44 45
PROFILE PROFILE
cOMPUTERS ARE SO EASY.
YOU hIT A BUTTON AND ThERE
YOU hAVE IT, BUT whEN YOU USE
LETTERPRESS OR hAND-PAINT
SOME TYPE OR DRAw, ThEN YOU
hAVE SOMEThING UNIQUE.
For the designers in Yokoland, the music industry’s tailspin decline
has meant that the opportunity for creative work has become
all too rare. Lundell, with more than a hint of passion in his voice,
points out that the music industry’s unimaginative obsession with
standard formats for CDs has meant that it is missing out on a
potential market and digging its own grave. “They could produce
covers with more creative art work or different formats that
could be collectors’ items. But somehow it seems like the general
Carl’s Cars (Norway), art record industry is more interested in making profit and stopping
direction and design of a
filesharing than making interesting products.” This has not restrained
special environment issue of the
magazine, design, art direction
the studio’s creative ambitions, though. Yokoland has still been
and illustration by Yokoland
able to find ways to surprise both its clients and the audience. Its
(Thomas Tengesdal Nordby, recent CD cover for the well-known Norwegian rap group Gatas
Martin Lundell and Aslak Gurholt
Parlament’s Kidsa Har Alltid Rett (“The Kids Are Always Right”)
Rønsen), cover photo by Ivan
Brodey, 2008.
features school photographs of the three band members, of the
type taken by a school photographer. They’re haunting and also
somehow endearing, and I reflect that these youthful faces (even
with the self-conscious bad-boy mohican of a fourteen-year-
old-with-attitude) are somehow associated with the vulnerability
of all our teenage years. Even better the cover can slip out and be
swapped around so there is a different version of the same CD
available on the shelves of music shops.
The question about the nature of Yokoland floated up in the conversation.
Is it a design collective or a design movement? “We are a design studio”
comes back the reply. I wait for more, but that’s where the question rests. But
reading between the lines, as a group of designers they share many of the
same sensibilities: besides music their influences are clearly not orientated
towards fine art or high culture. They are fervently biased towards graphic
and popular culture, with references to magazine and advertising culture of
the last fifty years—though, ironically, they had an exhibition of their work at
the prestigious Henie Onstad Art Centre, when they were invited by the
new music curator to exhibit their work for Metronomicon Audio. “We never
expected to show at an gallery. We hung up the work in the same room as
Dubuffet,” says Thomas. “In fact, we covered his painting with the banner for
our own exhibition.”
They bring two books to the already heavily laden table: one covers
the work of Swedish graphic designer John Mehlin and the other
is Adrian Shaughnessy’s Sampler 2. Both look well used, and all
three designers lean forward to look at the various spreads as I leaf
through the pages. They happily admit that the designers featured in
these books have been among their many sources of influence—this
seems to chime with the way they view the use of tools or the craft
of design. Like a number of their contemporaries, they are singularly
unimpressed by the computer as the sole tool for designing. They
talk about how design can look samey. “It’s so easy,” says Tengesdal
Nordby. “You hit a button and there you have it, but when you
use letterpress or hand-paint some type or draw, then you have
something more unique.” This leads them to critique their education
and how out of tune it was with the spirit of their work. They discuss
their love of craft, how the handmade or technique of paste-up can
give the designer a unique touch.
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