Reykjavík Grapevine - 10.03.2017, Side 48

DesignMarch Is Coming / Iceland’s
annual celebration of design in its
many-splendored forms of fash-
ion, architecture, product design,
graphic design, advertising, urban
planning, and more (!) is almost
upon us. To warm up for the coming
DesignMarch festival, we dipped into
the programme to highlight some
of the fun things you can check out
this March 23-26, from an exhibi-
tion of classic Icelandic brand logos
reworked in Viking runes, to a talk
about environmentally friendly train-
ers made from recycled sea plastic.

For more design-related
stuff, be sure to pick up our next
issue for a special festival pull-
out, and check out the full pro-
gramme at designmarch.is.
In The
Time Of If
Siggi Odds brings back the runes
Words Parker Yamasaki

“If I hadn’t been in design, I would
probably be an archeologist,” says
Icelandic designer Siggi Odds,
“out there digging up Viking
swords and stuff.” Siggi spent the
first part of his life in Vancouver,
living on the University of British
Columbia campus while his par-
ents were students. Vancouver is a
city saturated with the presence of
“First Nations art”—bold, blocky
designs that are abstract in appear-
ance but rigid in process and form.
“We lived right next to the Mu-
seum of Anthropology in Vancou-
ver,” says Siggi, “and the designs
were always in the back of my
head. I really started to miss it
once I moved away and began to
study art,” His first projects as a
designer, including his BA thesis,
revolved around these designs. “I
loved the formality around it,” he
explains. “It was really just an op-
portunity to learn more about the
structures, rules and traditions
around these forms.” He repeatedly
brings up the educational aspects of
his projects; he works to learn.
Siggi is an art director at the
well-known Reykjavík design
agency Jónsson & Le’macks, and
also works as a freelance illustra-
tor and designer. While working
on a brand design for the local R&B
trio Sturla Atlas, he came up with
the idea of writing their name in
a traditional runic alphabet. “I be-
came shocked that I didn’t know
how to read runes,” he says. “In
other cultures people can still read
or at least study ancient alphabets
like Greek. No one in Iceland, that
I know of, can read runes, though.”
Yet knowledge of this alphabet and
half-hearted romanized versions of
it can be found all over the country:
The Reykjavík Lights Hotel sign that
beams over Suðurlandsbraut, and
Mjölnir, the MMA studio where Gun-
nar Nelson works, both use the runic
style of font that Siggi is exploring.
Wikirunes
His natural inquisitiveness drew
him in further. He consulted
Wikipedia and forums on the Uni-
versity of Iceland’s website. After
deciding to focus on the Elder
Fuþark, the oldest runic alphabet,
he started to draw out well-known
logos, like the Olís gas station
sign, using these letters.
During DesignMarch, Siggi’s
project—which at the moment
consists of “about twelve different
logos, eight or nine of which are
good enough to use, but we’ll see,
I still have a few days”—will be ex-
hibited at the National Gallery of
Iceland. “I want it to be education-
al,” he emphasises again. “These
are all logos that people know, so
they can work backwards from the
letters. O-L-Í-S…”
The National Gallery of Iceland
is a fitting home for his historical
investigation. The gallery typi-
cally hosts work that preserves or
explores traditional Icelandic art.
Unburdened by the rigour that his
inner archeologist would have to
adhere to, Siggi has in effect cre-
ated his own history to explore. “If
the Bible hadn’t been brought here
then the Latin (Roman) alphabet
would not have been introduced,
and we might still be using the
runes or some version of them,”
he says. “It’s also sort of explor-
ing this parallel leg of the multi-
verse, like maybe we’re just living
in some dystopian sort of version
of history.” Like some retro sci-
fi, Siggi has created a glimpse
at an alternate Iceland. One that
exists in the time of “if,” and be-
gins in the parking lot of Olís.
SHARE: gpv.is/run03
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