Interview: Experimental Jetset
09.10.09
Categories: Interviews, Studio Culture
by The Editors
To give a flavour of the 28 interviews to be found in Studio Culture, here is an edited version of an interview with Dutch designers Experimental Jetset.
Experimental Jetset’s studio, Amsterdam (The Netherlands)
Experimental Jetset are Erwin Brinkers, Marieke Stolk and Danny van Dungen. The Amsterdam-based trio’s work has a robust Modernist-inspired graphic lyricism that is unquestionably Dutch, but which also exudes a hard-edged radicalism that is derived from their sure-footed understanding of international pop culture. Their famous T-shirts bearing the legend ‘John & Paul & Ringo & George’ have won them legions of fans around the world. Their whip-smart contribution to the movie Helvetica only added to this global following.
This is a shortened version of an interview with Experimental Jetset. The full interview can be found in the book Studio Culture: the Secret Life of the Graphic Design Studio. Experimental Jetset answered the questions collectively.
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Q: To outsiders there is a strong sense of Experimental Jetset being a trio of equals. Is this the case?
A: Yes, absolutely. We function best as a group. It’s only when the three of us are together that we feel completely safe, that we can deal with the stress, tension and daily deadlines that come with graphic design. We are not only colleagues, but also happen to be neighbours and best friends. At times, it feels as if we are a cult or a gang (to reference The Clash; ‘the last gang in town.’)
We were recently watching West Side Story, a musical we’ve seen a million times before, but only now realized that the gang in the movie was called The Jets. ‘When you’re a Jet, you’re a Jet all the way/From your first cigarette to your last dying day’. Childish maybe, but it gave us a boost of energy.
Most graphic designers become graphic designers because they have an urge to make work that they can call their own. Is it possible to satisfy this need within a studio of three equals?
We can call all our work our own, because the three of us have an important input into it. In our view, that’s one of the advantages of being a two-, three- or four-person studio: it’s small enough for everybody to feel involved, but it’s large enough to have the benefit of the collective; that magical feeling when the whole turns out to be more than the sum of parts.
Experimental Jetset: 10 Years of Posters, Kemistry Gallery (London)
There is a rich tradition of graphic design studios in Holland. Did you model yourself on any Dutch studios?
As students, we were certainly aware of legendary studios such as Wild Plakken and Hard Werken (although those two particular studios were already defunct by then). Another Dutch studio whose work we liked around that time was a trio of designers named Joseph Plateau (and that studio is actually still around today).
But the studio that influenced us most is without doubt Mevis & Van Deursen (the studio of Armand Mevis and Linda van Deursen). They provide such a strong model to young design studios. They are fiercely independent, but at the same time really pragmatic. They always work for their clients directly, never through advertising agencies, or other types of agencies, which is something that we also find very important.
They made a conscious choice to stay small; while other design studios of their generation transformed themselves into large ‘communication agencies’, Mevis & Van Deursen always stayed true to the model of the small graphic design studio. They put a lot of energy into education, in stimulating young designers, supporting students: they really pushed Dutch graphic design to the next level.
It would be impossible for us to model ourselves on them; we simply lack their relentless energy and raw attitude. But they sure are a source of inspiration. When we’re going through rough times, the idea of Mevis & Van Deursen just existing is enough to cheer us up.
Stairwell signage for the Stedelijk Museum’s temporary home (SMCS)
Flexible signage for SMCS
Do any other Dutch studios influence you?
Our relationship with Total Design, as a model of a studio, is more complicated. Obviously, we are huge fans of the work created by Total Design under Wim Crouwel. Crouwel, despite his disguise as ‘functionalist’, is one of the biggest visual poets of our time, and his graphic language has shaped us profoundly, so in that sense we find Total Design very interesting.
What we also find intriguing about Total Design is the almost ‘menacing’ character they were projecting around that time. They were really seen as an inhuman design machine, as ‘wreckers of civilization’, as a totalitarian entity, which is something we find absolutely fabulous.
But at the same time, we also realize that Total Design signalled in many ways the beginning of the sort of studios that we very much dislike: large communication conglomerates, where the actual practice of graphic design is overshadowed by branding strategies, marketing theories, advertising models, etc. In short, all the things we hate.
We understand that for designers like Crouwel, and others of his generation, it was absolutely necessary to break with the ‘artsy-craftsy’ past of graphic design, to push it into a more professionalized, seemingly more ‘scientific’ direction. We realize that this was an important step in the emancipation of graphic design.
But we feel we are now at a point in history where we actually have to go in the opposite direction. We want to keep that ‘menacing’ character of Total Design intact, but combine it with a more DIY, lo-fi approach. A synthesis of Crouwel’s late modernist language, and the more arts and craft-based ethics of early modernism. Capturing that ‘large-scaleness’ of TD, and trying to make it work within the context of a small-scale studio. At least, that is what we try to do. The model of the movement has been very inspirational to us as well. We really like the idea of the studio as a small movement in itself. The studio, not as a nine-to-five job, but as a way of living, a specific way of looking at the world.
In that sense, we really see Experimental Jetset as a three-person movement. One movement that really influenced us was De Stijl. Being part of the canon of Dutch history, De Stijl is something every kid learns about in high school, so we knew about De Stijl from a young age, and it made a big impression on us: the idea of a group of people united by their aesthetic beliefs.
Another movement that made a huge impact on us, and still inspires us, is Provo, an Amsterdam anarchist group that existed between 1965 and 1967. Just like De Stijl, Provo is part of the historical canon, so we learned about it in high school. But Provo is very near to us, because Marieke’s father, Rob Stolk, was one of the main founders. Provo was an anarchist group that was very much influenced by Dada, had links with the Situationists International, and was as much an art movement as a political party. Their performances and actions (‘happenings’) really influenced Dutch culture; it loosened up a whole generation. We will never have such a cultural impact, but we find the model Provo provided really inspirational.
Experimental Jetset and Wim Crouwel
What about non-Dutch studios?
We remember two particular books that we really enjoyed as students, two books that (each in their own way) projected very strong studio models. The first book had the
absurd title Design or Die! Cash or Charge! Graphic-Men is Coming!, a sort of overview
of the work of a Japanese design group called Tycoon Graphics, and it featured really cool pictures of the members of that particular studio walking around in Tokyo wearing American football outfits, in search of ‘bad design’. A very bizarre monograph, but very attractive, in a Sigue Sigue Sputnik-kinda way.
The second book was Pure by Fuel, another book that projected a very strong sense of ‘studio-ness’, almost in a Gilbert & George way. It’s not that we modelled ourselves after these two studios, but we do remember that we enjoyed those two titles a lot.
Also, around the time of our graduation, there was a conference on UK design studios at Paradiso. The name of that event was Mind the Gap, and the invited speakers were Tomato, Peter Saville, Fuel, The Designers Republic and Me Company. Maybe also Sean Perkins from North spoke there, but we aren’t exactly sure [Eds: he did]. It was a brilliant afternoon, but again, it didn’t really provide the model we were looking for. Maybe it was all a bit too British. Having said that, we absolutely love the studio culture in the UK.
We really like that idea of hundreds of small studios circling the orbit, almost like bands. Because we really think all these small design groups together form a universe that is very comparable to that whole galaxy of pop and rock groups. We feel very connected with the studio culture of the UK, people are always very friendly to us.
In many ways, we feel that we have more in common with groups and individuals such as Åbäke, Practise and Sara de Bondt than we have with contemporary Dutch studios. And every Christmas, we receive tons of cards from UK studios we sometimes haven’t even heard of. We definitely feel a strong link with the UK.
Talking about bands, when it really comes down to it, we think that it is ultimately the band model, and not so much the studio model, that really inspires us. A band is such a perfect socio-economical unit. Large enough to have the benefit of shared responsibilities, and small enough for every member not to be alienated from the end product. We sometimes think every human activity should be organized according to this model. Society should be divided in small units, each unit a platform of human creativity, be it baking bread, making music, writing books or curing people.
And the archetypical band is, obviously, The Beatles, as it was one of the first modern four-piece bands writing their own material. Earlier bands were still divided between a frontman and a backing band (for example, Buddy Holly and the Crickets), but The Beatles broke this whole model open, and pointed to a completely different division of labour, a revolutionary change in thinking. The ‘John & Paul & Ringo & George’ shirt we designed in 2001 should certainly be seen as a homage to the archetypical model of the band.
Can you say how you divide up your workload between the three of you?
We are not really big football fans, but we once saw this interview with legendary player Johan Cruijff in which he explained the concept of ‘Totaal Voetbal’ (‘Total Football’, or ‘Total Soccer’), and that was really inspirational. Total Football is a system
where a player who moves out of his position is replaced by any other player from the same team. So the roles aren’t fixed; any player has the ability to be attacker, defender or midfielder. When you think about it, it’s a very modernist, modular system. It’s also very egalitarian, very Dutch, in a way.
There are certainly parallels you can draw between Total Football and Total Design, Cruijff and Crouwel. In short, our ideal is to stay away from fixed roles. When dealing with stress and deadlines, we sometimes fall back into certain roles, but we try very hard to avoid that. Our intention is that the workload is divided equally, and that each one of us has the same set of abilities.
Experimental Jetset – self portrait
Experimental Jetset have no employees.
Do you ever envisage a time when there will be lots of Jetsetters?
In our 12-year career, there have been moments in which we could have chosen to expand and to employ people. But we have made a deliberate choice to stay small. We know many designers of our generation who have chosen another path; studios that started out with two or three people, and now employ 10, 15, sometimes even 20 people. But we have always resisted this.
We never really understood the point of expanding. As we see it, the reason we exist as a studio is because we have a singular aesthetic/conceptual vision, a very specific language we speak. If we employed people this would mean we had to force this vision upon them, that we had to oblige people to speak our language; we would certainly not want to do that. There’s already too much pressure in the world as it is now; we don’t want to add to this whole system of stress and alienation. We could also leave these people free, and let them develop their own language, but what would be the point of employing them then? Let them start their own studio if they want to speak their own language!
We get offered more assignments than we can handle. We simply don’t see that as a problem; we’re not megalomaniacs, we don’t have to design everything. If a client offers us an assignment while we’re busy working on something else, we simply try to direct this client to another small, independent studio. Ultimately, this whole model, of all assignments being done by a lot of different small graphic design studios, is much more interesting than the model of all assignments being done by a few large agencies. If we see two posters in the streets, we would prefer them to be designed by two different small design studios, instead of one large agency. It’s as simple as that.
We do realize that there are more and more clients who feel that their project is so special that it should be handled by a large agency. But we think that’s nonsense. We really believe that all projects, no matter how large, could in principle be handled by small studios. That’s the whole point of printing, of mechanical reproduction: that something small, something created by just a few people, can be blown up to something really big. That’s the beauty of it – that the starting point can be small.
A few decades ago, it was not uncommon that the whole graphic identity of a museum would be created by just one single designer. It should still be possible. A nice logo, a monthly invitation, some brochures, a couple of iconic posters, a basic website: what else do you need? The reason why it all became so complicated is because there now exists this whole layer of marketing and communication people who are more or less creating work just to keep themselves busy. So instead of efficiently designing good-quality printed matter, you are now wasting days discussing the order in which the sponsor logos on the poster should appear. That is indeed a shame. But the solution to this should not be the design studio growing, but rather this whole marketing sphere shrinking.
Opening invitation for Coming Soon Arnheim
Wrapping paper for Coming Soon Arnheim
What about interns? Do you have a policy towards giving internships?
It would be awkward having an intern in the studio. We really feel we have to do everything ourselves: DIY. To have somebody do all the ‘dumb’ work for us would make us feel terrible. For example, if we come up with a solution that forces us to spend days and days on kerning, we feel we have to do this kerning ourselves. We came up with the solution, so we have to suffer the consequences, even if this involves days of boring work. (It’s probably a Calvinist guilt trip, disguised as a socialist work ethic.)
We are glad that the graphic design department of the Gerrit Rietveld Academy doesn’t require any internships. In fact, we dislike this whole notion of giving students a taste of ‘the real world’, as we simply don’t believe there is such a thing as ‘the real world’. The world is for students to shape, not to adapt to. Or at least, that is how we think it should be. Four years of study is quite a short time. There’s a lifetime of work after that. Why not dedicate those four years fully to investigating new models of design practice? Why waste a couple of months investigating already-existing companies?
Maybe internships make sense in the context of other disciplines, but in the case of graphic design, we really like the idea of students entering the field of graphic design without any preconceived notions about it. It worked for us, so it might work for others. (But then again, we sometimes speak to students who really liked their internships. So we might be completely wrong).
Having said that, it really breaks our heart to receive all these portfolios daily, from students asking for internships. We wish we could help all of them. We know their schools require them to do an internship somewhere; we wished this wasn’t the case. Most of these people are really bright, their portfolios look really good; it’s a shame they are required to beg for an unpaid job. It’s humiliating when you think of it.
Signage for 104 (Le Cent Quatre)
You have strong views on design – for example, your theory that design is about ‘turning language into objects’. How do you communicate these opinions to clients?
We believe that the fact that we have strong views on design is exactly the reason why most clients decide to work with us. In general, clients very much expect us to bring something to the table: a specific viewpoint, an aesthetic/conceptual language, an ideological approach. They come to us with a certain question, problem or theme, and they are usually interested in our analysis, our method of solving this riddle. If they are interested in a more marketing-based approach, in which aesthetic choices are made by assuming the tastes of target audiences, they wouldn’t have come to us.
They come to us because they expect another way of reasoning, a specific way of looking at things, the web of references and ideas we carry with us. We may be completely wrong, but it is our impression that clients come to us because of our opinions, not despite of them. So a phrase like ‘turning language into objects’ is not something we try to hide. It is a very clear statement, telling clients exactly what it is we do. In fact, the whole idea of ‘turning language into objects’ might be the part clients love best. Last year, when we presented a proposal for a logo to the directors of 104 (Le Cent Quatre), we handed out some badges that already carried the logo. A very concrete way of turning language into objects. The directors were absolutely delighted with the badges, and immediately pinned those badges on their jackets, while we continued with our presentation. In fact, every time we returned to their offices, they were proudly wearing the badges. It gave us such a boost of energy.
Flyer for the opening of 104 (Le Cent Quatre)
What advice would you give to someone starting up a studio?
It might sound like a cliché, but we really believe in this: ‘slow and steady wins the race’. And we’d like to add, there’s not even a race to win. There’s no rush. Hypes and trends come and go: just stick to your own principles, and you’ll be fine. People will predict the end of print, and then its return, and then its end again, etc. Magazines will state that ‘minimalism is out, ornamentation is in’, or vice versa; critics will attack you, and attack you even more, until they run out of breath and move to another target. Just don’t pay attention, and keep on moving forward, step by step.
It’s all about the long run, not the short-term. Wim Crouwel just turned 80, Jan Bons just turned 90, and both are still designing. These are our role models. It’s our plan to keep on designing for years to come.
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The full-length version of this interview can be found in the book Studio Culture: the Secret Life of the Graphic Design Studio. Available here.
