Morris, my pops.
Inspirations: Matt Pyke, Saiman Chow, Rinzen, Geoff McFetridge, Charley Harper, Shepard Fairey, Cisma, Steven Harrington, Justin Fines, Adrian Johnson, James Victore, Herb Lubalin, Mauro Gatti to name afew. While you studied and worked out of Dublin for quite a while you moved to LA where you worked for Buck. What were the biggest differences between the 2 locations in terms of creative communities and the people involved? It was a considerable change. In design industry terms, Ireland is a small market with quite limited budgets and opportunities for creatives. Globally, Northern America has the highest concentration of world class motion graphics studios, most of which are in either New York or Los Angeles. Duly it attracts the best people from all over the world. I got to meet and work alongside some of the best young designers working today - people like Thomas Schmid, Sergiy Melnyk, Bradley Grosh, Yker Moreno, Tomás Peña, Emmett Dzieza, Steve Pacheco and Brian Gossett. Buck is a design-driven hothouse of talent so it was really inspiring for me. It was a step-up in terms of what was required of me and I believe I developed exponentially working at that level with those people. As a designer in a studio like Buck, you are paid well, respected and creatively fulfilled. My experience of working in Dublin was different.
You recently left Buck as you’re moving to NYC to work at BrandNewSchool but you’re back in Dublin in the meantime. How would you describe the creative scene here at the moment? Do you feel there aren’t enough opportunities in Ireland or should more people book their ticket out with your good self? The creative scene here seems to be popping off! Since being away I've missed so many great SweetTalk events, exhibitions and gigs. I'm really excited and encouraged by what so many talented people are doing in Dublin right now. People are making it happen for themselves and are thereby generating an atmosphere of possibility and opportunity. Personally I felt like I had reached a ceiling where I was creatively and financially and I wanted to continue growing as a designer, so I chose to leave Ireland. I didn't have to leave but I'm glad I did - it afforded me professional and personal experiences and opportunities I would definitely never have had if I stayed. Whether other people should do the same depends on their priorities - I don't have a kid, I'm not married, no mortgage so I just have myself to worry about (dries eye). Of course you can create award winning design and work remotely for clients all over the world and never leave your flat in Dublin. I guess it depends on what makes you happy. I do really appreciate what Ireland has though - my family and friends are here, it's my home.
How is Ireland perceived internationally from a creative perspective? I don't think Ireland has any significant visibility internationally in terms of graphic design. When I think of the Brazilian design scene or the New Wave of American designers - they seemed to explode out of nowhere but of course they were bubbling away slowly for many years. Maybe we are in the genesis of that now. The internet gives everyone a level playing field so population size or money is not an excuse. Ireland lays claim to some of the world's most famous actors, musicians, writers and artists, so why not designers? I'm an advocate of competing and self-promoting - as a designer you do those things daily, but you need many people who want to do that long term on an international level if Ireland is to be recognized internationally. Big up to your bad selves for contributing to Ireland's visibilty by the way! Who do you feel are rocking it here? Irish residents right now for me design / illustration / photography wise - Glenn Leyburn, M&E, Conor and David, D.A.D.D.Y., Brian Coldrick, Angry, Richie Gilligan and Colm Mac Athlaoich. Musically I'm digging Messiah J & The Expert, The Ease, Jape, The Immediate, Albert Niland and Cap Pas Cap. >>
This page. Various characters. Next page. Street art.
This page. Various 3d pieces.
Next page. Various motion graphics done at Buck & Piranha Bar.
You seem to have no real preference for one particular medium or style. Why is it important for you to maintain this flexibility in your work, do you ever think you’ll settle into a Franken-style over time or will everything always be up for grabs? My favorite designers are by and large multi-disciplinary. I'm impressed by individuals who can create great work in several fields with a sense of authorship and I'd like to do the same. It's important for me to do this in order to stay interested and continue growing. In the future I'd like to tackle new mediums aswell as perfect familiar ones. My style is something that develops constantly and which I hope will continue to come through in my work rather than dictate it. The things you feel are important to address when approaching any job... Most important is to develop a good concept which interprets the brief in an interesting way. Choosing an appropriate style of execution. Thorough research. The painstaking execution itself getting a bit of creative distance from the work is good at this stage, getting feedback etc. And finally having the stamina to finish it well despite any client interference that may have occurred.
Career highlight so far? It's a toss up. Designing the opening credits for Mr. T's show 'I Pity The Fool' was a pretty awesome thing, just because I used to run around in my pyjamas with excitement when the A-Team was on TV. Still do sometimes. Also being asked to be a part of the second annual 'Psst! Pass It On' project (http://www.psstpassiton.com/) was pretty humbling. Some of the best in the business including some of my favorite designers were asked to contribute too - I felt like I was one of the gang.
Any upcoming projects that you want to tell us about? I'm planning a collaborative project with Richard Gilligan. I've wanted to work with a photographer on something for a while and I met Richard for the first time recently. He suggested we do something together and I'm stoked because not only is he a swell guy but I totally respect his work. So it may be a photography based book and also maybe an album cover thing. I've been turning down alot of work recently because I want to chill while in Ireland.
Why do you need to always be producing work, either in agencies or self-initiated? Do you not like the idea of relaxing and forgetting it all? The joy of it all is to create, to enjoy having that ability. I find it hard to imagine just creating because you are being paid to do it. That mindset is alien to me. I'm always switched on, looking at new things, discovering new aesthetics and having the ability to disseminate all of these new things or explore new territory is exciting to me. I want to get better. It's hard to switch off sometimes, but I don't much want to.
What’s rocking the Frankenstyles’ soundsystem these days? I am currently roboting to the new Bjork album, Battles, Feist, Bob Dylan, Devendra Banhart, Katell Keineg, Low, Panda Bear, Smog, The Books, M83, ScaryÉire, Explosions In The Sky, Lavender Diamond, Bonnie Prince Billy, Joanna Newsom, Life Without Buildings, Van Morrison.
You’re part of The Tender Trio http://www.thetendertrio.net What’s the story behind this project, who else works with you on it, what do you hope to do with it? Any plans for the third installment of the book? I asked two illustrator friends of mine, Brian Coldrick and Christian Reeves, to do a fanzine type project with me in 2003 just so we could collaborate on something together. 4 years later and we have two issues! I did all the work for the second issue, which came out this year, over 3 years ago! Collectively we are not the most organized people so I wouldn't hold your breath for any more Tender Trio-ness. Sorry :(
What does the future hold for Frankenstyles? I want to really focus on my 9-5 as an Art Director for BrandNewSchool and adapt to NYC living. I plan to learn how to cook properly, exercise more and take better care of my health. So hopefully alot more fun, alot less drama, some great working experiences with some great people and general happiness. Hare Krishna.
Previous page. Various apparel for Buck. This page. Various illustrations. Next page. Public pieces.
Previous page. Various characters.
Next page. Various logos.
This page. Various illustrations.
Following page. Frankenstyles prints.
GR EG/ DU NN.
Interviewee : Greg Dunn. -----------------------------------
Interviewer / Photographer:Aidan Kelly.
Meeting Greg Dunn is not a straightforward experience, with the odd meeting by chance you do feel you've met a person who you could talk to for a while. There is a wealth of experience in his voice, he's by no means an elder, still young enough and full of opinions, but there's been times in his life that make for an interesting one to one conversation, anecdotes and real memories that make him a complete storyteller. Born In Kent South of England and spent time in Israel, New York and a myriad of places throughout the years, there's a couple of full passports amid his collection of video, photographs, unusual prints, objects and religious Icons, bits of paper and a neat collection of toy cars. With his stories there is also a sense that something might just happen outside the conversation, like coincidence and almost as if fate has something up its sleeve. You get the feeling "You're onto something", it’s unusual and likely to be interesting. It would be fair to say although he might not totally agree that he may be dubbed an eccentric, he waits for your reaction when he's said something, like he's unsure he should have said it. There's a dislocation, his own version of the story is that he's 'an abnormal person trapped inside the body of a hairdresser' Anyway we are at the back area of St Peter’s church in Inchicore, Southside Dublin. It’s a colossal manmade grotto built many years ago, strange and unerring standing high above and in front of us. It’s catholic fifties Ireland in one place. True to coincidental form as we start our interview we are asked to keep quiet by an angry man trying to complete his novena, and after giggling, moving and sitting down on the grass some distance away we are approached by a deaf woman, just finished her novena, willing to give us a fiver, thinking we're homeless and destitute. Even before we start it’s become very interesting.
This page & following 2. ‘Play-Stations’.
Aidan Kelly- I think for an opinion on anything, you're a good person to ask, I first heard about you through Ali my lovely partner and she'd recounted your antics, Then finding out you were artistic... is that the right description? Greg Dunn- More like autistic... We laugh for a while. AK- so you picked this place for us to have the interview, its a bit unusual, would you consider your self a religious person? GD- I have no religion whatsoever! BUT, I cannot say that nothing exists, I simply don't know, so I guess I'm an Agnostic, but no I'm not religious at all. It might exist, it might not, but where I come from in the south east of England in Kent, I come from a church of England tradition, protestant but was never christened, my parents weren't religious at all but my grand father at an early age asked me "Who made God?". And that got me thinking, So from then on I pretty much discounted all that, when I came here to Ireland at the beginning of 1990, I was fascinated by all the iconography associated with the Catholic religion here... [We are interrupted by the woman who thinks we are homeless and destitute] GD- Good Morning ! Deaf woman- Get yourself a cup of tea! AK- No, No, we're ok. GD- That's fine, we're ok, thank you. Deaf woman- what! [she can't hear us too well and walks off a bit disgusted that we refused her money, she's talking to herself and stops to turn around and see if we're still there, mumbling] GD- Yeah this interview is turning out to be a bit groovier than I thought it would be, first we are told not to talk and now a woman has come over and tried to give us a lady godiver for a cup of tea. Jesus. Tears are running down my face. AK- my brand new jackets not working! [after a while we stop laughing and try to carry on]. GD- So yeah I was fascinated by all those 'Child of Prague' and 'Virgin Mary' statues and when I came here initially I amassed a little collection of all of that stuff. Like I had a set of 'Child of Pragues' that went from 3 feet high down to little Russian doll sizes.
AK- So its the iconography you are interested in, not the Ethos, just how religious objects looked ? Greg Dunn- yeah I didn't delve into the meaning I was just a bit fascinated! AK- Did you think of Ireland as a religious place and did that make want to come here ? GD- It was kind of circumstance and I had already lived here 1982-83, pre fornicating bishops, paedophile priests and Brutalising Nuns and supermarket tycoons, pre ZOO TV, pre Jack Charlton and the tumultuous change that happened to Ireland, and even then I lived in a bed-sit and did what every other 23 year old did, sit around and smoke grass, but what was different from my contemporaries at that times was that they went to Mass at the end of the week, and as far as I knew that absolutely did not exist back in England. You left home at 17 and never went back unless you had no money, people In Ireland seemed to be happy to live at home and get their washing done. I found this very strange, and religion played a huge part of that I think. AK- did you feel more English here than at home GD- Yes I did I think, AK- Were you creating work at this stage GD- Yes I guess I had photography at that stage, where I grew up in Deal on the south coast of England, near where the earthquake was last week... in those days if you wanted to process a roll of film you brought your film to the chemist, you would be told to come back 10 days later, this place did all the film for the whole of Kent and right up to the borders of London, c41, c22 Agfa, Black and white they had a department that just did spotting. This is 1976 after school aged 16 but not having an interest in art really more in music. AK- This is around the start of the punk era! GD- Just before it! I caught the whole tail end of progressive rock and then overnight the shape of my trousers changed, my hair changed, my record collection went out the window, real Pol Pot year zero stuff. So at this job I was there for 3 years processing everyone's happy snaps way before one hour photo, so I developed an interest in photography through that. So after that I left and that's when I went to Israel where I met my wife at a kibbutz, everyone did that, but I did a couple of years which is a long time really.
AK- You obviously liked it there! GD- Yeah I really liked it, I found the whole political situation there very interesting and I found the weather fantastic and the influx of people coming from all over the world that was good. Went on a plane for the first time and met all sorts of people there, it was a real eye opener. After that I moved here to Dublin for a year where I nearly snuffed it, that's another story, I had a massive stomach haemorrhage with an operation in Baggot street hospital and ended up going back home. After a while I worked in a lab in London processing E6, all sorts of work for all the big people Snowden all those.. AK- So you where getting to see all the work from major photographers in London at that time? GD- Yeah! AK- What year was this? GD- That would have been from say 84 to about 87,but when I was working in this lab, ‘Push-one’ and it was part owned by an Indian man who owned the biggest lab in New York and a lot of photo industry is run by Indians, and as soon as I found out this guy owned this lab in New York I said "That's it" and going to go and live in New York which was a huge operation. AK- And all through this you were taking photos? GD- Yes, yes I was! But at this time as you know yourself there was no digital and to buy and process E6 is expensive. So for me it was much better and more accessible as I worked in a place and it didn't cost as much, and took more pictures. AK- What was your subject matter and did you say to yourself “I'm a photographer”? GD- Well not really, no more than I say I'm an artist now, but I suppose there had to be an element of a photographer in me, the same as in a weird twisted sort of way that I am, even as an outsider, an artist now. >>
This page & following 2. South American photos.
This page (clockwise from topr ight).. ‘Shrine 1’, ‘P is cool’ & ‘2 Euro’.
AK- And subject matter? GD- Anything that was on the streets, it wasn't like I was aspiring to be a fashion photographer or anything like that, but one thing I discovered while working there in New York at customer services, while I took in everything from a lot of photographers and there assistants I noticed although it might not be true that in most cases, not all, but most photographers were frustrated artists. Basically they had gone to college worked hard and then become some photographers dogsbody and in the process had made it financially but they were all doing 'pack shots' for the company. The company says “we want it shot this way” and to me they seemed to be under pressure and unhappy which contrasted to my work which I just did for myself. It was a fantastic time to be in New York. I went there in 1984 and it was near the end of term for Ed Koch and he had lost it like Tony Blair now and Bertie Ahern, they'd been in power for too long and something had to give. There was an enormous amount of homelessness in New York, crack cocaine was a relatively new idea and was becoming an epidemic on the streets, the whole Reaganite, Thatcherite greed boom 80's thing was in full swing with major disparities and an awful lot of beggars, with rap music just crossing over from being an exclusive thing in the Boroughs, Public Enemy, EPMD, and the Beastie Boys had just done their first crossover thing, so it was a very cool bohemian scene thing as opposed to an exclusively south Bronx thing, you didn't really go to the Bronx so at that time it started to come to Manhattan. I'd see Keith Haring walking around, there was really a lot going on, ‘Slaves of New York’, ‘Bonfire of the Vanities’, but yet it was a little bit dangerous. Living in Alphabet city. A for adventurous, B for brave, C for crazy, and D for dead we lived down between crazy and dead and it was like a cliché, taxi drivers didn't know where they were going, I had to direct them, steam really does come out of the manholes and I was mugged once and reported it in the same precinct they used for Kojak. I lived in a loft apartment with a lesbian who had an art funk trio that had been very big in Scandinavia, so the whole thing was one big cliché. AK- Did you feel at home there, or still feel like an outsider? GD- Well I had come from Kent, you never go to New York and feel at home, but I felt perfectly at ease there, and anyone will tell you, you got to be careful, not look to be mugged, but there was a certain law on the streets then, mostly to do with drugs, they [the crack dealers] would shout HOMEBOY if I went to the Deli which meant I was a local living in the area and to be left alone.
AK- When did you start working with moving picture, are you influenced by film? GD- It’s funny when video was available I was in New York still, there was a major riot in Tompkins square right in the middle of the East village and it was absolutely full of Homeless people with make shift encampments and they used to Piss and Shit on one side of the square, so you couldn't walk up that side of the square in the summer, it was so bad. The residents got pissed off called the police and they imposed a curfew and kicked all the homeless people out. So a few white agit pop lefties decided to go down there and cause some trouble and there was an altercation with the Police, so the following week in the summer [August] of 88 they organised a rally, you have to understand this was around the same time as all the waste dumping out in long island and the aids fear was very big, everything just seemed Heated and it all kicked off at Tompkins square. Police brought in from everywhere but the guy who was head of the operations went missing probably to go to the toilet, and the police lost the run of themselves covered up their badges and beat the shit out of everybody, but a lot of it was filmed because people had video for the first time. But since then as a medium I hated it, I hated the way it looked, it looked like a c41 end print as opposed to a nice e6 print, you know what I mean ? AK- Yes I do. GD- Till one summer, ten years ago when Ciarán Ó’Gaora came to my home town in Deal, Kent and he brought a camcorder, I started seeing the possibilities of what it could do, I then, the following Christmas went to Dixon's and bought a camcorder and at 10 seconds to midnight on new years eve I started filming and continued filming when I could for the whole year till New years eve the next year. I filmed everything even though it was by today's standards a large thing. A Jehovah witness asked me one day had I found Jesus and I said no but I took the camera out and filmed him, close ups of his badge and face, the wife lugging the bags on holidays, a blokes legs out of the passport machine, the aeroplane meal, a joy rider on manor street. I got pretty anal about it. But I had rules, no panning and you know the way other peoples videos are really boring, well I would try to keep changing it, BANG BANG BANG BANG, people wouldn't have time to get fed up looking at it, just kept changing all the time. So I edited it down that year and called it 1998 and I haven't seen it since, Some people in the video have snuffed it, the children born then are now grown up, my daughter dancing to 'Brim full of asha' first thing in the morning.
AK- What were you trying to achieve GD- I suppose end of millennium, My life then, Ireland and also because technology moves so fast I thought well it will have a quality hopefully... Maybe like looking at super 8 film, like a faded Polaroid that turns to magenta. I was Trying to catch everything around me, even the old woman next door whilst she was arguing. I was trying to subvert as much as possible even though I'm a complete luddite, it might look very pretentious but at least I bothered for the year to put this thing together. So lately I bought a new camcorder but this time digital and even though I was told it was going to be much better it was more or less the same, bag of shite, looks the same to me!. AK- But it was a good place to get your ideas down, did you ever think of being a film-maker properly like 16mm or bigger? GD- I never really considered it but id like to yeah. AK- So still photography versus moving picture, would you have them as equals? GD- Yeah..... they are different mediums, but yes I think of them the same I use the camcorder much like a still camera. The latest project being maybe 4 or 5 hours of footage of mundane architectural details, I go around on my bike with the camcorder in my hand and shoot stuff I don't think people are interested in. a lot of the stuff I shot has been knocked down since, like the ugly stuff, the waxworks museum, its gone, the flats opposite Oliver Bond Street designed by Michael Scott, demolished. Hopefully in 40 years time someone will find those disks and say who was this bloke who recorded this stuff, and maybe it will be interesting to somebody. My main thing is documenting things. AK- What about nostalgia, is it important? GD- It is simply because things go ! I have this ongoing project called Play stations, you know the way kids have ropes that they used to swing around lampposts on on the north side usually, they might have these ropes on lampposts in foxrock but I doubt it somehow, well I've started to amass a collection of these lampposts with the ropes still attached usually 90% of them have been cut, and I've spoken to people in the areas and usually the police come along and cut them because its dangerous, the kids are swinging out into the traffic. Kids are so obsessed with Playstation fucking 3 sitting in a house somewhere watching a screen playing a game, before people had money, people made their own fun, those ways are going, people seem to be more or less better off and not poor. Partly Childhood seems to be lost, you can sit in front of telly and blow away some FAT BOOTY BITCH HOE, and you can have your weapon of choice, were as before you would kick a football or swing around a lamppost. >>
Previous 2 pages & this page. ‘World Trade Centre’ motion piece.
So I've gone and documented as many of these lampposts with half ropes on in mainly places like Cabra, Finglas, and Dunard, Fatima and I was in Ballymun last week, most of the time when I go into these places they don't understand what im trying to do and more often than not I’m branded a paedophile! People actually shouting at me from across the street sitting in their gardens having BBQ. AK- What other work you doing ? You mention earlier you have an association with Ciarán ÓGaora how long do you know him? GD- Yes Ciarán, a very clever kid, I suppose I know him 10 - 12 years, yeah. AK- Is it true you send him packages in the post, is there a series of these? GD- Yes there is, emmm, Ciarán was testing out envelopes for a very wealthy client of his, and wanted wedding invitations done so he was putting these envelopes through the postal system to see how they stood up to the rigours, they were an unusual type of paper slightly velvety, and in his office I seen on the desk a self addressed envelope that was being thrown out... Now! I was born 15 years after the second world war and I come from a family that threw nothing out, everything was kept and re used. So don't throw it out just give it to me. And I instinctively thought I'll do something with this, and I Don't know I just thought well ill fill it with things, well anything that came to hand really, some old magazines I picked up in Budapest, a free condom, just a bunch of things that would fit in the envelope, just junk, with no real theme just sent it back for the crack and the next thing its on his website called 'A letter from Greg', they had scanned everything front and back, you could see everything. AK- Didn't they film the opening of it ? GD- No that was the second one, a smaller envelope, I'd went for a walk with my dog Judy, in a cemetery called Mount Jerome in Harold's cross and I'd never been there all the years I've been here and I quite like cemeteries..I always visit cemeteries when im abroad, I started a collection of stuff from the cemetery, like an old holy water bottle and those faded flowers you get, now I didn't take anything from an actual grave, just stuff lying around, I found a rat trap! And for some strange reason there was a section of the graveyard that was covered in lotto scratch cards, I just amassed a lot of stuff and I brought it home, now the envelope was too small so I cut it open and then re stuck it to a jiffy bag so it was still self addressed and sent it. They weren't expecting it so when they got it they were surprised and filmed the opening of it , which they did with a scalpel cutting down the belly of the envelope not like opening it normal so it looked like a post mortem. Which was weird because it was all stuff from the graveyard.
AK- So it fit even though they didn't know ? GD- Yeah, and put that one up online. So its good that Ciarán taps into my world view, well useless world view, well commercially anyway! Because he's running a business and as a respite there's this guy who has no training at all, sending him stuff in the post. AK- You wanted to talk about Cabra West and ‘AUTO-ZERO’? GD- Yeah, as a part of my project of recording buildings I took a photo of a non descript factory facade up on Bannow road which is on the very border of Cabra west near Finglas, I had always been a mug snob, I cannot abide drinking tea in big fat builders mugs, I just hate nasty mugs and when you get a nice fine bone china mug the design on it is nasty, so I wanted to do a nice mug and Ciarán said he was into it and we could give them to clients. I had just started working with digital and I had this image of this factory on Photoshop and Ciarán said that looked great, so we put the image on a mug which I sourced a good company making mugs in Cornwall, On the inside we stuck the logo for Ciarán’s company which is an upside down cow with the logo ZERO-G on it and I went back to Bannow road to some people I knew who lived opposite the factory and wondered if I could speak to them and find out a little bit more about the factory, so i went down to your man and gave him a fine bone china mug asking him what was the name of the factory, what did they do? He said "Ohh it was called Auto-zero and they did cold storage" they did a lot of that butter mountain EEC stuff in the 70's.... but the weird thing is that he company was called AUTO-ZERO and Ciarán’s company who I was doing the mug for was called ZERO-G and I didn't know this beforehand and of all the factory facades I picked, I picked that one. We did 50 they went like hotcakes. I'd like to do more mugs! You know the way you go to the Tate Modern they have mugs in there but they're the big fuckin' heavy ones, I'd like to do something more subtle and localised. AK- Mugs? GD- Yeah mugs, plates, calendars, tea towels... And thanks to Ciarán and ZERO-G for helping me to do that, I’m such a luddite and don't know enough about computers...
AK- But you do use a computer ? GD- Yeah but only in a basic way, I do try to get the guys in ZERO-G to help me but they are incredibly busy people in there. Its like learning a new language. I'm 47. Its very hard to understand someone who speaks a language you don't understand very well when they speak too fast, its like that when someone knows how to use a computer and you don't. AK- What else are you working on ? GD- Now I know nothing about typography but I have worked out if you change the lettering on a word in even a small way it changes how it looks completely, what it means and I've come up with an anti-font by going out and photographing not the ubiquitous New York styled graffiti you can see all over Europe but the more localised lettering, mainly in Dublin 7, on the Northside, I've gone and photographed on lampposts, shutters, gateways, bored kids who use Permanent marker or Tippex or scraped their names into metal or wood in the most rudimentary way and compiled an A-Z that looks completely miss matched because they're all by different people in different styles but not stylistic. The layering, its Fascinating. They're just bored kids doing it for the other rival bored kids on the corner, marking territory. I'd like to put that stuff out of context onto a fine bone china mug, and that typeface was printed in a Chinese design magazine, can you imagine if those kids knew that what they did on those walls was being read by the Chinese!!! AK- Greg that's great, Thanks very much for talking to me... GD- Cool, we should go.
Previous 3 pages and this page. ‘Physical graffiti’.
We drift back to the car through a graveyard site hoping somewhere will serve us tea. We go over the interview and talk about family, his dad, my dad, we have similar stories. I take more photos and then again at his house the following weekend when Maggie, his lovely other half, feeds me a vegetarian bolognaise and we go hula-hoopin with Fay his daughter and Judy the wonder dog, who whines when she sees the open grass in the Phoenix Park. We look at slides and a Gary Winogrand book which we marvel over, laugh and be embarrassed to call ourselves photographers. The day ends quickly and we go to the supermarket for beers and bread. Time to go home, not bad for a day’s work if you can get it.
An interview with Gary Hustwit, director of ‘Helvetica The Documentary’
An interview with Gary Hustwit, director of ‘Helvetica The Documentary’ Love it or hate it Helvetica, like Marmite, has always been a survivor. When Max Meidinger first concieved Neue Haas Grotesk he could not have envisaged the influence one font would have over the work of generations of designers. Now the subject of a film, Helvetica's hero or zero status (depending on which side of the picket fence you sit) is uncovered. With a keen eye for the details Candy talks to Gary Hustwit, the man behind that 'Helvetica' movie. Helvetica persona sans non grata?
Hello Gary. You mention in the notes on your website that the decision to make a film about Helvetica was based on the fact that it is so omnipresent in everyones daily life and that this in its very nature invites more investigation. When were you first aware of Helvetica as a typeface yourself? I guess it was when I bought my first Macintosh, back in 1988. I wasn't an art student, in fact, I wasn't a student at all, I'd already been kicked out of university, twice. But all my friends were in bands at the time, and I started helping them to organize shows, release records, book tours. So of course I was using the Mac for all that, and that's probably when I first discovered there was a font called Helvetica.
Were you always aware of its visual proliferation, or was that something that grew by careful observation and recognition over time? As I got more and more interested in graphic design and type, I started being more aware of the fonts in my environment. But It wasn't until I moved to New York in 1999 that I really started noticing Helvetica... New York is just infested with it. But why choose Helvetica? Why not Futura, Frutiger, Avant Garde or Gill Sans and their respective designers all which would make equally interesting films? Well, I think Eric Gill would be a juicy subject! Actually, there's a film about him in the works already. But if you're making a movie around one typeface, how could it be anything but Helvetica? Would people be lining up around the block to see a film about Times New Roman? Not a chance. There's just something about Helvetica that provokes such love and hate from designers, and it's also probably the one font name that people who don't know anything about graphic design still recognize. There's nothing else in our lives with the name "Helvetica."
Once you had the idea for the film what were the key reference points that helped grow this project from idea to reality? How complex was it to plan for such a huge undertaking? The complex plan involved me coming up with the idea, then within 24 hours I was emailing famous designers who I'd never met, asking if they'd like to participate. And for some crazy reason, they all said yes. Then I had to figure out the hard stuff: funding, putting a crew together, planning the logistics, etc. I researched and prepared for about six months, shot film for six months, and then edited for six months. >>
When you set first set about making the film were you aware of the little red book by Lars Muller in 2004 'Helvetica Homage to a Typeface' which also documents the good, bad and ugly of Helvetica's influence? Yes, I'd seen Lars' book in 2004 and loved it. I liked how it showed the professional, designed uses of Helvetica right next to the untrained, vernacular uses. It was funny, because during the filming process, Luke Geissbuhler (cinematographer) and I intentionally did not look at the book, because we did want to just go out and film all the examples that Lars had found, we wanted to find our own examples. But of course, there are so many iconic uses, the New York subways, American Airlines, all the other corporate logos. I wanted get Lars involved in the film, but our schedules kept conflicting. Finally at the very end of the filming, I told him, "We can't have a film about Helvetica without you in it!" So he flew up to London for a day, and we spent the afternoon walking around east London and shot some hilarious footage of Lars pointing at all the Helvetica, just font spotting. It ended up being some of the best stuff in the film.
Could you tell us something about the movie itself. Is the focus of the film really closely tied into a single typeface and its use, or moreover is it a an in-depth look at the world of design? It's an in-depth look at the typeface, but also a look at the people behind typefaces, and the designers who use them. Since Helvetica turns 50 this year, it also serves as a crash course on the past 50 years in graphic design. It also looks at advertising, the psychology behind type use, and how the technology used in design has changed so radically during that period.
Was this a difficult subject to undertake or did you treat this project with the documentary resolve of your other films and just let the story unfold as you discovered more about the face, the faces and the places behind it? The "story" of the film very much arose from the conversations I had with the interviewees. I didn't set out to tell the story of Modernism versus Postmodernism, of order versus chaos, logic versus emotion. But that's something that came out in every interview, and it formed a narrative arc for the film. What's interesting is that everyone in the film is so good at what they do, and so convincing in their design philosophy, that I find myself agreeing with everyone. Yes, Wim Crouwel, grids are good! Yes, Paula Scher, it's all about expressiveness and subjectivity! In a way, the film is more about the designers in it, and their personalities and ideas, as it is about Helvetica.
What did you discover about Max Meidinger the man behind the face? Does anyone reveal how he felt about its cultural growth and significance towards the end of his life? I think everyone involved with the typeface was surprised by its success. When Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann at Haas created it, they were simply wanted to compete with Berthold's Akzidenz Grotesk, an imported German typeface that was all the rage in the 50s and being used heavily by Swiss designers like Josef M端llerBrockmann. They just wanted something homegrown that could go up against Akzidenz It wasn't until their parent companies, Stempel and Linotype, changed the name and started marketing Helvetica in Germany and abroad that the sales took off. Since Miedinger made the drawings for Helvetica as a work for hire, he didn't receive royalties on Helvetica's sales. And since Haas was owned by Linotype, I don't think they really profited from its success either. Though I know that Linotype did make some sort of compensation to Miedinger in the 70s before he died. >>
As I got more and more interested in graphic design and type, I started being more aware of the fonts in my environment. But It wasn't until I moved to New York in 1999 that I really started noticing Helvetica... New York is just infested with it.
http:// www. helvetica film.com
I was once asked by a creative director to make a design more 'swiss' by using Helvetica (Helvetia is latin for Switzerland kids). Designers that I admire such as Angus Hyland, Mark Farrow and Vince Frost have all used Helvetica in striking ways. Do you think that when Helvetica is placed hands of different designers the font takes on a personality of its own or do you think it is still firmly rooted in all things Swiss? I think that you can try to use Helvetica in different ways, but ultimately Helvetica forces you to use it the way it wants you to. Manuel Krebs makes a point of this in the film, that Helvetica somehow contains a design program that will lead you to a certain language. And what's interesting is, it's the same thing with a film about Helvetica... if you take a picture of a word set in Helvetica, you naturally want to frame it in a certain way, just as if it's on a page. So Helvetica even influenced the look of the film, and the music as well. The music had to be precise, slightly mechanized, but still human.
In the film Wim Crouwel mentions that when he uses Helvetica it is for its overall neutrality in design which allows his ideas to come to the fore. Do you think Helvetica can be truly neutral given its visual and cultural dominance? I don't think so, no. It's been used too many ways, in too many places, for too many reasons. And all those things affect our reaction to it. When I was growing up, my family always flew on American Airlines, which of curse used Helvetica for everything. So when I see Helvetica, I think part of me remembers going on holiday as a child, the travel, the excitement. I'm sure it's very subtle, but it's there. So nothing is neutral. As David Carson says in the film, you can't not communicate. What countries has the film been shown in and where will it take you to next? So far it's shown in the US, Canada, Switzerland, Germany, Turkey, the Czech Republic, Norway, Denmark, and France. Next up is the Netherlands, Greece, Australia, New Zealand, England, Japan, South Africa, Brazil, Cuba, and of course loads more screenings around North America and Europe.
Do you think you captured everything you wanted in the film or were there situations that didn't make it to the final cut that you would have preferred to have left in? Well, we shot 60 hours of footage... so there's plenty of great stuff that didn't make it in. I'll try to cram as much of that as possible onto the DVD (October). Many creatives will be clambering over each other to see this film. Do you think it will have a wider appeal outside of design circles or did you set out to create a instant 'cult' hit for the cultural elite? I set out to make a film that I wanted to see, as a viewer. I think that films naturally find the audience that suits them, so I tend not to think about that stuff. That's generally how I work. If there's something that I really want to see, or buy, or an event to go to, but it doesn't exist, then I have to do it myself. And I discovered early on that if I like something, there are other people out there who will like it too. So that's all I focus on now. Helvetica is just a film that I wanted to see two years ago, but that didn't exist then, so I had to make it.
ICE CREAM FOR FREE.
The idea of never being isolated and on your own as a creative does make some people enthusiastic and turns their working day as an artist into something worth waking up for, not real work. It’s utopia to know there's support from all angles right from the very start. The opposite of this, being lonesome, can sometimes bog you down when there isn’t a single person you can turn to in order to share a concern, look for feedback on an idea and help with a weight on the shoulders. Ice Cream For Free have so such worries. They are the quintessential team, they play the game together and if ever one falters or comes upon a brick wall there’s a friend waiting in the wings. “ICE CREAM FOR FREE™ is a Berlin based design studio founded in 2005 by Oliver Wiegner. Having developed from a collective, ICFF™ has access to a multidisciplinary team of designers. The main focus being on print. bubbling with ideas, ICFF™ is ready to go." Then we best get going!!
Interviewee : Ice Cream For Free. -------------------------------------------
Official site : http://www.icecreamforfree.com -------------------------------------------
Interviewer : Aidan Kelly.
Previous page. ‘ANDA’ illustration. This page. ICFF studio. Next page. Licht poster.
Hello there! What are you doing today? Hello Candy. Today i started to work on a cover artwork for the fifth record release of the techno label Flash. In the evening i will take a break to buy some balloons which i want to make into some nice faces for the Latex For Fun exhibition in Barcelona. And lastly i will organize the next day, before i go out to eat something with my girlfriend. How did ICFF name come about, how did everything seem to fall into place? That was a conscious process. I wanted to found a company to be able to choose the clients and projects by myself. Together with a good friend of mine i played around with words to find a name for the studio. I said ICE CREAM she said FOR FREE. That is how it came into being. And after we got the name, it turned out to be pretty clever with lots of potential. But we don't sell ice cream. You seem to be a very large family, and embrace the idea of getting bigger Is that the philosophy? Really? It's more like a family where the kids have grown up and left their home. In 2004 i moved to Berlin together with some friends which are also into design but in different fields. Some are more related to film, editing or animation, the others are more addicted to graphic design. After some month, one of them got a well paid full time job at a 3D-animated feature film production. Another friend has been working as an art director for the Berlin Transmediale festival since then. But we will always be in touch. Besides that i met a lot of great designers and artists in Berlin in the last two years. All this people are running their own studios, but Berlin is a big and engaged family. We detect a lovely sense of humour, when is Derrick coming home? As the studio is on the ground floor, Derrik is used to jumping out of the window to get to the garden in the backyard. So our idea was to put a little trampoline in front of the window and see what happened the next time he took a jump outside. Well, he isn't back yet...
When coming up with a concept do you think it’s better to have a pool of ideas from others than have a single focussed idea? Personally i prefer to push one idea to it's limit. Sometimes that works and turnes into a nice result, sometimes i am so impatient with the process that i start again. It's like putting 100% in one way or splitting the creativity in different ways. I like to pursue one way with all my passion. How do you deal with difficult clients, any horror stories? Fortunately i mostly work together with clients which have an artistic background, thus musicans, DJs, music loving event managers or other design studios. Most of these people are open minded and they have a feeling for what it means to connect both arts, design and music. That is pretty helpful. But of course it's not always this easy. The bigger the company, the more soul destroying they work. The most disgusting experience i came across since i started, was with a guy who wanted to engage me for designing flyers and posters for a monthly hip hop party. He kept wanting more and more drafts and finally, after i couldn't reach him for five weeks, he turned them all down. Saying that i have problems with the necessary stereotypes. When i finally saw the flyer he chose or maybe did himself for that party, there was great P. Diddy on it. Well, what can i say? “The main focus being on print� but you seem to be working on motion work too. Hows that going for you? Motion projects are always exciting because of the possibility to produce another form of art based on graphic design. It's an amazing way to get more out of images and to connect pictures with music but i've been extremely busy with print projects recently. It would be great to be involved in a motion project once again. Newly i'm a part of another studio called FLASHFORCEONE. They are generally into motiondesign. At present we want to combine our skills and do visuals at parties and festivals. We will see what's coming up later. >>
This page. ‘Balloons’ & Bootylicious poster. Next page. ICFF logos.
This page (left to right). ICFF flyers & illustration. Next page. ICFF flyer designs.
This page. ICFF flyer designs. Next page. ‘Neontree’ illustration.
And music plays a big part in the overall ethos? Yes. Music is like a drug. For me it's really inspiring to listen to something. Sometimes TV, sometimes the quietness and the most times it's listening to music. Currently i listen to Mogwai all day and night. Furthermore music and especially electronic music and graphic design have a lot in common. I guess the process of sitting in front of your computer and mixing sounds or going around and collecting samples is quite similar to the work i do. I dj sometimes but i'm incapable of making music. Recently my girlfriend and I tried to compose a track on the computer. At first we thought that this track was awesome and absolutely danceable. The next day we noticed that it sounded pretty terrible and we should delay this career. You think exhibitions are important for you, clients and getting to meet people? It seems easier to do these in Berlin, right? Yes. Exhibitions are important. They have lots of features. First it's inspiring to see what's going on in the art scene. And secondly it's a good chance to meet people especially if you are a part of the exhibition. It's a possibility to get response from not-biased people without a money context. I never got a job directly through an exhibition but i got in touch with nice people which i worked together with some weeks or months later. Fortunately there are lots of galleries all around Berlin with always changing exhibitions. Any future projects in the pipeline. Of course. It seems to be a busy summer. I've been asked to participate in some book projects. One of them is about handmade customized footwear. That sounds exciting to me. I love shoes and i love all of my Vans. Also there is a big corporate design project coming up which will be very complex. And there are always some cover artworks that are waiting for me. And i want to get some more experience as a visual artist together with the FLASHFORCEONE guys. That would be great.
This page. Sleeve designs for Flash. Next page. ‘ANDA’ illustration.
James Jean.
To be honest as a newbie to illustration a mere 2 years exposure, unless you count all those days I spent as a kid with Peter parker and Clark Kent as exposure to illustration. I’m a relatively uneducated in the ways of this particular force from nature, but god knows well I’m learning fast. A recent discovery of this mans work James Jean hailing from Sunny Los Angeles has startled me somewhat. I’m thinking I might have to see about purchasing some of his fantastic work just to get a closer look. And not that its a young guy in a backroom churning out his own ideas, not in the least, the work is flying in My chemical romance, Sigur ros, Big guns like Nike, Target, Men's Health, X-MEN and staggering side projects with Kenichi Hoshine called “Sink” on Polite winter and his own take on Ghosts and childhood called “Recess” Everything is ultra detailed clear and daring, like electricity runs through simple lines and clicks noisily when touched Like the hand rail on an escalator up or down contingent on your persuasion. If Blue is the new Black then these works are the new expression, there's been an explosion all over illustration and James jean has a guilty face on. educated at the School of Visual Arts in New York and earned his BFA in 2001. Gold Medal Society of Illustrators LA 2001, Eisner Award Best Cover Artist 2004 - 2006, Harvey Award Best Cover Artist 2005, 2006,
Interviewee : James Jean. -------------------------------------------
Official site : http://www.jamesjean.com -------------------------------------------
Interviewer : Aidan Kelly.
First page. ‘Sexed’. Previous page. ‘Boogie 2’.
This page. ‘Sigguros’, ‘Shinedownfinish’ & ‘Target’
This page. ‘Donnas’ & ‘King Chapelle’.
Next page. ‘Moodfishfinish’.
This page. ‘Spacefinish8bit’ & ‘Jealousy’.
Next page. ‘Mountaincover’.
This page. ‘Snowqueen’ & ‘Recesswave’.
Next page. ‘Mountaincover’.
I can imagine a childhood with your head in the clouds, where you late for dinner many times, stuck in a corner drawing? Yes, I was a malnourished child, my dinners cold and uneaten. I would agonize over my drawings, trying to get them 'just so': pencil drawings of giant robots, dinosaurs, and pictures copied from newspapers and books. What has been the single greatest inspiration to you? Has it been a person or an art movement or a mixture of forces? It's always a mixture of things. My living environment informs the work more than any other external forces. The weather, space, people, culture, and relationships affect the mood of whatever it is I'm doing. Hence, the variety of approaches in the art I've created over the years. What about sequenced animation. With the amazing leaps in technology. have you considered the idea of film? There's been lots of amazing motion graphics done of late, but somehow I'm much more interested in creating a single moment. The experience of looking at a picture is more intimate in a way -- it requires the viewer to project more of themselves into the experience. For me, film is more of a passive experience, though amazing in it's own way.
Was all this originally what you set out to do? How has been an artist changed the way you are? Being an artist seemed inevitable, there was no other alternative. You like being associated with comic based work. Would you see yourself doing more in the future or is that a world you shy away from? I'm certainly not a cartoonist, though the demand and opportunities for exciting, imaginative illustrations is high in the comic world, and I sort of fell into it by necessity when I was starving artist fresh from school. Comic covers comprise a small portion of the work I do on a monthly basis, but the rewards are great, as is the adulation from the readers. Can you tell us about your relationships with clients, is it carte blanche for you or more restrained, how does the process usually work? It certainly depends on the client. The lower paying jobs offer more freedom, and higher paying jobs entail more revisions and designby-committee. The irony is that the lower paying jobs usually yield the best pieces. However, with most of my jobs, I usually submit one sketch for approval. I prefer crafting a composition until it's right, rather than sending in a few mediocre ideas, with a chance the AD will choose the worst idea. That's happened too many times in the past, resulting in overturned tables and empty whiskey bottles.
What are your tools of the trade, how do you start with an idea and bring it to the end, How’s your discipline? It begins with pencil to paper, thumbnails and endless sketching until I arrive upon the best composition possible. During the sketch phase, I'll also research the particular assignment. Usually everything is drawn from imagination, with technical details, such as the anatomy of a motorcycle or style of clothing, supported by reference. Then I'll blow up the sketch and transfer it onto a larger surface, while always referring back to the sketch to maintain the energy and freshness from the original linework. When I'm coloring an image in photoshop, I'm mostly concerned about color combinations and values... the digital variations are endless, so it comes down to minute adjustments and experimentation with layer effects. What new works can you tell us about? I've recently finished designing and putting together my second art book, which collects the illustrations I've done in the past few years and will be released last summer of 2007. I'm also working with Chronicle on a postcard book, and possibly a series of wines based on my concepts and designs.
Why did you feel the need to have an external blog ‘Process:Recess’? How does it help? It's my way to give back to the art community, since I receive questions on a daily basis related to my art. The blog also acts as a journal and record of my progress as artist, and it helps to create awareness of my work as readers seem to enjoy the process behind each piece. How did your relationship develop with Kenichi Hoshine, are there new works with him in the pipeline? How about working with other collaborators, what is there to gain from these? Kenichi proposed the idea for "Polite Winter" a few years ago, and I designed the site. We hope to continue to trade panels until number 100, but I'm only able to create panels in my spare time. Luckily, we've kept at it, and the results have been surprising and very special. However, out of a profound sense of selfishness, collaboration is not something I'm keen on. The exception with PW is that we each create our own images while being inspired by what the other has done. Somehow, seeing someone else's hand change the course of one of my paintings is not palatable at all. To me, painting is a refuge, it's private... it's not sacred (I've been known to indulge in the profane) but it's the one thing in the world that I can wholly possess.
This page. ‘Mainfinish’.
Next page. ‘Pinkfinish’, ‘Candy’ & ‘Born’.
This page (top row). ‘Chemistry’, ‘Jump’ & ‘Confection’.
Next page. ‘Flush’, ‘Mascot’ & ‘Unifacity’.
This page (top row). ‘Bellswhistles’ & ‘Blackparade’.
Next page. ‘X-Men’.
JEREMYVILLE
If you were a stranger to the huge world of Jeremyville then you will be happy to say you have discovered a new thing today. There are legends in this field too many to mention but here's one right up there with the best Jeremyville hailing all the way from Sydney Australia is a one man orchestra covering all the bases, obviously characters but also toys, clothing accessories, even snowboards and trainers. Work with Coca Cola, IDN with Vinyl will kill, Pop Cling skateboards, Miss Van, Genevieve Gauckler and Tado. The list is seriously endless and his work is instantly recognisable, an insane style that resembles those oldschool repeating cartoons full of Japanese mascots, mutant must-have toys. It's a higgledy-piggledy world of little people shouting loud and proud.
Interviewee : Jeremyville. -------------------------------------------
Previous page. Converse Damion Silver.
Official site : http://www.jeremyville.com -------------------------------------------
Interviewer : Richard Seabrooke.
This page. ‘Goldensunset’.
This page. ‘Jeremyville Sessions’ book and cover detail.
This page. Various tee designs.
This page. Various badge designs, Plate designs & poster for Don’t Panic.
This page. Jeremyville ‘Bunny’, ‘Sketchel kid’s toy’, custom Adidas and Converse’
This page. ‘Gelati dreams’, ‘Greetings from Beaver Wood’, ‘25 hours in Jeremyville’, ‘Walk with me’, Jeremyville for Colette & Hermit UK.
This page. ‘The breakfast’, ‘The Reunion’, ‘The Sessions’ with Geoff McFetridge. ‘The Prison’ & ‘The End’.
When and how did Jeremyville begin? My mum is a teacher, and before I was born there was a naughty child in her class called Jeremy. Naughty but cute. He also used to draw a lot. When I was born she named me Jeremy, after him. I guess my career in art was born from that subliminal association. I'm just following in that kid's footsteps. Describe your work in less than 10 words... Drowning characters rescued from my stream of consciousness, maybe. How’s the Sydney creative scene at the moment? Keeping you busy? I'm heading off to Beijing to paint for Tiger Beer, with another Sydneysider, Ben Frost, who's a talented painter. The scene here is great, but lots of Sydney artists head overseas to work, or at least work a lot online. Australia is a very small market, so it's great the internet has happened to really open up the audience for Australian design. Most of my work is done in the US, Europe, Asia, only about 5% in Australia. I'm just sticking around here for the lifestyle and the surf. I live 10 minutes from Bondi, and grew up in Tamarama, near the beach. And Sydney does great coffee too.
This page. ‘Remember’.
Working across almost every media you have to consider quite a lot before you’ve even put pen to paper. Do you take a similar approach to every job regardless of the final medium it will be produced in or do further considerations guide you through turning your ideas into reality? Jeremyville is a projects based concept. The idea is everything, so while I might sketch every day, the final output might be anything from a book, to a t-shirt, and animation series, to a fine art painting, or a mural. So yes, the medium I'm working in has a complete influence on the final result, and on my thinking, to achieve that result. It's like mastering a variety of musical instruments I guess, if I'm playing the piano, I'm not thinking of a guitar, I'm playing the piano and am totally in that moment. I feel at ease with each medium, and don't prefer one over the other. My sketches are my short-hand haiku, but they can then travel to many places and incarnations for that starting point. Do you plan to get into motion graphics or animation, your characters and their associated worlds are ripe for the picking I reckon... Yes I have done quite a bit of animation for MTV, and am in the process of working on some more animation with other companies. I agree my style of characters is very suited to the motion realm, and I'm waiting for the right opportunity to come along, I've rejected quite a few that were not really right for Jeremyville. >>
Next page. Various Jeremyville toy customs.
Do you use pens and pencils solely to produce your work or do evil computers aid in your incredibly prolific output? I've messed with the odd pixel or two in my time. The tool which I use to express the idea can be anything from a tree branch drawing in sand, to using a finger dipped in red wine to sketch on a table cloth. I'm notorious for ruining expensive table cloths at restaurants as I draw stuff for friends or doodle during my meal. I've yet to draw with a shaved gerbil dipped in coloured pig fat, if that was your next question. Computers: I think more designers should move away from sitting at a screen, go to a cafe and think first with a pen and paper, it is much more liberating, and leads to a more individual style, and your own voice. For me, a unique voice is everything, I try and dig as deep as I can into myself to reveal all the stuff going on inside me. For better or worse! The most immediate way for me to record is a sketchbook and an endless pen late at night, by candlelight. But everyone needs to find their own way of being true to themselves. Truth in design is everything, for me. Who would you consider as heroes or inspirations? Can be living or dead? Steinberg's collage and line. Duchamp's urinal. Lichtenstein's Benday dots. Warhol's work ethic and reinvention of his career. Haring's visual end game. Sendak's story telling. Koons. Hirst. Nigo. Eames. Saarinen. Mickey. (Mouse, not Rourke) The ultimate commission you have yet to do? The redesign of the Google logo. It's overdue.
Previous page. Various Jeremyville characters. This page. Jeremyville for Faesthetic. Next page. ‘Jeremyville Sessions’ poster & snow and skateboard designs.
Creative Cook-off 2007 is taking place in late Autumn in your hometown and you’ve been asked to bring together a team of people from your locality to slog it out with an international team of note. Who would you recruit for your team? Who do you hope you’re not up against as they make you cry that they’re so good? My team would comprise of Steve from Rinzen, Jeremyville, PAM, Ben Frost, Luke from Cupco, Nathan Jurevicius/Scarygirl, Design is Kinky, Monster Children, Luca from Refill Mag, Marc Newson. We'd do battle with KAWS, Fafi, Geoff McFetridge, Mike Mills, Genevieve Gauckler, Rob from Alife, Nigo, Michael Lau, Jarvis. Bring it on, I'd be glad to be up against them, it would be a tough fight, but it would make each of us involved stronger. Final result: Oz -2, World - 0 Collaboration is something you really seem to thrive on, not just in your work but also in the many projects that you’ve got your fingers in. Why do you feel it’s so important to be involved with people so much, what do you gain from it? They make me look good. You apply your work onto just about any product known, care to tell us your highlights so far, what pieces have you gush with pride? I just did some snowboard designs for Rossignol, and some designs for Converse sneakers, both coming put in 2008. Also the Beck sketchel, a toy for Kidrobot, the comic collab with Geoff McFetridge, plate designs for Domestic in Paris, and I'm working on a secret project on Bob Dylan. Also the Colette group show in 2007 alongside KAWS, Fafi, Futura, Mike Mills and Takashi Murakami. Also a highlight of 2007 was having Fafi over for dinner at my place, ooh la la.... The strangest thing you’ve been asked to work on? I get asked to draw tattoos for people a lot. And some have just gone ahead and done tattoos using my art that they've just taken off my website. I should start blogging a collection of these 'unauthorised Jeremyville tattoo' images, that people send in to me. My friend Frank Muller has a tattoo of 'Tattoo' (Herve Villechaize) from Fantasy Island, but that's another story. >>
This page. ‘Magnolia’, ‘NYC’ & Dunny custom.
Previous page. Sketchel book cover & various Sketchels. Next page. Jeremyville for The Vader Project. Last page. ‘The Sticker’.
Along with Design is Kinky you developed a art-bag format called Sketchel. Care to talk about this a little bit about these and how they came about, it looks like you’ve had many luminaries involved in it already... Jeremyville and Megan Mair designed the 'sketchel' custom art satchel project and launched it at Design is Kinky's Semi Permanent Conference. So far we've worked with artists like Beck, Genevieve Gauckler, Saiman Chow, Marc Atlan, Tim Biskup, Gary Baseman, Jon Burgerman, Tin Tsui, Tado, Miss Van, Bwana Sppons, I love Dust, Bob Kronbauer, friendswithyou, Lucy McLaughlan, Jaime Hayon, about 500 artists all up. Those are just top of mind. Also, many more are yet to send in their work, it's an invitation only thing, but many send in urls for us to check out. See all the work in the sketchel gallery at http://www.jeremyville.com... buy one and help feed and shelter your fellow artists in the process. You’ve just released your first book ‘Jeremyville Sessions’. Care to tell us about this and the people you’ve roped into making it such an amazing tome? After I produced and wrote the first book on designer toys, called Vinyl Will Kill, my publishers IdN and I wanted to move further, and look at how collaborating has become such a huge movement, across toys, decks, clothing, footwear, company vs artist collabs, etc. So I took it from the angle of work I had done with artists, and companies, and I analysed these projects. ‘Sessions' has 304 pages of collaborations with people like Geoff McFetridge, Miss Van, Devilrobots, STRANGEco, Lego, Converse, MTV, Bob Kronbauer, Adidas, Furi Furi, Jon Burgerman, Tristan Eaton, about 300 artists and companies all up. The full list is here: http://www.jeremyville.com/Sessions/Jeremyville_Sessions.html What’s on the Jeremyville soundsystem at the moment? Soko is one of my faves at the moment, and Uffie, Justice, (the D.A.N.C.E clip is amazing, with So Me's art) , and Chk Chk Chk, (amazing live) and I recently saw The Rapture from NYC supporting The Phoenix. For classics, I've been getting back into The Jesus and Mary Chain recently, The Stone Roses, Echo and the Bunnymen, Morrissey....basically if it whinges and it's from the North, I'll listen to it. If it whinges ABOUT being from the North, even better. Also Tim Buckley, Neil Young (live at Massey Hall album, 1971), and the Velvet Underground and early Dylan is always playing. What can we expect in the future from Jeremyville? I'm bringing back the long boozy lunch...and owls.
KEITH SHORE.
The very nice man from Philadelphia now based in Jersey Keith Shore would be the first to acknowledge he has a good life. A relatively brand new studio, cereal in the mornings, work in the studio all day and have dinner with the better half late in the evening, sounds quite normal right? Well it is until you see the work he does. Far from normality it’s honestly a whole other world of imagination, a whole other technique. Resembling a childhood of notebooks and story illustrations that touch on a slim line between dreams and nightmares, water, religious figures, hairy chests, gorilla monkeys and men with no tops on just sit around workplaces and golf courses, Ping Pong and rock stars that scream silent into watercolours and acrylics. Does this not seem strange to you? Are we the only ones noticing this work as a little bit odd? With beards.
Interviewee : Keith Shore. -------------------------------------------
Official site : http://www.keithshore.com -------------------------------------------
Interviewer : Richard Seabrooke.
Previous page. ‘Finger beards’. This page. ‘Fucked’.
How long have you been an artist? What’s your first memory of drawing / painting? My mom had me involved with art at an early age. I remember doing large drawings of my favorite Garbage Pail Kids. I think I still have them. The weirdest thing that you’ve ever painted / drawn on... Some kind of a purple beard on my most awesome friend Lindsey's cat Linus, while we were roommates in college. I’ve just won the lottery, 7 million euro (that’s 10 million dollars and about 27 pounds sterling at current currency rates) and I’m in your gallery and I’m itching to buy some of your work. How would you best describe it to guarantee a sale, what’s your ambition for it once it leaves your studio? 5 words: Denim, body hair & Irish hills. My ambition is that somebody enjoys it. Are the characters in your pieces based on real people or do they come from other places like your imagination, found photos or Winconsin or something? Ha! Wisconsin - America's Dairyland! I think I drove through that state once when I was younger. Most of my characters are loosely based on real people. Their environments are a collage of places I've visited and photos I've taken myself or borrowed from family and friends. Any plans to bring your characters to life in say a feature film, animation, infomercial or a reality tv programme? That would be lovely - when do we begin production? What are your feelings about the recent over-commodisation of art, ie corporates hunting down young talent for applying to their products, then discarding them for “the next big thing”? Do you think it even exists or have companies always needed creatives to help them talk to their customer? I don't pay much attention to that. It all depends on what your objective is as an artist. There has always been a need in the consumer world to make things look "cool" and it's the job of an artist or designer to help achieve that. As long as you're excited about what you make and comfortable with the medium it ends up on then what happens after that is not so important. What is it about gorillas that you like to draw so much? I'm not really drawing the gorillas anymore - but I think it was the detail of the hair that kept me going with those for some time. The people (living or dead) you would most like to meet? Brenda, Dylan, Brandon, and Kelly.
How would you describe the American art scene at the moment. Who’s rocking it Stateside in your estimation? Also, who’s doing it for you internationally too? I’m not sure that the scene here is much different than that in Europe. I feel like we're all kinda lumped in there together. I think based on age and style a lot of us unwillingly get placed in some weird scene or movement. Artists that I enjoy are Jockum Nordstrom, Jacob Magraw-Mickelson, Steven Harrington, Ed Templeton, Chris Johanson, Matt Leines, Raymond Pettibon, Esther Pearl Watson, Megan Whitmarsh, Rachell Sumpter... >>
Previous page. ‘The hills at Sandy Row’. This page. ‘8 more bearded portraits’.
This page. ‘The Port Stewart bunkers’, ‘Bushmills fairway’ & ‘Swan Dives at the Causeway Hotel’.
Career highlight to date? The fact that I am able to do what I love and make a living from it. The ultimate commission you have yet to do? A pair of slip-on Vans. Does your approach change when working for real clients as opposed to working on your own pieces? Of course - but it always depends on the client. There are people that hire you based 100% on your personal style and vision and let you run wild and then there are those that provide heavy art direction and hire you solely based on the fact that they know you can "draw" and often disregard that it might not be your style or comfort zone.
This page. ‘Monday at the leisure centre’.
What’s the usual process you go through with work like the publishing work you do, do you just deliver to the client on a set date or is there more back-and-forth between you and them? It depends how particular the client is, how loose the deadline is and the job's budget. For a highly budgeted job it's more common to have a lot of interaction between artist and client. For the jobs in the publishing world - like mags and newspapers I'm typically just given an assignment with some very loose art direction and a deadline to deliver final art. We normally bypass the "sketch" phase.
Have you ever drawn a portrait that has made someone cry? Not that I'm aware of. But sometimes I've tried to paint with my contact lenses in and the strain usually results in a few tears. You’re going to stay with a long lost aunt for Christmas but there’s 6 of you going in a very small car (probably a Toyota). You really like her so there’s no problem going, only thing is you can only bring 3 things and you’re there for nigh on 7 months. What do you pack? NHL Hockey and Playstation 2, a case of Bushmills 10 Year Single Malt, and my ping pong paddle. Who would you consider as heroes? Anyone with a Stanley Cup ring. And villains... Mean people What’s rocking the ShoreSoundsystem? Bill Callahan, Joy Division, Mount Eerie, Lou Reed, Clinic, New Order, Arab Strap, The Vaselines... What does the future hold for Keith Shore? Hopefully the full collection of 'The Wonder Years' on DVD.
This page. ‘A bath in Shoe Shape Bay’ & ‘Winter at Elizabeth Lane’. Next page. ‘8 bearded portraits’.
JESSE LEDOUX.
There's a natural tendency to think that illustration, especially illustration that's not so serious, that touches on memory or maybe even subject matter that could be playful and simple, might be easy to do. It's just not the case, keeping this excellent kind of work simple, concise and to the point is difficult and requires real skill. There's a darker undercurrent in Ledoux's work that challenges those who don't see this, they don't get the phrase "much more than meets the eye". Lighthearted, comic, it's a serious business. Seeing the work reminds us of those old Fifties adverts in weekend magazines The good life in suburbia, everyone’s fine and happy looking through closed curtains, there's a film or a song in there right? And Jesse has found the music industry likes what he does too. Work for independent record labels like Sub Pop and Drive-Thru sits well with their sentimentality. Equally on the other side big jobs for Nike, Beautiful Decay and Target assure a connection with more mass appreciation and longevity, give something to the nosey neighbours to talk about.
Interviewee : Jesse LeDoux. ---------------------------------------
Official site : http://www.ledouxville.com ---------------------------------------
Interviewer : BrenB.
Previous page. ‘Brand new poster’. This page. ‘Fantabeast’.
This page. ‘RB_019’, Death Cab for Cutie gig poster & ‘RB_01’.
This page. Beautiful Decay magazine cover & Built to Spill gig poster.
I got lost on a school trip to the ZOO when I was about nine. I ended up bunking up with a chimpanzee they were teaching sign language to. But it was his painting, the way he expressed himself with colour, line and shit that had a profound effect on me. What first stoked your interest in shit art? Around the age of 9 or 10, at a time when I was really into abstract expressionism, my parents shipped me off to a labor camp in Central America so I could make various trinkets for the wealthy vacationers. Nobody had told me I should avoid drinking the water, so the first piece I created was unfortunately in my pants. However, as I learned and understood my medium better, my later attempts at my abstract masterpieces (assterpieces?) became quite impressive. Can you remember your first drawing where someone told you it was good? I’m still waiting. When/How/Where did making pictures become something you considered a career option? Did your parents support this or did they rightfully throw your slacker ass out? Although my parents didn’t ACTUALLY ship me away to a Central American labor camp, they honestly HAVE always told me that the only artists who make a living off their art are dead artists. That either means they probably shouldn’t be trusted, or they want me dead (maybe both?). Can you tell the origin story of PATENT PENDING? Was there a radioactive spider involved? Jeff Kleinsmith and I started Patent Pending while we worked together in the art department at Sub Pop. At Sub Pop, the bands had the final say on how their record should look. A lot of the time, their idea of a good record cover was very different from our idea. We started Patent Pending as a way to still do stuff for the bands we were into, but without compromising the way we thought it should look. With Patent Pending, we made sure we worked with clients that were comfortable with sitting back and trusting us with the art.
Original concert posters is a phenomenon we don’t have here in Ireland. Up until recently they were number 5 on the church’s list of banned art, number 1 being portraits of Sinead O’Connor and number 2 the depiction of animal autoeroticism! Can you shed some light on this art poster world, how it works, screen printed or digital, is it band or venue commissioned etc.? When Jeff and I started Patent Pending, there weren’t a lot of people doing rock posters. Each person had their own way of doing them. Some worked with the club, some worked for the band, some got no approval at all. Now there are a zillion people making posters, which has curbed some of that Mad Max lawlessness that used to go down. All of Patent Pending’s posters are screen printed, and we work directly with the bands 90% of the time (with the other 10% being with the venue). When I’m making a chocolate cake I like to line a 13 x 9 in (33 x 23 cm) cake tin with grease proof or other non-stick paper. Do you have a process (both physically and mentally) you follow when you are making your pictures? It’s really helpful if I can have a couple weeks to just think about the image before I begin to work on it. I typically like to create it in my head first, so I have an idea of how I should create it when it comes time to work on it. With that said though, there are frequent times when the image ends up having a mind of its own and doesn’t come out like I had planned. Those ones seem to just creates themselves. One common complaint from illustrators is the time spent working in isolation, on their own, with no one else around. We are a lonesome bunch. You seem to have addressed this by collaborating on lots of projects with other artists. What is the secret to making this work? Is it that you always choose someone who isn’t as good as you? Oh man. I LOVE working by myself. What artists have have you seen me collaborate with? I’m a control freak and ball hog. Seriously, it’s no fun for the other person. Kleinsmith used to even call me the ‘Lone Wolf,’ which I found far more complimentary than he’d intended it to be. I have a couple collaborative projects lined up, but I’m approaching them very cautiously as I’m afraid of ruining friendships.
Your work appears in everything from magazines, posters, apparel, books, toys and on gallery walls. Don’t you sometimes just sit down and think “Shit man, I need to really focus on one thing!”? I feel focusing on one thing will pigeonhole you as “that one” sort of artist. Having left Sub Pop, I really had to try to avoid being the “CD package” guy. I love working on different new projects, and get really excited when I’m asked to work on something I’ve never worked on before. It forces me to think about the medium in a whole different way and keeps me from repeating myself. I learn something new with each project, and am able to apply that new knowledge toward my future projects. If you were to design a timeline of your influences and inspirations from ye olde teenage years to the present day who would feature on it and would anyone be there consistently throughout? First and foremost, Disney has always numbed my brain. The level of quality his studios produced while he was alive is incredible. I’ll always be amazed by it, and will always appreciate new facets to the body of work he created. My childhood was a mix of Mad Magazine, comics, skateboarding, rock music. After high school, I got into design, so working alongside folks like Kleinsmith and Hank Trotter was invaluable. My design work led to art and illustration, where I was turned on to and inspired by friends and acquaintances like S.britt and Ed Fotheringham, as well as a whole slew of older folks I admired in books. Thanks for taking part Jesse, we’ll just finish now with a quickfire round… Favourite bar? Red Fez here in Providence First alcoholic drink you sneaked? Wine coolers Name a dance move you have perfected? The Wall Flower What have you successfully shoplifted? C’mon! I’m a stand up guy! In fact, just a month ago, I ratted out a guy racking markers at my local art store! Jerks like that only make my supplies more expensive.
Previous page. ‘Andenken mural’. This page. ‘Bee swarm’ painting. Next page. ‘Giant hand print’ & The Little Ones gig poster.
This page. ‘RB_44’ & ‘Pyramids’.
Next page. ‘RB_097’, ‘RB_099’ & ‘RB_096’.
This page. Various watercolour illustrations.
Previous page. Earlimart cover illustration & Beulah tour poster.
This page. The Shins cd packaging & Up Records showcase poster. Next page. ‘Tiny print’ & ‘Paint by Numbers’.
Jon the happy camper and Mike and Katie, smelly head honchos of weird and wonderful fun, are at their pranks again. Pokey pokey fun at not just innocent kids and fuddy duddy old people, but everyone is in on the joke this time. It’s the return of the wonderful creators of so much joy that it makes us sob uncontrollably at inappropriate times. So they've teamed up and brought us anarchy on the internet once again. It’s surprising that these trio of hooligans haven't worked together more probably due to the extensive solo work that has preoccupied them so, but would love to been asked to do possibly more but a time constraint stops that. Who can blame them for being busy; they're little geniuses after all. The definite and individual styles of Tado’s world away and the unmistakable doodles of the Burgerman empire sit very well side by side. We think its only right that the nicest people in the business get the breaks they deserve and this time round it seems to be the case.
Featured :
Jon Burgerman & TADO.
-------------------------------------------
Official site : http://www.jonburgerman.com http://www.tado.co.uk
LAURALEVINE
So eager was Laura Levine to appear in this special birthday issue of CANDY, that for the last three months, since this interview took place, she has sat at my desk poking me in the leg asking “Is it out yet? Is it out yet?”. Well Laura I’m delighted (and more importantly my wife is relieved) to tell you categorically - "IT'S OUT!" Now get back to work.
Interviewee : Laura Levine. -------------------------------------------
Official site : http://www.lauralevine.com -------------------------------------------
Interviewer : BrenB.
Growing up as the secret son to a catholic bishop meant spending my childhood either in dark rooms or hidden under a blanket in the back of a car going from one safe house to another. I feel this allowed my imagination to flourish and influenced my path to being an artist. What was your childhood like and has it had an influence on your art? You know, I never really thought about how my childhood affected my art, especially as I came to it rather late in the game (at least, as far as painting). I started out doing photography it had become my obsession when I was around fourteen or so, after I'd seen a Diane Arbus exhibit - and all of my work at the time was what I guess you'd call "street photogaphy." I grew up in a very interesting and still undeveloped area of lower Manhattan on the border of Chinatown and the Lower East Side, very urban. So I guess in some ways I was exploring the nooks and crannies of my neighborhood, shooting the streets of Chinatown, the Hasidic pockets near Essex Street, kids playing in the housing project across the street, the fish stands of the Seaport, the transients on the Bowery. Families, old signs on the sides of buildings, abandoned storefronts, etc. I used to set up a makeshift darkroom in the bathroom when it wasn't being used when I was a teenager. Later on, in college, I moved into photojournalism. I've always liked to investigate. And I was lucky because my parents and grandparents were always very encouraging of my creative pursuits.
When I draw my pictures I prefer to squeeze into as tiny a space as I can and be very constricted in my movement. Can you describe your workspace and how important it is to your working process? Technically all I really need is a drawing table and a decent light and I'm set. My set-up in New York City is no more than that, with one lamp, next to a window that gets no light. I'm surrounded by a lot of clutter, things that influence me -- flea market junk, found paintings, old books, etc. I suppose it would be healthier for me if there were less clutter, but somehow whenever I clean it up I turn around and it's cluttered again. Do you listen to music while you work? Do you hum along, tap your toe? Do you get distracted by background noise? When you are concentrating do you stick your tongue out? Years ago I used to have the TV on in the background when I worked, especially if there was a juicy trial being televised like the OJ Simpson case. If I'm doing a music-related painting, such as a CD cover or for for my recent kid's picture book on country music, I'll listen to the music of the person whose portrait I'm painting to get me in the right space. For the last two years, however, I've been working my way through a ten-CD set of radio shows by a fellow named Jean Shepherd who I used to listen to every night on the radio when I was a kid. He just rambled on telling stories about his childhood and army life and being a hipster in the Village in the Sixties, and it's wonderful and comforting to listen to again. I can really get lost in it. >>
Opening page. ‘Wig’.
This page. ‘Bill Monroe’.
Previous page. ‘Fashion queen’ & ‘Wig 2’.
Next page. Laura Levine vs Bjórk.
This page. Absolut illustration, ‘The Carter Family’, “Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys’ & ‘Veronica Lake’.
This page. ‘Birds Pacific nw’ & ‘Starling’. Next page. ‘Piccolo midgets’.
Photographer, illustrator, painter, film maker and proprietor of a curiosity shop. Apart from you being the practitioner, can you describe the thread the ties these different disciplines together? Was it an organic path you followed or is there a scheming business Svengali pulling strings behind the scene? I wish I had a Svengali! That appeals to me. No, it's all just happened as it's happened, which was a surprise to me, because honestly, I always expected I'd be a photographer all my life and it never occurred to me that I might get into these other areas especially painting, which I didn't even try until I was almost thirty, and had never studied, and really had no idea what would come out until I first put the brush to board. I've always been one of those people who has a plan and sticks to it, so it's been a nice surprise to find myself trying new things. I suppose they all tie together in that they're all visual arts and somewhat documentary (well, except the junk shop, but that provides me with inspiration when I go out and seek new treasures). They all sort of cross-pollinate. The documentary films came about because I'd heard of a story about a gangster's (Dutch Schultz) buried treasure and decided to explore it, and film seemed the most natural way to do that (having directed music videos previously, which in turn grew out of photography). My longer non-fiction narrative paintings for Blab! are very documentaryoriented and based on months of research. In fact, my story on the Piccolo Midgets for Blab! was based on a short film I'd been shooting - in this case, illustration seemed a better way to tell the story than film. Did you have a ‘Hollywood’ moment getting started as a rock photographer or were you friends with the editor of the magazine where you got your first commission? Neither, really. Does "hard work and persistence" count? I suppose I worked my way up like everyone else. Shoot a gig, come home at 3 AM, develop the film at 4 AM, print the next morning, start all over again. Plus sometimes being lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. Is there a parallel between the characters of music folklore that you paint and illustrate and the modern musicians that you have photographed? Do we know too much about modern stars nowadays? Is there a modern folklore? Is the magic gone? To be honest, I haven't listened to much new music since I stopped shooting, which was in 1994. Except for Jolie Holland, who I think is terrific, and my friends from back then who are still making music. I wonder if the "magic" is tied up more with the age we were when we first listened to that music, you know? In our teens and twenties, the music had a special meaning back then, it was so tied in with a magical time in our lives, and it stays with us.
Your illustrations evoke a charming ‘Old-Worlde’ style? When/Who/What/Why/Where do you get inspiration from? Well, my style is a direct result of being self-taught. I never studied art or painting, so that's as good as I can paint, quite honestly. So the naive style is all that I'm capable of; it's not "faux" in any way. But once I discovered my style I was naturally drawn to things that I could relate to. That would include Outsider Art, "found" art, old homemade signs, weird toys, antique children's books, etc. I have all sorts of collections of old things -- fungi with drawings on them, little ceramic pixies, raggedy old stuffed animals, etc. In general I rarely reference other art in my work. I don't really follow it or know much about it, aside from a few friends whose work I like. Lately I've been doing a series of bird paintings, which came about from watching the birds feed outside my window and making use of a shoebox full of vintage trading stamps I'd picked up at a yard sale.
What is your favourite a. item of clothing, b. ice cream topping, c. ethnic musical instrument, d. dance move, e. antique, f. method for staying awake all night? a) patched ratty pair of jeans I'm wearing right now b) hot fudge! c) Jew's Harp d) the Watusi e) not sure, but no doubt it was made by hand and is oddly off-kilter f) worry does it for me There is one last question I feel I have to ask. Can you tell me about Sweet Sue’s and what Blue Monkeys are? Ah, you've been reading my website! Sweet Sue's is an incredible eatery up in Phoenicia, NY (in the Catskill Mts., where my junk shop is) where the plates are piled high and the waitresses always smile and the food is all home-made and delicious, and Blue Monkeys are one of their twenty different kinds of pancakes, in this case Blueberry and Banana. OK, gotta go, I'm suddenly hungry!
My girlfriend is always trying to get me to work for her firm and give up illustration. She just can’t accept that no matter what she says I will never be a professional karaoke singer! If you didn’t do what you do do now, what else would you be doing? Hmmm....Journalist? Mycologist? Film editor? Heiress?
This page. ‘Loretta Lynn’, ‘Johnny Cash’, ‘Richard Thompson’ & Verve covers.
Next page. ‘Madonna’ & ‘Tina Flash’.
Previous page. ‘Joey Ramone’ & ‘Iggy Pop & Chrissie Hynde’. Next page. ‘Sinéad O’Connor’.
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LOVEWORN.
Almost like a snapshot into the sketchbooks of Brunelleschi, the sense of work involved throughout Loveworn’s output comprises of details from the heart, emotions that are overbearingly good for the soul and how your own world unravels pleasantly day after day. Details in there that read like a blueprint or map of the journey that's ahead and Mario Hugo is the architect of the streets and worn paths to get you home. His work covers mostly illustration, typography by hand and the manipulation of imagery to suit his ideal. Work has been with notable figures like New York Times, Nike, Dolce & Gabbana and Syrup NYC to mention only a small amount, Mario Hugo and his LOVEWORN project have covered some ground in the last couple of years The details and accomplishment are fine tuned and excellent but we are sure that more work has yet to be done on this project and we are excited to see the sketchbook open and unfold.
Interviewee : Loveworn. -------------------------------------------
Official site : http://www.loveworn.com -------------------------------------------
Interviewer : Aidan Kelly.
First page. Loveworn for D&G. Previous page. ‘Garden 1’.
This page. Flaunt magazine cover, Hanne Hukkleberg cover & ‘Garden 3’.
Previous page. ‘Many leagues’, ‘All the countless’ & ‘Hand typography’. This page. ‘Meaning of life’ &’Garden 2’. Next page. ‘Reverie & trouble making’
How did things start for you, when and where? I've been drawing as long as I can remember, but I didn't fall into design until 2001/02 - I was at college, unhappy, changed majors, switched schools, and I eventually graduated in 2005 from Pratt Institute - I've been drawing and designing since. We allude to the idea that it’s about matters of the heart that inspire you. Would you agree? What does inspire you? I think “matters of the heart” speaks of a certain sentimentality... I think I'm really more intrigued by a sense of honesty, which is certainly on the heart's periphery. I'd like my work to be tactile, human, conversational - I think it makes abstraction and symbolism all the more inter-esting when we can sit back and identify with the work's humanity first. I think whatever words I use ought to be reflective. Maybe my “loveworn.com” comes off a bit heavy, but my cringe-worthy URL is the mistake of a younger Mario Hugo - now I'm stuck with it. Haha. When you say that your work is 'Situational' are you talking about places and how these places effect you personally? Allegorically, sure. I just like to think about separate projects as their own entities - I think there are so many avenues to explore for any given project, so why resign yourself to this one thing you're capable of. Every project deserves its own consideration, and variety helps keep things interesting. You seem to be in love with what looks like traditional means of work, pencils, ink, paint. I think my interest in “honesty” extends to production as well. Personally, I think there is a natural romance to working with traditional media and tangibles - pencils, pens, brushes. Old book pages have a peculiar smell. I think imperfections are really beautiful and though a lot of my work exists on a computer screen, I think I'll always feel more at home with a pencil and a couple sheets of paper. You haven’t been seduced by technology? Does a computer system play any part in construction of your work? Sure I have - I think computers are more frequently a means if not an ends for me. Depending on the deadlines, I sometimes arrange pieces and balance compositions digitally and then adapted those sketches to paper. Sometimes pieces exist exclusively on the computer, and other times I ignore the computer altogether. I think I prefer to work with my hands in the end, but I still check my e-mail a hundred times a day.
Can you write about your newer project with your brother, ‘Reverie & Trouble-Making’. What’s it about? We've only just begun - neither of us is really quite sure where it will end up yet and I certainly appreciate the ambiguity. My brother just turned eight and he [currently] wants to be an a.) artist or b.) scientist. What I can say is “Reverie & Trouble-Making” will be very personal, but not at the expense of fantasy and abstraction we are going to journal our lives and imaginations through drawings and paintings, often depicting the same subjects in our own personal ways. Are you getting to do more work with larger clients as time goes by? Has it been a while establishing yourself as an artist? I became a full-time freelancer a bit less than a year ago and things are always hectic around here - I guess it's going really well. I do some work for bigger clients that I don't show - I'm not so crazy about commercial work, but lately I have been style and storyboarding for motion agencies. At the moment, I'm much more interested in smaller, open-minded clients and pur-suing gallery work. Aswell as client based work there seems to be a good deal of work on your site that is personal in it’s reasoning. Do you find it just as important to do this type of work aswell as corporate work? I never really felt like drawing a big distinction between the things I create for myself and the things I create for other people - the works can always inform one another. I think most clients contact me by virtue of my personal work - It has always been really important for me to ex-press my thoughts and not just exhibit my craft. Can you tell us about the work for Nike, it doesn't look anything like the rest of your output, was it more of a curation? It was event design while employed at Syrup NYC - I designed all kinds of seating, displays, vi-nyl, heraldry, banners, bars, motion displays. All the work was completed using Nike's visual guidelines, so that should explain why the event looked so different. After three months prepa-ration for a one night guerilla event, I never managed to properly photograph the space before it flooded with people, so I don't have much to show for it! Brand new work on the horizon that you can tell us about? I am currently preparing for my first solo exhibition at Vallery later this year. There will be a number of new artworks and products, but I don't want to divulge too much about it just yet.
Previous page. ‘Everything’. This page. ‘Resist’, ‘A fanciful William Morris’, For Women In Science identity & Loveworn for Wallpaper*.
This page. Accept & Proceed identity, Loveworn for Wired magazine, ‘Line and shape’ t-shirt graphic & ‘Apples are sunbathing’ typography. Next page. Garden.
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One really crazy night I spent drinking with some new people which I was tagging on to at the time, which suited them as much as me, we had a lot in common and I felt very comfortable with them untill the couple of the 3 started to have relationship problems so I skedadled, I suppose we were starting to get too comfortable and maybe a little less polite.
At 5 o’clock in the morning the german girl with obsessive compulsive disorder was doing yoga in the bar. It was only she, us and the very drunkin swedish guy that made very strange facial expressions. They started to argue across the bar, because we were laughing the swedish man came to sit with us and involved us in their meaningless argument, that stemed from the swedish hating the germans because they steal their towels in the mornings at the pool. He was telling us how she was mad and she with exceptional hearing perked up “Yes I am mad, so what? I was born mad�. I loved her for this. We were all asked to leave then, so she went and sat in a boat on the beach to do her make up.
Changes were happening around me before I left that distorted my views and left life feeling slightly surreal. So I was thinking a lot. The whole trip had this unrealistic feel to it, almost like I had walked onto a set and the experiences I was having were making it all seem this way for me. I wasn't sure some of it really happened untill it became a memory.
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Yellow, orange. A photo story by Marie Louise McCabe. marielouisemccabe@gmail.com --------------------------------------------------------------
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---------------------------Sometimes it is better to keep certain cards close to your chest, the quiet subtle approach I try to photograph with is a reflection of this and the images contain feelings deep within that could not be easily disclosed.
Making pictures was the familiar thing I was doing, it became a theraputic tool. I never saw any of the pictures while I was away but I was aware that I was taking pictures of my thoughts and the out come of the picture story is uneasy. They amalgamate a diary from my past along with the recording of that time. Things almost seemed to be happening for a reason so I was forced to think positively and move on. ----------------------------
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