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01 2006

the journal of
illustration and
made images
www. v aroo m-ma g.com
ILLUSTROLOGY:
THE VISUAL THEORY OF THE FUTURE
BY JOHN O’REILLY

THE WRITER JOHN O’REILLY PUTS


FORWARD THE SEDUCTIVE THEORY
OF ILLUSTROLOGY. SURVEYING
CONTEMPORARY VISUAL CULTURE,
HE IDENTIFIES AN ‘IN-BETWEEN’ ZONE
WHERE ILLUSTRATORS ARE FREE TO
DOCUMENT THE ZEITGEIST, AND WHERE
MEANINGS CAN BE STRETCHED AND
IMPOSSIBLE RISKS TAKEN.
There’s a new communication space opening of illustration means it can be used to express something that everyone recognizes, that they
up for illustration. While the media looks to something that is barely perceptible, and already know. That would be trend suicide.
rationalize a world of information overload, barely recognizable, because even we haven’t The visuals have got to allow you to project,
illustrators are being given a licence to quite figured out what’s happening. fill in the gaps a little. If trendspotting is a
speculate and invent, to cut through the chaos To be literal about illustration working in little vague it’s got to be to remain attractive.
of visual messaging. the folds, take the Target campaign which ran Desire is always about possibility. In Wallpaper,
Illustration is a medium for alternative in The New Yorker in August 2005. illustration was the lipgloss of the future.
visions of the world, a radar for picking up 2 Target, a sexy, stylish, middle class If Wallpaper re-invented illustration as
cultural and social signals, and translating Wal-Mart in the US, (Target’s Mrs trendsetter, Carlos, the upper-class Virgin
them on to the page. Let’s give this innate Robinson to Wal-Mart’s Marge Simpson) took magazine, re-tooled it as a sign of
characteristic a name out of the comics, over the entire advertising space in an issue of 11 ‘class’ and ‘taste’. There is perhaps
(always the source of impossible and guiding the The New Yorker magazine, and gave each no other magazine whose success
ideas), let’s call this new science ‘illustrology’ page over to designers or illustrators such as has been so shaped by the line drawing. It
– somewhere between news and commentary, Milton Glaser, Me Company and Bill Brown. communicates decadence, bohemia and
art and kitsch, sociology and fiction. And, The ads were all drawn in three colours, cheek to the business traveler; the post-
if we are honest, somewhere between the red and white for the Target bull’s eye logo, modern road warrior, inoculated against
genius and the idiotic, in that magical place and black. The New Yorker has a recent stress by the implacable designer cool of
where it overlaps. tradition of great portrait photography with airports, hotels, and business-class lounges.
Take for example Beck’s recent video for the late Richard Avedon, and now with Steve The illustration in Carlos warms up a
his single Girl created by Motion Theory. It’s Pyke. But visually, The New Yorker professional life where all other signage is
a theory of illustration as a promo 9 brand has always been defined by designed to calm things down. There’s only so
6 video. On the surface, and it’s all illustration. From its covers, to its much soothing anybody can take.
about ‘surface’, it’s a homage to the logo of the dandy, a fictional character called As an example of ‘illustrology’ Carlos is
rich ethnic and cultural mix of Beck’s LA. But ‘Eustace Lilley’ originally drawn by Rea Irvin. a sign of the desire for self-expression and
it’s also a nod to a genuine slice of late-20th Commentators have estimated Target’s spend differentiation in the post-print world. The
Century Americana – the MAD magazine back- at around $1.1 million. visual language of Carlos, the line drawings,
page fold-in drawn by cartoon legend Al Jaffee. The issue brought gasps among critics the fonts, conjure up the pre-digital age of
As a kid, the promise of MAD never really who believed that The New Yorker had the 70s. For the upper-class Virgin passenger
lived up to its name, it wasn’t insane, or even as blurred the boundaries between editorial who has everything, Carlos is an extension
weird as your average 12 year-old, but the fold- and advertising. And if this was in anyway of their own self-expression in the digital
in illustration was a beautiful piece of proto- true, it was only because the ‘ads’ were so, so age. Illustration spells differentiation. In
interactive design. A question ran along the top good. There were no words, no slogans, no our globalized economy, Carlos has made
of the page, and if you joined points ‘a’ and ‘b’ copy, they were pure illustration. From the illustration the mark of the international
on the top of the page, you’d get the answer. scary skyscraper vertigo of Me Company, to business class.
In Beck’s Girl video, magazines, walls and Katherine Streeter’s collaged Mermaid with a This vogue for signaling illustration as self-
3
even pavements fold-in, and sentences such ‘bob’ on the boardwalk, to the magic of James expression can be seen in the current Windows
as ‘Big Ass Limo’ become ‘Less is More’. Al Jean’s subway rush hour. Target had curated a XP campaign. Despite the obvious fact that
Jaffee gets name-checked at one point on a glorious show of illustration. XP is selling itself as the ultimate digital
television screen. The concept is something And it does take conceptual ambition and organizer, work tool and plaything – XP wants
like, ‘Echo Park isn’t what it seems’. It confidence to let a bunch of illustrators mess to be the vehicle of self-expression. The ad is
contains layers, and if you know how to around with your brand logo. It hits Target’s surrounded and bathed in swirling, dreamy
put them together, with the architecture of core messaging, who have differentiated illustration, pouring out of the imagination of
illustration, then you get the full picture, the themselves in the market as a mass retailer the user. This is ultimately illustration as a sign
whole story, the complete truth. with a sense of design and style. Illustration of the human, of flesh and bone.
In its knockabout, free-wheeling way, is perhaps the only medium that would have This visual metaphor is exactly the
Girl nails the fact that illustration, whether allowed such a client to get away with the appeal of the Gorillaz – the most significant
its pictorial representation, or decorative limited criticism it got. virtual band since Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely
graphics, or satire – it is a medium of the ‘in- Aside from the fact the illustrations are Hearts Club Band. Just as The Beatles used
between’. The quirky copycats of photorealism outstanding, stand-alone work, the simple the illustrative conceit of Sergeant Pepper to
aside, illustration is an invitation to step into fact that illustration is not ‘real’, but gestural, wrap the most studio-based, technologically
a different mental space. Like the enabled them to get away with so much more. driven album of its era, Jamie 2
4
14 MAD magazines gap-toothed kid, The New Yorker suggested new credible – and 3 Hewlett’s illustrations of Gorillaz, a
illustration points us towards the mainstream – form of advertising as content, virtual cartoon band, are ironically
space of the ‘in-between’, outside visual and where clients sell a brand, and readers get to one of the few signs of humanity in the age of
cultural norms. see some experimental creative work. supermarket pop.
Illustration allows people to indulge a Illustration has always been used to Jamie Hewlett and Damon Albarn’s Gorillaz
little lower-case madness, to expand our signpost a future that’s indefinite, intangible is avant-garde illustrology on the end of pop
everyday narratives beyond the given, but clearly in the ether. In the as individual expression. We live in a media
whether it’s cartoons on editorial pages, or 16 90s, Wired magazine championed age where continuity, the seamless and the
the mad sociology of The Simpsons which the technology revolution and the picture perfect rule. Illustrology lightens things
works not just because it’s funny, and smart business-driven cultural and social thinking up because great illustration dances with the
– but because its shorthand cartoon vision that was flowering from it. Inside, the daft, the weird and the idiotic, like Beck’s Girl
of family life is real. magazine was all words and visual technolust. promo, or Shaun Ryder’s head singing to an
Take Peter Saville’s 1979 cover for Joy The covers artists oscillated between Steve animated figure in the Dare video. Illustrology
Division’s Unknown Pleasures. It’s a cover Jobs, Brian Eno and the post-Netscape Marc unpicks the lie of conventional wisdom, because
that uses illustration to convey the Andreessen – the poster-boys for the techno- convention is never wise, it’s just the sum of the
5 in-between of silence and sound, the revolution, and illustrated covers that tried to compromises we make to get by.
5
simple white lines in the middle of knock you out with a futuristic idea that was Take the modest genius of Matthew’s
6
a large black space is demur to the point of rocking just around the corner. Vescovo’s ‘Instructo Art’ whose work reveals
silence, and heavy beyond weight. The line Inside Wired, illustration was the king of an entire range of human behaviour
drawing actually comes from an Astronomy information design. The core visual symbol 1 and points it somewhere else. And in
1 (page 7) 3 4 5 6
encyclopedia. They are not just lines, they of Wired was the information panel, which doing that he reveals the core secret
The Airkiss Milton Glaser, André Dubois, Gorillaz – DARE Gorillaz -– Demon Days Joy Division – Unknown Beck – Girl
are pulses, radio waves, from the first pulsar allowed them to inform and speculate wildly of illustration. It is an art of personality, a craft Matthew Vescovo, 2002 Rachel Salomon, Gary 2005 2005 Pleasures 2005
ever discovered. – but always grounded by the diagrammatics of character. When Esquire art director George Baseman, Jason Greenberg, Video stills directed by Jamie Album cover illustrations by 1979 Video stills with illustrations
These lines, these pulses, are a message of illustration. The diagram captured the ebbs Lois showed Andy Warhol drowning in a can 2 Katherine Streeter, Hewlett and Pete Candel. Jamie Hewlett/Zombie Flesh Album cover by Peter Saville by Martha Rich, Kevin Christy,
Images of The New Yorker Bill Brown, Robert Risko, © EMI Records Ltd. Produced Eaters. for Factory Records. Ethan Marak and Gary
from the ruins of post-industrial Manchester. and flows of money, networks and systems. of Campbell’s Tomato Soup for a story on the
22 August, 2005 Calef Brown, Oksana Badrak, by Passion Pictures for Garay. © Interscope Records.
More than any literal representation of the Likewise, Wallpaper magazine’s liberal collapse of the 60s avant-garde, he was doing Target’s bespoke ad’ series, Yuko Shimizu, James Jean, Parlophone Records. Produced by Motion Theory
bleak social and economic meltdown of Britain use of illustration in the mid-90s was an eye- illustrology. The authorial voice is a basic created by US agency Anna Augul, Richard Gray, with director of photography
in 1979, the illustration is a question – a call, opener when illustration had little kudos. requirement of great illustration, and it’s the Peterson Milla Hooks Melinda Beck, Me Company, David Morrison.
harnessed talents from Liselotte Watkins, Ruben
from the edge of an alien geography that noone And for a trend magazine? But you got the craft of that unique, individual expression that leading illustrators Matthew Toledo, Miles Donovan
recognized anymore. It’s a definitive image of a sense that when pitching the latest design takes it beyond what everyone already ‘knows’ Poprocki, Stina Persson, and Kristian Russell.
nation in transition. The speculative dimension and lifestyle trends you don’t want to show and makes great illustration visionary. ◆◆ Linda Zacks, Carlos Aponte,

8 ILLUSTROLOGY 3/6 9 ILLUSTROLOGY 4/6


9 10

11 12 13

.
7 8 9 10
Mighty Scared Whitie Elevator Fake-out The New Yorker The New Yorker
Matthew Vescovo, 2003 Matthew Vescovo, 2003 2005 1931

11 – 13 14 15 16
Carlos Magazine MAD MAD Wired
Issues 9, 11,12, 2005-6 1989 2006 1997
Cover illustrations by
Johnathan Schofield.
Published by John Brown 14 15 16
Citrus Publishing for
Virgin Atlantic.

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MAPPING THE TERRAIN

IN THE FOLLOWING PAGES, WE SUBJECT


A SELECTION OF ZEITGEIST-DEFINING
ILLUSTRATORS TO UP-CLOSE SCRUTINY.
WE LOOK AT THE WORK OF INDIVIDUALS,
OR GROUPS, WHO ARE MAPPING OUT THE
CONTEMPORARY TERRAIN; PRACTITIONERS
WHO ARE STRETCHING BOUNDARIES
AND REDEFINING THE ANCIENT ART OF
ILLUSTRATION AND IMAGE-MAKING.
The ebb and flow of visual communication of Minori – resulting in their personal take
runs through contemporary culture, on the celebrated hybrid style that has
carving a glittering path through our media been developed by M/M (Paris), and played
landscape. In amongst the tide of everyday out by collectives from Hort to Vault49.
imagery, we find powerful and emotive visual These practitioners unite photography
statements made by people with vision; and graphic design via the scalpel and the
imagery that draws on history to create software package.
visions of the future in an explosion of new Sergei Sviatchenko draws on his training
visual codes and methodologies. Working as in architecture – a craft grounded in geometry,
a commercial image-maker today demands composition and scale. His dream-like collages
more than just a Daley sketchbook and a use layers of architectural knowledge and skill
couple of 2B pencils. It demands knowledge to articulate common metaphors or reference
of the rich visual heritage that surrounds us, popular culture – a head is obscured by a
as well as the ability to incorporate personal cloud, a huddle of scientists grin menacingly
reflections and observations. at the camera, crude cut-outs of John Lennon
To stimulate the debate on contemporary and Paul McCartney fight each other on a
image-making, we have selected five wonky street lined with political figures.
practitioners who contribute to this flow. The His work leaves you in a state of satisfied
work of Alaskan-born illustrator Sam Weber is confusion – you just can’t quite place what he
featured on our cover. He is perhaps the most is doing, what he is trying to say to us – but
traditional of our line-up, if only because he just as with the logic of dreams, you ‘get it’.
uses a pencil. Weber’s work – in both theme Stella Vine is an artist who plays cut-and-
3 4
and execution, links illustrations’ ancestors paste with pop-culture itself. Her naïve and
with today’s practitioners; his Grimms fairytale instinctive paintings capture modern dilemmas
narratives sit comfortably in both newspaper in sickly-sweet colours, with dark, dark tones.
supplements and the style-press. Yet even Rake’s Progress meets Heat magazine as last
within his more ‘traditional’ skill-set, his range week’s news is ripped out, reconfigured and
of tools and techniques indicate the growing retold. Her referential pop-culture journalism
multiplicity of the modern image. merges fantasy and reality in a way that packs
Geneviève Gauckler is an advocate of the more emotional clout than the ‘real’ news.
image-grab mentality that distinguishes many She pushes personal artistic reflection into
contemporary image-makers. Originally known irreverent social comment, and in doing so
for her little black Yeah! people, Gauckler’s creates her own space in the visual community.
2
self-education in graphic design, her childhood All of our featured practitioners are carving
obsession with French TV animation, and her out their own terrain. As well as showing their
3D, photographic vision, have caused her work work, we have conducted interviews with them
to shape-shift to a new, more spatially-driven in which they describe their influences and
direction. Her comic book-meets-installation their fiercely individual visions of the role of
scenes combine ‘hand-drawn’ illustration with contemporary image-maker.
‘the real’ through photography, set-design Although diverse in the modes and
and styling. Mixed references, mixed realities messages of their imagery, all five share a
and mixed disciplines become merged in her rugged individualism that marks them out as
singular vision. significant voices in an arena that increasingly
This notion of construction, of building only values conformity and uniformity. They
new worlds, is echoed in the work of Japan- are not the only ones; others are exploring
based duo Zoren Gold and Minori, whose new terrains, and in future editions, we will
pop-deconstructivism developed from the explore other voices. In the mean time, we
opposite of illustration – from photography. invite you to savour five visionary takes on the
Gold’s fashion shoots are infused and modern made image. FD
radicalised by the cut-and-paste illustration

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1 (page 13) 2 3 4 5 6
Style & the family tunes Soen Personal work Form Personal work Jean
Zoren Gold and Minori, 2005 Zoren Gold and Minori, 2005 Sergei Sviatchenko,2003 Genèvieve Gauckler,2003 Sam Weber, 2003 Stella Vine, 2005
Gold and Minori combine Fashion editorial. Man meets beast in Gauckler constructs multi- Weber layers paint and ink Vine portrays celebrated artist
hand-drawing, collage and Sviatchenko’s mismatched faceted worlds from the real and photography to create this and painter, Jean-François
photography. montage. and the hand-made. mystical portrait. Basquiat.

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Varoom: What are the influences that shape Rouxel, this show has become a cult in France.
your work? Everyone has heard about the Shadoks
Genèvieve Gauckler: I’ve always been very characters, and that they spend most of their
curious about architecture, comics, music and time ‘pumping’, but nobody knows why. The
contemporary art and design. As a teenager, author has created a whole universe, with its
GENÈVIEVE GAUCKLER in my hometown Lyon, I collected English own rules, inhabitants, logic. When I watched
magazines like The Face, Blitz and NME, and it as a kid, I didn’t understand anything, but I
vinyl records like New Order and other new was fascinated.
wave bands. Naturally, I noticed their great My older brother Philippe was crazy about
GENÈVIEVE GAUCKLER GRADUATED IN designs made by designers such as Malcolm the Moebius comic book Metal Hurlant. Jean
1991 FROM LES ECOLE NATIONALE DES Garrett, Neville Brody, Peter Saville, The Giraud’s work is very popular in France and
ARTS DÉCORATIFS AND BEGAN WORKING Designers Republic, Me Company and Mark under the name Blueberry he draws fantastic
AS A GRAPHIC DESIGNER, ILLUSTRATOR Farrow. Their work was so new, so fresh. science fiction stories. L’Homme est-il bon?
AND ART DIRECTOR IN PUBLISHING, WEB I also spent a lot of time looking for [Do human beings taste good?] is a short story
DESIGN AND VIDEO. SHE WORKED WITH rare books about the graphic design of the about extraterrestrial people who eat human
THE FRENCH RECORD COMPANY 50s, 60s and 70s. I became influenced by beings. He’s a genius.
F-COMMUNICATIONS, AND MADE leading American designers like Saul Bass, I discovered Hayao Miyasaki’s work
PROMO VIDEOS WITH THE DIRECTORS Paul Rand, Robert Brownjohn, Herb Lubalin through My Neighbourgh Totoro, when it came
OLIVIER KUNTZEL AND FLORENCE DEYGAS and George Lois. I still spend a lot of time out in 1988. This film is just magic, it’s very
FOR DIMITRI FROM PARIS, PIERRE HENRY in bookstores and museums – searching for touching. It’s about childhood, about growing
AND SPARKS, AS WELL AS COMMERCIALS, inspiring contemporary artists. My favourite up and losing your illusions. It also says a lot
TITLE SEQUENCES AND SHORT FILMS. IN is Ed Ruscha, maybe because of the use of about Japan.
1999, SHE WAS HIRED BY THE INFAMOUS typography in his paintings. I’m a big fan of Matt Groening, too. And
INTERNET START-UP BOO.COM TO CREATE But daily life is the most inspiring thing not just for The Simpsons or Futurama, but
THEIR ONLINE MAGAZINE. A FEW MONTHS for me – something I see on television, food also for his early work. The cartoons he made
LATER SHE MOVED TO LONDON WHERE packaging, or a tree, or cars in the streets, or for The Village Voice – Love is Hell, Work is
SHE WORKED FOR THE DESIGN AGENCY celebrity gossip magazines. Hell, School is Hell – are masterpieces. Drawn
ME COMPANY. SHE RETURNED TO PARIS Can you name some image-makers – past or in a minimalist black and white with a great
IN 2001, AND CURRENTLY SPENDS HER present – that interest or inspire you? sense of humour, the stories are about all the
TIME MAKING VIDEOS (WITHIN THE PLEIX I used to be very impressed by Jan little details of daily-life.
COLLECTIVE), WEBSITES, GRAPHIC DESIGN Tschichold’s writings about typography. You are being approached by some big
AND ILLUSTRATION. GAUCKLER’S CLIENTS Nowadays, I admire the work of Rinzen, corporations. Do you find your work compromised
INCLUDE: BIG ACTIVE, FLAUNT AND LANE Graphic Thought Facility, Laurent Fetis, in any way?
8 9
CRAWFORD DEPARTMENT STORE. Universal Everything, Kam Tang, Banker/ Not at all. But it means that once you have
Wessel, Antoine+Manuel, Sweden Graphics, sold your work to a few big companies, you
Gerard Saint, Matt Maitland, Abake, Hort, have to come up with something fresh and
Build, Neasden Control Centre, M/M (Paris), new afterwards. The money you earn with
Klaus Haapaniemi, Josh Petherick, Parra, advertising buys you some time to explore new
Kusta Saksi and Jean-Philippe Delhomme. directions. The most important thing is to keep
Can you talk about the processes and materials the right balance between both activities.
that you use in your work? Your most recent work combines photography and
GG: Usually technical things inspire me first. hand-made images. Can you talk about your new
I always get ideas when I’m using new software multi-disciplinary approach?
or cameras. A film director has to cope with I like to combine elements that shouldn’t
technical matters all the time, and a writer be put together. Like the sacred and the
has to master the language before writing mundane, big and small, hi-tech and low-tech,
interesting stuff. In a way I like technical grown-up and childlike, rounded shapes and
difficulties because they’re the basis of the sharp shapes, bitmap and vector images.
aesthetics and style of my work. What’s challenging is to mix all this up and to
All of my images end up on a computer, find a kind of harmony or balance. It’s like the
so of course there is a strong temptation yin and the yang again, one can’t exist without
to mix different techniques. If you look at the other. The computer is a very useful tool to
the American magazine Fortune in the 50s, mix all this material. I feel like a child playing
there are some fantastic spreads with a mix around with toys.
of graphics and photography. They are really How do you see illustration in general developing?
spectacular, especially because at that time Photography has become a little bit boring
they didn’t have any tools to visualize the final for me in recent years and I find illustration
result except drawing. more creative, more exciting. I see more and
I use illustration because it is straight- more mixed techniques – like photography
forward. It has clear outlines and is convenient combined with drawing and 3D. The frontier
to use it with typography. It’s related to between graphic design and illustration might
childhood, whereas photography is more get even more blurred.
grown-up. Illustration and photography are Are you comfortable with the tag ‘illustrator’?
like the yin and yang of graphic design. I’m OK with it, but I still feel that a little bit
Your use of strange alien-like characters is a of me is a graphic designer. I don’t consider
distinctive feature of your work. It links you to the myself an artist. I like the idea of being
world of character animation and comics. Is this an commissioned by someone, or a company, and
area that interests you? to have my work in the real world, on billboards
7
I’ve always been into comics, as well as or record covers, rather than in art galleries.
10 11
animation and CGI. As a kid I loved watching
the mega-absurd French television series www.g2works.com
Shadoks. Since its creation in 1968 by Jacques

7 8 9 10 11
Art Grandeur Nature Form Robot Head, Heart & Hips Love and Peace
Genèvieve Gauckler, 2004 Genèvieve Gauckler, 2004 Genèvieve Gauckler, 2005 Genèvieve Gauckler, 2005 Genèvieve Gauckler, 2005
Gauckler’s first steps into Editorial Personal work An image from Head, Heart Personal work
digitally manipulated & Hips, a book presenting
constructions paved the way the multidisciplinary agency
for her new spatially-driven Big Active, published by Die
experiments. Gestalten Verlag.

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13

14

12 (page 18) 13 – 14 15
Lane Crawford as Times Square or Pacific Lane Crawford Lane Crawford
Genèvieve Gauckler, 2006 Place with scenes that mix Billboards in Hong Kong Genèvieve Gauckler, 2006
Gauckler’s unique visual fictional characters with “The money you earn with
language has now come ‘pedestrians’ and urban advertising buys you time to
into play in advertising for landmarks. Her billboards explore new directions.”
the newly opened Hong inspire a sense childlike awe
Kong department store and sell Lane Crawford as
Lane Crawford. Her series a dazzling toy shop for
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transforms store locations such grown-ups.

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Varoom: How would you describe what you do?
Sergei Sviatchenko: My background as an
architect and artist makes my thinking
multilateral. By this I mean the process where
news, ideas, emotions, feelings and doubts
feed into my mind, and then calmly develop
into the finished artwork. Collage occupies
me more and more, because I feel that it has
become the most useful visual element in my
communication with the world.
SERGEI SVIATCHENKO Can you talk about the processes and materials
16
that you use in your work?
It varies from time to time. Sometimes I use an
old-fashioned collage technique – cutting and
SERGEI SVIATCHENKO GRADUATED gluing to create new shapes and then adding
FROM KHARKOV ACADEMY OF ART to them with computer techniques.
AND ARCHITECTURE IN THE UKRAINE, What are the influences that shape your work?
FOLLOWED BY A PHD AT KIEV SCHOOL Mostly my influences are from other creatives
OF ARCHITECTURE. IN 1990 HE MOVED who share my ideas. A few magazines, books,
TO DENMARK. HE HAS HAD NUMEROUS films and many other things you see every day,
SOLO AND GROUP EXHIBITIONS ACROSS and of course, rock music.
EUROPE AND THE USA. IN 2002 HE CO- Can you name some image-makers – past or
FOUNDED SENKO STUDIO, A GALLERY present – that interest or inspire you?
SHOWING HIS OWN WORK, AND THE My father – architect and great water-colour
WORK OF OTHERS. SVIATCHENKO’S artist. My teachers at architecture school
CLIENTS INCLUDE: NOKIA, DANSKE – you realize later in life just how good many of
BANK, GRUNDFOS, DANISCO, DANSK them were. And the Russian avant-garde [1910
INDUSTRI, PRICE WATERHOUSE COOPERS, – 34]: Ivan Leonidov, Konstantin Melnikov, El
SONOFON, SCHUR INTERNATIONAL AND Lissitzky, Alexander Rodchenko. Also people
GIOTTO MUSIC. such as Salvador Dali, Robert Raushenberg,
Tom Wesselmann, Daniele Buetti, Rodney
Graham, Rei Kawakubo, Sir Paul Smith,
Pipilotti Rist, Andy Simionato, Andrey
Tarkovsky, Julian Schnabel, Mark Rothko,
Josef Beuys and Isaac Julien.
Do you find your creative approach shifting for
18
your commercial clients?
We live and work in a world where we
compromise all the time in order to be with
each other, but I am absolutely sure that my
work is always true to my own original ideas.
What direction do you envisage your work taking
in the coming years?
I would like to continue my work with the
17
gallery to show my art, and I would like to do
some work with magazines exploring specific
themes. I’d also like to work with architects –
to integrate art into the architectural process,
beginning with sketches – this was the subject
of my PhD: ‘Means of Visual Information in
Architecture’.
You also run Senko Studio – could you tell us about
this project and the work that you present?
Senko Studio is located in the centre of Viborg,
Denmark’s oldest town. I describe it as a
communication space that is open for different
projects and ideas. It’s a place where I show
work by exciting new artists and designers
from the arenas of video, photography,
painting, installation and fashion. Potential
exhibitors are invited produce designs for a
limited edition T-shirt and a postcard. They
come from all over the world.
Can you describe the ‘Senko Frame Project’?
The idea of the project is to show
contemporary video films in a public space.
It will create more possibilities to connect
changing visual images with the town’s
structure. There is a 1.5 x 2.5m screen facing
the street which can show videos in the
evening. Senko Studio will simultaneously
broadcast the video on our website.
How do you see imagery in general developing
– either locally, or internationally?
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I believe that by using technology it is
possible to make strong and original visual
art that melts or blends with fashion, design
16 17 and architecture. 18 19 20
Darwin – My Friend Head series TBC Chaos Happens collage. Visual elements Personal work Chbl Dreams
Science-inspired installation Sergei Sviatchenko, 2005 Sergei Sviatchenko, 2005 are pieced together as 3- Sergei Sviatchenko, 2006 Sergei Sviatchenko, 2004
www.sviatchenko.dk
exhibited in Senko Studio, The obscured head is This recent story, published in dimensional sculptures, and Two boxed card collections of
Sviatchencko’s a reoccurring theme thisisamagazine.com, presents then digitally photographed to Sviatchenko’s work have been
experimental gallery space. in Sviatchenko’s work. another strand of Sviatchenko’s create singlular images. published by Senko Studio.

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21 22

21 – 22
Untitled
Sergei Sviatchenko, 2004
Sviatchenko’s montage draws
influence from art, architecture
and science.

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Varoom: What are the influences that shape
your work?
Sam Weber: Comic books, movies, childhood
power fantasies, growing up in Canada, and
the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Can you name some image-makers that interest or
inspire you?
Lorenzo Mattotti and early 20th Century
German artists like Beckmann, Dix, Grosz and
Kollwitz. Japanese prints – especially Hokusai
and Hiroshige. Yoshitaka Amano, Northern
Renaissance painting, Neo Rauch, Frank
Frazetta. I’m sure I am forgetting something
really important…
Can you talk about the processes and materials
that you use in your work?
Almost everything starts off as some sort of
black and white drawing on paper, usually ink
23
drawn with a brush, and maybe some water
colour, acrylic, or pencil added in. It is then
coloured digitally. How much is done on the
computer and how much is done by hand
varies from one project to the next – although
for the most part, the more time I spend
26 27
SAM WEBER working on the actual drawing, the less I spend
in Photoshop.
Do you find your creative approach shifting for
your commercial clients?
SAM WEBER WAS BORN IN ALASKA, A little I suppose. My commissioned work
AND GREW UP IN DEEP RIVER ONTARIO, always seems to evolve in the direction of my
CANADA. AFTER ATTENDING THE personal work, which at the moment is maybe
ALBERTA COLLEGE OF ART AND DESIGN a little rawer and hand-drawn.
IN CALGARY, HE MOVED TO NEW YORK What direction do you envisage your work taking
TO ATTEND GRADUATE SCHOOL AT THE in the coming years?
SCHOOL OF VISUAL ARTS. IN ADDITION At the risk of saying something clichéd, I
24
TO DRAWING, SAM WORKS PART TIME AS think half the fun is not exactly knowing the
ASSISTANT ART DIRECTOR OF THE OPED answer to that question. For now I would like
PAGE AT THE NEW YORK TIMES, WITH ART to keep exploring the hand-drawn elements in
DIRECTOR BRIAN REA. WEBER’S CLIENTS my work, and hope that the computer doesn’t
INCLUDE: THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE LA overshadow my process too much.
TIMES, ESPN, SPIN, THE CBC, FLAUNT AND How do you see illustration developing?
THE VILLAGE VOICE. I think many people would say technology
is certainly going to effect the way in which
illustration is used, made and defined. But
for me, making compelling images has always
been about evoking a sense of mystery and
mood. In a world where so much information
is available to us, I think the ability to create
a sense of wonder in an audience will become
even more important.
Are you comfortable with the tag ‘illustrator’?
Sure. I think it’s a pretty accurate description
25
of what I do.

www.sampaints.com

28

23 24 25 26 27 28
Flaunt Vampire J is for Jenny who came from Eden Karla Homolka Snow White Weber draws lines from
Sam Weber, 2006 Sam Weber, 2005 the sea Sam Weber, 2005 Sam Weber, 2005 Sam Weber, 2005 Frank Frazetta to Tim Burton,
Cover image art directed by Editorial art directed by Jacob Sam Weber, 2005 Personal work Edtiorial for Dose, art directed Personal work from wood block printing
Lee Corbin Covey for Fantagraphics Personal work by Jemai Hamilton to decorative tattoo art. His
stories tell old tales with a
new graphic twist.

26 MAPPING THE TERRAIN 15/26 27 MAPPING THE TERRAIN 16/26


29 (left) 30 (above)
Lavinia Gertrude Weber’s personal portraits of texture and technique to
Sam Weber, 2005 Sam Weber, 2005 demonstrate the wealth of create his trademark earthy
Personal work Personal work skills and themes that build and mythical creatures.
his distinctive style. Layers

29 MAPPING THE TERRAIN 18/26


Varoom: Can you talk about the processes and hands, or the exploitation of others or myself.
materials that you use in your work? A company like Gap would maybe be a good
Stella Vine: My average day starts with coffee, example – I guess I’d do it if it was offered, and
STELLA VINE and flicking through loads of papers and then do something useful with half the money.
magazines. If I see something that resonates, I’d ask about slave labour and stuff first, and
I’ll rip it out and add it to a massive stash of then come to a decision whether there was
cuttings. In amongst these piles of images some evil shit going on.
STELLA VINE WAS BORN IN ALNWICK, are various personal childhood photographs I don’t feel hugely precious about my
NORTHUMBERLAND AND LIVES AND of people, places and pets. Sometimes I stick images as far as copyright goes, but I guess
WORKS IN LONDON. VINE GRADUATED them on the walls, so that I will think about it would depend on circumstances. I think if
FROM HAMPSTEAD SCHOOL OF ART them more often. something was going to drain me too much, if
IN 2001, AND HAS SINCE WORKED AS If there’s a story in the news that it was too much of a battle inside or if it was
AN ARTIST AND PAINTER. IN 2004 HER interests me, I’ll go hunting through piles off not going to help me express my thing, then
PROVOCATIVE PAINTINGS OF PRINCESS stuff, desperately looking for older images I’d turn it down. I can always put on a show
DIANA CAUGHT THE EYE OF CHARLES connected with the story. There’s no order to in a squat instead, maybe get a good review,
SAATCHI AND ESTABLISHED HER ON THE any of this, so it’s always a mess. It would be and then get closer to getting something in a
INTERNATIONAL ART SCENE. TODAY HER good if they were all filed and named properly. museum for future generations to see – rather
PAINTINGS ARE COMMISSIONED FOR I could do with a couple of assistants. than taking a big wad of cash and feeling
FASHION EDITORIAL AND EXHIBITED IN At the moment, acrylics are my main controlled and miserable, and unable to do the
GALLERIES IN LONDON, NEW YORK AND painting ingredient, but I’m getting back to stuff that’s true to me.
LOS ANGELES. VINE’S CLIENTS INCLUDE: where I was before – just doing whatever I like You have also been proactive in the arts through
BLACK BOOK AND I-D. – collage, printing, drawing, blogging. curating and presenting shows. Could you tell us a
Can you talk about image-makers – past or present little about these projects?
– that inspire you? I like to have a creative home where things
I’ve loved Warhol since I was about 13. I was evolve from. I ran a gallery in a butchers shop
fascinated by all of those people. I was one of for a while, and that was great. I’m reviving
those kids who just hung out with a painted the idea; it’s called Rosy Wilde – a name that
white face, tons of eyeliner, and rarely spoke inspires creative freedom in me. It comes
to anyone. It’s incredible how much I identify from the performer Rose English and Oscar
with his work; it never ceases to amaze me. Wilde. It’s going to be in an office in Soho. It’s
From his favourite soup, to the horror of the an improvisation. I think it’s going to be like
electric chair, movie stars, much more. It’s Tracey Emin and Sarah Lucas’ The Shop – it’s
too overwhelming to pin down. I don’t even The Shop meets Cloth Kits, a 70s mail order
want to pin it down. It has subtleties, and deep clothing company. I used to love it when my
personal connections. mum ordered stuff from Cloth Kits – they
There is also an artist called Karen were such beautiful folksy, crafty kind of
31
Killimnik, I really love her work. She paints like fabrics with a lot of heart.
a teenager, working really hard with beautiful I’m like Mike Leigh really, you just have to
little oil strokes. It could be of someone who give me the platform and I’ll come up with the
looks like a model and it would say Me at goods. People get suspicious of me, they don’t
Haight-Ashbury in ‘67, or something like that. understand – we are all so used to cynicism.
I really connect with them. They’re really girly, The Rosy Wilde art objects are made by
dark, beautiful, full of desire. people who I think are fantastic, who I relate
Much of your work echoes or comments on to, who I admire. Some of them are not part of
popular culture and society. Do you have conscious the art world but they’re making great art, like
objectives when you create your paintings? Hannah Daisy, she makes teenage girly type
Not in an obvious way. It’s not like a work, kind of dark too, but she is a teenager
34
statement, it’s so entwined with myself, my studying occupational therapy. I just really
own life. Sometimes I guess the paintings relate to it.
32
are in support of someone like Diana or Kate So Rosy Wilde’s got that sort of vibe: it’s
or Rachel Whitear, but you will also get the me expressing myself and it’s a piece of art
world surrounding them in the painting, itself too. It’s independent. It’s me making
so sometimes it’s confusing what my take sense of all the art-world experience I’ve had
on it is. People presume I’m being cynical, so far, in an honest, stripped-to-the-bone
when it’s more that things are really awful type way, just cutting out as much bullshit
surrounding the person’s life. My own life as possible. I’ll sell you something beautiful,
and the life of the celebrity get intertwined, original and with a lot of heart. Pop heart.
just like they are in my own head, or maybe What direction do you envisage your own work
anyone’s head – this cacophony of people, taking in the coming years?
places, objects, food, handbags, fear, love. I want to be the world’s greatest living painter,
I avoid being cool, trying to be clever or so just kind of getting closer to that really.
cynical. I’m all out for sincerity and passion, I know that might sound insane, vague,
even if that makes me a wanker. meaningless, but I have to try and not care
33
Do you have boundaries that define the what people think of me, I’m getting there. My
commercial exposure of your work? art will make sense in the future, when you can
No, I don’t think there are too many see the whole package, when I’m long-dead.
boundaries. As long as I was given total Just putting on shows, curating, making great
freedom to create something, I think I could work, collaborating with great people, helping
bounce off pretty much any environment. other people to do their own thing, putting
Maybe if a political movement asked me to do their shows on, stuff like that.
something, like the BNP, I’d say no, although
I guess it would be intellectually possible to www.stellavine.net
subvert anything… I’d rather paint my mum or
my dog, than have too much of a battle on my

31 32 33 34 - 36
Superman ‘Hi Paul, can you come Mandy and Christine Blackbook accessories of Marc Jacobs
Stella Vine, 2004 over…’ Stella Vine, 2005 Stella Vine, 2005 are brought to life in Lily,
Private Collection, Israel. Stella Vine, 2005 Private Collection, UK. Vine’s pop-culture commentary a character who reads 35 36
Vine’s subjects span icons of Private Collection, UK. continues in her commissioned Nietzsche, wears Chanel
popular culture to capture the work. The clothes and No.5 and dreams of a date
cultural repertoire of our times. at the Ivy.

30 MAPPING THE TERRAIN 19/26 31 MAPPING THE TERRAIN 20/26


37

38

37 38
Blackbook ‘I only make love to Jesus’ accusations made against with ‘Holy Water Cannot Help perspectives on the story
Stella Vine, 2005 Stella Vine, 2005 supermodel Kate Moss, You Now’ and pictured here, and delved into the celebrity
Private collection, UK Vine recast the front-page ‘I only make love to Jesus’, and culture and its relationship with
Vine reworks the news photograph in ‘Must be the were subsequently used in a the media.
with artistic metaphor and season of the witch’, shedding Sky One documentary aired in
awkward cultural references. a new light on the media- October 2005. Her rewritings
As the tabloids revelled in frenzy. The series continued had sparked different

32 MAPPING THE TERRAIN 22/26 33 MAPPING THE TERRAIN 23/26


ZOREN GOLD AND MINORI

ZOREN GOLD AND MINORI MET IN


L.A. IN THE MID-90S AND HAVE BEEN
WORKING AS A CREATIVE PARTNERSHIP
EVER SINCE. GOLD WAS BORN IN
MUNICH, GERMANY. HE MOVED TO L.A.
IN 1995, AND BEGAN WORKING AS A
FREELANCE PHOTOGRAPHER. MINORI IS
JAPANESE, AND GREW UP IN HIROSHIMA.
IN 1991 SHE MOVED TO L.A. TO STUDY
AT OTIS COLLEGE OF ART & DESIGN. IN
1996, MINORI STARTED WORKING AS
A FREELANCE GRAPHIC DESIGNER AND
ILLUSTRATOR. NOW BASED IN TOKYO,
39
THEIR SHARED INTEREST IN ‘PUSHING
THE BOUNDARY OF PHOTOGRAPHY’,
HAS LED TO THEM TO EXPERIMENT WITH
COMBINING PHOTOGRAPHY WITH
DRAWING, COLLAGE, HAND-MADE PROPS
AND COMPUTER GRAPHICS. THEIR CLIENTS
INCLUDE: SONY, MTV JAPAN, WARNER
BROS., ELLE, NYLON, NEO2 AND QVEST.

Varoom: What are the influences that shape


your work?
Zoren Gold and Minori: Personal desire and
41 42
dreams. We make images that are open to
experiment. They are playful and erotic. We’re
driven by the expectation of wanting to see
the finished images we create.
Can you name some image-makers – past or
present – that interest or inspire you?
There are many image-makers and artists
who we take inspiration from, especially in
the world of Surrealism, which we discovered
recently. Surrealism became a key that
unlocked something inside us, and turned our
appreciation towards art. Since then, we’ve
been discovering and rediscovering art from
various eras and genres. We recently fell in
love with Picasso, after all these years. Our
all time favourites are Max Ernst, the Spanish
artist Remedious Varo and the German artist
Paul Wunderlich.
Can you talk about the processes and materials
that you use in your work?
Anything that comes into our minds.
Your work combines photography, montage
40
and hand-made images. Can you talk about the
development of your multi-disciplinary approach?
Sometimes, we get interested in something
– could be anything – and we just want to try
it, and see how it works out.
Do you change your creative approach for more
commercial clients?
We haven’t done much commercial work.
How do you see imagery in general developing
– either in Japan or internationally?
We find so much resistance to mixing
illustration and photography. Some people
are afraid of our photography, and find it hard
to understand. Why not just celebrate the
fact that photography can do more than just
capture the moment?
What direction do you envisage your work taking
in the coming years?
39 40
Robocop Soen
We have no idea... ◆◆
Zoren Gold and Minori, 2004 Zoren Gold and Minori, 2004
Personal work. Fashion editorial. www.mi-zo.com

41-42 43
Qvest Style & the family tunes
Zoren Gold and Minori, 2004 Zoren Gold and Minori, 2005
Gold and Minori use modern Editorial
tools to make complex
multilayered images. Here
photography and illustration 43
are combined in a painterly,
Klimt-esque fashion portrait.

34 MAPPING THE TERRAIN 23/26 35 MAPPING THE TERRAIN 24/26


45
46

44 45
Atomica Soen
Zoren Gold and Minori, 2005 Zoren Gold and Minori, 2005
Editorial Editorial

36 MAPPING THE TERRAIN 25/26 37 MAPPING THE TERRAIN 26/26


CHRISTOPH NIEMANN: FORCE OF NATURE
BY STEVEN HELLER

FOR CONCEPTUAL ACCURACY,


AND DIZZYING SPEED, FEW COMMERCIAL
ILLUSTRATORS CAN MATCH THE NEW
YORK-BASED GRAPHIC MARKSMAN,
CHRISTOPH NIEMANN. THE NOTED
COMMENTATOR AND NEW YORK TIMES
ART DIRECTOR STEVEN HELLER PROVIDES
AN ILLUMINATING ACCOUNT OF THE
COMMISSIONING PROCESS AND A
DISCUSSES NIEMANN’S PLACE IN THE
COMMERCIAL ILLUSTRATION COSMOS.
At 9:30 a.m. on 12 January 2006, I was given and not just churning out rote solutions, but review of a book called Arming America, a coloured wit was a tonic. He quickly became
a manuscript to be illustrated about the highly sophisticated ones that transcend cultural history of guns, he conceived the quintessential New York illustrator, and fell
crisis facing the American economy due to the conventions (and clichés) of editorial 1 a skeleton hand holding a skeleton comfortably into his adopted city.
unceasing deficits. It was to be included in illustration. Others may be more astute, and gun. In one stark, though simple Niemann is now a destination for young
the following week’s issue of The New York some are much finer draftsmen (though image, he references America’s liberal illustrators who he generously advises.
Times Book Review, the publication I have Niemann’s specific craft is impeccable), handgun laws, and the idea that guns are so Moreover, with a few of his friends and
art directed for almost 30 years. To get an but few editorial illustrators working today ingrained in the American body politic that the colleagues he’s attempted to rebuild an
illustration into the paper demands a twenty- hit the bulls eye as frequently, and at such object is fused into its bones. illustration community that had been ravaged
four hour turn-around, which involves my a quick clip. What makes him sought after I remember when he sent this in, how by the various fashions that sidelined
accepting an idea and then passing it through by art directors (and even editors) is his excited I was. Recognition was instant, not conceptual illustration. With Niemann as a
a gauntlet of editorial approvals. What’s more, uncannily prodigious ability to transform even a moment of contemplation between model, the field has been given a goose. But he
given this rather common and trite theme I the commonplace into the extraordinary by seeing and understanding – the hallmark of a notes that illustration is not monolithic, and
needed an illustration that would be neither routinely coming up with the ‘a-ha!’ idea that great visual message. niches are key. “What I find interesting is that
common nor trite. so clearly summarizes a story or notion, that it despite the Internet and national magazines
At 9:35, I attached the manuscript to an is unnecessary to read the text. and TV, the rift between East and West Coast
email addressed to New York-based, German- Those who have seen the mountains of Christopher Niemann was born in 1970 illustration seems to grow ever wider. On the
born illustrator Christoph Niemann. After sketches he keeps in a few loose-leaf binders in Waiblingen, Germany, and began West Coast, illustration seems to be more
pressing the send button I cross my fingers know that almost every scribble is suitable for studying graphic design at the Stuttgart joyful and decorative. It is moving into art
that he is available on such short notice. He has publication. Not to minimize the many talented Academy of Art to follow an interest in new galleries and the world of toys and collectibles.
saved me in similar situations before, but since artists I regularly work with, but if there were, media. Despite doing 90% illustration he On the East Coast it is the conceptual,
he has become one of the busiest illustrators in god forbid, a pandemic that felled illustrators considered himself a graphic designer and subdued and sometimes snobby work that still
the US, I can only hope he won’t turn me down all over the globe – I could fill my weekly conceiving ideas was his foremost skill. “I seems to be the main focus.”
(if he did I’d have to beg, and supplication is periodical with Niemann’s rejects alone. never considered fine art to be an option,” Snobby? Perhaps but I only know one
2
humiliating for any art director). Niemann once explained. “I always liked and illustrator who has the temerity to mount
At precisely 9:37, I receive his reply, appreciated fine art, but I can’t recall ever an exhibition of 800 of his spot editorial
which reads: “I’m extremely busy, but I’ll thinking of what it would be like to have a drawings (ranging in size from one to ten

“I CAN’T RECALL
give it try.” Knowing Niemann as I do, this painting in a museum. All I thought of was square inches) where each is so smart that
means he’s hooked. While many in his position having a drawing in MAD magazine.” there is not one single, solitary clinker.

EVER THINKING OF
would decline, he revels in taking these Niemann, who is nothing if not Niemann’s show, Little Niemann: 1000 Spot
difficult illustration assignments as a personal regimented, segments the heroes who Drawings, which hung at the New York Times

WHAT IT WOULD
challenge. Ten minutes later – and true to influenced his career the following way: Tomi Gallery Nine throughout December 2005 and
form – he sends me his idea. It is Ungerer from age four-nine; Albert Uderzo, January 2006, despite the false advertising

BE LIKE TO HAVE
2 a vampire’s face, his mouth in the from 10-14; and Mort Drucker and Don (what did happen to the other 200?), is the
shape of a spiky fever chart that also Martin, aged 15-20. “Heinz Edlemann, who most awe inspiring display of visual acuity

A PAINTING IN
looks like fangs, with a subtle hint of blood was my teacher at the academy, influenced and wit I’ve seen in decades. So, as long as
where the arrowhead at the end of the fever me a lot. He introduced me to a modern idea Niemann maintains his unflappable energy

A MUSEUM. ALL
line tapers down; opposite the vampire is the of illustration. It is embarrassing to admit, (thanks in part to plenty of coffee – milk,
victim’s face (the American public) profusely but until Edelmann showed me their work, I no sugar – and silence), conceptual editorial

I THOUGHT OF
bleeding from the neck, the wound resembling had no idea who Steinberg, Holland, Glaser illustration has a champion. ◆◆
the shape of the spiraling chart. Once again, or Chwast were.” Once informed, however,
Further reading:
WAS HAVING A
Niemann has taken conventional symbols and he was hooked by their talents and became a
tweaked them into a memorably surprising confirmed emulator. Infiltrate: The Front Lines of the New York Design
Scene, Alexander Gelman, BIS Publishers,
DRAWING IN
image. Who could ask for anything better? One thing is clear: Niemann could not
conceive viable ideas at the rate he does if 2004. Contains long interview with
Christoph Niemann.
MAD MAGAZINE”
he were insulated from the world. So out of
passion and necessity he is politically aware. Review of 100% Evil: www.a-g-i.org
www.christophniemann.com
IT IS NOT THAT
“I was always an avid reader of newspapers
and magazines,” he explains, “but when I

I’M SADISTIC,
came to New York and started working for
At this point you are possibly thinking that The New York Times’ Oped page I turned

BUT I DO GET
this is hyperbole. You might also be asking into a complete addict. It was the time of the
where is my critical detachment – nobody Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton scandal,
3

OFF ON TESTING
is that perfect and even if he is, shouldn’t I when politics was a terrifically entertaining
have a more analytical evaluation? If it were spectacle. Unfortunately it is a lot less fun to

NIEMANN’S
anyone else, I would probably agree. But I be political now, especially since I take it all
am reporting on the quantifiable fact that very seriously, so goofy caricatures of G. W.

TOLERANCE
Niemann hits the mark on difficult subject Bush don’t do much to ease my pain.”
matter considerably more than he misses Yet to allay this pain he draws incessantly,
(yes, he does miss on occasion). always searching for the Holy Grail of ideas.
Why? Technique plays a large role. After What makes the best solution? “It may sound
a phase in his young career when he was spineless, but I have to admit that I believe
Well, I guess I could. It is not that I’m producing more time-consuming, detailed that it’s funny when people laugh,” he notes.
sadistic, but I do get off on testing Niemann’s renderings, he settled on a curiously generic “Sometimes I come up with an idea, and I
tolerance; so at 9:53 I wrote the following pictorial sign-symbol mannerism that am convinced it is the Mona Lisa of the 21st
email: “Christoph, nice job! But maybe there’s allowed him an ironic stylistic framework. Century, but once the third person I show it to
a better solution that won’t insult those of our His economical linear (instructional manual) gives me a forced smile or shakes their head
timid readers who find vampires offensive?” approach is fairly popular these days, but I have to accept that it sucks.” On the other
I press send, lean back in my chair and Niemann doesn’t simply mimic the style, he hand, he says it often happens that clients
patiently wait until 10:03, when he wordlessly incorporates it into a keen ability to make praise “a piece that I thought was rather
replies to my email with three more sketches. believable renderings. mediocre. There seem to be some pieces
Of course, he had other solutions and each Unlike the great conceptualists Ralph people like and I have no idea why.”
was smarter and funnier than the next, yet Steadman, Brad Holland, or Seymour Chwast, When Niemann came to New York in the
I actually preferred the first one, and that’s for instance, whose work relies on their early-90s, more than two decades had passed
what he ultimately sent back as a finished quirkily distinctive expressive gestures, since the first wave of Eastern European
4
piece by 10:47 a.m. (minus the hint of blood). Niemann uses minimalism as a styleless- illustrators had introduced symbolism and
The entire process, from my original style. Even his more narrative images, where metaphor to editorial problem solving. In
1 (page 39) 2 3 4
Arming America US deficits The Legacy of George W Bush 100% Evil email to Niemann with the manuscript in a complex story is allowed to unfold, are fact, the references to Dada, Surrealism, and
2003 2006 2005 2005 tow to receiving his final EPS file took only 77 pure and concise, allowing the concept to Futurism, the influence of Steinberg and the
New York Times Book Review. New York Times Book Review. Esquire magazine. Ink drawing from a book minutes. This was not the first, second, reign. His style is so boldly transparent that sharp satire that had made such a mark on
called 100% Evil, by Nicholas
or fifteenth time he’s made such a speedy each image is a veritable logo for the idea he American conceptual illustration had become
Blechman and Christoph
Niemann, published by turn-around. Niemann is a conceptual is conceptualizing. My favorite of his Book something of a stylistic cliché. Niemann’s
Princeton Architectural Press. illustration machine – a force of nature – Review covers illustrates this point. For a computer generated clarity and brightly

40 CHRISTOPH NIEMANN 3/6 41 CHRISTOPH NIEMANN 4/6


6 7 8

9 10 11

12 13 14 15 16

5 17 18 19 20 21

5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 – 21
Prêt-à-Porter Anniversary issue United We Stand Real Estate Bubbles Have we Reached the Let the Games Begin Fall Chores Financial Column
2003 2002 2002 2005 Bottom Yet? 2002 2004 2000 – 2006
Front cover, The New Yorker New Yorker front cover Front cover, The New Yorker. Front cover, The New Yorker. 2002 Front cover, The New Yorker. Front cover, The New Yorker. Various illustrations showing
magazine, Prêt-à-Porter – featuring bitmapped version Front cover, The New Yorker. Niemann’s sharp wit.
Japan Style issue. of New Yorker ‘dandy’ logo. Commissioned for the New
Yorker Financial Column.

42 CHRISTOPH NIEMANN 5/6 43 CHRISTOPH NIEMANN 6/6


THINKING THROUGH MAKING:
AN INTERVIEW WITH DAN FERN
BY ADRIAN SHAUGHNESSY

DAN FERN’S COLLAGES WERE THE


HEIGHT OF FASHION IN THE 80S AND
90S. HIS MORE RECENT WORK DISPLAYS
QUALITIES OF INTROSPECTION AND
PERSONAL CONVICTION. AS HEAD OF THE
POST-GRADUATE COMMUNICATION ART &
DESIGN COURSE AT THE ROYAL COLLEGE
OF ART IN LONDON, NUMEROUS
DESIGNERS AND ILLUSTRATORS HAVE
BENEFITED FROM FERN’S ENLIGHTENED
APPROACH TO LEARNING.
Dan Fern combines the role of teacher, Adrian Shaughnessy: Where did your interest You’ve talked about opening the plan chest There’s an insistence on RCA tutors being We’ve always advocated that illustrators I agree, but of course they would throw the
illustrator and artist with modest aplomb. in collage come from? and finding photographic crop boards practitioners as well as teachers, which seems should think of themselves as part of the charge back at us, and say ‘well, you creative
Born in 1945, he studied graphic design at Dan Fern: When I was studying at the RCA randomly framing an unexpected image. to be crucial to the success of the course. creative arts and that they should relate as people don’t know anything about business,
Manchester College of Art, followed by an MA [1967-70] I worked mainly in pen and ink, Do you think this sort of beautiful accident is I think it’s very important that people are much to the fine arts, the performing arts, to about marketing, about demographics’.
in Illustration at the Royal College of Art in but occasionally I would cut out a piece of still possible with software and a computer? speaking about things that they know literature and philosophy, as much as to the The daring of creative artists just isn’t
London. In 1986 he returned to the RCA as one illustration and add it to another. I didn’t Yes, I’ve found ways of working on the implicitly themselves. I don’t think it’s applied arts. That the provenance of images matched by the daring in marketing. There’s
Head of Illustration, and has remained there really think about it as collage at the time. computer that enable me to enlarge or necessarily something that comes into the is very broad and they should look to where that lovely story about the book, Captain
ever since. He is now Head of the School of I just thought about it as a way of building reduce images and crop them in ways that teaching process. It’s more to do with mindsets the most interesting, most demanding or Corelli’s Mandolin. When it first came out
Communication Art and Design. up an image. I had also become preoccupied are appropriate to what I’m doing, although and ways of thinking. Of course, there are most provocative images are coming from the jacket was very ordinary, and the book
Graduates from Fern’s radical post- with an instrument called the airbrush. I’ve never really exploited the relationship technical discussions about drawing or – whether it’s photography or painting, or didn’t sell. Then someone had the brain
graduate course form a glittering strata When I arrived at the RCA, it was the tail between the computer and print. I still prefer computer programmes, or whatever. But our different countries, or whatever. That’s where wave of getting Jeff Fisher to do the cover,
of talent that runs through contemporary end of the Phillip Castle and Adrian George to use ‘real’ material. Since the early-90’s I’ve teaching is less about information and more they should be going for their inspirations and and it became a bestseller. Its success was
visual communications. They are often era, and we were all interested in what used it mainly for making films. The computer about experience. I’m a great believer in the source material. demonstrably to do with the cover.
distinguishable by their idealism and they’d been doing. David Hockney had just for me is where I do film editing. idea of thinking through making. This has Can we round off by talking about Walks
radicalism. Yet most have a resilience and been here too, and he’d used the airbrush. You trained as a graphic designer. Recently always been important to me and it is very With Colour?
pragmatism that enables them to prosper in I liked the lush surfaces you could make. you’ve talked about the work that comes out of much a part of our ethos. The work I’m doing now is to do with a

“ONE OF THE
the commercial world, while simultaneously I hardly ever used it as a way of modelling the RCA Communication Art & Design course I occasionally come across anti-RCA feeling. developing attitude, not only to my own work
pursing artistic and ideological interests. images, but as a way of putting down as being ‘hard to locate’. In other words, some You select the people who come here, and so but to a relationship with landscape, with the

FACTORS THAT
During the 1980s and 90s, Fern was one areas of flat colour. It was attractive and it of it might be illustration, or it might be design. you are open to a charge of elitism. What’s your earth. It’s a sort of political thing as well. I
of Britain’s most fashionable commercial reproduced well. I’d do a bit of airbrushing What do you think is the difference between view on that in our egalitarian age? am increasingly thinking about green politics

IS ENORMOUSLY
illustrators. His finely-judged collage work, on one piece of paper, and cut it out and graphic design and illustration? We choose from hundreds of applicants from and sustainable development, alongside my
often incorporating stray letterforms and paste it onto another piece to build up a When I started working professionally, the all over the world, so you could say that it is growing interest in the landscape where I

RESTRICTING TO
fragments of printed ephemera, revealed his multilayered image. stereotypical graphic designer was regarded as an elite, but it’s an elite of merit rather than have a studio in France. All this made me
early tutelage in graphic design and was a high You abandoned collage when the computer a problem solver, and the illustrator a kind of anything else. The students come from an want to think and write about having a closer

ILLUSTRATION IS THE
point in the illustration of the time. arrived on the scene. decorator. The graphic designer would come enormously wide range of backgrounds, so it’s relationship with the earth.
Fern has since moved away from purely If I was asked to illustrate a story, or a book up with the concept, and then they’d wheel not as if their family or anything like that has I had always been excited by cities and

LACK OF DARING
commercial work to produce imagery that jacket, or a record sleeve, instead of creating in the illustrator to carry it out. They always any bearing on the possibility that they might modern buildings, and the sort of accidental
is infused with an intensely personal and a single image, I’d make a collection of seemed to need to have a brief in order to have come here. Around 60% come from outside of images you see when someone rips a poster

AMONGST THE
meditative sensibility. fragments that I’d gathered from different an idea. One of the things that differentiated the UK. But it is definitely elitist and I don’t off a billboard. I still liked all that, but I was
Walks With Colour, a book and exhibition, sources and collage them together. Text, designers from illustrators was that illustrators see how you can avoid that. getting more and more interested in the way

PEOPLE WHO
is his most recent project. It shows Fern images and photographs, brought together in a had a working methodology; they either drew, I know about the criticism, and I know we trees grow on hillsides, and the light on cliff
entering a new phase. Inspired by the way that satisfied my own aesthetic needs, and painted or made collages. They had a day-to- get a lot of it from parts of the design press, faces, things like that. It grew partly out of my

COMMISSION
countryside that surrounds his studio in also the requirements of the brief. day working method they adapted to whatever and from graphic designers for whom graphics interest in mountaineering and climbing but
rural France, his new work exhibits a more Of course, making multiple images is what the circumstances required; and through that is a sort of visual wing of marketing and also out of a need from somewhere inside me

WORK. I’M
naturalistic and painterly aesthetic. He is also the computer does best, and in the late-80s process they developed an individual ‘voice’ or consumerism. But one of the big shifts that to think more about my physical environment.
involved in making films, often produced to and early-90s a lot of people were starting to style that was recognisable. A lot of designers has happened with young people generally, it also coincides with concern about climate

NOT TALKING
accompany performances by musicians – a make the type of images that I was making didn’t have that. They’d take each job on its and not just here, but all over the world, is change, and some of the projects that are
collaborative activity that Fern is especially in much less time than it took me! I wasn’t own merits. It was as if they were starting from that they don’t necessarily want to spend going on at the RCA to do with sustainable

ABOUT THE ART


passionate about. forced into moving away from collage by the scratch every time. precious years and a formative part of their design and sustainable development.
This interview took place in Fern’s small, computer, but I recognised that it was able to Do you think this is still the case today? lives flogging goods and services. They’ve Walks With Colour was a way of thinking

DIRECTORS. I’M
spartan office at the RCA in Kensington, do things that I had developed a skill for; and Many designers still find it difficult if they’re got the rest of their lives to do that if they about these things, a sort of self-evaluation
London, during March 2006. that I needed to move on. not working within certain parameters, want to. So for this precious time, they can period. It was a way of just stepping off the

TALKING ABOUT
so it’s more difficult for them to exist live outside of that. To lend creative talents escalator for a while and asking, ‘where am I
outside a commercial framework. Whereas entirely to the service of consumerism doesn’t now as a creative person?’

THE MARKETING
illustrators, and especially the sort of make sense to me. I’m not against it for part You’ve always used bright clean colours in your
illustrator that I’ve been advocating, have of the time, far from it. But I don’t take the work, now there’s been a change. You use

PEOPLE.THEY SEEM
working methodologies that enable them to D&AD view that that is what it’s all about. much darker, more naturalistic tones.
do commissioned jobs or, when that isn’t an Education should be far broader and deeper I’ve always loved colour, but I’ve tended to

TO BE PUTTING A
option, to make ‘their own work.’ I’ve always than that. Graduates from the RCA are among think of it as decoration or pattern. I’ve put
felt that this was an important distinction the most commercially successful people in colours together because they’re attractive,

HAND-BRAKE ON
between illustrators and designers, and that contemporary design; a recent survey of all and not because they’re real. I wanted to start
designers needed to pick up on this, which our graduates over the past five years showed using colours that were actually an honest

THE POTENTIAL OF
they’ve done more and more in recent years, that more than 90% are employed in the record of the colours that I saw. For the Walks
especially in places like the RCA. profession they were trained for. With Colour project, I’ve also written poetry to

IMAGE-MAKERS”
A new generation of graphic designers have How would you summarise the benefits of fill in a gap that I couldn’t fill with images.
become interested in notions of self-authorship the course? The whole project has taken up a lot of
and self-expression. I associate this attitude I think that we recognise how precious these time over the past five or six years, and the
strongly with what goes on here at the RCA. two years are. It’s a fantastically valuable time book and the show is the outcome of that. The
There are now more designers interested in in somebody’s creative life. It’s a time when book itself has been made as part of a bigger
setting their own agenda. And I think the RCA really anything ought to be possible. It may well I think one of the factors that is research project here, focused on digital print,
is fairly central in promoting that mindset. be that graduates go and work in mainstream enormously restricting to illustration, and involved a lot of processes that were,
Self-expression is a slightly pejorative way of graphics, but the things that they’ve learned particularly at the moment, is the lack of in themselves, a form of thinking – thinking
describing it – but they have ideas, concepts, here and what they’ve experienced here daring amongst the people who commission through making. ◆◆
projects that they want to do, that they’ve will carry on sustaining them in whichever work. I’m not talking about the art directors.
thought of rather than been asked to do. You area of work they go into. And that’s to do I’m talking about the marketing people. Further reading:
could call it a form of self-expression, but it’s with attitude, and about being able to share They seem to be putting a hand-brake on the Works With Colour, Dan Fern, edited by
more complex than that; they’re using the ideas, to collaborate, to articulate ideas, to be potential of image-makers and designers. If Rick Poynor. Architectural Design and
tools and the strategies of graphics to make responsive and to be socially responsible; we your work is tough and daring and individual Technology Press, 1990.
personal statements. always encourage people to work in socially it scares the marketing people because they Dan Fern, The Reputations Interview,
At the RCA, although there is always responsible ways wherever possible. think that too few people are going to relate to by Rick Poynor, in Eye 22 Vol. 6, Autumn 1996.
2
a strong ethos of self-authorship, both in At the same time there’s nothing worse it. They want something that’s going to hit as www.rca.ac.uk
illustration and in graphics, the notion that than dogma in education – people have to arrive many people as possible. I don’t think they are
you’re able to adapt what you do to the at this mindset for themselves. We encourage taught how to relate to images. I think their
commercial world, but do it on your own people to look at sustainable development, experience in business schools, or whatever,
terms is prevalent. I think that’s one of social responsibility in design, working for doesn’t include having contact with people
the key things that we are about here. The ageing populations, the dyslexic, all of those who are creative, it’s all to do with economics.
1 (page 45) 2
general atmosphere is very optimistic and sorts of things. There is a very strong ethical Go into any bookshop, and you can count
Walks With Colour old linen maps, reproduced Toulouse-Lautrec anniversary of the death idealistic. It’s not an accident. We’ve created framework here, but it’s a discreet one. the number of attractive, strong, appropriate
2006 as high quality digital prints. 2001 of the founding father of it. It comes partly from me, but also from Where does the working illustrator who is images on the fingers of one hand. And that’s
Walks With Colour is a book, Threads are pulled from Poster commissioned by European poster art.
the tutors. They all have, without exception, sympathetic towards these views go for not the fault of the illustrators; it’s the people
an exhibition and a research the linen, painted by Fern Musée Toulouse-Lautrec
project. Shown are two and added as tracery to the in Albi to produce a poster an idealistic, positive and optimistic way of inspiration? Should they look to contemporary who market the stuff. For all sorts of perfectly
examples of Fern paintings on finished surfaces. commemorating the 100th approaching professional life. art and artists? understandable reasons, they are timid.

46 DAN FERN 3/7 47 DAN FERN 4/7


3 4 5

6 7

10
11

3–4 5 6 7 8/9/11 10 12
CD covers Record sleeve Architects Journal Vol de Nuit Salvo Selection of the Jury of Ten Film stills
1990 1985 1984 1978 1998 1986 Showing Dan Fern’s interest
Two from a series of covers Contemporary choral work Cover story about innovative Cover for limited edition Three laser colour copies Section heading for Annual of in the natural world and
for Shostakovich Symphonies Cry by Giles Swayne on the theatre design. Image based publication, Royal College from a work called Salvo. Dutch Advertising performance related work.
showing Fern’s interest in theme of The Creation. Client: on architectural plans and of Art. Published by Royal College of
Constructivism. Client: Decca. BBC Records. Art Director: drawings. Art in a signed, limited edition
12
Art Director: Ann Bradbeer. Mario Moscardini. Client: Architectural Press. of 300 copies.

48 DAN FERN 5/7 49 DAN FERN 6/7


13

14

13/14
Walks With Colour
2006
More paintings on old linen
maps from the Walks With
Colour project.

50 DAN FERN 7/7


GUARDIAN OF ILLUSTRATION
BY EMILY KING

THE GUARDIAN USES ILLUSTRATION


WITH A CONFIDENCE UNMATCHED BY
ANY OTHER BRITISH NEWSPAPER. WHILE ITS
NEWS PAGES MAINLY USE PHOTOGRAPHY,
COMMENT AND ANALYSIS PAGES MAKE
EXTENSIVE USE OF ILLUSTRATION.
IN THE VIEW OF THE GUARDIAN’S ART
DIRECTOR MARK PORTER “A PHOTOGRAPH
TENDS TO BE MORE ABOUT INFORMATION
AND AN ILLUSTRATION TENDS TO BE
MORE ABOUT IDEAS.”
The illustrator Marion Deuchars has a short visual is taken very seriously,” he says. Olivier Kugler’s regular spread in
but intense working week. On Wednesday “It has got to the stage where the editors 15 Friday’s G2 creates a visual report
afternoon, or early on Thursday, she receives completely understand the concept of visual on social-interest topics, such as the
the copy for the Guardian’s Saturday Comment journalism. Photography is at the heart of lifestyle of political refugees, or the daily buzz
& Debate essay. Having read the piece – it, but illustration and information graphics at a popular fish-and-chip shop. Kugler was
usually around 1,500 words on a weighty issue, work alongside.” first commissioned during the redesign by
written by one of the paper’s well-respected Porter’s commitment to illustration dates the then-editor of G2 Ian Katz. His contract
journalists – she has anything between 24 from the beginning of the 80s, the early years is similar to that of a conventional columnist
and four hours to produce a powerful and of his career, working for the art director in that he is allowed as much leeway in his
concise image. Her illustration must be an Michael Lackersteen. “We were just coming choice of subjects and his treatment of them
intelligent summary of the text that not only out of the period when the colour supplements as that extended to a star writer.
entices readers, but also fills whatever space used a lot of illustration, the Sunday Times “I would love to see a few more
is left on the page. Once she has finished and so on, and it wasn’t long after Nova had people like Olivier, and also Joe Sacco
this illustration, her attention turns to the gone down,” he recalls. “Illustration was much 12 [a journalist turned illustrator who is
Saturday letters page. She is sent the text more part of the magazine vocabulary in those celebrated for his extended graphic
5 6
of the readers’ missives some time between days. Mike took it very seriously and he was reports from the Middle East], who can really
11.00am and 3.00pm on Friday, and her quite demanding of the illustrators, which they function as authors and tell their own stories,”
illustration has to reach the section designer loved him for.” enthuses Porter. He views this situation as
by 5.00pm the same day. When that’s done, it evidence of the emphatic embrace of the
is, in Deuchars’ words, time to “down tools, concept of visual journalism across the paper,
off to the pub,” and of course, to spend time and it is something he would like to see develop

“WHAT’S BEEN
with her two very young sons. Deuchars is in the future.
exhilarated by the sight of her work in print on Before talking to Deuchars and Porter,

HAPPENING IN
Saturday morning, but equally liberated by its my assumption was that illustration was less
redundancy the next day. likely to be controversial than photography.

THE LAST COUPLE


Working to this schedule since the papers’ I am quickly disabused of this notion when
redesign last September, Deuchars admits to Deuchars poses the question: “How do you

OF MONTHS
becoming addicted to “the newspaper-buzz.” draw a Muslim?”
This frantic timetable utterly contravenes “If you blur the distinction between

GOES TO SHOW
my assumptions about illustration. In the illustration and cartoons,” comments Porter,
past, I have held with hackneyed associations “what’s been happening in the last couple of

THAT THERE CAN


7 8
between the hand-drawn image and intensive months goes to show that there can be just as
craft and reflection – particularly when much controversy generated by illustration as

BE JUST AS MUCH
set against the immediacy of the more there is by photography.”
commonplace editorial photograph. Deuchars’ So, not uncontroversial, but controversial

CONTROVERSY
process, however, far from characterised by in a different way: an illustration is less likely
lengthy consideration and laborious technique, to intrude on a person’s privacy, or aestheticise

GENERATED BY
is distinguished by speed and flexibility. When their hardship, but it can easily lapse into
I ask her if she ever feels frustrated that she is caricature or stereotype. Illustrations are

ILLUSTRATION
given so little time for thinking and making, she useful for communicating abstract ideas,
replies quite to the contrary, “It’s a fantastic job and tend to be a more appropriate place for

AS THERE IS BY
for an illustrator,” she insists. “My whole way the deployment of cliché (hence Deuchars’s
of working has changed. Before, I would have dove), but if their content fails to rise above

PHOTOGRAPHY”
played about, coming up with an idea indirectly the blindingly obvious they become at best
through fuzzy logic. Now I’ll brainstorm. I think a meaningless decoration and at worst a
it is much closer to the way that graphic design detraction from the writing.
works.” Discussing her relationship with the Contemporary newspapers need
2 9 10
writing, Deuchars suggests that, “You have illustration and photography to draw their
to adapt to the way they think, coming up There is little to match the Guardian’s use increasingly visual readers to their pages.
with an idea first.” ‘They are the journalists of of illustration in current British publishing, but Pictures not only make us want to read,
course and although Deuchars refers to them Porter points to the newspapers of Spain and but also influence the meaning of the text.
as the other, I wonder if she is coming around Poland as important contemporary examples, Deuchars takes this responsibility very
to their attitudes and mores. both countries with a strong tradition of seriously, thinking hard about the demands
Asked about her favourite Guardian political graphics. In the UK the Guardian is and desires of both readers and writers. She
pieces, it is obvious that her mind goes unique in maintaining an expanding stable of tells me that she gets no feedback from the
temporarily blank. Then, gathering herself, illustrators, both young and more mature, and columnists whose work she illustrates, and is
she tentatively suggests the image from in its commitment to enabling illustration to curious to know their opinions. I pursue the
the previous Saturday. The illustration to escape the editorial ghetto of the financial and matter with Mark Porter, who promises to
which she refers is an effective technology pages. try and think of a writer who might have an
3
4 juxtaposition of well-known symbols The central Guardian formula for the opinion, but cautions me by saying, “I suspect
4
– the barrel of a gun pointing at use of illustration is straightforward. News that they [the writers] don’t have much to say
a branch-proffering dove, a hand holding is visualised through photography, ideally about it, because they are still very focussed
a flower crossed out in red. It is an apt colour photography, which Porter believes on the words. They are not hostile in any
11 12
visualisation of the text by Jenni Russell, readers respond to as an ‘event’ rather than way, but they are not interested in how you
which describes the State’s subtle incursion being tempted to see as ‘artwork’, while design the paper, or how you use illustration.”
into our freedom, and its measures to police comment and analysis pages are enhanced Porter’s view appears to be confirmed when,
even the mildest of dissent – but it is far from with illustrations. Justifying this policy, Porter after a week or so, the name of a potentially
the most striking example of Deuchars’ work. suggests that, “although there are innumerable interested writer is not forthcoming.
I suspect that like a true newspaper pro, she exceptions, a photograph tends to be more So much for the journalists. Thank
operates on the basis that she is only as good about information and an illustration tends to goodness then for the energy and commitment
as her last piece. be more about ideas.” of the Guardian’s art director and designers,
When I suggest this theory to the The designers of the Guardian’s feature and its visually literate section editors who
1 (page 73) 2–3 4 5 – 12
Guardian’s art director Mark Porter he sections, however, use illustration in a maintain the newspaper’s pages as a model of The Danish Cartoons Masturbation and Terrorism Loss of Freedom Saturday ‘Comment &
concurs. “That’s what happens when you more flexible way than their central news contemporary editorial illustration ◆◆ Marion Deuchars, 2006 Marion Deuchars, 2006 Marion Deuchars, 2006 Debate’ illustrations
work in newspapers,” he explains. “It is so counterparts. A number of factors determine This year, illustration made The simplicity of the silhouette Duechars’ editorial Marion Deuchars, 2005 – 06
quick that all you can remember is the last whether a text is illustrated, the most Further reading: the headlines as a result of the draws the links between gun illustrations deploy a mix Deuchars’ skill at direct visual
controversial Danish cartoons. violence and male sexuality. of styles and techniques to symbollism and her ability to
thing you did.” This long-term memory loss important being the suitability of the subject, The Fixer: A Story from Sarajevo, by Joe Sacco, Deuchars’ illustration On the following page the convey complex ideas. play with words creates an
notwithstanding, Porter boasts that the but also in play are the usual implications Jonathan Cape, 2004. highlighted questions over shapes converge to form a alternative commentary on
paper has a long history of taking illustration of deadlines and budgets. These sections, www.mariondeuchars.co.uk rights to free speech, as the phallic symbol. current affairs.
public tried to contextualise
seriously. “One of the things we’ve managed in particular the weekday newspaper-cum- www.olivierkugler.com
the tragic consequences
to do in the 20 years or so since the [David] magazine hybrid G2, offer a chance to of the Danish newspapers’
Hillman design, is to make sure that the experiment with the role of illustration. commission.

74 THE GUARDIAN 3/6 75 THE GUARDIAN 4/6


16

13

14

17

13 – 15 16 – 17
Joe Sacco on Torture story responded to growing Yangtze / Fruit & Veg his meandering soundbites
Joe Sacco, 2005 scepticism over the Olivier Kugler, 2006 and detailed drawings create
Sacco’s controversial mistreatement of suspected The personal and emotive a space in the Guardian’s
illustrated essays delve into terrorists with a story of two nature of Kugler’s character G2 for a quiet cultural
topics difficult to cover in recently released prisoners, portraits allow an intimacy commentary, and provide
conventional journalism, struggling to come to terms often unattainable through insight into the corners of
allowing recollections and with their experiences whilst conventional interviews. While contemporary British society.
unsavoury truths to come into detained by investigators. his drawings capture the
15
the public eye. This recent personality of the interviewee,

76 THE GUARDIAN 5/6 77 THE GUARDIAN 6/6


ED FELLA: THE KING OF ZING, FOREVER
BY ALICE TWEMLOW

ED FELLA STARTED OUT AS A ‘LAYOUT GUY’


IN THE COMMERCIAL ART STUDIOS OF
1960S DETROIT, BUT IN HIS LATE-40S HE
FAMOUSLY ENROLLED ON A GRADUATE
DESIGN COURSE AT THE CRANBROOK
ACADEMY OF ART IN MICHIGAN. TODAY,
AT 68, HIS WORK IS A BOUNDARY-
DEFYING, IDIOSYNCRATIC HYBRID OF
ILLUSTRATION AND GRAPHIC DESIGN.
Ed Fella is repeating himself. But at 68, Fella all mapped out and every section has a link remembers the heyday of the Detroit car part of the design faculty of CalArts since in its mixture of spontaneity and calculation, document. When a sketch shows signs of
is still a towering figure, both literally and designed as a stack of papers labeled ‘past’, art studios as a time when “a lot of money graduating from Cranbrook in 1987. “My and knowing in its flagrant disregard for promise, he’ll transpose it to a flyer and
metaphorically, and speaks with an intensity ‘archive’, or ‘antique’. was being made, heavy competition, heavy teaching is about encouraging students to typographic rules. “rework it, fix it, adjust it” into a more final
that does not invite interruption. “The The expediency of raiding the archive for drinking, pressure, car crashes and a few investigate the new,” he says. “I get them to do state. “It’s a weird process,” says Fella. “I don’t
machine is still running,” he says, repeating a use in his current work attracts Fella, “I like suicides.” He adds: “All of those guys in New the work.” So while the students look forward, know quite what to make of it. I don’t know if
phrase that has been quoted in articles about the idea of having the work already done,” he York foamed at the mouth to do car work the focus of Fella’s own work is turned inwards it’s art or design, or what it is…”

“I REMEMBER
him written in both 1996 and 2004. says. “I feel as if I’m mopping up everything, because Detroit money was so good.” and backwards. For most of his career he has Such a willingness not to know, with
The repetition is intentional. Fella’s getting to all the things I never got to.” But Some of the illustrations in Fella’s booklet worked with a filing cabinet of clip art and reference to his sketchbooks at least, is at

THE OLDER GUYS


machine may still be running, but he has it’s more than this; his interest in the archive would have been used in adverts and as spot references, so recycling visual fragments is odds with the extreme knowingness that
decided to hit rewind. He is methodically is philosophical as well as practical. It’s illustrations in magazines like Playboy and nothing new. The difference now is that it’s pervades other aspects of his work. It would

SAYING, ‘OH KID


going back through his personal archive, related to his acute sense of history, and now, Good Housekeeping, whilst some of them were his own work that he is re-sampling. This act appear, albeit with the advantage of hindsight,
cataloguing and reusing 50 years worth of increasingly, his own place in history. straight from his sketchbook. The characters of self-plunder finds expression in 11x17” that Fella has always been a postmodernist. He

YOU DON’T WANT


illustration, commercial art and typography, Fella grew up in mid-20th Century that appear through the book’s pages are flyers that document his various speaking didn’t need to wait for Venturi and Memphis to
plus the contents of 75 sketchbooks. He’s Detroit, a period when the automakers’ utterly bizarre: on one spread alone engagements, some of which I suspect he come around; he always viewed the world this

TO USE THAT STYLE,


doing this in order to preserve his work and, advertising budgets were big enough to keep 3 we find eight men, each seemingly may well accept just as an excuse to make way – and he still does. Having a sensibility for
if Fella himself is to be believed, because his several advertising agencies and the eight or from a different era. A crazy-looking another flyer. There are 131 of these flyers, styles was especially important to him when

IT’S HORRIBLE.’
options are limited. He describes himself as nine major art studios that served them in guy, a salesman maybe, clicks his fingers, lets printed black on both sides, on uncoated he was an illustrator because, as he puts it,
an “exit-level” designer. “There’s no future business. Illustration and layout, therefore, go of his cane and high-steps it across the sheets in muted hues of brown and grey. Those “whereas graphic design is more anonymous,

’ I SUPPOSE IT
for me, only a past,” he says. “All I can do is to was a lucrative career choice and attendance centrefold, a naked lady on his tie, a cigarette who attend his lectures each receive a flyer, all illustration is sold for its particular and
reclaim my work.” at Cass Technical High School, essentially tucked under his braces and a small rent in not as a promotion for the event – “the next individual style.” In the late-50s, for example,

WOULD BE THE
The idea of the archive – and particularly an industrial apprenticeship, ensured Fella one of his trouser legs; a clergyman walks generation has to do the advertising; I don’t Fella was interested in the Art Deco or
his archive, which comprises some cardboard a fast-track entry to Skidmore Sahratian, on painted toenails; and an imposing gent in want to interfere with that” – but as a souvenir. Moderne detailing and lettering that he found

SAME THING NOW


boxes and a big metal file cabinet in his Los one of the city’s big art studios. Illustrators knee socks and colonial garb speaks on an The flyers can be seen, therefore, as another untouched in Detroit’s 20s and 30s laundrette
Angeles studio – is a major preoccupation each had their own promotional booklet that Edwardian-era telephone. These satirical facet of the process of self-documentation and and drycleaner premises. He also recalls a

IF A STUDENT CAME
of Fella’s right now. When I spent some time the studio used to sell their work. portraits of businessmen and fat rich couples archive building. Even though the flyers are brand of potato chips, New Era, which “had
with him and his CalArts (California Institute 2 On the cover of one of Fella’s 1960’s don’t seem out of place in the booklet, but predominantly visual, with the typographic its packages done in Art Deco style.” When

TO ME SAYING
of the Arts) students last October, he talked brochures is a satirical portrait of the Britishness, the Imperialist digs and elements used as illustrative rather than verbal he started to incorporate elements of this
a good deal about design archives, and the a slick commercial artist with shiny black the references to Victorian engineering are components, Fella describes them as a form Moderne-style in his work, “I remember the

HE’D FOUND THIS


lack thereof – an oversight on the part of hair and a smile full of big white teeth. He’s surprising and somewhat incongruous when of ‘writing’. “If you read them all,” he says, older guys saying, ‘Oh kid you don’t want to
design museums and organizations that wearing a tuxedo, an ostentatious cravat, cuff you consider it was conceived in America’s “you’ll get my commentary on design and life.” use that style, it’s horrible.’ I suppose it would

OLD STUFF BY
concerns Fella. The topic was on his mind, I links and pointy shoes. He’s sitting on a box mid-west. The booklet is an eloquent However, the language is a very personal one, be the same thing now if a student came to me
think, because he had spent the summer of safe that, one presumes from his fancy getup demonstration of Fella’s facility with many and even though Fella believes it is available saying he’d found this old stuff by someone

SOMEONE CALLED
2005 working with his 19 year-old nephew to and enormous grin, contains his plentiful illustrative styles, the international range of his to others if they “sit down with this stuff and called David Carson or Ed Fella. I would say
develop his website – a digital corollary to his earnings. Whether it’s autobiographical or references, and his obvious relish for satire. unpack it like a poem,” some of the references ‘what are you doing?’”

DAVID CARSON OR
archival plan chests. The site is still a work not, it’s certainly a telling image of the times. Fella makes an art of being contrary. are pretty obscure. Referring to a poster he Fella’s ability to be always attuned to
in progress, and dependent on the voluntary Bill Teodecki, an artist who specialised in While most designers have ditched the deeply made for a conference I organized in Berlin, he what is overlooked or unfashionable at any

ED FELLA. I WOULD
efforts of various relations, but its scope is car illustrations and their backgrounds, unfashionable term ‘commercial art,’ Fella admits, “you’d have to know a lot of references one time is surely a post-modernist trait.
continues to use it emphatically to describe and know the context: German design, “Postmodernism is about a knowingness,”

SAY ‘WHAT ARE


his work. “I like the word,” he says. “It’s been commercial art, lettering and styles.” Among he says, “and at this point in time I don’t
used in a derogatory way since Rand, you other things, the Berlin flyer references Armin think we’ve ever been so self-conscious – of

YOU DOING?’”
know, the American modernist railed against Hofmann, various styles of German stamps, our work, its context, history, limitations,
idiosyncratic commercial art. I think graphic and a range of Bauhaus lettering. possibilities and so on. There can never be
designers should reclaim ‘commercial art.’ Most of the flyers use the location of the a naïve or authentic art again, except for
Hack. That’s another word I reclaimed…” I talk as the stimulus for their content, but for Outsider Art. Everything else: anti-art, art as
wonder if they are actually useful terms, or is a recent lecture at Pratt in Brooklyn pure philosophy, art of the insane, amateur
Fella just being stubborn? “It’s satirical, but it’s 1 Fella’s subject was himself or, rather, The flip side is filled with small images, all art, low-culture, vernacular, it’s all in there.
also serious,” he says. “I want to reclaim the his past. The theme of the flyer, interconnected as if part of some crazy plastic Everything now is known and academic.”
honesty of commercial art.” stated in an undulating line of handset small model airplane kit. In the top left a fisherman It’s interesting to hear him say this as some
Fella’s insistence on such terminology courier caps, is ‘Nothing new was made for casts his rod, the end of which has caught might regard Fella’s spontaneous outpourings
may come from a sense of nostalgia. When this piece’. Fella achieved the wave effect by upon a stack of clip art – a decorative pagoda of his subconscious – illustration-lettering-
he was in his late-40s, after three decades cutting notches in between each letter and building silhouetted atop a graphic outline of layout-art – as a kind of ‘outsider’ design.
in the business, Fella famously gave up then bending it “any which way.” He says of a stopwatch, atop an eye looking out to the Fella acknowledges, however, that despite the
commercial art and embarked on graduate the flyer, made in the spring of 2005, “there’s left, contained in a circle atop a demented- inclusiveness of our current attitude to art,
studies in design. It was 1985 and Katherine the whole history of my practice here.” looking sun which radiates rays of light. An there’s still a hierarchy of quality at work. “I
and Michael McCoy had recently started On one side of the poster, a stylized ornate frame in the centre is built up using don’t pretend I’m a vernacular innocent,” he
the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan. drawing of a hand holding a pencil grows out Art Deco references processed through a 70s says, “there’s a craft, skill and artistry to the
Fella’s hands-on knowledge of the then-exotic from the right edge of the page. The pencil lens of irony, and on the bottom sits a wide- work I do that makes it unique. I try to make a
vernacular of commercial art was a powerful is pointing towards, but not quite touching, eyed cartoon cricket dating from Fella’s 60s body of work that’s undeniable…On the other
influence on fellow students and tutors alike. an electrical socket into which is plugged a period of caricature illustration. To the right is hand it’s hard to say what that is.” ◆◆
His work from this period, a peculiar and shiny plastic Pop Art plug. Connecting the a highly ornamental flower, the stem of which
hard-to-categorize hybrid of illustration, hand- two elements is a genie-like winged creature takes the viewer’s eye down to the layer of Further reading:
lettering and composition that had derived with devil’s horns. It has its single foot poised images below. It is dense composition, one that Edward Fella: Letters on America.
from years spent as a Detroit “layout guy,” on the back of the pencil and one enlarged rewards in proportion to close study. Essays by Lewis Blackwell and Lorraine Wild.
gained him an international reputation and a hand, curled into a fist and extended towards The other place Fella continues to Laurence King Publishing, 2000.
definitive position in graphic design’s avant- the socket. This character bears resemblance produce or “discharge” work is in his All Access: Behind the Scenes – The Making of
garde, which at the time was keenly focused to a picture Fella drew in his 60s promotional sketchbooks. He has 75 of them, each with Thirty Extraordinary Graphic Designers
on deconstruction theory. This position has brochure, of a devil in evening dress with around 100 pages which he compulsively fills by Stefan Bucher. Rockport, 2006.
continued to be chronicled and confirmed cloven hooves, and horns easily mistaken for with expressive gestures that occasionally www.edfella.com
by design critics. Numerous accolades have two wings of slicked back hair. Beside him is spawn a half-recognisable word or phrase such
further cemented his status: in 1997 Fella an electrical socket and in one hand his tail as ‘Beauregard’ or ‘Loose end in 2nd sight’,
received the Chrysler Award for Design hangs limply, its pointed end charred and or a phantasmagorical figure that looks as if
2 Innovation and in 1999 an Honorary Doctorate curled. The text of the poster – the title of it has been summoned from his imagination
from the Centre for Creative Studies in his talk, ‘An Exit-Level Designer: Ed Fella through a Cubist painting and then a Saturday
Detroit. Three pieces of his work hang in At Pratt History, Commercial Art, Art, and morning cartoon. He uses one of those four-
MoMA’s design and architecture gallery. He the American Vernacular’ and the date and colour plastic ballpoint pens that primary
1 (page 79) 2 – 3 (page 82)
speaks of their inclusion in the museum’s location – is broken down into phrases in school teachers use to mark papers, and a
Flyer/poster for Pratt Institute previous Ed Fella artworks Self-promotional booklet of a commercial artist. Like
2005 dating from the 1960s to Mid-1960s much of Fella’s work from collection, and their positioning next to Paula which the words are stacked and staggered yellow Prisma pencil to add some tonal value.
Promotional item advertising the 1990s. Cover and spread from 20pp this period, there is a marked Scher’s Public Theatre posters, with a mixture horizontally and vertically. The conjunctions “They’re not sketches for anything,” says
a talk at the famous New York booklet showing various English influence. As Fella of bemusement and delight. “I like the idea of ‘An’, ‘At’ and ‘And’ are framed in diagonally Fella of the characters and distorted phrases
art school. Offset printing, recurring themes in Fella’s notes: “In the late-50s, I was a
black ink on tan bond paper. early work: small feet, big fan of Ronald Searle.
being history,” he says, “I feel like I can relax.” thrusting ovals which give the composition that crowd the pages, “they exist in process.”
All the illustrations used in this elongated figures and self- I had all his little books about As for the future, Fella makes space for movement, and serve to connect the disparate There is a dialogue between the sketchbooks
piece were taken from deprecating view of the life English school life.” his students to take care of that. He has been pieces. It’s a beautiful piece of design – deft and flyers, however, which results in a printed

80 ED FELLA 3/9 81 ED FELLA 4/9


3

6
7

4 5 6 7
GMC truck advertisement. ChevyVision 70 Chevrolet 1915 auto Hudson’s Contract Division “It’s not air brush, but done
Illustration dating from the 1969-1970 Early-1960s advertisement with one of those small water
4
1970s Art Deco style lettering for One of around 50 ink and 1971 soluble spray cans, popular in
front of foldout promotional wash illustrations depicting the Illustration for contract the 70s, now long gone.”
item. history of Chevrolet cars. furniture division of Detroit
department store. “l think
the ad was run in Time
Magazine,” recalls Fella.

82 ED FELLA 5/9 83 ED FELLA 6/9


9 10 11

12 13 14

15

8 – 14 15 16
Self-initiated work “l was trained in the mid 50s experimental art movements of people like Moholy-Nagy Self-initiated work Self-initiated work
Mid-1980s in a technical high school,” like Dada and Constructivism – all movements that used 2005 Early-1980s
Collage work (page size he explains, “and in our 20th (along with American collage.” Front and back of postcard,
7x10”) from Fella’s post century art history classes we regionalism), but especially part of a series, showing
16
‘commercial art’ phase. studied all the European the Bauhaus and the work collage work.

84 ED FELLA 7/9 85 ED FELLA 8/9


17 18

19 20 21

17 – 18 19 – 21
Self-initiated work Self-initiated work
Early-1990s Late-1990s
Pages from sketch books More pages from sketch
(7x10” approx) showing hand- books, this time executed in
rendered lettering. Executed in 4-colour Bic ballpoint pen
Prismacolor pencil.

86 ED FELLA 9/9
£12
US$25
€20

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