Kiosk, Kiosk, Kiosk, Kiosk Kiosk Kios K Kios Kio Ki Kio Ki Kio Ki K Kios K Kiosk Kiosk K Kios Kiosk Ki Kio Kios Kio Ki Kio Kios K Ki Kiosk K Kiosk, Kiosk, Kiosk, K K Ki Kiosk Ki Kio Kios Kio Kios Kio Kios Kiosk Ki Kiosk K K Kiosk Ki K Kios Kio Ki Kio Kios Kio Ki Kiosk Kios K Kiosk Kiosk, Beaziyt BW Worcou 1
Symbolic speech Mahayana Buddhist monk by the name Johnson participated in a political call for Hungary to be independent quite obvious occurred to me. That Beaziyt Worcou of Thích Quang Đuc sat down on a demonstration against the policies from all foreign powers, that Hungary is, flags are inherently concerned small cushion in the middle of a busy of Ronald Reagan outside Dallas should join the United Nations and with making graphic symbols and I’ve recently become increasingly street in Hue, South Saigon. Two of City Hall. Protesters carried banners, that Hungarian people should have ideas public. In a sense, to fly a flag interested in political flags – not only his fellow monks proceeded to douse distributed flyers and shouted slogans freedom. The crowd later sang the can be viewed as an act of publishing. what they look like but how they Đuc’s body in petrol as he sat still in a such as, “Red, white and blue, we National Song, which at the time It is the publishing of the ideals and are used in various countercultural lotus position. Đuc then lit a match and spit on you. You stand for plunder, was censored. During the protest, values of those it represents. To movements. I think the appeal, for me, set himself alight. you will go under.” At one point during a member of the crowd took the fly a flag harkens back to a primal comes from the idea that flags are a the protest, Johnson was handed an Hungarian flag and cut out the Soviet way of seeing and communicating. manifestation of this space between The events that led to the immolation American flag that was taken from a coat of arms at its centre, with many Whitney Smith expresses the idea graphic design and political society. of Đuc began earlier that year under flagpole, which he then set alight. He others following suit. The Hungarian that: “to display a flag is to participate the strict regime of Vietnam’s first was later arrested and convicted with flag, now with the soviet coat of arms in a philosophy that spans time and In Flags Through the Ages and Across president, Ngô Đình Diem. Diem was the desecration of a veneered object, cut out of its centre, quickly became distances; it is to express one’s own The World, Whitney Smith notes: “a a staunch Catholic, who had banned sentenced to 12 months in prison and the symbol of the revolution. views to others in a concise but flag often gains the same respect as the flying of Buddhist flags just days fined $2000. The Texas State Court dramatic form.” [2] is accorded to the person or thing before Vesak Day – the religious of Criminal Appeals then reversed the 4. A man was lynched yesterday it represents.” [1] As a result, the celebration and birthday of Gautama conviction, after which the case was In the 1920s, the National Association Beaziyt Worcou is a Narrm-based use of the flag as an instrument for Buddha. The ban was implemented taken to the Supreme Court. The court for the Advancement of Coloured graphic designer living and working political resistance garners intense after Diem had labelled Buddhism an held that Johnson, or any US citizen, People (NAACP) began flying a flag on lands of the Wurundjeri people. and passionate attention. The association not a religion, restricting its could not be convicted for burning a outside of its Manhattan headquarters She completed a Bachelor of relationship between the flag and flag right to fly a flag. That summer amidst US flag as it was considered an act in New York. The black flag with Communication Design at Monash bearer becomes almost symbiotic. protests against the ban, nine civilians of symbolic speech and therefore capitalised white text read: A MAN Art Design and Architecture in 2016. The flag speaks for and embodies were shot and killed by government protected by the First Amendment. The WAS LYNCHED YESTERDAY. The flag Beaziyt currently makes work with the aspirations of its people and, in officials. Following these deaths mass case had a lasting impact, as it led to appeared outside the headquarters No Clients, a design studio founded turn, the people, rooted in notions protests erupted, student walkouts, the invalidation of the prohibition of every time a black person was lynched with Samuel Heatley, Robert Janes of patriotism or self-determination, mass fasting and strikes occurred. flag desecration as a criminal offence – which in the 1920s was not a rare and Ned Shannon. No Clients display and protect the flag as if it has At the height of the political tension in in 48 out of 50 states. occurence. The flag was a reminder focus on commercial and non- an innate connection to their identity. Saigon, monks informed US journalists to those living on the east coast of the commercial design projects, with that something important would be 3. The Hungarian Revolution ongoing racial violence that continued a particular interest in publishing, Through my research I have stumbled happening the following morning In October 1956, during the Hungarian to take place in the Deep South. In modes of production, research upon a number of instances where outside of the Cambodian Embassy. revolution against Soviet rule, 1938, after the threat of eviction from and collaboration. flags have played a key role in the It was here that Thích Quang Đuc lit a thousands of protesters gathered the landlord, the NAACP was forced unfolding of political situations; here, match and set himself alight in what around a statue of Józef Bem, a to stop flying the flag. I focus on four historical events that in became one of the most harrowing Polish engineer and national hero of Footnotes some way demonstrate the subversive protests of the 1960s. Poland and Hungary. Situated at the Upon undertaking this research I’ve and emancipatory capacity of the flag. centre of the crowd, a man named continued to think about flags and [1] Whitney Smith, Flags through the 2. Texas v. Johnson Peter Veres, who was president of their significance, as well as why ages and across the world (New York: 1. Thích Quang Đuc In 1984, during the Republican National the writers’ union, led a reading from I was driven to write about them in McGraw-Hill, 1976): 1– 56. On June 11, 1963, a young Vietnamese Convention in Texas, Gregory Lee a manifesto. Among the demands, a the first place, and something perhaps [2] Ibid.: 1– 56.
Image credit
Hungarian Flag with coat of arms cut out of centre, 1956. Image courtesy of The American Hungarian Federation Declaration http://www.americanhungarian federation.org/. Kiosk, Beaziyt BW Worcou 2 Kiosk, Hope HLB Lumsden-Barr y 1
Image credit
Hope Lumsden-Barry, Diagram A: Exhibitions (how they operate) & Diagram B: Exhibitions (what they can do) 2018.
Op-Ed: A case for more shows the processes of considered display White Space, a series of classes. who’s been to an exhibition opening The size of the design community in Hope Lumsden-Barry and active viewership. When I speak of These shows critically engaged with can tell you that the conversations Melbourne, for better or for worse, is ‘display’, I speak of the entire apparatus their subject matter, while actively there are rarely about the work small. Like-minded people inevitably Exhibitions communicate. To make of presentation. This includes the grappling with the problems that arise on display. And if they are, they’re cross paths; conversations have the an exhibition is to say something, for juxtapositions and explications when attempting to exhibit graphic often brief. While they strengthen potential to lead to collaborations. a reason. When you say something, that occur in exhibition spaces, the design within a gallery context. communities, they’re more like And, once we build a precedent for it leads to conversation. Graphic supporting text, positioning of objects, parties than forums. It’s the role of the exhibitions, they’ll hopefully become design is too often a silent profession, presentation, illumination and so A common criticism levelled at exhibition-makers (curators, exhibitors, part of the fabric of the community; like obediently led by the forces of on. The engaged viewer gives their graphic design exhibitions, particularly designers and so on) to ensure that bar meetups and talks. technology and dominant culture. attention to the exhibition, activating those in gallery spaces, is that they there are enough opportunities to Graphic designers are responsible, but the display, establishing the point strip the life from the objects on display. critically engage with the works. Ultimately, it’s imperative that we make rarely accountable, for large swathes of communication. Here, there is a Defined by context, helpless artefacts more space for critical conversations of the visual environment. Not only meeting between the knowledge of graphic design are yanked from their These opportunities take the form within our community. It’s a matter of that, reflective, critical discussions conveyed through the display and the true homes and stuffed helplessly of public programming, as well coming together, talking and doing. about our own industry are desperately previous experiences carried by the into vitrines, losing their meaning and as supporting materials such as infrequent. I’m writing this to advocate viewer. The conventional extensions their charm. catalogues, didactics and online Hope Lumsden-Barry is a for more graphic design exhibitions of exhibitions – public programs and archives (all of which are usually, and Melbourne-based graphic designer. and more critical conversations – in catalogues – provide further sites of Graphic design, like most things, is not coincidentally, activated by graphic Her practice is concerned with design- Melbourne, in general. discussion in ways that spatial practice rapidly dematerialising into the digital design themselves). Case in point, led publishing, research and exhibition alone cannot achieve. Exhibitions plane. Graphic design, which lives in catalogues extend exhibitions through making. She completed the Bachelor That’s not to say that graphic derive their focused discursive weight the ‘real world’ of cereal boxes, train space and time, broadening their of Communication Design at RMIT designers don’t talk to each other. The from myriad forces, including narrative station signage, artist monographs, reach far beyond what is possible for University and followed it up with an Melbourne graphic design community intent, social interaction and control catalogues, posters and business exhibitions alone. Honours year in which her research is supported in a professional sense by over demarcated physical/virtual cards, is being aggressively flattened. focus was display-making for graphic a number of organisations, including space. Exhibitions are purposeful, Regardless of whether work is So, what can we, as members of the design exhibitions. the Australian Graphic Design powerful sites for inciting discussion. encountered on Tumblr, Are.na, or Melbourne graphic design community, Association (AGDA), The Design Kids, Instagram, the result is the same: do? How can we build a flourishing Recent design projects include the General Assembly, etc. The events Globally, there is a turn towards an irrevocable loss of context and exhibition culture here and now? exhibition Making Space (co-curated and talks put on by these groups have critical exhibitions of design. Design materiality. Separated from its site of How can we encourage more critical with Ryley Lawson); Filmme Fatales a strong emphasis on networking and Violence (MoMA, 2013 – 2015; operation, a thoughtfully crafted object conversations? It’s important to 6–8 (issue 6 designed with Stuart and professional development. In a Science Gallery Dublin 2016–2017) of intellectual heft is reduced to inspo. acknowledge that critical practice Geddes); and the catalogues for the competitive, insular, expensive place [1] – a largely online ‘curatorial A momentarily appreciated blip in a – expressed through exhibitions, Material Exchange exhibition series, such as Australia, these events are experiment’ – is an example of how to sea of millions of beautiful, silent jpegs, journals, symposiums, etc. – is often curated by Meredith Turnbull, at necessary; yet, as an early-career foster discourse through exhibition. It all presented in the same-sized boxes, time-consuming and unprofitable. c3 Contemporary Art Space. Hope practitioner, I believe there’s a lack of investigates the role of design in acts over and over again. Unless independently wealthy, it is also presented a workshop on zine- critical discussion beyond university and systems of violence, with each difficult for practitioners at all levels making for creative practice as a classrooms and lecture theatres. work an accompanying essay post The physical, specific nature of (including at the emerging stage) to part of Material Exchange and has could also be publicly commented exhibitions is a perfect antidote to this devote themselves to non-commercial convened panel discussions at RMIT Why advocate for exhibitions, on. Further extensions of Design and current climate. Of course, a boring professional activities. and the NGV Art Book Fair. specifically? Why not call for more Violence into other media include show is unlikely to spark meaningful public talks, blog posts, Twitter a book, published by MoMA, and conversation. I argue that any However, it’s certainly possible. We threads, Slack channels? I don’t want three zines produced by the Science graphic design exhibition suffering live in a time in which the internet to discount the importance of engaging Gallery Dublin. from dullness does so because of allows us to connect with and on all fronts, but the specific dynamics weak display methods. There is a promote resources, work, and one of exhibition practice offer unique Two other useful examples of more temptation to borrow heavily from another more widely than ever before. discursive opportunities. conventional, specifically graphic fine art exhibition practice, yet while It also opens up a broad range of design-focused exhibitions are All a designer’s poster may be materially funding and distribution models. All Exhibitions provide an alternative Possible Futures (SOMArts Cultural similar to an artist’s print, it demands Possible Futures, for example, was space for conversation and Centre, 2014) and The Way Beyond different treatments. The opportunity largely funded by a crowdfunding development within the Melbourne Art: Wide White Space (CCA Wattis of the exhibition is to provide space campaign. Or, as Design and Violence graphic design community. Institute of Contemporary Art, 2011) for considered, illuminating display. demonstrates, the site of the exhibition A space that needn’t be defined – curated by designer/educator, Purely digital works of graphic design itself can be entirely online. by the pursuit of individual career Jon Sueda. All Possible Futures shouldn’t be excluded either, given how advancement, but by shared explored speculative graphic design these increasingly impact our lives. Beyond utilising digital channels, professional progress, through work, whereas Wide White Space there’s the opportunity to appropriate critical reflection and discussion. dealt with graphic design exhibition Yet, just as discourse on the internet and reframe spaces and other Footnote practice. Both shows continued the is often tepid and pointless, how can resources; just as musicians turn Exhibitions are spatial narratives, in discourse through publications, public we ensure that conversations sparked sharehouses into venues, designers [1] Curated by Paola Antonelli which meaning is generated through programming and, in the case of Wide by/at exhibitions are useful? Anybody can turn garages into galleries. and Jamer Hunt. Kiosk, Hope HLB Lumsden-Barr y 2
Image credits
Catalogues are one example of the exhibition format’s ability to extend itself through time and space (shown here is an assortment of catalogues I designed in 2017; none were for graphic design exhibitions). Image courtesy of Hope Lumsden-Barry. Kiosk, Jenny JG Grigg 1
Material literacy In Melbourne, this concept of revealing DESIGN. Besides some examples Lancashire encouraged his client, Jenny Grigg ideas through paper can be found in illustrating some old folk craft, and Australian Paper, to introduce coloured the work of Gerard Herbst, a mentee decorative uses of paper, it will also papers to the Australian market in of Moholy-Nagy. Fleeing the war, show stages in the workshop, which the 1980s, providing a handpainted Herbst made it to Australia in 1939 may even be more stimulating to swatch of colours to AP based on his and recovered his profession as the viewer than the accomplished experience of the Australian desert. To the art director of Prestige Fabrics object. [7] promote ‘Celestial Black’ by its most in Port Melbourne in 1946, before distinctive feature, David reasoned a taking a 16-year appointment as David Lancashire studied art and way to render it as a desert night sky. head lecturer of industrial design design in northern England before The economy that interested Albers at the Royal Melbourne Institute of moving to Melbourne in 1966. and Herbst is evident in the two edits Technology (now RMIT University), Lancashire’s design archive held that authored this transformation. One retiring in 1976. [5] Bolstered by at RMIT holds an extensive range added to the paper and one subtracted correspondence with Moholy-Nagy, of paper inventions that David from it. A low-lying hill stamped in Herbst continued his exploration of contributed to the Australian paper copper foil placed beneath laser- modern design principles in post-war industry. Lancashire’s designs have etched depictions of the Southern Australia. [6] The title of an exhibition commercial origins and, as a result, are Cross, milky way and the moon creates in 1969–1970, arranged by Herbst and less abstract than Albers’ and Herbst’s a paper metaphor for the southern sky. his design students, frames paper as studies, however, the design principles While he wasn’t a student of Albers or an instrument in three words – Design found in paper’s form are evident. Herbst, it was paper’s transformability With Paper. In fact, Herbst’s exhibition that guided Lancashire’s design notes are headed by the mantra, ‘With knowledge.[8] Paper, With Paper, With Paper’. The title of a board in the student group photograph, ‘Designs performing’, in keeping with the idea of language, Graphic languages have been created Materiality was established as a attributes paper a voice. As had Albers, throughout history, enabling us to relate foundation course in the Bauhaus Herbst emphasised the value of Image credit to and communicate about the space curriculum in 1919. It was taught initially paper’s contributions to ideation: in which we exist, both by marking by Johannes Itten, later co-taught Students in Designs Performing it and by making marks about it. We by Josef Albers and Lázló Moholy- The exhibition demonstrates some exhibit, 1969. Photography by Gerhard continually process what we see and Nagy, and lastly by Albers alone structural uses of paper and cardboard Herbst. Copyright Daniel Herbst. look for ways to share our thoughts. until the school’s closure in 1933.[3] as an aid in the thought process of Image courtesy RMIT Design Archives. Visual literacy is understood within the Albers found a way through paper to history of language. My interest lies in understand and to teach economy of how materials contribute a literacy of means, his principle design objective. their own. When Albers lectured that materials ‘must be worked in such a way that The images below depict the language of these to a backlit window it became My research began in 2013, as I sought A recent review of my practice there is no wastage’ he set a challenge that I developed with paper while apparent that, as the composition new ways to think about graphic revealed the extent to which I enhance for others to understand his idea of realising designs for Peter Carey’s changed, and different areas of design, in particular the significance ideas through materials. The more beauty – a new object made by editing novel My Life as a Fake (2003), a novel intersection occurred, a different of materiality in the design process. I examined my methods and design an existing object in its whole. based on the infamous Ern Malley illusion of a face was expressed. At the time, graphic design discourse process [1], the more I considered literary hoax in Melbourne in 1943. As The areas of overlap positioned two surrounding this topic was laced the term ‘material literacy’. Thinking Albers’ design ethics are well explained I thought about the embittered hoaxer eyes, a nose and a mouth. with anachronism and nostalgia, and through materials sharpens design in a student’s recollection of Albers Christopher Chubb, I moved fragments I was faced with the prospect that perceptions. The use of materials helps walking into the classroom with a of paper to configure a design. Working on a window pane proved what I understood in design terms to process and make a designer’s bundle of newspapers announcing: awkward, but the misaligned might be considered irrelevant. Today, perceptions tangible. To draw a parallel Commissioned by a publisher, I was arrangements assisted the only four years later, contemporary with written language, constructing Ladies and gentlemen, we are poor, designing a book cover for a novel communication of Chubb’s creative design discourse is referring to a designs through materials creates not rich. We can’t afford to waste written by an author who, in the novel, maladjustment. The designs New Materialism. [10] This coincides a syntax. That is, a set of elements, materials or time. … All art starts with was commenting on truths about developed by arranging the paper with commentary about digital visual rather than linguistic, that when a material, and therefore we have first that same publishing world. Carey pieces as a four-part syntax, later detoxification [11] and anticipation arranged in a particular way can be to investigate what our material can do. was writing about his peers and for extending its vocabulary with a paper of the Bauhaus’ centenary in 2019. used to explore and signify meanings. So, at the beginning we will experiment his peers and I was designing for curl to contribute a downturned lip. While material language may have without aiming at making a product. Carey and a related, global, publishing When I look at these images 15 years been periodically eclipsed by alternate More often than not, at the beginning At the moment we prefer cleverness cohort. Carey, Chubb, myself, and after they were made, I can still hear modes of graphic communications, of a book cover design process I reach to beauty. … Our studies should lead the audience surrounding us, were all Chubb muttering on behalf of Carey, such as corporate and digital design, for a piece of paper. Not to sketch to constructive thinking. … I want you immersed in literature. that the literary hoax was ‘Nearly bad there is little doubt that further on, but to sketch with. To visualise now to take the newspapers … and try enough to be genuine’.[9] research will better establish materials a novelist’s concepts, I think about to make something out of them that is As I worked I realised that A4 Bond is as true conductors of invention in the their ideas as I handle the paper and more than you have now. I want you a ubiquitous tool of book publishing. Each of these examples interpret history of design. observe its response. By allowing one to respect the material and use it in a Carey’s draft manuscript had paper differently. Typical of commercial to guide the other, thoughts about form way that makes sense — preserve its arrived from the publisher printed on work, my work and Lancashire’s and matter combine and eventually inherent characteristics. If you can do approximately 250 sheets of it. In the are figurative and typical of non- bring forward an unforeseen, materially without tools like knives and scissors, novel, the character Chubb bandied commercial work, Albers’ and realised concept. and without glue, [all] the better. [4] about poetry on it, or similar, and the Herbst’s studies are abstract. Whether female protagonist, Sarah Wode- folded, cut or layered, light becomes Once I began to look into this design Image credit Douglas, is the editor of a poetry a part of the language that brings us process, I found a history of illustrious journal. Paper pervaded both the closer to each designer’s idea. designers who had also sought paper Josef Albers and students in group factual and fictional circumstances of David’s experience of a desert sky to catalyse ideas. This design history critique at the Bauhaus Dessau, the project. at night and my portrait of the literary is much more than my playful and 1928–29. Photograph by Otto Umbehr hoaxer Chubb in the material of his inexpensive survival tactic created (Umbo). Copyright 2017 Galerie By shuffling and scanning rectangular making are in tune with Albers’ and while dealing with low-budget Kicken Berlin / Phylis Umbehr / pieces I developed a modular, paper- Herbst’s notions of invention. publishing commissions. VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn. based, image system. Transferring four
Since coming upon an image of Josef Albers teaching students (1928–29), I have pieced together an Jenny Grigg is an Australian Designing for authors such as As a doctoral candidate, Jenny is historical lineage of ‘paper thinking’ graphic designer, lecturer in visual Peter Carey, Australia’s best-known conducting collective case study that connects the Bauhaus with communication and a PhD candidate contemporary novelist, and on behalf research into the significance contemporary Melbourne. It highlights at RMIT University. After beginning of clients such as Faber and Faber and of materiality in graphic design that designers’ explorations of the editorial design practice in the 1990s Granta Portobello Books in London ideation. She is investigating areas potential of paper have generated a in Sydney, Jenny has held positions and the Lowy Institute in Sydney, her such as the generative roles that language unfixed to a time or place including art director, Rolling Stone creative inception begins with an materiality and repurposing play in Image credit because it is devised between a magazine Australia; art director, author’s written word. Recognising that the creative process. material and a mind. Invented to MTV Australia; senior designer, each author’s voice is unique, Jenny’s Test design for the cover of Peter record written language, paper’s Pentagram, London, and creative practice has evolved into a continuum Carey’s novel My Life as a Fake using transmutability is almost as ancient director, Harper Collins Publishing. of materially led creative renewal. my window as a light box, 2003. as language itself. [2] Image courtesy of Jenny Grigg. Kiosk, Jenny JG Grigg 2
Image credit
Three test designs for the cover of Peter Carey’s novel My Life as a Fake using cut squares of paper, 2003. Images courtesy of Jenny Griggs.
Footnotes Accessed from URL: emajartjournal.com/2016/06/15/ [1] Donald Schon, The Reflective veronica-bremer-anne-marie- Practitioner : How professionals think van-de-ven-the-bauhaus-link-in- in action (New York: Basic Books, the-life-and-work-of-emigre-artist- 1983): 78. gerard-herbst/. [2] Mark Kurlansky, Paper: Paging [7] These concepts are explored through history (New York & London: in Josef Albers: Maximum Means, W.W. Norton & Company, 2016). Minimum Effect, catalogue, (Madrid: [3] Magdalena Droste, Bauhaus 1919– Fundacion Juan March, March 28– 1933 (Cologne: Taschen/Bauhaus- July 6, 2014). Archiv, 2015): 140. [8] Gerard Herbst, 1969 – excerpt from [4] Ibid.: 141. Herbst’s notes for the exhibition Design [5] Steve Martin, ‘At the final count’, with Paper. University of Melbourne, Collections 15 [9] Peter Carey, My Life as a Fake (2014): 43–45. (Sydney: Random House, 2003). [6] These ideas are explored in [10] Harriet Edquist, ‘Editorial’, Veronica Bremer & Anne-Marie Design Archives Journal 7, no. 1&2 Van de Ven, ‘The Bauhaus Link (2017): 3. in the Life & Work of Émigré Artist [11] Heller, Eye Magazine 14, no. 93 Gerard Herbst’, emaj (2016). (2016): 16. Kiosk, Lisa LG Grocott 1
Prototyping the future: 1999–2004 goes through before putting a mark It is a cheap shot at higher education the culture of inquiry needed to future? Designers able to improvise Lisa Grocott on a page. ‘You know how you start to say I learned more in my be adaptive. in unfamiliar conditions. Designers with a white room. You tentatively professional practice than I did in my confident to get back up after being We called it ‘the game’. The single rule slap colours on the wall. Immediately masters, given that the studio’s culture Whether in a research lab, a semester- dumped. In the complex, volatile, was an invitation to start your story you know that some aren’t going to of exhibiting was forged by the masters long studio or a design consultancy, uncertain and oftentimes broken world anywhere but the beginning. The work but you keep exploring...’ There I was doing when we first started and if our goal is to create environments we find ourselves in, learning from obtuse lead could be a description of was the day J couldn’t articulate how our speculative projects were the basis that promote relentless inquisitiveness ideas as they emerge seems critical a client’s body language, an out-of- much he hated some work until given for my design masters that explored then what we learn is nowhere as to finding new ways forward. context comment, or a reflection on permission to not find the right words design-led research as an integral important as how we learn. Learning our emotions. The space between the ‘I fuck’n hate it. It’s derivative and I’d component of professional practice. how to be vulnerable yet assertive, I am curious about how we tell the story client presentation and arriving back be embarrassed if we put it out there...’ DS’s poetic description of an intuitive resilient yet courageous, humble yet of how designers make more than at the studio playfully became about There was anticipation for DM’s annual practice was shared to a packed room confident, could be the legacy of our artefacts. I am curious about what it imagining the best way to draw out the sports commentator Christmas party of RMIT colleagues using our studio engagement. means to embody a practice of making narrative of how others responded to speech. ‘We never saw it coming ... as a pop-up classroom. I can trace sense, making tangible, making do work we had put hours into making. JE taking that unbelievable mark in a direct line between the ‘No one is I find myself wanting to write of the and making possible? How do we Walking back into studio I would lead the last minutes against HC to win the an Island’ reconciliation badges and memory we laugh over at every studio educate the designer who proposes with ‘RB put his head in his hands game…’ Or simply, every other day the ‘Dear John’ unelect-Howard reunion. It is this incongruous image never-before-seen tomorrows in a and sighed’ or ‘FS said: that is never when SG remarked, ‘I’ll need more website that came out of the RMIT of SG walking into the studio one dynamic world? How do we nurture going to happen’ before accounting time to think about it.’ masters program. morning wearing a sequin cape. What the wily expertise needed to nudge a non-linear narrative of what had is the relevance here? Surely this is our social imagination? just unfolded. We liked oblique These are more than idiosyncratic The learning culture of the studio one of those had-to-be-there jokes? sentences and fragmented stories, memories; they are how I began wasn’t incidental, it was an intentional But what if the scene is consistent with If graduation from a university was appreciating the engagement required to understand intuition, critique, move baked into who we were. how we enjoyed playing ‘the game’? not about donning an academic robe to piece together the ambiguous storytelling and deliberation. They This was the first and last time There was a not-knowing built into our to celebrate what you have come to communication. were moments of learning. I have worked somewhere that was practice. We embraced the incomplete know, but instead an invitation to put so deliberately invested in developing script, the obtuse interpretation, the on a sequin cape to explore what you My studio memories come down to We live in a world where incubators who I was as a person, not just an serendipitous mark. Many of the don’t yet know we just might all be vignettes of conversations. For me, are synonymous with nurturing employee. I now see our years together tangents we explored made as much better prepared to prototype the future. the legacy of those five years will not business models and accelerating as an open invitation / education in sense as the sequins or the cape. be the designs we created, but the profits. I’m interested in how we exploring what might be possible. When SG walked in – so nonchalantly family we became. Not family in a design incubators for learning; those Our commitment to always try like no explanation was necessarily – Kumbaya kind of way (although I guess Hardware Lane days modelled for something new over making a profit maybe he was physically embodying you could say dancing at Bourgie on me how messy learning thrives. led to projects that went nowhere, the culture of the studio. Perhaps he Friday nights could be the 2002 version The fact it often seemed like we were yet took us everywhere. just knew that in exploring unknown of that), but family in a loveable-even- only role playing being professional possibilities we stumble across more for-the-dysfunction kind of way. The forged an almost utopian learning Today, higher education is reckoning beautiful questions. Hardware Lane studio was the set environment. More so than what with the reality that graduates will for our becoming as designers and, I learned doing two masters and a PhD. need to repeatedly shapeshift The researcher I am today would like any coming-of-age narrative, the Today, my motivation to interrogate careers. The degree that prepares make sense of the way we practiced characters and the script illuminated how we might disrupt higher education you for a lifetime as a graphic designer then as learning from the emergent the individual protagonist’s life lessons. comes from recognising the learning is at best naive, at worst unethical. future. A practice of letting go of old The intimacy of the studio environment that happened b’twixt and between The world needs creative citizens thinking to let come new thinking. The allowed each of us to find ourselves the works that we made. It is the who know how to unlearn habits opposite of looking backwards to by making sense of who we were to reason I say my research is about and reinvent themselves with every learn from the past so we might act each other. designing learning experiences and new wave of technology and systemic with certainty in the future. So what not educational programs. It is why disruption. An intentionally porous might it look like to educate designers There was the evening DS poetically I value learning as a commitment not relationship between professional who are comfortable and critical articulated the internal process he a credential. practice and the academy can nurture enough to learn from the emergent
Lisa Grocott was once a communication designer (Studio Anybody), then design academic (RMIT University), then a transdisciplinary researcher (Parsons School of Design) and now a professor (Monash University), but mostly she tries to avoid finding a name for what she does. After being at Parsons in New York for the past 12 years she has returned to Melbourne as the Head of Design at Monash. She is most excited about WonderLab, a new co-design research lab that operates at the nexus between design, learning and play. In WonderLab her applied research takes a transdisciplinary approach to transforming behaviour as it applies to teacher change, academic mindsets and learning organisations.
Postscript RB // Robert Buckingham FS // Fiona Scanlan HC // Hairy Canary DS // Dave Smith JE // Jason Evans DM // Dean Millson SG // Stuart Geddes
Image credits
La Lala poster (detail), 2001. Graphic design by Studio Anybody. Kiosk, Lisa LG Grocott 2
Image credit
La Lala poster, 2001. Graphic design by Studio Anybody. Kiosk, Michaela 1 Webb MW
The culture club at Europe, it’s much more about fight for their work and their point of relationships. Clients in the UK Tin & Ed: At AGI we heard from Michaela Webb the ‘why’. view. If you look at Australian design are acutely aware of the design people who are really passionate and practices, the tendency is for design process and there isn’t a great involved in what they do. It’s not Throughout my career I’ve been lucky Elise Santangelo: In my experience, to be seen as much more of a job or amount of education required in just about making the work – it’s enough to gain exposure to many the designers working at Fabrica in Italy a service. delivering an idea. We don’t have to about why we’re making the work, cultures and design practices. I’ve or DesignStudio in London, all came spend as much time proving the what’s important and what our social worked in New Zealand, London, from diverse cultural backgrounds, Tin & Ed: Culturally in Australia we value of design. responsibility is. Germany and now Melbourne, with they had very strong references and are still determining the value of each new destination influencing me anchor points to draw from, particularly graphic design. What’s exciting on Can a studio have a specific voice Elise: I feel like as designers, in a different way. the European designers. I’ve personally the one hand is that right now it’s so and what do you perceive as the sometimes we try to be the felt a lack of that, having come from open, we are still trying to find a voice. value in this? Trojan Horse, planting ideas into In September 2017, I attended AGI conversations that we have with our (Alliance Graphique Internationale) clients to change things for the better, Open Paris and spent four days having a greater, wider purpose to what listening to graphic design talks. we do. I think all designers have the Witnessing the different cultural ability to do that, we just have to find nuances between the Japanese, our way in. Chinese, Korean, Danish, Dutch, French and Australian designers How does design find its way in? (amongst others) was fascinating. Their approach, their values and the Elise: One of my favourite designers, relationships they had with their Tibor Kalman (who helped start clients all seemed to come through Fabrica) wrote a great manifesto called in their work. Fuck Committees, and it’s all about finding the cracks in the wall and using It made me wonder just how much of other people’s money to change the our culture we put into our design and, world. It’s a really interesting sentiment equally, what our culture enables us about commercial design work and to achieve as designers. I questioned design as a commercial service, whether some places might empower but also finding people who share designers to have a louder voice than your vision, and finding ways to others and what we might need to influence things. address in Australia to ensure that our work extends beyond a service and Paul: In the UK, music really allowed into a practice with real purpose. design to be more visible to the mainstream. In the 1960s the one thing To explore these questions I began a that the British were able to export conversation with four international really well was music. The artwork designers: Elise Santangelo of of Peter Saville and Barney Bubbles, DesignStudio in London; Tin Nguyen for example, meant that designers and Ed Cutting of Tin & Ed (who have became household names and were recently moved to New York from seen as culturally influential and worthy London); Paul Tisdell of Round in of recognition. Melbourne; and Michael Lugmayr of Design by Toko in Sydney, each of whom has worked in multiple These conversations highlight the geographies and now reside away complexity of the relationship between from their homeland. design and culture. Some of us work from a clear cultural vantage point, With their help, I’ve been able to look while some of us draw from a bucket from the outside, in. of inspiration that seems empty and infinite all at once. Some of us exist in a Do you think culture and place culture that values design in the same influences a designer’s work? way as the other esteemed arts, while others are still finding a place for it. Michael Lugmayr: I think a designer’s In Australia, I feel there’s a great sense work should reflect their culture. I think of freedom in our work; the capacity this is what makes a great studio or a to call on many diverse perspectives great designer, or a great artist – an and influences that make up who we acknowledgement or reflection of the the US and then Australia. I haven’t We feel that other cultures value design Elise: At Fabrica I felt like each are, sometimes who we aren’t, and to context in which they’re working. felt like I had a significant cultural in a different way because art is so individual designer had a style and that imbue that quintessential Australian vantage point. engrained in how people live and their diversity was compelling for clients. sense of humour in what we do. Paul Tisdell: I would agree. It’s not concept of place. I feel that this may Our work really felt like a celebration of The challenge is ensuring this voice surprising that graphic designers are Is there a way to define an take some time in Australia. the individual designer; your name was translates in a way that builds the so malleable to culture. More often Australian philosophy? on everything and your personal voice credibility of design within our culture. than not, our work is a direct cultural Paul: I think how creative industries was very loud. Even when we worked output. It can mirror the broader Tin Nguyen and Ed Cutting: Being are valued by culture and society on a collective brief for a commercial While I began this project looking society and also the broader society’s away from Australia really makes and how much we all decide to push client, our voices all shone through. from the outside in, I end it by looking values as well. A great example is the you appreciate the certain amount of creativity is really influenced by our Clients came to us because they from the inside out. Only by critically work coming out of the 1960s and 70s, freedom we have. There’s a lightness political leaders and public spending. wanted a ‘Fabrica’ thing and that thing reflecting on what we do, can we begin from designers like Robin Fior, David reflected in our work. We think it has Fundamentally though, I feel like it’s our was a diverse collection of voices and to create the discourse around design King and Richard Hollis in the UK, something to do with the very carefree responsibility to elevate what we do. perspectives responding to a brief. in Australia that emanates outward in whose style was clearly defined by and playful Australian attitude – it’s self- If you look at architecture and fine art, At DesignStudio, however, there is a the wider community. the political climate of the time. reflexive, but not hugely self-aware. these disciplines are very accustomed sense that you leave your personal to a high level of critical thinking and aesthetic at the door. Instead, the In many ways it will be our repetitive Michael: I’ve seen differences Elise: It’s hard to pinpoint because in are much more developed in writing, style here is a way of thinking, a way of questions of ‘why’, as much as other nationally, particularly in my experience a way, we act like cultural sponges, talking about and sharing their ideas. strategising. In this way, we have a real small waves of revolution that will with American versus Dutch ways absorbing from everyone else. It can In Australia I think that critical thought opportunity to influence the business strengthen our practice the most. It of working. Actually, once I arrived in be quite liberating, the feeling that we in design is still very new, but that’s through a strategic design point of could be a moment in music or politics, Holland from the United States, I had have an empty bucket to draw from, what’s really going to help to elevate view, rather than just a stylistic one. it could be a client who sees as we do, this feeling that the design approach while others may have this very defined the purpose of design. a campaign that forces us to stop and I had adopted in the US was no longer history and influence. Tin & Ed: We think in America it’s take notice, or it could be one of us, relevant. The American and even the Elise: Living and working in London a very specialist culture. There’s an finding our way in, and then shouting it Australian style seems to be much Have you observed any cultural I notice that what surrounds us is a opportunity for designers to really from the rooftop. more about aesthetics, whereas differences in how design is valued culture that appreciates art and hone in on a personal style, which has in the Netherlands it’s much more by clients and the outside world? design and it’s incredibly prevalent certainly resonated with us. There’s conceptual. I noticed it in the ways we in the day-to-day for the mainstream a very clear Tin & Ed voice. Image credit talk about different projects and how Michael: I think that European consumer. Everyone is much more we justify what we create. In the US, it’s designers are likely to view themselves aware of the influences and this How can you be more purposeful Joy Division, Unknown Pleasures, 1979. the story of ‘how’. Whereas if you look more as artists, being that they really seems to trickle into client in your work? Graphic design by JD and Peter Saville. Kiosk, Michaela 2 Webb MW
Michaela Webb is creative director for Wolff Olins and Spin in London. to Desktop magazine, Studio The Voices of Round, a studio she co-founded in She has lectured full-time at RMIT magazine, Australian Creative and 2002 in Melbourne. (Melbourne), Mediarts (New Zealand) Process Journal. Elise Santangelo grew up between Michael Lugmayr grew up in and has served as a judge at D&AD, California and Sydney. She’s worked the Netherlands and later worked Michaela has spent over three years as AGDA and AWARD, where she Michaela’s work has been featured in at Round in Melbourne and Fabrica in in the United States before returning co-president of the Australian Graphic was chair. articles for IDEA magazine, IDN and Italy, and is now based in London at home. Michael now lives in Design Association (AGDA) and was Visuelle. Michaela currently sits on the DesignStudio. Sydney where he founded Design recently elected to Alliance Graphique Michaela has also spoken at agIdeas Ian Potter Board and the Design Hub by Toko. Internationale (AGI), the world’s leading (Melbourne), Sex, Drugs and Advisory Network. Paul Tisdell grew up in the UK, has association of graphic designers. Helvetica (Melbourne/Brisbane), studied at the RCA and cofounded Tin Nguyen and Ed Cutting of duo Semi Permanent (Melbourne and Europa in London. Paul is now Tin & Ed both grew up and studied With over 20 years professional Wellington), Responsive Projects based in Melbourne, where he works in Melbourne. They now reside in experience, Michaela has worked (Brisbane), and has made contributions at Round. New York City. Kiosk, Paul PMF Marcus Fuog 1
Unit of measure measurement being recorded will Although this project is a small part of a nomadic collective that explores Paul Marcus Fuog always be the same, for example, see the workings of the studio, it represents other cultures and people through Unit of Measure 11, the door width is our overall philosophy to design. We design and collaborative making. In In our studio, U-P, we spend most six standard size basketballs not 143.1 avoid defining what we do as problem 2015, Paul’s work for Field Experiments of the day in front of the computer, centimetres or 56.3 inches. Jumping solving, which is a term often used to was nominated for the Design of working towards outcomes that might between measuring systems causes give clarity to what graphic designers the Year by the Design Museum in resolve themselves tomorrow, the problems for many professions, not do. Rather, we see design as a way London. Paul’s work has been shown day after, next week, next month or just ours. In 1999, NASA lost the $125 to explore and express possibilities. at Fisher Parrish Gallery, New York, next year. We conceived our studio million Mars Orbiter in outer space as I often think of Marcel Duchamp’s Design Museum, London, Powerhouse project Unit of Measure as a way to a result of a miscalculation between comment: “There is no solution as Museum, Sydney, Ventura Lambrate, get off our computers and get out in measuring codes. [1] there is no problem.” This is certainly Milan, Tokyo’s Design Festa Gallery our surrounds. Out onto the streets of the case with Unit of Measure and and at Breda’s Graphic Design Festival. Collingwood and Fitzroy together, often the case with a lot of our client to talk, explore, observe, seek out an work. I see our work as a commentary opportunity and be in the moment. – it’s an expression of thoughts Unit of Measure is a field trip where we, that present themselves through as a group, remove ourselves from our opportunities that we’ve identified. normal environment in order to have a different experience – a bit like a school excursion, where students visit a place outside of the classroom to see new sights and learn new things. would be far less than in Melbourne. Unit of Measure, while fun to produce, has the potential to tell us quite a lot about the urban environments we Footnotes inhabit. Jane Jacobs, author of one of the most influential books about the [1] On September 23, 1999 NASA inner-workings of cities, The Death lost the $125 million Mars Orbiter and Life of Great American Cities spacecraft. Miscalculations due to (1961), relied almost entirely on her the use of English units instead of observations as a way to read the city. metric units sent the craft off-course. Similarly, urbanist William Whyte, noted Thrusters used for altitude and orbit for his work in the study of human control of the spacecraft had been While Unit of Measure has created behaviour in urban settings, stated fired incorrectly because the data many new conversations in our that the path to understanding a city used was calculated using incorrect design studio, it has also helped starts with careful observation and units. A contractor for NASA, who us to understand our surrounding the collection of data. Observation was performing the calculations, was city in new ways. There is a lot to and measurement continue to be the sending data in English units, while learn about space by measuring it, indispensable tools for reading any city. NASA’s navigation team was expecting understanding the number of units I accept that the world may never move metric units. A $125 million dollar that populate a space we can come to to the universal measuring code of mishap that could have been avoided understand a complex array of things. basketball units, but this project will by using the universal measuring In a podcast on Radiolab titled Cities, continue to provide great value for the language of basketball units. I was surprised to discover that the studio. It encourages us to get off the For Unit of Measure we take a size of a city (‘size’ as in the number of computer and get out of the studio. universally sized object into the urban people that are in that space) governs On these trips we converse in ways landscape and use it to survey. The everything. The number of people we wouldn’t in the studio – more freely, idea came about as it connected to our within a space determines the speed more openly. Unit of Measure takes continued research into appropriation that people talk and walk, crime rates, us outside to explore and observe in design – the use of space, objects, the average wage, the number of our surrounds; to learn about them by language or image by its user in a way restaurants, cultural events, libraries, measuring them. It invites us to look at not imagined by its designer – in other colleges, the total surface area of roads the city in a different way and to find words, taking something and using it and how many AIDs cases there are. new opportunities within the built form. for a purpose it was not intended. For Through our work we are constantly the first Unit of Measure series we used considering the past and attempting to a standard-sized basketball. foresee the future, but sometimes it’s necessary to pause and look at what is directly in front of us.
Unit of Measure enables us to go out into our city and observe and read it in a different way. In this way we are similar to skateboarders who look at the architecture of a city in a different way to everyone else, decoding it, reinterpreting it and finding new opportunities for it. For example, an everyday citizen looks at a handrail Image credits as a support; a skateboarder looks at a handrail as an object of thrill and From top to bottom: something to conquer; we look at the handrail as a place of negative space Robert Street, Collingwood - 1bb w; that could occupy four basketballs. Oxford Street, Collingwood - 1bb, 1bb; For Unit of Measure, we measure Each user views the same piece Gore Street, Fitzroy - 2bb w; Brown empty space, negative space, available of architecture in a different way; it Street, Collingwood - 3bb w, 1bb h; space, non-built out space. In this provides a very different purpose for Cambridge Street, Collingwood - 4bb We were also interested in way, the project is a commentary on each of us. h; Gertrude Street, Fitzroy - 2bb w x experimenting with the development density and urban development. This 1bb h; Rupert Street, Collingwood - of a universal measuring code. As is especially relevant in Collingwood Paul Marcus Fuog founded the design 8bb w, 1bb h; Peel Street, Collingwood designers who work on projects – an area in Melbourne experiencing studio U-P (formerly Coöp) in 2015. - 1bb; Cromwell Street, Collingwood in Australia and the United States, rapid urban infill. I suspect that had A member of the Alliance Graphique - 4bb h; Oxford Street, Collingwood - jumping back and forth between the we undertaken Unit of Measure 100 Internationale (AGI), Paul has taught at 6bb w; George Street, Fitzroy - 1bb w. metric system and the imperial system years ago in Collingwood we would Monash University and RMIT University can get confusing (what is 5/8 of an have needed many more basketballs. in Melbourne and led workshops at the inch, anyway?!). By selecting an object I’ve also considered that if we were School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York that is the same size no matter where to undertake Unit of Measure, in say, City and Otis College of Art and Design Next page: Little Oxford Street, you are, whether that be Australia, Manila the amount of available space in Los Angeles. Paul is a founding Collingwood - 2bb h. All images Europe, the US or elsewhere, the for basketballs in the urban landscape member of Field Experiments, courtesy Paul Marcus Fuog. Kiosk, Paul PMF Marcus Fuog 2 Kiosk, Stuart SG Geddes 1
In making: A conversation Stuart: Yeah, Some Posters from education but it specialised in, for me, We had a studio together for 10 years fragments of my initial but unresolved with Harry Williamson the NGV. The essays in it were a artistic things. or something. I’d worked for McCann intentions for the cover. Stuart Geddes starting point for me, for this, for us Erickson [now McCann]; I could have talking. We were interviewing David From there I got a scholarship to go gone along that route, but I didn’t. He didn’t like it and I fell out with him I found a book last year that really blew Sampietro, a designer who’d done a to the London School of Printing I worked for Vogue for a while. I worked over it. It was the last thing to do and my mind. It happened in a roundabout number of these posters. He studied at and Graphic Arts (now the London for a group of architects who were I said, ‘Stuff it, do your own thing’, kind of way. I was visiting my friend Swinburne, and got a job as a technical College of Communication). That quite adventurous – George Clarke, which was the most stupid thing I’ve Lisa Grocott, to meet visiting design assistant at the NGV in 1973 or 74, was an incredibly old guild school, Don Gazzard and Peter Yeomans. ever done in a graphic design sense. writer Alice Twemlow and, it was Alice and it was great to hear him talk about which became a school for printers. I met Peter because we shared this So the jacket you have is the later one, who was carrying this book, on loan graphic design in Australia at that time. And then one bright guy set up a little office with Gordon. That moved me when it was republished as Australian from another friend of mine, Andrew design section. I had a tremendously into the architectural area, which Art and Artists. Ashton. The book is large and heavy, I feel like graphic design, as a good education in the technology was very good for me. My modernist and on the jacket it says Australian Art profession, is quite bad at doing of design – a thorough examination tendencies suited a lot of the Stuart: As opposed to In the Making? and Artists: In the Making – an odd sort history, at doing its own history (and of modern typography, illustration architectural companies. I worked with That’s interesting, because a friend and of title. I only had a few minutes to look Australia’s bad at history as well). Part and photography. We set type and Harry Seidler on and off for 40 years. I surmised that the jacket was different at it but I saw it was packed full of the of this book was me, personally, trying we printed our stuff, you know. to the case because of a publisher most extraordinary collection of artists, to fill in some gaps. Thinking of the When I came out of that, I was quite Stuart: I’ve seen you talk about your freaking out at the last minute and designers, architects, musicians and broad sweep of modernism, we have accomplished as an entry level work in mostly civic and cultural terms, going, ‘It needs to say Australian Art writers from the Australian cultural this sense of it being a progressive, designer. When I worked for Gordon, which strikes me as being quite similar and Artists on the cover!’ scene some decades ago. And the revolutionary, utopian set of ideas. he was delighted, because I did all the to the way architects talk and think design of this book! Really perfect But in Australian commercial art, stuff he didn’t want to do – I marked about their work. It’s unusual (now, at Harry: Exactly right. Exactly right! The typography and a kind of casual ‘modernism’ seemed to take hold, up the type, did the finished artwork, least) for graphic design firms, and, in subhead became the title. rhythm to the pages that I didn’t think with a particularly commercial dealt with the printers… particular, the more business-focused existed in Australian publishing. prerogative, through design studios branding studios, to think about or talk Stuart: Funny. Can you tell me some and advertising agencies. Stuart: Interesting, there’s mention about their work in that way. Is that how more about it? I’d never heard of the book. Why had in the poster book about there being you’ve always thought about it? I never heard of this book? I looked To contextualise all of this in relation a push, spearheaded by Robin Boyd Harry: Well, we wanted to go straight at the colophon and found Harry to the Experimental Jetset show and Richard Haughton James, to drive Harry: I’ve always had a certain into the book – no foreword or Williamson had designed it – in fact he I think they see themselves as coming design forward in Australia through societal impulse to what I do. There whatever. We wanted it to be quite a was the Williamson on the spine, a co- quite directly out of that lineage of establishing the kinds of design are a couple of things that are a great dynamic thing. I put this sequence author. That made some sense – Harry politically and culturally progressive schools that didn’t really exist here. help to someone like me: an intelligent, together of Michael Johnson and I was is a key figure in Australian design, European movements. So what I’m thoughtful, adventurous client with an really pleased with it. I included this, part of a small, pioneering generation trying to do with this conversation (and Harry: No, they were non-existent interesting, worthwhile product. Nearly and this, just building things up, the whose work began to emerge in the poster book) is to connect myself, when I came, so I was very employable all of the work I’ve done that I feel things that he was interested in, the the late 1950s and who established and my practice to a lineage, and to because most of the other guys quite central about, has come through shapes he referenced in his work and graphic design as a profession here. better understand the adolescence of had learnt their stuff as juniors at working with people in those sorts things like that. Then this sequence But still, I’d not seen anything so graphic design in Australia. What we advertising agencies and studios, so of environments. I’ve been fortunate about the colour, finding that palette of adventurous in Australian publishing, borrowed from Europe and America they’d never had the formal education in understanding, too, that that is a all his stuff; and then his final painting, particularly not from 50 years ago. The and elsewhere, how we fit into the that I had. requirement, if you’re going to try and but actually not the painting, a picture cross-disciplinary approach, the scale picture. How I fit into the picture. Also, do interesting work. It’s also happened of him. It was so interesting. of the thing, the typography. with a particular focus on publishing Although in Victoria when a lot of the that these things have congealed with and bookmaking – hence my interest suburban colleges like Prahran started my political leanings. All these people The idea was to try to make these I took a picture of the cover so I could in your book, In the Making. up, they were very good. Ironically, I work for have certainly had their own sequences. This page here, I always look it up later. I bought a copy through though I worked for most of my life individual attitudes about things, but liked. I was really trying to get into Abe Books. I loved it more when I got So, I wanted to ask you to set the in Sydney, I had very few contacts the work suited me. the combination of images and my copy in the post. When I was asked scene a bit – your earlier education with other designers there. Most of words. I took this little statement of to write this text, I decided I wanted in the UK, coming here in 1959 and my friends and people I talked to Stuart: Can we talk about In the Fred Williams’. to talk with Harry about this book. As working for Gordon Andrews, who about design were based in Making? I brought my copy. it turned out, my friend and colleague was kind of an outlier in Australia at Melbourne... Brian Sadgrove and I repaint other people’s paintings. See Jenny Grigg had been a student of that time. Mimmo Cozzolino and Les Mason. Harry: Sure. Although I didn’t design that there? That’s Bailed Up. You know, Harry’s. She gave me his email address I think it’s partly to do with sharing that jacket. When I was younger, Tom Roberts. I’ve just taken the figures and soon I was heading to the north Harry: He was, too. Well, I was very a similar basic education. I did a silly thing. I fell out, not with the out and repainted the background. coast of New South Wales for a chat. fortunate in the education I got. It was publisher but with his production guy. Now Robert Jacks has repainted my actually very similar to TAFE. I first went So that was my start, working for I designed a jacket, which was a picture; he was around here the other Stuart: So, I’ve got a present for you. to the Christopher Wren College for Gordon, although I only worked for big poster that wrapped around the night and had a good look at it. Arts and Crafts. We did mainly artistic him as an assistant for possibly a year. book with a mixture of typefaces and Harry: Oh, this is the book you were courses, but also maths, English, Later we reunited – myself, Gordon a few of those circus letters on it. I found all these bits that related to this telling me about? science and all that. It was a broad and David Moore, the photographer. Here, I’ve hunted down some idea. It’s a lovely statement and we got
Image credits
1) Megan Patty and Stuart Geddes (eds), Some Posters from the NGV. Published by the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2016.
2/3) David Beale, Craig McGregor, David Moore, and Harry Williamson, Australian Art and Artists: In the Making. Published by Thomas Nelson, Melbourne, 1969. Dust jacket not designed by Harry Williamson.
4/5) Preliminary montage for dust jacket of Australian Art and Artists: In the Making. David Moore and Harry Williamson.
6) Part of the original dust jacket of Australian Art and Artists: In the Making. Designed by Gordon Andrews.
7–12) David Beale, Craig McGregor, David Moore, and Harry Williamson, Australian Art and Artists: In the Making. Published by Thomas Nelson, Melbourne, 1969. Dust jacket not designed by Harry Williamson. Kiosk, Stuart SG Geddes 2
Bob Jacks’ thing in right at the end; we example, talking about good clients did In the Making? It really captures Stuart: A thing that strikes me as being Harry is the thoroughness – the go through the whole thing that he’s and good products, was Robert and discusses a great array of really quite important also is the strength of dedication and responsibility to talking about. Goodman, the photographer, and good work that was happening at the relationships that are evident in all the history that he came from. the book The Australians. It was the time. of this… He’s constantly judging his own Stuart: That explains that idea so well. very different from the sort of picture work against these standards and books that had been produced at Harry: We were very confident that Harry: Absolutely, that’s so important. these values. And you start to do Harry: This little sequence here I that time. That was the first big book all this stuff around us was excellent. Like I had with Harry Seidler. He was that yourself. always liked. Robert Klippel – going I designed in Australia. I think it’s We were very much in awe of these a fantastically generous and involved from where he found all this machine about 50 years old or so – 1966. people. It goes back to this thing about client. Once he realised that your But Stuart, tell me, how are you stuff that he uses and then his more It was quite a breakthrough in many having an interesting product. That work was very considerate of his going to use this material? naturalistic work, and then finally him ways. The other thing was, it was an respect you have for it gives you a requirements, you became part of looking at his piece of sculpture. absolute top seller. It sold hundreds certain foundation. It makes for a the team. And then whatever Stuart: Aside from the text for of thousands of copies. good beginning. happened, you were the person who the exhibition, I thought I would My job in this was to structure the did the work. That type of relationship self-publish a fuller account of the sequences. The layout is, as you can Stuart: Wow, that many? And In the Stuart: What was the reception for is incredibly important, because conversation, with more reproductions see, quite spontaneous. It was a lot to Making is 1969? it like? it means you don’t have to start of the books that we’ve talked about. do with managing images, rather than explaining things to people or arguing Just a little pocketbook. I want to chat some of the tighter, more modernist Harry: That came a few years after. It Harry: Oh, it wasn’t. Ha! Amongst for them. to Alison Forbes, too. I met her last typographic things I’d done. was a very different type of book. the artists and the designers it had year at the AGDA awards, where she a great success, but it didn’t take Stuart: You develop a bit of a was inducted into the Hall of Fame. Stuart: Can you tell me a bit about it Stuart: There’s a sort of casualness, off. It did sell, but it was never a big shorthand, a trust. A generosity. as a collaborative project? There were a spontaneity, an immediacy to In seller. Craig McGregor recently met Harry: Inducted, was she? Oh four of you. How did that work? the Making. And there’s a visual the publisher, David Rosenberg. He Harry: That’s it. These are two books very good. She and I were virtually inventiveness to it, coupled with that bumped into him just six months ago for Harry. This was a really early one. contemporaries. She’d just designed Harry: I’d just met Craig McGregor, the collaborative experience of making it. and asked if he wanted to do another It was an interesting book, which a fantastic book – A Continent Takes writer, and he’d been doing a series of Something that came to mind for me book like In the Making? Rosenberg was based on a very thorough three- Shape (1971) – about the history of articles for the Herald on designers and was Marshall McLuhan and Quentin sort of backed away, but he was column grid that went right through the mapping of Australia, around the artists and architects. We talked about Fiore’s collaboration. Was that an fantastic. We showed him a little pilot, the book – from how the images were same time as The Australians. I was it and he had the idea that he’d like to influence? a 16-page mock up. He was very managed in the preliminary section very aware of her work and I have turn it into a book. He was working enthusiastic about it. He let us go. right the way through the book. Then great admiration for that book. Are with David Beal, who was a really good Harry: No, it wasn’t. I’d read We kept in touch with him, showing we did this other book. you going to see her, did you say? If photographer and I’d worked with him McLuhan’s stuff, but I’d never seen him what we were doing, but that was you do, give her my admiration. And at Vogue, but because the job was that collaborative thing with the it. I was in charge of the production Stuart: And you used the same grid? fond memory of her work. so vast, and I was working with David images. I didn’t see that until years too – I did all the mechanicals and I I think I might have met her, actually. Moore, I said to Craig, “Well, you know, and years later. went up to Hong Kong when it was Harry: We extended it into this I came down to Melbourne once to there’s room for two photographers being printed. little six column grid. It’s a bit more give a talk to a group, they were called here.” David Beal was quite happy Stuart: So it just naturally occurred sophisticated than the first book, the Fleuron Society or the Folio Society about that, because he and David got for you guys? Stuart: I’m so interested in it as a which predates it by 20 years or so. – they were publishers, designers on very well. book. It reminds me of some of the and printers. I think I met her then, Harry: Yeah, absolutely. Mind you, more interesting publishing that’s Stuart: We end up learning a lot from very briefly. I’ve still got that book That’s how the little group of us it was quite easy. I’d worked with happening now. each other in those relationships, the somewhere. It was an excellent book. came together. Craig would write the David Moore for some years and we’d long ones. I guess particularly in terms I can even remember the typeface, text, but the photographers weren’t worked on lots of different projects Harry: Well, it was an outrageous thing of someone like Seidler, who had such I think. necessarily guided by Craig’s writing – together, so we had a sensitivity to for the time. We hadn’t seen anything a clear vision… they were more interested in their own each other. You were never walking like it ourselves. It was entirely new for interpretation of the situation. They’d on eggshells; everything was upfront. all of us. Harry: Unrelenting, yeah, and which Stuart Geddes is a graphic designer come in with all their pictures and we’d We learnt from each other. he never really grew out of, if you and occasional publisher, mostly of look at them and talk about what we I learnt a tremendous amount about Some of the things didn’t quite gel for know what I mean. He experimented books, and occasionally other kinds could do with the sequence. It was very photography and he got much more me. Bits and pieces of it that just didn’t with it in his later work, where you of projects (magazines and journals, much a collaboration. interested in graphics and typography. come together, but in the main it was see some earlier historical influences, exhibitions and websites). He is also It was an easy coming together. And such a rush and we were all so excited like the Baroque. Although he an industry fellow, researcher and PhD Stuart: I like what it says in the back: I’d worked with David Beal earlier, about what we were doing. Pinning up would resent it, there was a certain candidate at RMIT University. Stuart’s “This is a book about art in Australia when he was a fashion photographer David’s photographs – they’d come postmodernist attitude – or his research interests converge around the and how it is created. Its stance is and I was at Vogue, so there was no back from somewhere and we’d all development of modernism. form of the book, through collaborative pluralist.” Such a strong positioning of strangeness between us. look at the contacts. In that sense it Although he was quite focused, he practice, emerging histories and what it is. truly was collaborative. We all got a was constantly aware of his own unconventional economies. Stuart: You would have been in tremendous enjoyment out of each desire to expand his philosophy. Harry: That’s it, absolutely. A different Australia for about 10 years when you other’s commitment. What you learn from someone like
Image credits
13–20) David Beale, Craig McGregor, David Moore, and Harry Williamson, Australian Art and Artists: In the Making. Published by Thomas Nelson, Melbourne, 1969. Dust jacket not designed by Harry Williamson.
21) Robert B Goodman and George Johnston, The Australians. Published by Rigby, Adelaide, 1966. Designed by Harry Williamson.
22) Peter Blake, Architecture for the new world: the work of Harry Seidler. Published by Horwitz, Sydney, 1973. Designed by Harry Williamson.
23) Harry Seidler, Harry Seidler: four decades of architecture. Published by Thames & Hudson, 1992. Designed by Harry Williamson.
24) Egon & Elise Kunz, A Continent Takes Shape. Published by William Collins, Melbourne, 1971. Designed by Alison Forbes. Kiosk, Warren WT Taylor 1
No, it isn’t just music at University of Melbourne’s George By 1982, live performances of Footnotes Warren Taylor Paton Gallery) and a four-hour were rare, with Brophy focusing performance of Andy Warhol’s novel on the organisation, presentation [1] Adrian Martin and Philip Brophy, ‘There must be a way to treat the a (1968). Cultural critic Darren Tofts, and distribution of its product, which ‘Texts and Gestures’, Art Network, textuality of a musical object (a piece, a who, like Brophy, grew up in Reservoir included records, films, videos no. 6 (1982): 28. set, a record etc.) in such a way as not in Melbourne’s northern suburbs, and written material. A catalogue [2] Stuart Grant, in conversation to freeze it in some formalist vacuum, observed “was an incursion into of their output is best captured in with Warren Taylor, Melbourne, having it speak only of itself.’ [1] the spaces of local consumption, an MADE BY (1983) – a collage of December 2017. encoded performance of ideas to do media clippings, artists statements, [3] Darren Tofts, ‘Diacritics for local The deliberately unrefined cover for with identification, recognition and interviews, program notes and consumption’, Meanjin, Vol. 60, the Primitive Calculators’ 1979 single cultural memory. It was a kind of poetic graphic art. no. 2 (2001): 104. Do That Dance / I Can’t Stop It was, manifesto, an idea-kit for thinking [4] Philip Brophy, in conversation according to guitarist (and cover about culture, sign systems and modes Working under the name Autist Inc., with Warren Taylor, Melbourne, designer) Stuart Grant, symbolic of the of understanding.” [3] Brophy continued to develop graphics December 2017. Melbourne post-punk group’s position for the alternative music scene in “not to participate in the systems of Brophy had studied film theory and Melbourne, as well as occasional exchange that existed in the music philosophy at Latrobe University commissions for major labels (such business”. [2] The cover art, created and was cultivating an interest as Mushroom Records). The heavy- using dry-transfer lettering, is a simple in conceptual art, cinema and handed tactics of street poster gesture on a geometrically sound experimental music. In 1979 he companies made it unfeasible for format – indicative of the disposable founded Innocent Records with Brophy and Kozic to continue to print ethos of punk’s minimalist agenda. David Chesworth, who had not only directly for the venues and, as with the While the Primitive Calculators wore taken on management of the trajectory of independent music, the apathy on their sleeve (Grant also CHCMC in 1978, but was a member industry started dictating terms again requested the label on the vinyl be of the influential post-punk group and many groups moved to a more printed solid black, rather than left Essendon Airport – who would often palatable sound, disbanded or headed blank), the DIY approach to recording, perform on the same bill as . overseas. For Brophy, this didn’t stifle performing and publishing was critical Between his art, music, performance his output as he continued to expand in the evolution of independent music and writing, Brophy had established his creative practice and further in Australia. a network of communication where interrogate cultural theory, music, he could espouse a cultural dialogue. art and cinema. His essay ‘Post- In the late 1970s, geographic isolation A self-taught graphic artist, he also Punk Graphic Design: The Displaced limited access to the most interesting designed and printed a majority of Present Perfectly Placed’ in the self- pieces of contemporary culture coming the posters for the CHCMC and published Stuffing Art: Graphics from the UK and the US. Delayed records sleeves for his and (1990) was not only the entry point for dispatches of NME or The Face meant Chesworth’s projects. He became this author to a frenetic and brilliant that the image of new wave and post- aware of British graphic artists mind, but a text that both Malcolm punk music evolved on the racks and Barney Bubbles and Malcolm Garrett and Peter Saville have cited as communal poster walls of independent Garrett, principally, through his the critical examination of post-punk records stores and music venues. expanding music collection and graphic design. Although a conservative Liberal Party his interest in Japanese animation, was in power, the legacy of the Whitlam comics, pop art and American cinema In recent years, recordings of the government’s free tertiary education materialised into a distinctive design Primitive Calculators, David Chesworth and easily obtained unemployment aesthetic. Underpinned by a comic, and have been reissued by benefits, saw art schools, such as the pop sensibility, his word/image independent Australian labels Chapter Preston Institute of Technology (PIT) combinations elucidated a blend Music and Efficient Space. Whilst in Melbourne’s northern suburbs, of high and low culture: “My aim this kind of activity is admirable - become incubators for progressive for anything is to make it look like as it speaks to a new generation and convergent approaches to music detergent packaging – that’s really the - the threads that existed between and art. ultimate. If someone says ‘fuck that art, music, graphics, printing and looks like a detergent package’, it’s performance are somewhat lost in the Emerging from the music department like wow!”. [4] Lettering for mechanical representation. at La Trobe University, the Clifton Hill artwork was often sourced from Community Music Centre (CHCMC) second-hand type catalogues or was setup in an old organ factory resolved in numerous sketches on Warren Taylor is a graphic designer building on Page Street in Clifton Hill loose sheets of paper. For Brophy, the and lecturer in communication design in 1976 by experimental composer evolution of the image was not only at MADA (Monash Art Design and Ron Nagorcka and musician Warren evident in his approach to identity Architecture). He is the founder of Burt. The artistic program was layered, design (regularly presenting multiple The Narrows – a curatorial project diverse, intellectual and free of any variations for a single logo) but critical interested in the convergence of art economic exchange. A regular at the to his examination of the structure of and design which has presented CHCMC was the group (often music and aesthetics. exhibitions by distinguished graphic written tsk tsk tsk and spoken with designers such as Ronald Clyne, three clicks of the tongue against the While more than 20 performers Experimental Jetset, John Melin, roof of the mouth). Led by multimedia moved through the turnstile of , Rogerio Duarte, Peter Brotzmann artist, writer and composer Philip the core group were Brophy, Ralph and Karel Martens. Brophy and operating somewhere Traviato, Jane Stevenson and Maria between a music group and an art Kozic – a visual artist who had studied Taylor is an occasional contributor to project, presented a theatrical screen printing at PIT. Brophy and IDEA Magazine and part of the design discourse through live performances Kozic had set up a screen printing collective Re:collection, which edit and recordings, often elaborated studio above a shop on High Street, and publish an archive of Australian in detailed program notes, screen- Northcote – a sample of Warhol’s graphic design. printed gig posters, album covers factory in inner-city Melbourne where and texts. Performances would often they designed and printed artwork transcend the formality of the stage for record labels and venues across – such as 1981’s What is this Thing Melbourne, including the notorious Called Disco? (originally performed Crystal Ballroom in St Kilda.
Image credits Nice Noise, 7", EP, 1979, front cover. Graphic design by Philip Brophy.
Maria Kozic: I was a Teenage Pyjama, screenprinted poster, 1981. Graphic design by Philip Brophy Kiosk, Warren WT Taylor 2
3RRRFM, screenprinted poster, 1979. vinyl, 7", EP, 1980, front cover. Inner City Sound, book cover The Primitive Calculators, Do That Graphic design by Philip Brophy. Graphic design by Philip Brophy. artwork, 1982. Graphic design by Dance / I Can’t Stop It, Vinyl, 7", EP, Philip Brophy. 1979, back cover. Graphic design 3RRRFM, mechanical artwork, 1979. vinyl, 7", EP, 1980, back cover. by Stuart Grant Graphic design by Philip Brophy. Graphic design by Philip Brophy. The Primitive Calculators, Do That Dance / I Can’t Stop It, Vinyl, 7", EP, Au-go-go, flyer, 1987. Graphic design Boys Next Door, screenprinted poster, 1979, front cover. Graphic design by Philip Brophy. 1980. Graphic design by Philip Brophy. by Stuart Grant Kiosk, ZT 1 Žiga Tes t e n
‘So what you are really asking about the purpose of the interview and is…’ The right answers to the questioned if in fact I knew. After all, wrong questions Harriet Edquist from the RMIT Design Žiga Testen Archives had recently published a detailed article on Kral’s life that, at I visited Canberra to interview Shirley the time of writing, is still the definitive Kral, the second wife of George Kral, outline of Kral’s biography. an Australian graphic designer of Czech origin. Between 1956 and 1962 Shirley was correct – it wasn’t clear, when George and Shirley lived together even to me what I went to Canberra in Melbourne, Kral worked on some looking for. And it’s not the first time of his most formative and important that I’ve done this. I’ve conducted works – or at least it is these works that hastily organised interviews with have been preserved in the archives graphic designers I’ve been interested and memories of his associates, in (and their associates and families) friends and family. many times before. Usually following a hunch after seeing a work with Shirley has kept a daily diary for most some unexpected design features not of her adult life that she still continues conforming to their context, following to this day on her laptop. When a rumour, seeing a photograph that George’s design material was donated intrigued me… Usually looking for to the RMIT Design Archives, she something that shouldn’t be there, extracted all references to her years something that seemed off, something with George as a separate document, or someone that didn’t quite fit in. including a complete list of his work in that period, 1956 to 1963. When I Looking back, it was never graphic visited the archives in order to find design alone that I was interested in, out more about Kral’s work, it was but rather what I can read and learn her diary that intrigued me the most. from and through graphic design about The diary provided an unmediated, the people that make it and the people personal and sometimes unexpectedly it was made for. And while the article honest snapshot of a graphic designer published by Harriet Edquist does – an insight that is, as every design answer all the important questions researcher or historian can probably about Kral’s life and his career from confirm, remarkably rare in the field. the perspective of design history, I In an essay titled ‘The uses of failure’, suppose in the end those are not the British design historian Robin questions I have been asking myself. Kinross wrote: When I first saw that photograph of Where facts can be found, they should George a year or so ago there was be brought to bear on the discussion barely any of his work easily available. of a work, particularly those that shed The photograph was included light on the designer’s intentions. But in his profile on a website called as designers know, post-hoc analyses Re:Collection, ‘Australian Graphic (case studies) of individual jobs are Design c. 1960 – c. 1990’. A project not necessarily intended to present a “established in 2009 by Dominic factual account, but are part of a public Hofstede as an online archive of relations initiative; they are as useful as Australian graphic design, with a focus the general staff’s report on a battle on work created between the years is to military historians. Discussing 1960–1990. The project was created work with the designers who made it primarily to address the scarcity of is productive when it focuses on the reference material available related works itself. The rest is conjecture. to this most significant period for the profession.” [1] George Kral left us with very little record of his design intentions and – at Without much or any work by Kral least in a material and easily accessible to be found, I browsed through form – very little PR either. However, it Re:Collection inspecting work by Kral’s is Shirley’s diary that provides some contemporaries. It’s a remarkable key information and insight into his archive in which one can clearly character and aesthetic tendencies. identify some major tendencies of Australian graphic design in that I was first introduced to George Kral period – Swiss style or International when a colleague, working on an typographic style in some form or archive of Australian graphic design another, elements of ‘POPISM’… To history, came across a photograph the best of my knowledge it doesn’t of Kral and pointed it out to me. really seem much different to any other Apparently we look a bit alike … at similar design archive of a developed least in that photograph – glasses with western country. a dark thick frame, a slightly slouchy, slim figure – even our outfits were I encountered advertisements, product similar despite the 60-year gap. The packaging designs and an occasional similarities don’t end there. As I would book or two or a poster. ‘GO WELL, later discover, we are both designers GO SHELL’, a slogan typeset in what (Kral himself very much involved not appears to be Helvetica compressed, only with graphic design, but also ‘Milk’ dully typeset in Gill Kayo, interior and product design) and of ‘ONE LITRE HOMOGENISED Slavic, Eastern European origin. And PASTEURISED’ in Helvetica regular, not unlike me now, at the time the and ‘DESIGN IS SO IMPORTANT, photograph was taken, Kral was still why not let your architect specify fairly new to Melbourne and to the the office furniture’ typeset in Trade Australian graphic design community. Gothic condensed are just some examples of the material to be found Shirley must have sensed when in the archive. Removing the visual I visited her that my interest in George’s form and context of these works from work was not merely a professional their messages and copy does make interest in another designer’s work. them seem quite irrelevant [2] – a Just after I turned off the sound common problem with evaluating the recorder and we sat down for some historical importance of any cultural pumpkin soup, she asked me directly artefact. Nevertheless, when carefully Kiosk, ZT2 Žiga Tes t e n
inspecting these works one notices a Europe, as she speculates, as well what were his politics like … was he modernism and graphic designers and unity of form and content, as well as as self-educating himself later on interested in politics at all? artists that introduced it to this country, a precision of execution that elevates via international press and literature looking for a modernist narrative akin these works above many others I have available at the time: No, absolutely not. A lot of the Czech to the one I am familiar with and have seen from the same period. Being emigres here, they hated communism, been taught or that I have perhaps new to Australia, it’s hard for me to tell All the magazines and books that we they loathed it. constructed for myself. I ended up whether these works are indicative had and were subscribed to were with a confirmed suspicion that of the overall quality of the works in about the Bauhaus, Mies van der Rohe I expected such an answer, most modernism existed here (and perhaps that period or rather a reflection of the … he loved that Bauhaus aesthetic Eastern European emigres in Australia everywhere?) in a less militant form – aesthetic preferences of the archive’s of everything clean and minimal. And do or did. Times were hard when more as a term designating a particular authors. At first sight, these works do at the time there was nothing here [in they emigrated and they often did aesthetic rather than a coherent not appear to be significantly different Australia] like that. And he had so many for political reasons. I rephrase my movement. But on the other hand, to the works by Kral that I would later clients that loved that. question: were there any causes I found a country that in the 1960s and see in the RMIT Design Archives. or particular issues that Kral was 70s was ripe for radical politics, political These are crucial clues that require concerned about? Was he somehow engagement and even radical design. However, it appears that Kral’s work some unpacking. ‘New Typography’ socially engaged? I discovered people who engaged must have been much more important and ‘European modernism’, in with those topics fully like Shirley Kral for a generation of graphic designers particular, are terms that I focus on. So what you are really asking is was and her brother – just not under the than the fairly limited amount of I have been in Australia long enough he an activist? No! He was absolutely auspices of the word ‘modernism’. available work can testify to, and to have a general understanding of blinkered. Loved his work and … but specifically so for a generation working how mutable the use of the word he did join the industrial design society I am again reminded of Kinross and before the 1960s. According to a ‘modernism’, ‘modern’ and ‘new and went to meetings but how much his article ‘The uses of failure’. In short text published by AGDA on the typography’ can be here. I am militating that was, I wouldn’t think so. conclusion he writes: “Yet, it is just occasion of Kral’s inclusion in its Hall reminded of a definition of modern where there are some cracks in the of fame: typography by British typographer I am curious, what about the other surface of what happened that one Anthony Froshaug: “Modern artists and designers Kral worked with? can get hold on something: cracks then The Design Studio under George typography is not a mode, it consists Especially Clement Meadmore and revealed by a truthfulness in telling, by Kral created a stream of work in a reasoned assessment of what is other artists orbiting ‘Gallery A’ that an account that includes the failures unprecedented in quality and design needed and of what somehow then is Kral co-founded – described on the and the dead ends and the apparently awareness for those times. Managing done under certain constraints…”.[4] Re:Collection website as “a combined meaningless episodes that don’t fit into to stay aloof from the sometimes crude showroom and art gallery which would a wished-for narrative coherence.” commercial standards of the era, Kral’s And even Shirley herself reiterates a become a fulcrum for Melbourne work was clearly the breath of new similar concern when she describes Modernism” in the 1950s and 60s. I definitely found something, just not typography on the Australian scene. the process of design as: “If there’s a What were the concerns of these what I came looking for. He was at the height of his creative need, how does one answer to that artists, were they somehow politically powers when he died much too soon, need? … that’s what design is.” active or engaged? I would like to thank in particular Shirley in 1978 at the age of 51. Kral for generously dedicating her As she later explains, her No, not at all. Except perhaps to get time to talk to me about George, for A further confirmation of Kral’s understanding of design was very funding. At the time Australia was all all her insights and for the delicious typographic radicalism, at least in the much informed by her brother, the about the survival of the fittest. You had pumpkin soup. Australian context, is provided in a architect Derek Fuller Wrigley. Between this large influx of so many migrants in short article by Brad Haylock briefly the 1960s and 80s he was active in the a short period all of them struggling to Žiga Testen is a Slovenian graphic touching on Kral’s studio stationery: field of sustainable design, concerned make it. designer living in Melbourne, whose with the effects of climate change activities include graphic design, Kral’s own stationery is an important and environmental degradation. But On the other hand, Shirley definitely editing, curatorial projects and demonstration of his graphic design what is concealed or hinted at in was an activist, especially after the collaborations with artists, curators, prowess. This work is as sober as these statements is a very specific divorce with Kral and her subsequent activists and theoreticians. His graphic design comes: one typeface, idea of what a ‘need’ is. While this is a move to Canberra. work relies heavily on language and in one size, one weight, one colour, complicated term that can evoke a lot typography with a specific interest methodically organised on a strict grid. of (Marxist) theory in relation to design, When I came to Canberra I was in the relationship of aesthetics The hierarchy of the information on the it is perhaps best summarised by involved with the Women’s Movement and politics. page is determined only by the logic of Victor Papanek’s distinction between from the very beginning, right from our reading: left to right, top to bottom. a ‘need’ and a ‘want: Women’s liberation and The Women’s Footnotes Such sober typography epitomises Electoral Lobby. Because of my European modernism, but this Much design has satisfied only divorce and the fact that I was really [1] See URL: recollection.com.au. stationery would have been an unusual evanescent wants and desires while struggling, questioning how did I get to [2] Given the stringent image copyright creature in Australian graphic design at the genuine needs of man have often this point and allow this to happen to requirements though, this is the easiest the time. [3] been neglected by the designers. The me, I was really ready for feminism. and most convenient way to actually economic, psychological, spiritual, reproduce them. Luckily nobody It has to be noted, at this point, that technological and intellectual needs Feminism: an -ism that seems to treats historical advertisement copy from all available information I could of a human being are usually more have influenced people’s lives here as copyrighted material akin to that gather, Kral was not formally trained difficult and less profitable to satisfy in Australia much more significantly of images. as a designer while living in Europe. than the carefully engineered and than that other one – modernism. [3] Brad Haylock, ‘Centre Justified: While he must have been exposed to manipulated ‘wants’ inculcated by fad Shirley often helped George with his Les Mason and the exhibition of European modernism in some way and fashion. [5] design work, as well as managing his graphic design’, Gallery, Jan/Feb 2016. or another while living there, his early accounts and business matter. English [4] Anthony Froshaug, Studio ‘career’ was far from being anything Coming to prominence mostly in was Kral’s second language and he International, no. 924 (1970): 60–61. like a formation of a contemporary the 1960s and 70s, Papanek was was very much reliant on her in dealing [5] Victor Papanek, Design for the designer. When the Design Institute of an Austrian–American designer with his accounting matters, invoices Real World: Human ecology and social Australia posthumously nominated Kral and educator who became a etc. When I ask if there were any other change (London: Thames & Hudson, to its Hall of Fame, Shirley prepared a strong advocate of the socially and female designers working at the time 1985): 15. speech where she wrote: ecologically responsible design when she was living in Melbourne with [6] Later over email Shirley adds: of products, tools and community George, she replies: “You know I can’t ‘I really should have recalled that on He had left post-war Czechoslovakia infrastructures. While Papanek recall any, no… The 50s and 60s were a visit to Sydney, probably in 1958, in 1947, spending some years in Paris belongs to a generation of designers so incredibly sexist.” [6] we made a special visit to the studio as a displaced person. He emigrated working on the fringes of modernism, of Marion Hall Best in Woollahra. to Australia in 1951, spending the first he is often seen as a designer that Reflecting on my conversation with She was a very well-known interior two years doing the many jobs that the managed to sustain the ethos of Shirley and my limited research into designer and, at the time, was authorities handed out to migrants. modernist design even after the Kral’s work I can’t seem to shake off importing beautiful silk fabrics, and During that time he had to learn more politicised aspect of it was a feeling of a kind of (personal) failure. we purchased a few small pieces. We English as best he could. There were purged and replaced with the I have been trying to identify designers chose a length of green Thai silk and no supportive English classes in formalism of the international style – whose practices could serve as a I made it up into a short cocktail dress, those days. a condition I suspect Australian model and inspiration for my own dyeing some silk shoes to match.’ graphic design might have suffered work, and whose worldviews But Shirley confirms my assumption from as well. corresponded with those I considered Image credit that Kral really was one of the to be at the root of modernism and, designers who introduced European So I quiz Shirley about George’s with it, graphic design. Photograph of Clement Meadmore (L) ‘modernist’ or ‘new’ typography to politics. I know he emigrated from and George Kral (R), c.1958. Unknown Australia – possibly due to his first- a communist regime so I already I started off my research to find out photographer. Image courtesy of RMIT hand experience with it living in anticipate an answer but still … more about Australia’s connection with Design Archives.