FTLO+P

FOR THE LOVE

OF POSTERS

FTLOP

FOR THE LOVE OF POSTERS

f t l o p ( f o r t h e l ov e o f p o s t e r s ) m ag a z i n e wa s m a d e b y m i k e pat t e r s o n a s a w s o c a s s i g n m e n t i n 2011. i wo u l d l i k e to t h a n k e v e ryo n e w h o pa rt i c i pat e d to m a k e t h i s h a p p e n.

pa p e r : s c a n d i a 2000 p r e m i u m 100g

f o r m at: 240 m m x 316 m m

t y p e fac e : g i l l s a n s s t d

t e x t : m i k e pat t e r s o n

p h oto: d e s i g n e r s

p e o p l e :m a r k b l a m i r e : p r i n t-p ro c e s s .c o m & b l a n k a.c o.u k

k r i s t i a n h a m m e r s ta d : k r i s t i a n h a m m e r s ta d.c o m

j a a r g e e r l i g s : p o s t e r s i n a m s t e r da m.c o m

e r i k s p i e k e r m a n n: s p i e k e r m a n n.c o m

pau l s a h r e : pau l s a h r e .c o m

f e l i x p fä f f i : f e i x e n.c h

c o p y r i g h t © 2011 b y m i k e pat t e r s o n.n o. a l l r i g h t s r e s e rv e d. n o pa rt o f t h i s p u b l i c at i o n m ay b e r e p ro d u c e d i n a n y f o r m o r b y a n y e l e c t ro n i c o r m e c h a n i c a l m e a n s , w i t h o u t

w r i t t e n p e r m i s s i o n f ro m t h e p u b l i s e r .i s s n : 1029 8848

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FELIX PFÄFFI

Poster design by a young and upcom-

ming designer from Switzerland.

POSTER BREAK

Get inspired.

LEVI & KRISTIAN

60 minutes with the very talented

illustrator and designer.

JARR GEERLIGS

The art director that has a collection

of over 2700 posters online.

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

What is FTLOP?

MARK BLAMIRE

Founder of Blanka.co.uk and Print-pro-

cess.com an unbelieveable collection of

both classics and exiting new ones.

ERIK SPIEKERMANN

A legendary type designers view on

the role of typography in posters.

POSTER BREAK

Get inspired even more.

PAUL SAHRE

The man who wants you to design the

things that you want.

POSTERMARK

Probably the biggest bookmark you’ve

ever seen.

FTLOP

for theloveof…

POSTERSTYPEBOOKS…

“For the love of” is our concept. We love what

we do and we want to share it. In every issue we

change the subject and share diffrent designers,

opinions, styles and so on. For every topic we in-

vestigate the relevant themes within different sub-

jects. In this first issue we investigate posters. Liv-

ing in a time where the printed media is threatned

by the digital era posters seem to be relativly

untouched. We see digital magazines like Katachi

and all types of campaigns online but it seems it

still doesn’t affect the power of the poster. Mark

Blamire says in Adrian Shaugnessy’s book “Design-

ers still love designing posters. It is one of the sexi-

est formats in their repertoire and, even with the

decline in clients commissioning the poster for

print, I can’t see it dying out completly.” Maybe this

is one of the reasons that it has survived for so

long. We won’t stop designing them because they

are sexy.

FELIX PFÄFFLI

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Felix Pfäffli (feixen) was born in 1986. In 2010 he

graduated and started his own studio “Feixen”. He

was also awarded a lecturer position at the Lucerne

School of Graphic Design to teach in the fields of ty-

pography, narrative design, and poster design. He has

been a member of the “Detective Bureau” which is an

alliance of graphic designers, illustrators and politically

highly committed people, but also a psace for young

art, discussion, design and coffee.

WHAT IS A GOOD POSTER IN YOUR DEFINITION?

A good poster speaks the language of the content

that it carries.

how would you define real love for posters?

For me, this is clearly the process. I simply like to

design things.

do you think that posters might be a

springboard into graphic design?

Yes, I think so. The poster is a very simple, very

loud and focused medium. It’s probably the most

accessible medium in graphic design and therefore

it enjoys such great attention. So, as a young de-

signer it is perhaps also the desire for attention,

that leads you to the poster.

what do you think about the self initiated

poster scene? maybe you do some of these

yourself?

Basically it’s not really my thing to work without

content. For me it’s important that I have a par-

ticular reason that leads me to the design. What I

really like are self-initiated posters like the one Ni-

kulaus Troxler made in 1996. It is a political poster

about Switzerland and the European Community

which caused at this time quite big uproar. I think

it’s important that a self-initiated poster is not only

witty and beautiful, but also that there is a real

need for it.

please tell us about the posters for the

poster project:

“Posters for the Poster” was the theme of this

years student competition which was proclaimed

by the Weltformat Festival in Lucerne. The idea

behind this title was that once one focuses on

the poster itself. What is a poster? What are the

strengths of this medium? What position has the

poster in our everyday lives? That may be the fun-

damental issues with which the students were

confronted.

WHAT IS YOUR PROCESS LIKE WHEN YOU MAKE

POSTERS?

As I mentioned in the first question, it is impor-

tant to me that the design is consistent with the

content. In this sense, I have to start from scratch

each time to find out what design language fits in

the specific case. Basically, I think that you can start

from two design attitudes. A subjective and an ob-

jective attitude. For example, music is objectively

difficult to grasp. That is why I focus here primar-

ily on the feeling that I connect with the respec-

tive music. I ask myself simple questions like: What

landscape do I see when I hear the music? What

colors or shapes can I associate with it? If the mu-

sic is fast and spontaneous, then I’ll trying to de-

sign equally playful. If it sounds strict and reduced,

then I´ll work carefully and focused. In contrast

to the subjective attitude, there is as mentioned

the objective attitude. This one makes sense if the

content is clearly defined. Such as in a traditional

play or an exhibition. Here I focus mainly on the

content. I read the play and try to reduce the story

to an image or a simple scene. The imagery, the

choice of the font and the design elements are di-

rect results from the content. If for example, the

piece plays in the 18th Century, I search for fonts

and images that had been used at that time. Mean-

ing, I put together something like a fundus, a tool

kit of creative means that later results in the even-

tual design.

WHAT ARE YOUR TAKES ON COMMERCIALLY DE-

SIGNED POSTERS VERSUS SELF- INITIATED WHEN

WE ARE TALKING ABOUT POSTER LOVE.

I can imagine that for some designers, a self initi-

ated poster could be a way to work for once with-

out limitation. In that case, I guess it can be very

liberating to work without a client sometimes.

However, in my work I do not really see a big dif-

ference in terms of love to the poster. Maybe be-

cause I only accept jobs that offer me the neces-

sary freedom to bring in my opinion, to implement

my own ideas… yes, simply to operate without

boundaries. Of course, I also like the confrontation

with a customer. It is very inspiring and productive

to have a counterpart. Nevertheless, I think the

designer must always have the last word.

what do you think of the print process of

posters, the more hand made the more love?

No, I think that’s of no importance at all. In the

end it’s about wheter a poster is good or not.

How a poster is produced should never be pre-

determined. Sometimes it is necessary to produce

a poster enormously cheap and ugly to make the

message work. Sometimes it makes sense to make

a super clean ten color silkscreen. This is different

from case to case. The love of the poster should

depend on the quality of the idea plus the execu-

tion and not on the print process.

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Zufall: Computer-generated poster series for an exhibition about coincidence in art.

f e ix e n. c h

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f e ix e n. c h

Felix and Hi at Soirée Graphique 2011 which is an Exhibi-tion, an after show and auction at the same time. Nine stu-dios were asked to design a poster for the exhibition and also to present their works. The posters were later interpreted by different photographers and published in a large-format newspaper.

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“Posters for the Poster” The idea behind this title was that once one focuses on the poster itself. What is a poster? What are the strengths of this medium? What position has the post-er in our everyday lives? That may be the fundamental issues with which the students were confronted.

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Poster done for Funk am See Festival in 2010. Funk am See is a free open-air festival which takes place once every 2 years at the lake in front of the Transport Museum in Lucerne.

MARK BL AMIRE

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Mark Blamire is the founder of Blanka.co.uk, Print-pro-

cess.com and also Neue Laboratories. The two first be-

ing excellent sites for poster distribution featuring some

of Brockmann’s best work, Experimental Jetset, Spin and

all the way down to Eivind Molvaer’s beautiful Italic post-

er. He is also known for his poster series for the 1995

action movie Trainspotting.

WHAT DOES POSTER LOVE MEAN TO YOU AND

HOW DO YOU PORTRAY YOUR POSTER LOVE?

For me to like a poster it has to be good design,

well crafted, clever idea, simple and effective or en-

gaging. I also lean towards modernism although it’s

a rule i sometimes ignore (I have a few film posters

from the 70’s in my house). I portray my love of de-

sign by collecting posters and running two shops

which promote poster design, and I do it to pro-

mote good designers and good design in a format

which is commercially in decline.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF POSTERS BEEING A

SPRINGBOARD INTO GRAPHIC DESIGN, WAS THAT

THE CASE FOR YOU?

Not at all, I dont see poster design as a starting

off point. I think you have to learn your craft and

understand good design before you can even start

to take on creating a poster of merit. I designed

record covers for 3 years (and the ads and post-

ers that went with them) most of the posters I did

back then were appalling. It’s only through improv-

ing and setting yourself better standards or tighter

restrictions on what you are working towards as

a designer before you can start to grasp how to

make a poster and really push it somewhere inter-

esting, look at all the bloody awful film posters that

come out by untrained people working in film pro-

duction companies.

IN TODAYS TECHNOLOGY, WHAT DO YOU THINK

IS THE FUTURE OF THE POSTER? ARE THEY MAYBE

INTERACTIVE?

Not really, I think interactive posters are clever but

if they dont bring anything extra to the table then

it’s the tail wagging the dog. At the end of the day

the simplicity of ink on paper is a wonderful thing

and if it’s done well.You see less 60 x 40 inches

and 30 x 20 inch posters now since flyposting was

made illegal which I think is a shame, as the streets

were a prettier place to walk around.

I AM NOT FAMILIAR WITH THE TERM FLYPOSTING.

DOES IT MEAN THAT YOU CAN’T HANG POSTERS

WHERE YOU WANT ANYMORE?

Yeah, what used to happen is a load of lads (for

hard cash) used to go out in the middle of the

night with a bucket of wallpaper paste and rolled

up sheets of paper and decorate the streets. It

used to really annoy local councils so they changed

the law to prevent it. When you designed a poster

for a musical release (say a jamiroquai single) if it

was going in store it had the record company logo

on it. If it was being glued up on the street the re-

cord company logo was taken off so they couldnt

be sued. They changed the law so it became impos-

sible for flyposting companies to exist (it was all

illegal anyway even before the change in the law).

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT SELF INITIATED

POSTERS?

If it’s self initiated it’s a print. If it’s commissioned by

a client it’s a poster. You can only design a poster to

a set brief supplied by a client. If it’s self initiated it

becomes a different format. One is design and the

other has stepped across into the art world.

BY THAT POSTERS LIKE “THE ITALIC POSTER” AND

“THIS POSTER IS HALF EMPTY/FULL” ARE ALSO

PRINTS, AND NOT POSTERS.

Yeah I would see both of them as prints (really

good prints all the same) although the italic poster

is cleverly titled as it’s supposed to challenge the

conventional poster format it’s technically in my

mind still a print rather than a poster.

WHAT ARE YOUR TAKES ON COMMERCIALLY DE-

SIGNED POSTERS VERSUS SELF- INITIATED WHEN

WE ARE TALKING ABOUT POSTER LOVE.

The best posters are commercial posters. You can’t

put self initiated poster in the same bracket, some of

the best self initiated work is when the designer has

sat down and worked out a brief and then created

the piece to their own restrictions they imposed on

themselves, but it still lacks the magic of answering a

commercial brief set by a client. To me a poster usu-

ally has a message and copy to convey, and with a self

initiated project you can say whatever you want to

so it’s a different direction and purpose and there-

fore you can’t really compare them with one another.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE POSTER THAT YOU DE-

SIGNED YOURSELF?

Trainspotting I guess, although I did it 15 years ago,

so there are things on there that I wish I had spent

more time on. I found out last year that it was in

the V&A (Victoria and Albert Museum) in the 20th

Century wing (next to designers who I respect

and grew up on). I like this fact, that when it gets

exhibited it’s always alongside designers whom

I admire and it still flatters me that it’s alongside

other colleagues works and it still stands up as be-

ing a valid piece of work.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PRINT PROCESS OF

POSTERS, THE MORE HAND MADE THE MORE LOVE

OR?

Yeah absolutely, embossing, dye cutting, screen-

printing, thermal inks etc. It all makes it alot more

sexy, but you can still design something amazing

in black and white. I run a flickr poster archive via

blanka and Josef Müller-Brockmann’s Beethoven

poster on a daily basis for the last 5 years gets the

most amount of views, more than anything else. I

like the print-processes but I think some design-

ers get bogged down in it too much, they can’t wait

to get the foiled blocked silver type onto the post-

ers before they have even finalized making a good

poster, it’s one of the reasons why I run two busi-

nesses, blanka is for specialist editioned printed

work and print-process is for open ended archival

giclee printing, the difference being, blanka has to

buy all of the print up front and have it made be-

fore we can sell it and because Print-Process is all

made digitally, then we only have to make a print

when somebody orders one. It’s nice if a poster or

a piece of print has something additional or sexy

about it but at the end of the day I collect some-

thing personally because I like it if it’s not special

print techniques or not editioned then I can still

like it just the same. It all boils down to good or

clever design rather than fancy printing techniques.

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B L AN K AC O .U K

Number two of four in the Trainspotting poster series. Done

by Mark Blamire in 1995 with Neue Laboratories.

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Lars Müller describes the 1955 Beethoven poster as showing

“musicality of the design,” Available at Blanka.co.uk (127 cm

x 90 cm).

B L AN K AC O .U K

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Amsterdam film Night by Experimental Jetset. Amsterdam film

night 2004 is available at blanka.co.uk (594mm x 420mm).

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Originally entitled The fastest poster alive inspired by the

graphics of Nascar he thought it would be funnier naming it

the italic poster, in spite he fact that the correct terminology

would be the oblique poster. Executed as a self-initiated pro-

ject by Eivind Molvaer. Available at Blanka.co.uk.

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Screen-printed white on A1 240gsm holographic mirri. Edition

of 50 posters. The design celebrates 50 years of the optical

disc whilst paying homage to gottlieb soland’s 1957 grammo-

grafik poster. Printed by k2 screen. Unfortunately sold out at

Blanka.co.uk.

poster break

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Landfill library Poster. http://www.landfilleditions.com/.

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Cd cover and promo poster for Tropicool’s Gooch MixTape

#2. http://soundcloud.com/tropicool-official.

Scam* poster series done by Pam et Jenny.

www.pametjenny.be

erikspieker-

mann

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Erik Spiekermann is a legendary type designer. Dis-

playing his love for type in movies such as the 2007

documentary Helvetica where he referes to type as his

friends or maybe even girlfriend. “They (the letters) are

my friends… Some people look at bottles of wine, or

whatever – girls’ bottoms – I get kicks out of looking at

type.” He has designed typefaces such as ITC Officina,

FF Meta, FF Info. He is also the founder of the german

mega-firm Meta Design and also FontShop which was

the first online font distributor.

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WHAT ARE YOUR THOUHGTS ON THE ROLE OF

TYPOGRAPHY IN POSTERS?

I actually think that posters are dead as a relevant

medium, except for those big 18 sheet commer-

cial hoardings. Graphic designers still like to make

posters because they look good in reproduction

in the annuals and they’re a good opportunity to

show off as a designer.

Typography’s role is pretty obvious: as we live in

societies that are totally dominated by visual mes-

sages, type combines visual and verbal. As you

need to spell out your message, you spell it out

with type, giving it form. Type is visual language and

communication doesn’t exist without language.

– e

Levi & kristian

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Levi Bergqvist is a graphic designer at Dinamo and has

done projects for major companies like The Norwe-

gian National Opera and Ballet and Norrøna. Kristian

Hammerstad a freelance illustrator who has done il-

lustrations for Penguin Books, AOL, The New York Times

Magazine and The New Yorker.

Both working at different places and doing very

different things they have spent much of their

youth together and going to school in London

together. One of their first projects together was

painting graffiti on a graduation buss. Levi doing

the type and Kristian making the illustrations much

like how it works today. Were you making charac-

ters? Yup, really Yo characters replies Kristian. Go-

ing to school together and also being the same age

has been an important role in their inspiration, hav-

ing the same references. Having the same refrences

makes it a lot easier for them, when discussing new

projects, on how to visually execute it. Starting of I

guess one of the biggest issues was not to make the

project bigger then yourself. Making the project so

big and so incredible that you were afraid of doing

anything at all says Kristian. Although we did that

anyway replies Levi, at least in hours. Kristian con-

tinues The first year was the worst, but when we

got rid of the nervousness on how our things were

going to work together things got a lot better.

Making alot of event posters together they

view it as a use and toss art. They don’t spend alot

of money on expensive printing, inks, paper and

so on. The poster usually has a life span of a cou-

ple of weeks max and then they are thrown away.

They don’t see the point in overdoing a poster with

expensive techniques or inks for a simple gig at a

local club. They believe in embracing the simplicity.

It’s nice to see that poster can do just fine by it-

self without a lot of fancy techniques says Levi. The

club scene is kind of a shitty place anyway (shitty

meaning dirty not as in the place sucks) so it’s ap-

propriate to make a poster that suits it. And living

in London during the rave and grime scene they’ve

experienced a lot of what a poster is and what it

does. Also the budget is a something you can’t ig-

nore. The budget is the budget says Levi.

Usually posters is a medium which the de-

signer is free to do whatever he or she pleases in

order to showcase him/herself. But with this duo

it’s different. With a lot of hours spent on feeling

each other out they have worked themselves into

a system where they both make place for each oth-

ers freedom and play. Also having a lot of the same

references as kids helps the process thoroughly. In

the beginning it was a little on top of each other.

Then we realized that it was just as good just to

give ourselves no limits in our fields and then talk

a lot during the making. We don’t work at the same

place so we send our sketches back and forth and

then we meet up for a cup of coffee or pint of beer

says Kristian.

They really enjoy graffiti as they both started

out in that field. They enjoy the freedom in graffiti,

that it’s not necessary to be the worlds best painter

to make something that is cool and interesting. They

enjoy the tagging or bombing part of it more then

the street art part. Although we were never tough

enough to actually do it ourselves says Kristian. Al-

most everyone they know having similar careers

derive from graffiti. Big and small agencies across

the country says Levi. It’s a great place to learn, I

probably learned the same amount if not more, do-

ing graffiti then attending school says Kristian.

They portray their love of poster by mak-

ing them together and also collecting a bit, or at

least Levi does. I think that for graphic designers

it’s much more satisfying to work with posters be-

cause of the freedom that they don’t possess in a

lot of their daily work. But for illustrators it’s draw-

ing, and that is basically what we do all the time.

But this is for something more specific something

that I enjoy more then other projects says Kristian.

I agree. I think that graphic designers aren’t used to

being as expressive in their daily work replies Levi.

They also think of Are Kleivan when mentioning

the love of posters.

The LotLot project, which is one their most

known poster collections, started out with Levi

and Kristian’s previous work for Bitch Boys. Jonas,

who is one of the Bitch Boys, together with Mattis

runs LotLot, and the question about them doing

the design came quite naturally. We met up with

them and they had a lot of the same ambitions as

we had for this project. And it’s always fun to work

with friends says Levi. They both relate to the elec-

tronic genre which lotlot’s concept is based on.

The thing is that LotLot is a mashup of many dif-

ferent styles within the electronic genre says Levi.

Yeah, the first thing we did was really inspired by

scifi. I think that it was a result of our love for scifi,

and also because when we were about eighteen

we listened to aphex twin and warp music and that

this was our visualization of electronic music. Now

it’s more of a medieval type combined with some

aliens not really sure what that is supposed to be

says Krisitian.

They see the poster as a still strong medium

due to the over marketing on facebook. Every invite

is almost like spam nowadays, you don’t even look at

it anymore says Levi. Their clients still think it’s very

important to get their message out on the street.

They still see the walls as a necessary place to post

their message. Unless people stop looking at walls

and only on their mobiles replies Kristian. During

the LotLot project the posters were actually quite

important. After Øya (a norwegian music festival) it

was important to inform the crowd on where to go

after the festival. So we posted a lot of posters on

the route out of the festival area says Levi.

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Poster for Bitch Boys feat. Martelo. Illustrated and designed by

Kristian Hammerstad.

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UndergroundGarage Barbecue

Dattera til HagenSøndag 12. Juni

fra kl. 14.00

The Dahlmanns

The Beat Tornados

The Cocktail Slippers

DJ LittleSteven

Levi Bergqvist / Henrik Tandberg

LEVI BERGQVIST

WHAT MAKES A POSTER A GOOD POSTER?

It’s surprising or nice enough that you stop to look

at it.

WHAT IS IT THAT YOU LIKE ABOUT DESIGNING

POSTERS?

The spontanousness, simplicity and the ego trip.

WHAT DO YOU HATE ABOUT DESIGNING POST-

ERS?

Walking carelessly down the road only to discover

that you’ve made som mistake that you’ve done

when it’s hanging in the street.

IF YOU COULD DO ANY PROJECT IN THE WORLD.

WHAT WOULD IT BE?

Right now it would be to do a book together with

Kristian.

WHAT DID YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GREW UP?

A professor in chemistry.

WHERE DO YOU GET YOUR INSPIRATION FROM?

“I hear a voice. A man’s voice, but he speaks in Ger-

man so I have to get a translator.” — Jerry Seinfeld.

WHAT IS THE MOST EXCITING PROJECT YOU’VE

WORKED ON?

Impossible to say, but Organ 3, Norrøna, The Nor-

wegian National Opera, Vestre and Lot Lot would

have to be the most important projects for me, all

of them in different ways.

WHAT DO YOU EAT WHEN YOU WORK?

I only drink coffee, I rarely eat in front of the com-

puter, maybe a banana?

WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN YOU GET STUCK ON A

PROJECT?

Back to where I started or maybe visit Wikipedia

or stretch it, bend it.

WHAT DO YOU DO TO RELAX AFTER A HARD

DAYS WORK?

Drink beer or watch Seinfeld whilst I play Solitaire

or Tetris.

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KRISTIAN HAMMERSTAD

WHAT MAKES A POSTER A GOOD POSTER?

Everything that gets notices in the jungle of infor-

mation.

WHAT IS IT THAT YOU LIKE ABOUT DESIGNING

POSTERS?

The freedom that follows. It’s rarely any money in-

volved, so the things you make posters for is usu-

ally something that you really want to do.

WHAT DO YOU HATE ABOUT DESIGNING POSTERS?

There is nothing I hate about it, but usually the

most difficult part is the typography.

IF YOU COULD DO ANY PROJECT IN THE WORLD.

WHAT WOULD IT BE?

That’s really hard to answer. I work with something

that I am so passionate about that I feel as if I am

doing it already.

WHAT DID YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GREW UP?

I don’t remember, but I’ve always had the need to

make and draw things. So naturally I’ve become

what I had to become.

WHERE DO YOU GET YOUR INSPIRATION FROM?

All sorts of stuff, usually anything that doesn’t invo-

vle design and illustration. Movies, litterature, mu-

sic and that sort of things.

WHAT IS THE MOST EXCITING PROJECT YOU’VE

WORKED ON?

A project where I got to work with the comic

book writer Alan Moore something that’s still in

progress.

WHAT DO YOU EAT WHEN YOU WORK?

Sandwiches or something else that’s fast to make.

WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN YOU GET STUCK ON A

PROJECT?

Browse around the internett or watch news on

BBC 24.

WHAT DO YOU DO TO RELAX AFTER A HARD

DAYS WORK?

I watch a movie or a tv series, work out or maybe

even a beer.

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Posters for Japan – 100 ting til ettertanke2011 (c) Levi Bergqvist

paul sahre

52

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We sendt a mail to Paul Sahre after his brief at AGI

2011 were he was talking a lot about that you should

design what you want. We asked him what he thought

about the freedom in the poster as a medium and

what he thought about that in regards to his talk at AGI

this is what he replied.

Hello FTLOP

about posters.

s i z em atters

53

FTLOPs i z em atters

jarrgeerligs

56

FTLOP

An obsessive collector who turned his obsession

into something really inspiring and beautiful. Jarr

Geerligs is a creative beeing who lives and works in

Amsterdam. He is currently an art director and de-

signer for Selmore Creative Agency. He also runs the

beautiful webpage postersinamsterdam.com which is

a personal poster archive that he has been collecting

since 2002 and contains more then 2700 posters.

WHAT MAKES A GOOD POSTER FOR YOU?

Choices. It is all about hard choices. How is this

poster going to stand out? In colour. In shapes. In

its message. In its idea. A good poster has or cre-

ates contrast in its self or with its surroundings.

HOW WOULD YOU DEFINE REAL LOVE FOR POSTERS?

I am not sure if I can define it. But I can illustrate

it by a few examples. Like coming to late for meet-

ings, because I had to take a picture of a nice post-

er. Or letting my colleagues and family wait in the

cold and rain for me to take a picture. Mostly I take

pictures of posters while I am bicycling through

the city, but I even stop for them when I am by car.

I started in 2002 and I am still taking pictures of

posters. Yeah, you can call it love alright.

CAN YOU RELATE TO THE POSTER BEING A

SPRINGBOARD INTO GRAPHIC DESIGN, AND WAS

THAT THE CASE FOR YOU?

My springboard were flyers and websites. But be-

fore I started designing I noticed that I was a suck-

er for well designed stuff. From logo’s to products.

From flyers to books. So I started to collect nice

products and books. With everything I liked I asked

myself why I liked it. This way I found what worked.

But I didn’t get there right away. When I look back

at the first things I designed when I started they

were very hideous. I am getting a bit better now.

But you have to keep breaking out of your comfort

zone. What also really helped me was reading es-

says written by designers about design. Steve Hel-

ler initiated a whole lot of these books. (By that

I mean that many designers start out just making

posters for fun and then develop a big interest for

graphic design).

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE SELF INITIATED

POSTER SCENE?

I like it. It is a self created opportunity for design-

ers to make some great work without the fuzz of

a client. It creates a lot of space for experimenting.

To come up with something new or interesting.

Maybe you do some of these yourself?

Yes, I did some self initiated posters, but they were

pure fictional to try out some of my own made

typefonts.

WHAT ARE YOUR TAKES ON COMMERCIALLY DE-

SIGNED POSTERS VERSUS SELF- INITIATED WHEN

WE ARE TALKING ABOUT POSTER LOVE. IS THERE

A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THESE OR ARE THEY THE

SAME?

With self-initiated posters you can go very far in

stripping the design to its bare essentials. Making

the poster stronger. Unfortunately most clients

want to put in extra’s. More logo’s, a website, some

extra text and the clutter goes on. If there is to

much clutter the poster won’t stand out. It will go

unnoticed. With self-initiated posters you can be

your own worst and best client at the same time.

But there are as far as I know not many designers

who could live from self-initiated posters alone.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PRINT PROCESS OF

POSTERS, THE MORE HAND MADE THE MORE LOVE OR?

I love the printing process. My stepfather used

to work at a press factory. The print process is

a magical process. But I have to admit that I am

a very digital guy. And I don’t print that much. It

also has to do with time for me. I do my designing

mostly next to my day job. It makes it harder to do

my own printing or creating more tactile designs. I

think things made in on the computer can be hand

made as well. You can put your love for design in

every decision. Which ever brush you use to make

your designs.

WHAT IS YOUR PROCESS LIKE WHEN YOU MAKE

POSTERS?

It depends on the task at hand. But for the Sub-

Tone posters it mostly started with me coming up

with a theme or fraise for the clubnight. Than I try

to find the form in which I want to tell the theme.

I used to make a lot of designs with an illustrated

idea in for SubTone. After which I went for a more

typographic style. Using fonts I liked and creating

something different with them. The route I take

now is one of creating the fonts myself. For other

projects I first come up with an idea, and then I try

to find the best fitting style to work it out.

WHAT’S THE MOST EXCITING DESIGN PROJECT

YOU EVER WORKED ON?

The work I do for SubTone. I get a lot of freedom

to do what ever I like. As long as it is fresh and has

a link to the style of music they play.

TELL US ABOUT YOUR POSTERSINAMSTERDAM?

After going out to clubs and collecting flyers for

years. A printed medium I really love. I was looking

for other ways to collect graphic designs for my

personal archive. By biking through Amsterdam I

noticed the shortness of time for posters to be up

on the walls. And all the different design approach-

es by designers. This made me start to photograph

the ones I liked with my first digital camera in

2002. It is like I am giving the posters an afterlife.

Or giving the city a memory of their existence.

WHAT DESIGN PROJECT ARE YOU CURRENTLY

WORKING ON?

It is a poetry booklet about love in Dutch. I design

and illustrate it on the basis of a special font. Kim

Triesscheijn and I write the poems together. Hope-

fully it will come next year.

57

FTLOP

p o st e rs i na m st e rd a m c o m

58

FTLOP

p o st e rs i na m st e rd a m c o m

.

A selection of posters form the wonderful website postersi-

namsterdam.com.

poster break

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T H E N E X T I S S U E I S A L L A B O U T T P O G A P H Y. I F YO U WA N T T O S U B S C R I B E S E N D U S A M A I L AT S U B -AT- F T L O P

D OT C O M A N D W E W I L L B E S U R E TO M A I L YO U A C O P Y A S S O O N A S I T ’ S D O N E .

FTLOT