Designblog

ARTISTS' COCKTAILS by Ryan Gander

This small and light book is bounded with a hard cover, but also covered with a soft non-glossy finished paper so that it gives you a soft touchiness. Before you open the book, you can see the side of the paper has colored yellow, orange and fluorescent pink as you can see the same layers on the book cover. As the book has the theme of a cocktail, when the book is opened, the layered colors from both sides of the paper surround the text as the color spreads in the glass like a cocktail. Fun. In the text, the shape of the little letter ‘g’ seemed to simulate a water droplet. A fluorescent pink color was used was used to accentuate parts of the text. If you look into the images, you will notice that those are all different in size, layout and content, but the contents are all corresponded to the cocktail recipes introduced later. These layouts allow me to cross the front and back of the book and engage me to participate more actively.

This book was designed by Åbäke with Delphine Bourit. On the back cover of the book has the names of more people who participated, and for the first, there is Åbäke. Åbäke. Åbäke.

Who then is Åbäke?

Åbäke is a London-based collective of four graphic designers. Patrick Lacey from the UK, Kajsa Ståhl from Sweden, Benjamin Reichen and Maki Suzuki from France. They have been working together since 2000 after studying at Royal College of Art in London.

If you know Swedish language then you would smile at the name of the studio, because it means ‘clumsy’ in Swedish, but it also has the meaning of ‘ghost’ in Japanese language.
They have worked on magazine Sexymachinery(2000–2008), restaurant Trattoria(2003), the publishing project Dent-De-Leone(2009), the propaganda Victoria & AlferD Museum(2010) and so on.

© Shift [left] © Maison Martin Margiela / Åbäke[right]

Active since 2000, they have collaborated with many Galleries and with fashion designers such as Hussein Chalayan and Maison Martin Margiela, artists such as Ryan Gander, Johanna Billing, and bands such as Daft Punk. If you search more about them, you will find out that they are the co-founder of Kitsuné.

Kitsuné is well known as ‘Maison Kitsuné’, which is French fashion label. Åbäke established Kitsuné in 2001 with Masaya Kuroki and Gildas Loaëc.

Masaya Kuroki and Gildas Loaëc  © Maison Kitsuné

At the beginning, Kitsuné was French electronic music record label. Gildas Loaëc is French DJ who was the manager and art director of Daft Punk. He met Japanese-French designer Masaya Kuroki when he went to watch ’interstellar 5555 (Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem – produced by Daft Punk, Cédric Hervet and Emmanuel de Buretel with Toei Animation under the supervision of Leiji Matsumoto)’.  They found their common interest and made the label together with Åbäke.

Kitsuné, which already has a large fan base in Europe and the U.S., begun to be recognized as a fashion label in 2005, showing their first fashion collection and the mixed album ‘Compilation Kitsuné Maison 1’ at the same time at ‘Palais de Tokyo’, one of the famous museums in Paris.

Following the website of Maison Kitsuné, “Maison” is the French word for “house”, and “Kitsuné” is the Japanese word for “fox”, a symbol of versatility.

Fox symbol logo of Maison Kitsuné  © Maison Kitsuné

As the fox possesses the power to change its appearance in the Legend, Maison Kitsuné always has been tried to adapt its repertoire according to inspiration. The philosophy that Maison Kitsune pursues is that they try to change their material and style freely according to their inspiration, as their name suggests, it is quite similar to what Åbäke is doing.

If you follow the steps of Åbäke, then you will see much of their projects were coming together with concentrations on the social aspect and the collaboration. Their events usually comes with different sources like film, dancing, eating and cooking and teaching. They are also singers, painters, photographers, members of bands, furniture designers, curators, fashion designers, DJs and teachers. These are also happening at Kitsuné. They are usually coming up with collaborations between different fields as well.

Just as Åbäke runs many workshops with students along with their own projects, Kitsuné is creating their own thing while also discovering and growing artists. Further more, as Åbäke collaborates with agencies and artists, Kitsuné is also performing collaboration with artists and fashion labels. Although their fields are not quite the same, it is clear that they inspire each other.

In the interview with Japan-based international online magazine ‘Shift’, In 2003, Åbäke said that with Kitsuné they are able, because of their different fields of knowledge, to work in music, clothes and events.

I seem that it is important to talk about Kitsuné when I looked at Åbäke because they have different shapes, but same steps to each other. I am still waiting for the reply from Åbäke that I asked about Kitsuné, but I think there is no doubt that this one big galaxy -Kitsuné- is definitely the greatest cocktail of Åbäke.

Ryan Gander: Artists' Coctail. designed by Åbäke, Rietveld library number: gand 5

Organizations and brands have logos and fonts to show their respective identities. This is called BI(Brand Identity) or CI(Corporate Identity). BI, CI give an easily identified image for an organization or company, and it can affect the perception of the entire country as well. It is because The country also functions as a brand.

© Wikipedia

Heraldry has been used in many countries as a symbol of countries. The national symbol as national CI is explained as an official sign that shows illustration, graphic letter, etc. in order to inform the existence of a nation in the international community.
The National CI contains the essential elements of national identity, such as values and beliefs that have arisen over many years. Many nations borrow their identity patterns, colors, etc., while simultaneously developing Nationality fonts to show their identity. Each country has a different cultural background. They apply different cultural differences and reflect them. Even on fonts.
We will research the Sweden-Sans and the Korean government official font as representative cases and examine the identity of each country reflected in typography.

Sweden Sans

Sweden Sans is a sans serif typeface that can be used in both analogue and digital formats. It’s developed by the Swedish design agency Söderhavet. Their starting point was the Swedish flag, the yellow Scandinavian cross against a blue background that has been used since the 1600. It is also inspired by signs from the 40s and 50s.
There is an expression in Swedish, lagom, which means ‘not too much and not too little’, something in the middle that means you’re satisfied. Swedes are very fond of this expression and use it a lot. This was also what Söderhavet aimed for with Sweden Sans they say.
When I read about this customized typeface on Sweden.se it says:

“Sweden Sans is a long-term choice of typeface; it has an unassuming    character and fits well with a broad spectrum of other typefaces.”

This I find very interesting. On one hand I see a connection to the known political concept of the Swedish Folkhemmet. Which is in a poetic sense referring to the Swedish welfare state, and in a political sense referring to the lagom way between capitalism and socialism. Here I see a very clear connection between Sweden Sans and the Swedish history, culture and strong mind set around the word, lagom, which could be one argument to support why Sweden sans would be very suitable as a national typeface.
On the other hand I also see this thought of ‘one type fits all’ that they are trying to propose on the website explanation. I’m relating that to throughout the histories known open migration politics that has been strong in Sweden. But the nationalistic and far right-winged winds are blowing through Sweden as well as through the rest of Europe so how well does actually this adaptable typeface represent Sweden in a nationalistic sense? Is it Sweden that is adaptable or is it the Swedish people that should adapt to old Swedish ideas of being lagom?

To make a comparison with something else then a nation but with similar problematic I would like to bring up MoMA. When the MoMA design studio [x] chose to have the same typeface for most of their exhibition identities, curators and in-house designers were scared to loose their freedom of expression. But the MoMA design studio had good arguments for it. For example the designer/curator could focus more on their idea then on the millions of typefaces you can use. In this case having one type that fits all, works out as a facilitating tool. This might work out in a national context too, but I think its more complex. A national identity build up like that could work as an attempt to solidarity and standing together, or as a nationalistic striving to fit everyone into one lagom type, and therefore keep everyone who doesn’t fit out. I guess the question is more about if you see yourself fitting (liking) the national identity/font and then being satisfied, or not.

South Korean Official government font

The South Korean government announced a new national identity in 15th March, 2016. Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has unified the design of the Republic of Korea government symbol for use in all departments. It is used by all 22 ministries and 51 central government agencies. It was the first time in 67 years that the nation has installed new identities.

Hunminjungeum, the original manuscript for the Korean langjuage © Korean Intellectual Property Office

A Korean official typeface inspired by the font used in the “Hunminjeongeum”, or “The Correct/Proper Sounds for the Instruction of the People” that was published in 1446, when King Sejong implemented a new written language called Hangul, Korean alphabet.(Reference Article via here)

They developed fonts based on Hunminjeongum, the origin of Hangul, to give them historical / cultural legitimacy. The font is designed the basic formative image and visual characteristics of the Hunminjeongeum and modernizes the first Hangul with the harmony of Hunminjeongeum and the modern Korean font, Dotum which is Korean generally uses a lot. It is in a way that can be adapted to modern media and images. And also It was designed to harmonize with Taegeuk, the pattern forming the center of the Korean national flag.

The official font of South Korea reflects the formative characteristics of the early Korean calligraphy in the system of modern font design and also consider of harmony with traditional symbol. Through this, Korea ‘s history and culture is put into each letter.