Gradient Archives:
The Gradientis a blog run by current and former members of the Walker Art Center's design studio since 2005, focusing on the intersection of contemporary art and graphic design. This page includes highlights from the first 15 years: interviews, articles, experiments.
“An accessible world is one that shifts the burden off of disabled people,” says Aimi Hamraie, director of the Critical Design Lab, “and also asks what the user experience of all these new technologies is, and who are they potentially harming.” Here, curator Michelle Millar Fisher speaks with Hamraie and fashion model and activist Jillian Mercado about how designers can imagine accessible futures even as people with disabilities are “surviving apocalypses that are happening in the present.”
Sovereign Typesetting: An Interview with Typefaces of the Temporary State
In this interview we speak with Roman Gornitsky of the type foundry Typefaces of the Temporary State about the origins of his current foundry, the shifting definition of independence, his latest typeface release Gramatika, and how a myriad of sources—writing, workshops, and research all serve to inform his output.
“[…] small, local, open, connected. These four adjectives work well in defining this scenario because they generate a holistic vision of how society could be,” says renowned social innovation expert Ezio Manzini. “At the same time, they are also readily comprehensible, since everybody easily understands their meaning and implications by looking at the prototypes and the transformative normality on which they are based.”
The More Equitable Future Begins in the Imagination
There is a “dilemma uniting artists and many of today’s workers,” writes Marina Gorbis, executive director of the Institute for the Future: “flexibility and freedom on the one hand, precariousness and instability on the other. … Herein lies an opportunity for a new kind of solidarity.” In this article, Gorbis lays out a case for the necessity of art when imagining new, equitable futures, and introduces the Institute’s expanded concept of Universal Basic Assets.
Can design be a realm of pure magic? How do designers manipulate symbols imbued with historical texture and richness? How does a trans spirit not only survive but thrive in abundance? Rin Kim—a New York–based trans multidisciplinary chimera, demi, hydra, mutt, graphic designer, filmmaker, alchemist, performance artist, writer, and yong (룡)—discusses these and other questions in a new interview. When asked banal questions about their design process and career Rin returns with mystical pleasures, spells of vengeance, and prayers of golden victory.
“The challenge for design,” according to curator and museum director Zoë Ryan, “is to recognize market forces and political constraints while maintaining enough distance to foster the imagination and allow critical positions that can reorganize and rethink economies, ecologies, information systems, and social groups using the languages, forms, and methods of design.” Here, Ryan pursues this idea through the vital work of designers Dunne & Raby, Mary Maggic, and Forensic Architecture.
Sharing as Survival: Mindy Seu on the Cyberfeminism Index
How can remnants of digital pasts inform our paths towards diverse futures? How do our digital tools reflect our ethical orientation towards our technologies? In this wide-ranging interview, Mindy Seu discusses the Cyberfeminism Index and its strategies of radical gathering and sharing; what it means to create an "anti-canon"; and design and social justice.
What do our collective images of the future tell us about our priorities in the present? How do we design visions of the future intended to defuse other, more perilous futures? Published on the occasion of the exhibition Designs for Different Futures, this essay by designer, curator, and museum director Andrew Blauvelt examines the momentous game of catch-up that humanity must play in order to survive its own conceptions of the future.
Like many designers, Justin Hunt Sloane’s practice frequently extends outside himself—placing him in proximity with a slowly cultivated network of like-minded friends, partners, and artists. In this multi-part interview, we explore three of his ongoing projects via conversations with his collaborators at Total Luxury Spa, Garagisme, and Ghostly International.
"How can artists contend with the current state of the internet? What tools, communities, and media can we create in order to empower each other as individuals?" In March 2019, we invited six figures in the arts to sound off on ways artists might reinvent the internet. One year later—as COVID-19 has made so much of our work, education, and social relationships digital—we revisit their prescient and instructive Soundboard discussion.
Building a Vague Hypebeast: Fragmented Fashion by Joshua McGarvey
Joshua McGarvey is a Minnesota-based clothing designer, fashion artist, and installation/video artist who creates garments under the name Uselding Fridays. The results are often loud, colorful pieces—uncanny mashups of styles, brands and silhouettes which frequently collage together elements of second hand or deadstock garments. These chaotic amalgams offer concise, wearable critiques of the love/hate relationship we have with our hyper-capitalistic environment, often reducing brand symbolism down to abstract texture (a technique he refers to as “ambient distraction”).
Pluralism and Power Dynamics in Indian Design: November Studio
"The impetus for this interview was kind of selfish," writes Walker designer Somnath Bhatt. "As a designer of south Asian background, I wish I'd read something like this when I was a student." Here he speaks with Shiva Nallaperumal and Juhi Vishnani, founders of the India-based design studio November, about their work developing a framework for a plural design practice, gathering a regionalized Indian graphic archive, exploring nuances of world typography, and questioning what it means to design in an era of rising fascism.
To date, artist and educator Maia Ruth Lee has made some 250 sculptural glyphs from the scrapped steel decorative elements that adorn fences and window bars around New York City. Here, she talks about the process of making a new lexicon of symbols and the connection between feeling, intuition, and language.
"Design education not only teaches its technical and historical canon, or how to design, but more importantly teaches students how to be designers in society and in relation to capital," writes designer Jacob Lindgren. "A school becomes a factory producing designers, one that, in keeping with the principles of 'good design,' turns them into efficient and interchangeable parts ready to hit the market." In a new essay, Lindgren proposes models that may help us undo this factory setting of graphic design.
Designing for Elizabeth Price: An Interview with Matthew Fenton
With this directive, Elizabeth Price engaged the British studio Spencer Fenton to create two custom typefaces for her SLOW DANS trilogy: "I want it to be modular, created using variations and arrangements of a single unit, shaped like a stitch or a seed, with hints of jacquard looms, pianola scrolls, and Tetris games." Here Matthew Fenton discusses collaborating with Price to create works on view in her Walker solo show.
Perfume Genius, Andrew J.S., and Kate Wallich Discuss the Design of The Sun Still Burns Here
How can design be a performative act? What insights can be gleaned from a production by approaching it from the perspective of its graphic identity? With today's launch of a new Perfume Genius single and project trailer, Ben Schwartz speaks with designer Andrew J.S., dancemaker Kate Wallich, and musician Mike Hadreas (aka Perfume Genius) on their collaboration The Sun Still Burns Here, a lush dance/live music performance coming to the Walker this winter.
MsHeresies 2: Rietlanden Women’s Office on Useful Work Versus Useless Toil
"As feminist designers we’re quite weary of how patriarchal the writing of history is. So in bringing our work and our take on a historical text to the forefront, we're trying to contribute to an alternative history where a looking back becomes a way to look ahead." Rietlanden Women’s Office—a feminist graphic design collaboration between Johanna Ehde and Elisabeth Rafstedt—speaks to the Walker's Marie Hoejland about Useless Work versus Useless Toil, the forthcoming publication of the collective's MsHeresies series.
"I believe that fashion makes people happy; it allows people to let others know about themselves by the way they look and dress. Hairstyles, makeup, fragrance, tattoos: it’s more than just clothing," says designer Delina White of IAmAnishinaabe. This lookbook—showcasing fashions and models featured in our June Indigenous Spirit: Gender Fluid Fashion show—celebrates designs that honor Native tradition, diversity, and nonconformity as imagined through the Anishinaabe term Niizho-Manidoog: the sacred embodiment of two genders.
Control & Contextual Language: An Interview with Stephen Willats
Conceptual art pioneer Stephen Willats uses cybernetics as a mode of questioning how art functions in society. Taking the form of diagrammatic renderings and conceptual models, his work shifts focus from the art object to the audience, comprising a practice concerned with the “the fabric of society.” Following the launch of the new issue of Control Magazine, and in the final days of his solo show at Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Zurich, we connected with Willats to discuss self-organization, the origins of punk, and what it meant to create clothing that requires assembly.
On the Inside: Eline Mul on Designing an Exhibition for Incarcerated LGBTQ+ Artists
How can an exhibition represent and give voice to a forgotten group of people? On The Inside, curated by Tatiana von Fürstenberg and designed by Eline Mul, puts on display the work of hundreds of LGBTQ+ artists currently serving time in the prison system. The submitted artwork, coupled with quotes from the artists, creates a powerful and humanizing message about injustice, but also about identity, love, and acceptance. Here, designer Ben Schwartz discusses the project with Mul.
Toying with the Future: AI, Fantasy, and Zach Blas's Icosahedron
"I used a children’s toy to respond to the childish masculinity and bravado of someone like Peter Thiel, but also to play with these words of 'toying' and 'gaming.' They’re toying with the world’s future." Zach Blas discusses Icosahedron, a Walker-commissioned installation that references elves in The Lord of the Rings, AI, and the Magic 8-Ball toy to critique predictive technologies prevalent today.
Indigenous fashion has seen a surge in public interest of late, with high-profile runway shows and exhibitions popping up across North America. But with this spike in attention, inevitably, comes controversy, as Native fashion continues to be appropriated by major houses and designers, from Victoria's Secret to Jean Paul Gaultier. Can efforts to counter these trends be described as decolonization? Or should we sidestep that trending term altogether and focus on Indigenizing the industry instead? In a Soundboard edition inspired by the Walker's June 13 Indigenous Spirit: Gender Fluid Fashion show, we asked four voices in Native fashion to tackle these questions.
What does car culture look like beyond the car? With a background in art direction, photography, and a complex relationship to cars, Gilles Uzan started Garagisme in 2012, as a self-described "Contemporary Automotive Journal." The magazine focuses on our relationship to these polarizing objects, utilizing them as a means of accessing the past and present in addition to becoming a platform for speculation. Now on its sixth issue Garagisme approaches the complexities of capitalism through the lens of its nearly 30 contributors and their associated marks, artifacts, futures, and stories.
Touching a Third Sound: Trans-Sensing in a World of Deepfakes
In this world of cheap visual proliferation, we're forced to make quick binary judgments—i.e. real/fake, good/bad, man/woman—which often leave us feeling disempowered and reduced to slotting. In the 13th installment of the Artist Op-Eds series, composer and visual artist Jules Gimbrone proposes what they term Trans-Sensing as a model for a more nuanced way of experiencing the world, one that transcends the quantitative binary of real/fake and doesn't rely on the categorical flattening of complexity that comes with merely seeing.
Interventionist Typography: Erik Brandt on Five Years of Ficciones Typografika
Between 2013 and 2018, a humble alleyway in Minneapolis's Powderhorn Park neighborhood was transformed into an unlikely showcase of global design innovation. On a 72 x 36-inch garage-side panel dubbed Ficciones Typografika, Erik Brandt presented typographic experiments by the likes of Eike König, Sarah Boris, Bráulio Amado, and Walker designers Jasio Stefanski and Ben Schwartz—1,641 in total. In a Walker Reader exclusive, we share a conversation with Brandt from Ficciones Typografika: 1642, a new Formist Editions monograph chronicling the project.
Behind the Eyes, Inside the Skull: Karl Nawrot Discusses Mind Walks
Mind Walks is a book documenting the work of graphic designer/illustrator Karl Nawrot from 2004 to 2017. The dense publication showcases nearly 900 images of design, architecture, illustration, stamps, and stencils from Nawrot, who has in the past been much more reserved about revealing the depth of his practice. In a new interview, designer Ben Schwartz speaks with Nawrot about Mind Walks, the process of sorting through one's own archives, and the futility of closing your own chapters.
Perpetual Beta & Post-Capitalist Desires: The Curriculum of Evening Class
Born out of frustration with a lack of criticality in design, Evening Class is a London-based "experiment in continuous learning" within the design field. In a recent interview, its members reflected on how the program became a space to explore politics as a defining element of their practices, how it functions as a support structure in a highly competitive environment, and what it means to “occupy space in, between, with, around, and against" the academy and industry.
The Emotional Life of Typefaces: An Interview with J-LTF
Does a typeface have a voice of its own? J-LTF is a type foundry run by Jungmyng Lee, and in her work she explores the "tone of voice" embedded in the visual characteristics of a typeface. Drawing type could stereotypically be thought of as a fairly strict and rational discipline relying heavily on tradition and functionality, but in Jungmyngs practice this craft is further explored into a direction that seems in direct opposition to such conventions - she explores her typefaces using emotional sensitivity and narrative storytelling, creating a unique practice that belongs in several worlds at once.
“Design Is Always Conditioned by Politics”: Other Forms on Counter-Signals Journal
Counter-Signals is a journal that critiques the current state of digital communication, in which "likes, messages, and posts have become abstract economic commodities in the current state of Late Capitalism, becoming ever more instantaneous, accessible, individualized and disposable—discouraging collective settings and making references to the past difficult." To mark the publication of Counter-Signals third issue, designer Marie Hoejlund interviews its makers, Alan Smart and Jack Henrie Fisher of Other Forms, about its approach to exploring the intersection of design and politics.
Vocabularies of Computation: An Interview with Kyuha (Q) Shim
Can algorithms have style? What role will AI play in design practices or outcomes? From generative typography to elaborate algorithmic tapestries, Kyuha (Q) Shim’s work is a synthesis of contemporary visual vernacular and emerging technologies. In conversation with the Walker's digital designer Jas Stefanski, the two discuss his multifaceted approach to computation and its integration into graphic design practices.
On October 11, the art collective Slavs and Tatars gave the performance-lecture, Red-Black Thread, in conjunction with the exhibition Siah Armajani: Follow This Line. The event, the collective notes, “addresses the construction of race, namely blackness, from the perspective of Russia, the Soviet Union, and communism." Watch it here.
Jon Sueda, Christopher Hamamoto, Federico Pérez Villoro
Design
Subversive Guidelines: On the Evolving Landscape of Visual Identity Design
In response to their 2017 essay published on The Gradient titled “Post-Identity Design: Brands, Politics, and Technological Instability,” as well as the masters-level design course that they teach titled “Debranding and Post-Identity Design,” Christopher Hamamoto and Federico Pérez Villoro are interviewed by Jon Sueda about the present and evolving manifestations of visual identity design within the extremes of our societal and technological landscapes.
Slavs and Tatars: Siah Armajani, Red-Black Thread, and the Art and Act of Reading
"Reading is a civic act. As much as we are suckers for the oral, the written word manages to constitute a social body in ways too often lacking today: a rigor in terms of focus, a polyphony of voices." In conversation with designer Aryn Beitz, the Berlin-based art collective Slavs and Tatars discusses its contributions to the Siah Armajani: Follow This Line exhibition and catalogue, both of which strive to attain what it claims Armajani has mastered: the ability to engage and create a public by suggesting reading, without actually requiring it.
OASE 100: An Interview with Marius Schwarz on Karel Martens
The 100th issue of the seminal architecture journal OASE is dedicated to Karel Martens's work on the journal. The issue provides a tremendous amount of insight from the editors, former students, and Martens himself. In this interview I chat with guest editor Marius Schwarz about his experience researching, co-editing, and co-designing OASE 100.
The design canon is often the foundation of practices by educators in the field, but it is inherently reliant on impenetrable binaries. What would a queering of design education look like? What would a pedagogical approach that emphasizes asking questions instead of problem solving consist of? How can we understand designers as bodies in space, with agency, instead of simply “creatives”? And how can we understand bodies of text as living things that produce difficult conversations, instead of simply “content”? In our second edition of Soundboard, guest editor Nicole Killian puts these questions to Kristina Ketola Bore, Nate Pyper, Ginger Brooks Takahashi, and Ramon Tejada.
Oakland-based graphic designer Erik Carter addresses a number of issues increasingly coming to light within the profession of graphic design, from the profession's lack of examination of its societal implications, to the profession’s obsession with personality and itself, to its lack of inclusion throughout its history and in the current discipline. Carter examines and outlines these issues as a way of trying to map a better future for our field.
Watch: Insights 2018: Paul Soulellis on Urgent Archives, Queer Publishing, and Strategic Leaking
How do we communicate? How do we publish? What is signal and what is noise? These are some of the questions that designer, author, and teacher Paul Soulellis tackles in his work. Watch his full Insights Design Lecture Series presentation and get a sneak peak at his newest project, in which Soulellis enacts an "urgent archive" capable of responding to ongoing information crimes.
Troll Palayan: Clara Balaguer on Design, Decolonization, and Trolling Duterte
Clara Balaguer of Hardworking Goodlooking and the Office of Culture and Design discusses the potential for brand "wokeness," the role of design in equity movements, and her timely research project—a close look at political trolls in the Philippines at a time when the alt-right is ascending internationally. She also issues a challenge for designers critical of Black Lives Matter's use of a certain typeface: "Use Comic Sans, Curlz, Brush Script, Papyrus. Understand why people respond to it."
Tauba Auerbach founded Diagonal Press in 2013 with the intent to create "publications in open editions," where "nothing [is] signed or numbered." Since Diagonal Press's inception, the publishing imprint has released a steady stream of books and multiples ranging from pins and rolling papers to type specimens and manipulatives. In the following interview, Auerbach discusses the advantages of the book space, her interest in typography, and exploration of dimensional multiplicity.
Marginàlia 1: Manuel Raeder on Rogério Duarte and the Tropicália Movement
In 2013, designer Manuel Raeder and artist Mariana Castillo Deball released the catalogue Marginália 1, which acted as a monograph for Rogério Duarte (1939–2016), a multidisciplinary artist/designer best described as being “everywhere and nowhere” in Brazil in the 1960s. Duarte was a seminal figure who played a key role in ushering in the Tropicália movement through his work in graphic design, writing, poetry, visual art, music, performance, geometry, politics, and industrial design. Here, Raeder discusses the process of working with Duarte and how the Tropicália icon has influenced his own practice.
The Heat Around the Corner—In Conversation with Johannes Breyer & Fabian Harb of Dinamo
Dinamo, winners of a 2017 Swiss Design Award for their eclectic body of type design, is the multifaceted practice of Johannes Breyer and Fabian Harb. Their typefaces—such as Favorit, Galapagos, and Ginto—are hits among graphic designers around the globe. Yet Dinamo has created a community and following for themselves that goes beyond the typefaces—a result of their efforts to translate their type design thinking into tangible objects through a parallel platform that they call Dinamo Hardware.
Bobby Rogers: A Re-Energizing of the Black Arts Movement
In 1966, Amiri Baraka wrote that Black poems, and Black art as well, should “shoot, come at you, love what you are.” It's in this same vein of urgency and cultural importance that the work of Minneapolis-based photographer Bobby Rogers strikes you—as lightning at first, strong and electric, then as a subtle love nestled into the details. Here, Devyn Springer follows the thread between Rogers's personal artistic practice and his recent commission photographing the jazz innovators of the Walker's Sonic Universe Project.
Into the Archives: An Interview with Folder Studio
In this new interview, Folder Studio (Takumi Akin, Wesley Chou, and Jon Gacnik) talk about four of their archive-based projects, covering topics from used books and post-punk to riots and the legacy of Tupac.
The Struggle for Happiness, or What Is American about Black Dada
Adam Pendleton’s concept of "Black Dada"—which has guided his art making practice—melds references from LeRoi Jones's 1964 poem "Black Dada Nihilismus" and Hugo Ball's "Dada Manifesto" of 1916. To give context to Pendleton's work in the exhibition I am you, you are too, we share an essay byWalker Curator at Large Adrienne Edwards from the "overwhelmingly American assemblage" that is Pendleton's Black Dada Reader.
In an in-depth conversation, New York–based graphic designer Geoff Han discusses his experimental print and web work, the consequences of running an independent design practice, and the necessity of collaboration.
Signals from the Periphery: Exploring New Terrains of Graphic Design
Designer João Doria interviews designers and curators Elisabeth Klement and Laura Pappa about their recent exhibition and book Signals from the Periphery and discusses the economy, cultural exchange, and hybridization of contemporary graphic design.
Publishing, Performance, and Public Pools: An Interview with PLAYLAB, INC.
PLAYLAB, INC. is a design/idea studio located in New York City. Together the collective works on everything from websites to publications, performances to swimming pools. In this interview, I talk with PLAYLAB, INC. about five projects that begin to define the studio's ever-expanding practice.
When asked to create imagery related to Bon Iver's album 22, a Million, Cameron Wittig was given one rule: don't show Justin Vernon's face. Here he shares the process behind the photography, his collaboration with artist Crystal Quinn, and influences on the final product, from Blue Velvet to Francis Bacon.
Montréal-based designer and writer Michèle Champagne examines how technology questions both the tradition of typography and the romantic “aura” of the human hand in art and design. This dynamic and its inherent dialogue is at the heart of A-B-Z-TXT, a relatively new school for typography in Toronto (founded by Champagne) where designers, artists, and coders explore typography on- and off-line.
Post-Identity Design: Brands, Politics, and Technological Instability
Exploring the new, unpredictable, and tech-reliant terrain where brands and visual identities now operate, Federico Pérez Villoro and Christopher Hamamoto map out design-driven tactics for a more plastic form of branding in a world defined by instability.
Designing Bon Iver's 22, a Million: An Interview with Eric Timothy Carlson
Justin Vernon assembled a cast of creatives to make Bon Iver's Grammy-nominated LP 22, A Million. Here we catch up with one such artist, Eric Timothy Carlson, whose design for the album is less a graphic identity than a rich documentation of a network of players, places, times, and tools.
Clearing the Haze: Prologue to Postmodern Graphic Design Education through Sheila de Bretteville
Of all the women working in design in the 1970s and '80s,few had as large a contribution on contemporary graphic design today as Sheila Levrant de Bretteville. "Her contributions to postmodern design pedagogy opened doors to female voices in a male-dominated society, encouraged students to be more experimental, and supported non-traditional art environments," write Izzy Berenson and Sarah Honeth.
Black Lives Matter is the most significant broad-based human rights coalition for black Americans since the Civil Rights and Black Power movements. But, writes Colette Gaiter, the struggle today could not be fought in its current iterations without the contributions of Black Panthers artist Emory Douglas and others who illuminated hidden ugly racial truths in compelling and beautifully executed images.
In the work of Ken Isaacs, creator of Superchair (1967) and the Knowledge Box (1962), simplicity is "absolutely monumental." The architect/designer/writer discusses the ideas behind his pivotal designs, the concept of a "total environment," his Microhouse project in Groveland, Illinois, and the way he developed and practiced "a lifelong commitment to a populist form of architecture."
Widening the Scope: On Intangibility, Embodiment, and Ephemerality
In 2015, the Walker Shop released Intangibles—a line of products and artworks with no physical form. Participating artists and designers included Martine Syms, Alec Soth, CFCF, and K-HOLE.
"ZXX started with a genuine question: How can we conceal our fundamental thoughts from artificial intelligences and those who deploy them? I decided to create a typeface that would be unreadable by text scanning software."
