paula starts a blog

Aqui reúno algumas partes de entrevistas feitas a Jonathan Barnbrook. Não são os textos completos, apenas as partes que achei relevantes para o trabalho que estou a desenvolver.

What were your early design influences? What drew you to graphic design?

Record covers. I was really into music when I was young. It was a form of rebellion and also a way to relate to the world. Record covers enhance your enjoyment of music, the graphics make the whole experience more meaningful in some way.

Also when I was younger I was always upset about American influence on the creative world. I wanted to look at my own culture, whether it be art, music or typography.

From Pablo in Argentina, “This question is not really about design, I just wondered what kind of music you are listening to right now?”

If I was listening to crap at the moment I am unlikely to admit it but luckily I am listening to The Velvet Underground, they are one of my favourite bands, I also really like The Doors and The Clash and Kraftwerk. I know these are quite ‘old’ bands, I have to admit that for a few years I wasn’t that connected with the music scene, but recently in Britain there has been some really good stuff coming out. I really like the Kaiser Chiefs, their attitude to the music they make in relation to where they come from is very pure. I hope that my work is like that too, it is a product very much of my surroundings. I, like everybody else at the moment (March 2006) have also been listening to the Arctic Monkeys, (I am disappointed that none of them are real monkeys of course), they also have a really untainted energy in their music. The most talented though I think are Franz Ferdinand, even though their last album cover was appalling, they seem to be at the top when it comes to writing good pop songs. music is really important to me, I think it is one of the first things that got me into design was album covers of the bands I liked, if the cover was good then it really enhanced your experience of the music. The music in turn loaded the graphics with some kind of ‘magic’. I didn’t know what graphic design was at the time but I knew somehow when I grew up I wanted to be involved in that kind of thing. I also I have to say listen to lots of comedy, Chris Morris is my hero particularly the ‘Bluejam’ radio series, for those who do not know his work, go out and find out about it now. The other comedians I like are Monty Python, Ricky Gervais and of course Saint Bill Hicks who was speaking the truth many years before it was fashionable.
What is the ideal relationship between designer and client?

To like them is quite important and feel happy to be working with them. The client should respect graphic design and not see it simply as a service. It has cultural validity too.

From janicef in Newport, Wales, “What’s the main problem you often have with the clients?”

Well I hope that most of my clients are very happy to work with us but I think some of them don’t respect the role of a designer enough. They see you as just a ’service’ often. Which means that they will try and change your work because they think they can or think they know better. Usually they don’t. However I rarely let things get to a confrontational stage. Always there should be a discussion before things get too difficult. Design is an open process. But you should stand up for what you believe in.

You have worked with music clients, including David Bowie. Do music clients have demands that are very specific to their field?

In this age of big record companies the marketing department has too much say. They do research before commissioning a design which often completely defines the solution they want, so it has become a very predictable area. Often the designer doesn’t even work directly with the band. With David Bowie though it was just him, so we had a close relationship. To get a decent design I think you have to work with a band that is so small that they are prepared to take chances or so big that they can tell the record companies exactly what they want.

So now onto a submitted question, the first one from someone just calling himself ziggyfan “What was it like working with David Bowie on his past two album covers?”

It was interesting on many levels. People who love David Bowie’s music will be pleased to know that he was a perfect gentleman. He was very astute as to what was right for him and the audience. Also something that was completely unexpected was how self-deprecating and humorous he was. You would imagine with that much adulation in your life it could turn you a bit and make you quite difficult but I think humour is his way of dealing with it. The actual process of working on it with him was relatively uncomplicated; of course I tried my absolute best as you feel that you are adding to pop history when you design an album cover for somebody like Bowie. It was just that he treated me as an equal, listened to what I had to say and if he didn’t agree with what I had done he would say why. I wish others clients were that honest and straight with me.

There were also a few bits that I didn’t expect, students who want to hijack any talk I am in and discuss him all the time. I wouldn’t mind this so much if it was interesting for the other students, but I think most of the time it is not. The other one is receiving letters from people who think they have lived parallel lives to him and want me to pass on letters to him or his contact details, neither of which I am prepared to do. Finally there was one obsessive who kept phoning the studio to ask if we were sending out messages about her and Bowie together in the design. It was a little scary. The phone calls thankfully ended after a couple of weeks. I am sorry if he has to deal with that kind of thing all the time.

How did you meet David Bowie and do you have any plans to work with him again?

I think it was through Damien Hirst, but I am not sure, David Bowie phoned me up out of the blue and asked to pop around to our studio. I actually did a book for his wife Iman before I worked on his album covers. So I had various conversations with him already. I hope I am not gushing too much about him but he went completely beyond the call of duty for making an effort with me, invited me down to his rehearsal studio and played ‘heroes’ to me and three other people (one of which was Liv Tyler, yes it was a complete adolescent boy’s dream), I also took my mother to new York, David and Iman made sure she was OK, and made sure there was a welcoming present for her when she arrived at the hotel, that was really nice of them.

As to working with him again, I am of course more than happy to, but it is up to him. If he is still happy with working with me, I would gladly do the next album. We are possibly doing a little project together soon but I will wait to see if it happens before I say any more.

What was your relationship like with Damien Hirst, working on the pop up book?

It was very good, I think he was one of the few artists I have worked with who respected the role of the designer in the process, so he allowed me to be creative, put my mark on the book, it enhanced the expression of the work. Most artists are control freaks who think they know best, which is good in some instances, but with many projects you need to get the best people to do what they are good at, and in this case I think he understood that.

Tell us about the experience of working with the artist Damien Hirst.

For those not familiar with his work, I think probably his most well known pieces of art are the dead animals in glass cases and the spot paintings. He has reached a level of fame in Britain I think surpassing any other contemporary artist.

Overall it was a very positive experience. When I was first offered it from the publisher I thought ‘God, it’s going to be a nightmare’ and it was in terms of stress caused by the production and schedule but not in terms with the relationship of working closely with someone else. In that sense it was very rewarding.

I think his working process as an artist is very similar to the way a graphic designer works – he doesn’t make the work himself but comes up with the concepts and commissions the best people to do the work for him. I lot of people I think get hung up on the romantic idea of craft, because people pay a lot of money for a piece of art then they feel that hard physical work should go into it. But because he comes from popular culture like myself he doesn’t have this problem. So we both approached the book in a similar way – to communicate through a piece of mass media exactly what we wanted to say.

There has been a lot of discussion in this country about how serious he is about the work he does, believe me he is serious. He has the persona of a naughty boy and he is always making jokes but if you ask him directly about a particular reason for a certain piece of work, he will give 10 reasons for it and 10 other artist work that he is referring to in it.

I design a lot of books and this was a chance to try and reinvent the art book. It always surprised me how conservative artists’ monographs were – you’re dealing with an artist’s representation of culture, of uniqueness. So why frame it in conventional design? There is an argument for saying that clean straight layout helps the work. I believe there is a possibility to tell the people more about the work by graphic manipulation. Another thing is the text in art books, most people do not read the essays despite what many writers would like to believe – so why not break it up so that people can digest it in small doses – of course this is not appropriate for every art publication, but in the case of ones which are meant for the general public I think this solution is more valid.

A lot of people have said they don’t like the pop-ups, these were Damien’s idea, and in the beginning I wasn’t sure about it but I remembered what Picasso said – that he spent most of his life trying to paint like a child, and although it is not directly connected. I think the pop-ups give the book a childlike playfulness, they say that art is not just an academic subject, but is also about simple fun.

Incidentally they were a technical nightmare doing the pop-ups – we ended up having to go the printers in Hong Kong to sort out all the technical problems. Normally you either do a pop-up book or a paper book, you don’t usually mix the two as you come up against problems such as making sure all the pages lie absolutely flat, so no other materials could be used such as brass clips.

One of my favourite aspects of the book is social context that the artist is put in. There is a section that shows the social impact that an artist has on mainstream society. There are examples of cartoons that have referred to Damien Hirst’s work or even where he was a clue in a crossword puzzle. It gives the feeling that an artist reacts to society and society reacts to the artist in a very immediate way.

Is there anything you would change about the book?

You do some work at a certain point in time and you go with what happens at the time without regret, it is an ‘event’ as much as anything else. So I don’t think so much about things like that.

Looking at it from a purely abstract level of course there are things I would change, I wish we had made more of an attempt to explain the work directly on the page. I am not sure how much Damien would have liked this though – his work has many layers and part of my desire to be a designer comes from a need to communicate why something was done.

You have been very positive about Damien so far, be honest and tell us something you don’t like.

I suppose the whole advertising thing makes me uncomfortable, it is not just Damien, but a lot of young artists, you see them in adverts endorsing products and it is something I always turn down, so there seems to a complete turnabout of what people normally expect. You could say that it is a good thing that artists are more visible but for me it is another example of how corporations are infiltrating into absolutely every area of life. They hope their association with ‘culture’ gives what they do some added cachet. It seems to be all part of the fact that there is nowhere left to look anymore without seeing an advert or a piece of sponsorship. When I say ‘nowhere left to look’ I mean mentally rather than physically. You are not sure anymore where the independent view begins and where the advertising message begins – in all aspects of culture. Please don’t think I have a romantic idea about art being completely separate from commerce, I don’t – commerce has been involved through the ages. It is just now at these circumstances that we live in, it is part of that bigger infiltration.

I have also had first hand experience of many art dealers and I think quite a few of them are c*nts. They are very happy to perpetuate the myth of the artist to keep prices high. It is so boring, It has also brought up issues of respect, they are very happy to make the artist get exactly what they want but as soon as a designer explains their reason for doing something they aren’t interested and are happy to change it if they think they know better. Also purely on a financial level they say they have no money, often what they really mean is that they don’t value design enough to spend a decent amount of money on it.

There are other issues with Damien, we have done some of his work completely and often the idea is only about the execution of the work so I am wondering whether we should get credit for it sometimes, having said that he has been incredibly loyal to us, which I am thankful for.

This is sent in from Jude in Sydney, Australia “do you have any intention to change your ‘style?”

I don’t really understand that question, if he means by ’style’ the way the work ‘looks’, I would like to let him now that there is no conscious look to it, it is first and foremost based on what I think communicates most effectively. I am not concerned in obscuring content. All of the work I do commercial and non-commercial is an attempt to solve a communication problem. Just because the work does not do this in necessarily the most expected way doesn’t mean that it a ’style’ obviously there are certain visual things that appeal to me which I would use more than once, that is for the purposes of either using a visual symbols which I think people can understand or to further the experimentation with that symbol, I have never designed a piece of work so that it looks like it has come from ‘me’ that would be disingenuous.

http://www.barnbrook.net/interviews/interview2001.html

http://www.barnbrook.net/interviews/interview2006.html

http://www.designmuseum.org/design/jonathan-barnbrook?print=1