Jan Wilker is 34 years old. He creates graphic design projects in his studio Karlssonwilker in the centre of New York, for international corporations such as MTV and Puma; for artists who need a design for their book or catalogue; for recording labels, who need designs for discs they have produced. Jan and Hjalti do not create advertisements in the classic style; they create refined graphic design as truthful and captivating stories about humanity and its harsh and simultaneously playful world. They work with clients who have got to know and appreciate their work – people do not call them to get a cheaper or quicker result, they call because they want different graphic design solutions tailor-made just for them.
Jan was born in Ulm, a city in the north of Germany, and studied in Stuttgart. When he was studying at the Graphic Design Department at the Stuttgart Academy of Art, he had to nominate a place for an internship. Jan did not have any doubts – he wanted to meet the Austrian graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister, who lives and works in New York. At his invitation, Jan travelled to New York in 1999 to spend three months in Sagmeister’s studio. There he met the Icelandic Hjalti Karlsson, and a few months later, when Stefan closed the office for a while, both of the artists decided to create their own design studio.
Jan and Hjalti are not just good friends; they also create works of graphic design together. Although each works at his own computer, they both constantly discuss types of graphic expression, improve one another’s work and come up with ideas together. It is not possible to discern the individual creative style of one or the other artist in their designs, because they are influenced equally from both sides: their works are products of collaboration which are characterised by respect and trust. Shoulder to shoulder they visit clients, and shoulder to shoulder they discuss their conclusions at the bar in their office – it is not just work which unites them but also a similar world view and lifestyle. By helping one another and gaining invaluable support from their girlfriends Ella and Vera, they have been able to realise their dream – their own studio.
When the studio was opened in Manhattan in late 2000, the artists sent out the opening invitation – a large, folded piece of paper. On one side was a photograph of both of the artists in suits, and on the other side, a summary of their work experience. This had not been designed as a practical description embellished with fragments of completed works, but as a fascinating sketch – both authors had created a black and white illustration, revealing their work and lifestyle in an ironically attractive way. Although initially it seemed austere or superficial, the fine drawing demonstrated the authors’ diverse world view to anyone who carefully studied the layout of the information. They did not avoid revealing or describing themselves personally: in the centre they expressed their interests, although simultaneously this was an invitation to a dialogue.
One of the first works which was created in Jan and Hjalti’s studio was the catalogue design for the project “Souvenirs for the End of the Century” by New York designer Constantin Boym. Boym created a limited series of models – “Missing Monuments” and “Buildings of Disaster” – depicting monuments which no longer exist (the series was presented at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 1996), highlighting places which are related to tragic historical events. Taking into account the architectonic tendency of the project and the aspect of destruction, both artists created the letters of the title as three-dimensional structures and presented these in the wrong perspective. The tangle of lines and heap of the structures give an impression of uncontrolled power or an explosion, however the simultaneously easily legible titles with the word ‘new’ at the centre reveal an ironic feeling for the end of the century.
The attitude that ‘nothing is eternal’ was demonstrated by the authors in the framework of another project – to create the design for the graphic identity and awards for “Young Guns”, the annual young talent competition run by the “Art Directors Club”, the New York society for creative leaders in advertising. For example, the winner’s medals were made from chocolate, because even glory isn’t eternal.
Successful collaboration with Constantin Boym continued – in 2002 both artists created their first book design for Boym’s monograph “Curious Boym” (publisher – Princeton Architectural Press). The book design, which took more than seven months to create, was included in the annual design review of prestige American magazine I.D. The book includes not only interesting page designs, but also elements of interactive design – for example, between the pages before the section “Products” you can find a paper handle similar to those used for shopping bags; it is possible to unfold the page before “Environments” to make a three-dimensional corner structure; in the spread in the “Experiments” section there is a purposely non-functional page flap, which aptly reflects the ability of the artists to smile good-naturedly about awkward, but humanly understandable situations. The cover design with a hole in the middle not only places an interesting artistic emphasis on the meaning of form and material in design, but also demonstrates a practical example of the diverse opportunities for the use of design – the cut out circles were retained and used as coasters during the launch of the publication. The artists’ intentions to make the book able to be used as a lamp were not realised – the reader would have simply had to plug in a lead and insert a light bulb between the pages of the book which were covered with foil.
Collaboration with the author of the book gave the project a playful, relaxed outlook. However, work with the New York art association Creative Time turned into a serious, time-consuming study. Both artists were invited to create a jubilee edition as an independent work of art, which would compile information about the work of the association over a period of ten years. As Creative Time unites artists which create art for public viewing in the streets of New York, Jan and Hjalti decided to accent the environmental context, offering the possibility for the readers to have a sensation of the air of New York. They set up an experimental mobile laboratory in a small bus, which they called the “Urban Visual Recording Machine”, containing various types of recording equipment to record the intensity of sound, range of colour and weather conditions on the streets of the city. All of the measurements were reflected in the form of a technical illustration on one page. When moving around the territory of New York over the course of a week and printing the recently recorded data every 30 seconds, unique prints were created for the cover of each individual book. The combinations of colourful lines, circles and triangles at their centre appear as a fragment of a fine, poetic moment: the essence of life conceived both associatively and also in a documentary way – in the centre is man and the environment which he creates around himself daily.
A separate graphic design experiment in time and space was a project undertaken together with the Serbian art organisation FIA Art Group, which has developed a tradition of producing an internationally significant non-commercial art calendar. These have been published since 1993 by the publishing house Publikum, and every year the design is entrusted to a particular artists or group of authors, reflecting Serbian cultural and political events. In 2004 Wilker and Karlsson went on a twelve day trip to Serbia, calling their idea “Adventures in Real Time Design”. They attended an intensive, specially prepared programme of events, met with local inhabitants, gave interviews and observed everyday activities. Each day they created one calendar page – amongst these is a work in which the bust of Josip Tito can be seen as a computer model in three dimensions; a composition which includes a pattern modified from national ornaments, and a modification of the Serbian answer to the question “How are you going?”: from the traditional “better than tomorrow”, to “better than yesterday”; a drawing in which you can see the beautiful woman mentioned by everyone they interviewed – with a cigarette in her hand and wearing a t-shirt adorned with the name Gucci. By using visual codes visible in the every day, combining and transforming these, the artists have created a contemporary, graphically captivating rebus which includes their reflections and feelings.
Wilker and Karlsson do not address social or political problems; they do not create works as definite conclusions, but rather as reflections of the current moment or situation. Using a seemingly aesthetically unkempt, unfinished or provocative design such as for the “Young Guns” posters or for the cover art for the magazine Creativity (published in the last issue of DS), the artists capture the attention of the viewer and involve them in a subtle game, in which the participant can continually discover new levels of viewing. For example, when creating the graphic design for a sports shoe for the multinational corporation Puma, the artists retained their signature simplicity and wittiness of expression, while at the same time including the wider, more philosophical nature of humans in the message. On the toe of the shoe Waytogo there are arrows which indicate the direction in which the wearer should go – forward – and it is possible to perceive this as a contemporary, witty interpretation of the old saying “follow your nose”. There is a functional design to the sports shoe Storytime – the grey letters on a black background make a subtle pattern. However, if someone reads the combinations of letters, then on the left shoe they can read Karlsson’s memories of his grandmother, and on the right – Wilker’s story about the adventures of an astronaut. The design on the shoes Earthlings is composed of stylised human silhouettes – on the front of the sports shoe they are portrayed as peaceful and friendly, while on the back they are threatening, in this way accurately and at the same time playfully depicting our assumptions about the relationship between good and evil, or in a good-humoured way reminding us that it is never possible to know what is happening behind your back. In the graphic design of the sports shoes one can appreciate the characteristic black and white, ascetic work of the authors, with their strict form of expression – by using only a few lines and colours, they have achieved a artistically striking solution.
Wilker and Karlsson’s wonderful mastery of various formal tools can be attributed to the passion and joy created in their explorations of the possibilities of line, colour and spatial structures. One of the most reliable clients of the studio is Hattler, a publisher of German electronic music. Wilker and Karlsson have been given free reign on imagination and experiments of form when creating designs for Hattler’s recordings and advertising materials. Their abstract, decorative compositions demonstrate contemporary, innovative graphic expression: a bright purple shape which could be an object of the future as yet unknown to us; a combination of grey and blue edges as a fragment of a space ship from a sci-fi movie; a junction of green lines like in chemistry or physics illustrations. These are exercises, in which the artists perfect their abilities to expressively and convincingly think and speak in the language of graphic design.
Although they have gained recognition both professionally and amongst clients, Jan and Hjalti are never sure about the future of their studio, because their product is not a mass consumer item, which ensures enduring commercial success. This is their calling in life, for which they have spent more than one sleepless night working and deliberating.