HERMETIC PARACHUTE

An ongoing project in perpetual flux, Hermetic Parachute was conceived as a counter attack to the uninspiring slew of design that hits us over the head the minute we step outside. A dedication to engage, not only with the external aspects of design, but take full responsibility in creating content that matters.

After being disappointed time and time again with the regurgitated fluff that sees print (same boring questions, same generic answers) I have started to put together (word by word, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph) a magazine project that hopes to fuse the obsessive tunnel focus of fanzines (that are often poorly designed) and the attention to detail and production of the “proper” publications (that never seem to push as much as they could, content wise) … a slow crawl, but one worth the bruised knees.

I have been tremendously lucky to be able to work intensively on a few interview pieces that will be the bulk of the first issue.

Included in these featured articles is a full interview with designer guru Ed Fella (introduction by Stephan Sagmeister), a conversation with cartoonist Anders Nilsen, full interview about his last book When She was Camera by Illustrator Joe Sorren (in progress), and a discussion with cartoonist Jim Wooding about his peculiar comics creation called Frank (also in progress).

Hermetic Parachute Logo (above) designed by Ed Fella

Download Ed Fella interview PDF excerpt HERE (3.8 MB)

Fella interview intro by Stefan Sagmeister (below)

It has been mentioned that a meeting with Mr. Fella influenced a decision to take your year without clients, how did this encounter come about?

Sagmeister: Ed did drop by the studio and brought some of his sketchbooks. I was aware of the work but not familiar with the process (at least one page a day, - the hilarious multi - colored ball point pen) and was fascinated with him as a person, with the freewheeling process and the more than worthwhile results. He already called it Exit Art then. My thinking was, why not try to get some experiments in now, before I am at an age where I am inclined to call my output Exit Art.

Did the meeting create an instantaneous spark in your push to take the year off, or did it only sink in afterwards that the encounter had been so influential?

Like with many decisions in life, there were numerous reasons and influences (of various importance) to start that experimental year: I was bored with the day to day practice of dealing with the music industry, I wanted to explore different things, Tibor's death was instrumental and then Ed Fella's visit might have been the straw on the back of that camel.

In Made You Look you mentioned Adolf Wolfli’s notebooks as something that has made an impression. Self- documentation seems to fascinate you, does some of the interest lie in the sheer obsessive quantity of output Fella has produced?

His obsession shows through everywhere, so yes - the obsessive quality did attract me to both Fella and Woelfli. Extremism in art (as opposed to life) often yields good results.

Do you see these kinds of obsessive explorations as being able to transcend the mere act of being exercises / blueprints that can end up standing on their own?

Yes. Considering his sketchbooks have no function - they just are. I would see them as pieces of art, rather then design. Like numerous other good artists (say, like Matthew Barney or Paul McCarthy) he is able to create his very own world.

It seems that it isn’t every designers cup of tea to have so much autonomy, following Fella’s lead, did your year off prove to you that you DO have the internal drive and interest to pursue self-motivated Design projects … or are you happy to return to briefs and limitations?

I think we found our own little satisfying avenue in here. Since that year we have been busy creating a series of typographic works that came out of a list I found in my diary (created in that year) under the title: "Things I have learned in my life so far." Everyone of these pieces was published and paid for by clients, so far they appeared as French and Portuguese billboards, a Japanese annual report, on German TV, in Austrian magazines, as a New York direct mailer, on jumbo-throns in Singapore and an American poster campaign.

The series have also been influenced by my grandfather (who was educated in sign painting and I grew up with many of his pieces of wisdom around the house), by American artist Jenny Holzer as well as the rustic wooden signs available in tourist stores all over my hometown of Bregenz in Austria.

Is becoming an Exit Level Designer a goal and eventual reaching point for you?

I am trying to work on this right now (and I'm already or only 44).

Example spreads of Anders Nilsen Interview (above)

Download Full Nilsen interview PDF HERE (15.4 MB)

The question I sent out that started the project’s aim of reaching out to Designers.

Do you think that the Graphic Designer should aim for a subjective result, is it even possible to escape this?

Stuart Bailey: The trouble with asking me questions like this, honestly, is that I flinch at certain implications of the way they’re asked (its something I kept doing in this interview I did for that Speakup Blog thing a couple of months ago - I think it could sound like I’m being arrogant, but I don’t think I am - it’s just that the question level is the root of what the so-called problem actually is).

So: I don’t have opinions about what ‘graphic designers’ ‘should’ do or not. First, it’s difficult to know what you mean by graphic designer, however stupid that sounds. someone that did a graphic design course?, someone who has it on their passport?, someone that operates a Mac?, etc. etc. meaning: I can only speak for myself, not for anyone else. This is important.

Having said that: firstly, I understand the John Zorn thing, and for sure I do or try to do the same thing myself. Limitations are generally generative. I’ve been thinking that designers talking in terms of ‘problems’ like this get into trouble precisely because they aren’t really ‘problems’ as such, or at most they’re very luxurious ‘problems’.

Secondly, I don’t think in these terms of art vs. design, not as some ideological thing - I just do things that at various grey scale levels in between, and those grey scales are changing at any given time for each job. So I just don’t think it’s as fixed or definite or set as you imply. In my experience, you could finish something and THEN maybe gauge how much art + how much design was in each piece of work, but I don’t think it’s that instructive. It seems a bit deadening and unrealistic to go into a new job with the idea of the proportions of each you want to achieve. Plus you usually don’t know as you don’t know in advance the people you’re working/collaborating/dealing with. I’m trying to say that at the basest level, as a ‘graphic designer’ working in some sort of collaboration rather than an ‘artist’ in isolation, of course I think there is some value in subjectivity rather than objectivity (though I don’t think such an objectivity can really exist - you can’t not design etc.) and probably vice versa, but it’s entirely dependent on the (usually unknown) nature of the project.

‘Graphic Design’ (again, what does it mean?) can be a venue for anything. The question is rather what’s good or not (worthwhile, with quality, rigour, humour, joy) however trite that sounds.

The question isn’t whether to be a ‘graphic designer’ or not. It’s whether you want to be an ‘auto mechanic’ or not. Again, people get confused when someone else tells them/you/me ‘this is what a graphic designer is’ this is why thinking for yourself (designing your own independence) is so important.

Stuart Bailey

Marian Bantjes: I can see both sides of the answer to this, and it leads, inevitably, into the old art vs. design question. While there is some design that really needs to be logic bound vs. expressive, there is certainly room for self expression in design. Not only that, but I actually believe that as template software improves in the future this is where the perceived value of design will increasingly be. I also think there is a kind of a mind shift to be made re the relationship between art and corporations. I haven’t got my head around my own feelings about it, but I think that artwork with a corporate stamp on it will become increasingly common ... is this “design”? Well, no, but it further blurs the line and paves the way for “artistic communication.”

In the early part of the 20th century, the crossover between art and design was huge. Design was very expressive of the individuals involved ... right up into the 60s. I think it was around the 70s and particularly 80s that we began to have this divorce, and the emergence of the common idea that design was to be impartial, strategic, and to only serve the client & the audience but not the designer. I think that’s a very faulty premise that held sway for a very short time in design’s very short history. But it came from the people who are, by and large, the leaders in design today. They became design leaders just as design was finding its own way in the world: as it rose out of the Swiss movement. Massimo Vignelli is still their hero. And they rose to their status in time enough that when the next wave of expression happened in the 90s, they were able to say with authority “No, this is wrong, this is not design’s purpose.” But their influence is already waning, and soon they’ll be dead. It’s rapidly becoming a non issue.

Marian Bantjes

www.hermeticparachute.com