You work for clients like the
Tate Modern and the Whitechapel
Gallery as well as Nike,
MTV , and Liberty. What is the
difference between working for a training goods manufacturer and an art
institution? Is there a difference at all?
The funny thing is that there’s hardly any difference in the way we view it.
Likewise, this applies to the client and the media – whether we’re doing
television or print or a website for MTV, Deutsche Bank Art, or Nike. We
go through the same procedure. We always ask ourselves: What’s a good idea
for this? What is an interesting way of approaching this? We always like
to get a brief. We sit there and we tear it apart, we reconstruct it,
argue about it and discuss it. We rebuild it back into something that has
challenged or at least stretched the brief. I don’t think a client ever
wants you to come back with something they’ve already thought of
themselves. You’re aiming for something that pleases you and pleases the
client and that is a surprise to both of you.
CI and Poster for Whitechapel Gallery
How
did you get to know Ariane Grigoteit and Friedhelm Hütte, the directors of
Deutsche Bank Art?
Well, we had been
doing work for
Christie’s Contemporary. Ariane and Friedhelm had seen this work,
but rather stupidly we hadn’t been putting design credits in the books.
Deutsche Bank Art spent several months trying to find us. When Friedhelm
finally got hold of me, he gave me a good telling off for not publishing
the credits (laughs). He was really annoyed. Ever since then, we’ve been
very careful with crediting our works. The first chat we had with them was
really engaging. You have these stereotypical ideas of what certain people
are going to be like. I didn’t really know much about Deutsche Bank at the
time, except that they had this beautiful logo. Our expectations were
completely confounded. We expected grey suits, serious appearance and
behaviour, that kind of thing. And then we had this fantastic conversation
the first time we met, about how exciting colour was to use, how they
loved the way we were working with colours. This is not what you expect to
happen. And it’s been like that ever since.
Visuell Cover, Issue #1
The title
"Visuell" (Visual) seems programmatic. How did the idea for the magazine
come about?
The magazine resulted from
our discussions with Ariane Grigoteit and Friedhelm Hütte. We talked about
how art books and especially hardcover books are often quite off-putting.
But everyone can associate with a magazine. All of us thought that a
magazine was a really good vehicle for expressing the multifaceted aspects
of the corporate collection – the works, the global exhibitions and art
activities, the editions, the artists, and the people connected to the art
at Deutsche Bank. The name of the magazine had to translate into German
and English. You want a name that somehow excites you. The title "Visuell"
gets to the core of what the magazine is about. It’s about art. It’s about
the visual world.
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This is the third edition of "Visuell" you’ve worked on.
How did the collaboration with Deutsche Bank Art evolve?
I think the work on each of the magazines has had its own rhythm. We were
learning a lot throughout the first one. Every issue contains a good
number of challenging ideas. But the first one had the task of telling
people something they really didn’t know very much about. It included a
lot of explanations concerning the kinds of works and other practical
information connected to Deutsche Bank’s commitment to art. By the time
the second edition came along, there was much more variety among the
articles. It featured some really innovative writing and looked more like
a magazine you might pick up at a bookshop or newspaper agent.
Visuell, Issue #1, Example of double page design
To what extent is the current issue’s concept different from earlier issues?
The third issue of "Visuell" has a whole new purpose, because it’s published
in conjunction with the exhibition for the 25th anniversary of the
Deutsche Bank Collection at Deutsche Guggenheim. And so it has to do two
things: it’s got to be an interesting magazine featuring interesting
articles, but it also has to perform the function of a catalogue, which
once again turns it into a unique entity of its own right.
Visuell, Issue #1, example for typography design
In the exhibition, 25 selected "godfathers" and "godmothers" will be
introducing their favourite works from the exhibition. That’s an enormous
amount of people and pictures. How will this selection be presented in the
catalogue section of "Visuell"?
We want to keep the flavour of a magazine. But you can’t treat art the
same way you treat photographs in a magazine. You can’t crop images of
artworks, and you can’t put type over them. It’s kind of a delicate
balance between a magazine and a catalogue. There are certain constraints
that come with an art catalogue that we have to follow, but there are also
certain conventions in magazine design we’re able to pay some attention
to. We want to put very different kinds of artworks on the same page, for
instance, which you don’t get in catalogues very often.
What are the themes in the new issue of "Visuell" that interest you the
most as a graphic designer?
I enjoy working on contributions
like the report on the
Villa Romana, the famous artists’ residence in Florence that Deutsche Bank
has been sponsoring for 100 years. The building dates from the 19th
century, and it’s surrounded by a beautiful park. You get absolutely
gorgeous imagery, and the photographer Michael Danner is fantastic. And
because I’m a complete design nerd, the article on
Anton Stankowski is of special interest for me. He’s such a star! You
don’t have to put this in, but for me the Deutsche Bank logo is the
world’s best.
You’re not alone with your opinion.
Stankowski has a lot of fans, especially among young designers.
And I’m one of them. I’d love to know more about the making of that logo.
It’s such an icon of contemporary modernist design.
Interview: Oliver Koerner von Gustorf and Maria Morais
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