Reykjavík Grapevine - 09.03.2012, Side 17

Why Do We Need karlssonwilker?
“We never wanted to run this busi-
ness as a hobby,” Hjalti continues, “no
matter how much we enjoy what we
do. From day one, we wanted it to be a
business, and businesses make money.
We would be a failure if we made no
money. So this endeavour has to work;
it has to turn a profit. And be fun. We
run this firm on an annual basis; we
have a meeting every December where
we decide whether to carry on or not.
And I believe that if we found it to be no
longer fun or profitable we would call it
quits.”
“So far we’ve always decided to do
one more year.”
EvERYTHING IS ALWAYS
ALLOWED
We stand up to leave, dropping our pa-
per plates in Village Yogurt’s recycling
bin. On our way out Hjalti grins as he
points out the restaurant’s wall of fame,
which is covered with signed photos of
soap actors, c-list stars, Susan Saran-
don and... karlssonwilker themselves.
The photo is humorous and tongue in
cheek, like the two usually like to pres-
ent themselves. This can be verified by
looking at any number of the magazine
covers they adorn or the mailers they
will occasionally send out.
Indeed, their humour, irreverence
and carefree attitude is a large part of
what defines karlssonwilker as a design
firm. I am reminded of a conversation
I had with designer Siggi Eggertsson—
who incidentally created the visual
identity for last year’s DesignMarch—
in preparation for the story, where we
discussed his 2005 internship with Jan
and Hjalti. Siggi remembers it fondly.
“After reading ‘Tellmewhy’ I grew en-
amoured with their work and mode of
thinking. So I contacted Hjalti to see if I
could intern for them, and he invited me
over.”
Taking a break from his studies,
Siggi spent the summer at the karls-
sonwilker office, working on album
covers and posters while experiencing
New York for the first time. “It was a lot
to take in for a short amount of time. I
feel like I learnt a lot from being around
them. It wasn’t necessarily anything
technical, the real lesson came from
being exposed to how they think; how
relaxed they are and their approach to
work, which is basically: everything is
allowed, no matter the project. That is a
good thing to keep in mind.”
As we make our way back to their
office, I mention Siggi’s coments and
ask if they have been keeping track
of their former intern’s work. “I follow
him very closely,” Hjalti responds. “I’ve
always been a fan of his stuff and it’s
great to see how well he’s doing. When
he was with us he was thinking deeply
about his future, wondering what di-
rection to take. From the outset I felt
it was obvious that he needed to work
on his own, instead of at some firm. He
needs room to express himself and to
flesh out his ideas. We can’t take any
credit for what he does in terms of de-
sign, but perhaps our mode of thinking
influenced him, as you said.”
NO STYLE, NO pROBLEM
The karlssonwilker office is bustling
with life. A well stocked bar sits in
one corner, while a slew of Macs line
the walls. Pleasantly energetic alt.
rock blares at a low volume through
a Pandora station. It is a comfortable,
personal environment that gives off
an air of having been the site of many
a creative venture and countless all-
nighters. Jan sits back down to work
with the crew and Hjalti and I retire to
the meeting room to continue our dis-
cussion.
karlssonwilker are notorious for not
being associated with a particular de-
sign style, and of priding themselves in
that fact. I ask Hjalti about this.
“We like to say we don’t have any set
style, yes. I still think we inevitably have
some sort of something going... we
don’t like to use a lot of colours, for in-
stance, a lot of what we do is black and
white. And we usually use Sans Serif
fonts. I imagine that there are all sorts
of little style indicators in our work, and
if people looked closely enough I am
sure they could assemble some sort of
steady aesthetic that we’ve employed
through the years. But we still say we
don’t have a style.”
A large flatscreen television hangs
on one wall of the meeting room, and
Hjalti hooks up his laptop to show me
some of their recent work. We scroll
through some impressive work com-
missioned by Nintendo for its 3DS
handheld. We watch videos from a
campaign they made last year for the
launch of Mini’s new Coupe—which
involved them driving over 3000 kilo-
metres through Europe in the space of
eleven days, interviewing interesting
characters along the way and docu-
menting everything for a slew of online
videos, a website and a 24 page pull out
in Matter Magazine. Another part of the
Mini campaign involved them digitally
melding the Coupe’s 3D CAD files with
various fashion designs and models.
We watch some more, and it never
gets boring.
WE HAvE NO IDEA WHAT
WE’RE DOING
The discussion turns to graphic design
in general. I ask what it means, what it
is. Why people keep hiring them. Do
they encourage sales? What are they
bringing to the table? It’s not a particu-
lar style, we’ve already crossed that out,
so what is it they contribute?
“We can design something just
right, but we can never guarantee sales
or success. See, most of what sells a
product is itself. If your CD is brilliantly
designed, with great artwork, but the
music sucks, it will not sell. The oppo-
site is rather true, great music can sell
in great numbers despite being pack-
aged horribly.”
He continues. “We don’t consider
ourselves marketers. We are a design
firm and we want our designs to work
and for people to like them, and per-
haps purchase them if they are for sale.
But I don’t remember ever thinking:
Hey, this looks so nice, it’s a guaranteed
success!”
Could it then be as simple as their
time-tested taste and imagination
keeping people coming back? “I imag-
ine that,” Hjalti says, laughing. “I’m not
the right person to answer that, though,
you should ask whoever’s hiring us.
Just the same, our imagination is a
large part of what we have to offer.”
“Many companies today, like In-
terbrand and others that specialise in
branding, are selling a scientific ap-
proach. They profess to know how the
market works and what has appeal.
They base what they do on years of
research. We never do this. We try not
to think about how others do things,
or if something is right or wrong in a
given context. We never sell ourselves
as specialists, claiming we are the best
at anything. I’d be the first to tell a cli-
ent that we’ve never done whatever it is
he wants us to do before, but we’d still
love to work with him on it. Most of our
design decisions are based on what we
like and are happy with at the end of the
day. We pay little attention to what oth-
ers think, although we do try to avoid
clients rejecting our designs.”
“This has become somewhat clear
over the years. Very often we’ll be ap-
proached by outside parties that have
observed our work and know what we
do, and they’ll bring us projects that
they don’t really know what to do with,
the idea being that we come up with
something along with them. These are
often companies doing special one-
offs that they’ll never repeat. Like the
New York Times Magazine project; they
had never given a designer 12 pages
and allowed them to create them from
scratch, outside of their stylesheet. It
was new for them; they were taking a
risk and wanted to experiment.
“Working these one-offs isn’t some-
thing we sought out. It just evolved that
way. Projects keep coming in that are
different from anything we’ve worked
on, and when they’re done a differ-
ent one will come in. To name another
example: early in our career, Puma
called us and asked us to design a line
of shoes called El Rey. We were really
excited, we made some great looking
shoes and then waited around, assum-
ing projects like that would keep com-
ing in. And then that of course never
happened. It was a one-off. Nike or
Adidas never called with similar proj-
ects. It comes and it goes; it’s nothing
we control.”
“I love it and I enjoy it, everything
that happens at the firm. There is a
great variety. If I were doing the same
stuff day after day I would grow bored.
Instead, there is a constant stream of
new and different things to work on.
Perhaps the business uncertainty, nev-
er knowing what projects may come, is
the price to pay for such freedom.”
A LITTLE CREEpY
The day grows longer and we keep
talking. We discuss compromise, and
how the market’s needs will often take
precedence over aesthetic needs. He
tells the story of working on a book for
Al Gore, and how a bookstore wound
up having the final say in how the cover
design would look. “That was a lesson.
It was for a children’s book about cli-
mate change. We had met with Al Gore
and the publisher and were pursuing a
certain direction, when we were con-
veyed the message, from the book’s
to-be vendor, that a big seller in this
category had looked a certain way, and
that we should go a similar route. If we
didn’t they would simply refuse to stock
it, or place it at the back of the store.
“It’s kind of crazy to ponder; Al
Gore and a giant publishing house have
no say over the appearance of their
own project. Everyone is running laps
around the store, which in turn is fol-
lowing what their research shows will
appeal to the masses. It’s as if Whole
Foods declined to sell a product unless
it came in a yellow container... it’s a little
creepy, and I hope the practice doesn’t
become more prevalent.”
WILL WORK FOR SKYR
Their work for DesignMarch comes up.
Hjalti is excited to travel to Iceland and
give a lecture on their work during the
festival itself. “I imagine I’ll be showing
some of our work and talking about
it. Being commissioned to design the
festival’s visual identity is also a great
honour. We’re working it with Atli Hil-
marsson’s Studio; they always handle
the festival along with guest artists. For
the look, we’re playing around with the
Icelandic sheep. And I should add that
the credit should go mostly to Atli and
Hörður Lárusson, who are doing the
brunt of the work.”
“Speaking of working in Iceland, I
must say that it has been a long-stand-
ing dream of mine to do something for
the Icelandic market. My top dream
projects are mostly fantasies like mak-
ing the title sequence for a Bond movie,
but one thing I keep coming back to is
working on a branding project in Ice-
land. If someone were making a new
chocolate bar or skyr brand, a milk
carton and needed a designer... I would
love to get involved.”
TAKE YOUR TIME
The day is nearing its end and our
conversation is slowly petering out.
We talk about music, coffee, politics,
the eighties. As I put away my things I
ask whether he has anything to advise
young designers or design students
that are taking the first steps in the in-
dustry. What he would tell them.
“The question they, or even anyone
out there, should be asking themselves
is: how can I derive pleasure from what
I am doing? How can I be happy with
my work. I don’t know how it works in
Iceland, but over here design students
will spend three years cramming their
heads with knowledge, always un-
der great pressure to figure out what
they’ll be doing for the rest of their lives
as soon as they graduate. They’re ex-
pected to immediately decide where
they want to work, how they’re going to
make money.
My advice is: take it easy. Take your
time and figure out what you want to
do and how you want to do it. You don’t
need to commit yourself to a career or
job at age 22.
Looking back, I had no idea what I
wanted to do when I left Parsons. And
that was fine. There’s nothing wrong
with being lost for a little while, slowly
you will work out who you are, what
interests you and how you can make a
living from it.”
“I imagine that there are all sorts
of little style indicators in our work,
and if people looked closely enough
I am sure they could assemble some
sort of steady aesthetic that we’ve
employed through the years. But we
still say we don’t have a style.”
NewGraphic
Front and back covers of NewGraphic, a quarterly de-
sign publication based in China. Animations were de-
veloped first and set to sound. Stills were then selected
to be used for print.
Time Magazine
TIME, Inc. hired us to co-curate, co-write, and design
the 12-page cover feature for their end-of-the-year list
issue.
Skirl Records
We consider ourselves lucky to be the designers for
Brooklyn-based jazz labelSkirl Records. Having de-
signed all of the label’s materials since its inception in
2006, it has become our experimental playground.
MINI—Another Day, Another Adventure, part 1
For the recent launch of MINI’s new coupe, we col-
laborated with UK’s Dazed & Confused magazine to
develop a 12-page fashion story.