SR      Could you begin by telling me about what you do and what you work with?

MB       Arkitektnytt. We are a magazine for the architecture industry, a news and debate magazine, we don’t really have any architecture critics. We produce news, background material, and articles that comment on questions relating to architecture. But we rarely produce architecture critics. The only time we tend to produce critics would be when biennials, for example, are happening. Then we would have external freelancers come in and criticize things. I have done that before, I have written a lot of architecture critiques myself. But I probably won’t do it as much now that I just started as editor a few weeks ago.

SR      Congratulations

MB       Thank you. My experience with criticizing architecture is more outside of Arkitektnytt, than inside. Unless you can look upon the whole of the Arkitektnytt project as a form of architecture criticism, in the way that through news dissemination, comments etc., or in its own right it is a form of channel for affecting opinion. Or that one is a part of a bigger picture of architecture production in a way. That one can focus on things that are problematic, and in that way, how should I put this, indirectly be a part of forming the production of architecture. That is also a way of looking at Arkitektnytt as a form of architecture criticism. In a larger structural sense maybe.

SR       One of the things I think is exciting about the concept of criticism is that in Norway it has such negative connotations. That one automatically expects it to be, if not slaughter, than at least a very critical comment on someone’s work. But if you look at criticism in English it often includes what you describe Arkitektnytt to be doing.

MB       Or the more snobbish version of critique with q u e, which in a way has a more intellectual approach of writing something. Yes. I agree with that. What should one say, how does one begin? Yes it is often, you can often see it in the way that people write criticisms. It is often expected that a third is information, a third is perhaps something positive, and then at least a third that includes something critical, where the role of the critic is to say something negative, or “this could be a little bit better...” or something like that. So both literature and art criticism are perhaps the two in Norway that have come the furthest with regards to deeper critically investigational projects. That are not necessarily only about a type of, what should I call it, consumer guidance, which is the simplest form of critique there is. That are about why you should buy it or why you should see this film.

SR       It would be more like a review?

MB       Yes, a review. Critiques like short consumer guidance reviews. Then there are other types of critical traditions. That in a way tries to, either tries to look at where something comes from, write it into a type of tradition. Some critiques try to look for an agenda in a piece of work or something like that to try to find out whether it succeeds or not, or looks at deeper ideological guidelines for things that can also be a “don’t look at this building as a building, but as a collection of many things that lead us to why it is the way it is”. So it is not necessarily interesting to say anything about whether or not it is good, but rather try to search for these underlying reasons as to why it is the way it is. So I suppose it is that kind of critique I have been interested in writing myself.

SR       What made you interested in architecture criticism? What vested interests do you have in working with this?

MB       Good question. Where does the interest for critique come from? I wrote some music critiques before I started my degree in architecture. But that again is in a way, no that was also an attempt to do something more than just “this is good and this is bad”. I have felt that some of throwing myself into the field of critics has been some of what you search for within graphic design, that there has been so little debate. We speak so little about the architecture, about why it becomes what it is. We have a type of tradition that isn’t necessarily very verbal, or it is verbal but not very literary true. We have a way of learning about architecture that builds on a master and apprentice model. Where the good ones can teach the ones who are less good at mimicking things. And then, when I entered the field of architecture, I realized that there were so many myths, so many weird adopted truths. I think that a way of understanding or teaching myself the field of architecture was through rewriting a few issues through criticism. So for me it was probably a kind of learning tool. I started this quite early in my architecture education. It was a way to understand and rewrite things I couldn’t quite perceive in the field of architecture, as well as the wish that we could start talking about architecture in a different way than how it happened in the drawing hall in architecture school for example.

SR       I have to say I think the reasons you are listing are many of the same reasons I am interested in criticism. I quickly realized that the discussions in graphic design often revolves around which style one likes or doesn’t like, that design as criticism often just becomes a response which is the opposite of what that work or style responds to. I have discovered that there exists a trend within graphic design, or it has at least been a trend, where reading and writing has been considered as “uncool”, we don’t need to read history. If you look at other fields of design and architecture, also within graphic design, those who do, are strongly based on the little history we have. One can often find a new starting point or a new starting place. It has made me understand that it would be a shame if one would then cut away such important source of graphic design tradition.

MB       Of course.

SR       Perhaps especially with graphic design which in a way… Everyone knows what graphic design is, but what value it possesses is often disagreed upon. It is something everyone relates to everyday, but that almost no one discusses. Especially if one should think about it in a larger debate which isn’t only for the designers themselves. With this in mind I find it strange that one doesn’t have more public discussions about what one does with public spaces. This is where critics of architecture and graphic design meet.

MB       I think that when there are something that recembles criticism of graphic design, then it is when people talk about a book that has been published, or that these sorts of things are often commented on by people. They comment on whether it looks good or not, the cover of the book and so. It is on a fairly mundane level. SR I think that the competition, Årets Vakreste Bøker, gets some review in the media.

MB       That’s true. There are a lot of people who receive prizes as well, in many different categories. So then there are a lot of people included, and, yes. There is a different phenomenon I have been interested in with architecture critique, which is that there are many conversations, like the one we are having now, about why we have so little architecture critique. We have talked more about that than actually producing critiques. So everyone is going around asking them selves why we don’t have more architecture critiques, write long articles about it. And that is a form of critique in itself, to criticize the absence of a proper conversation within the field. But still something I feel one spends a lot of energy on here, and it’s similar within the design field, like KHiO who are starting something I feel is a kind of meta conversation about design criticism. So it is a phenomenon in itself then, that one is constantly asking for a critique. In Norway one has regularly had architecture criticism. But if you have freelancers who write architecture critiques now and then, here and there, in various newspapers or similar, it is put… There isn’t a forum for where it can be compared to other things. It isn’t put in an editorial context. The culture editorials generally don’t have much knowledge about design or architecture for example. They can write something that could be an extremely provocative critique, but they don’t have any means to back it up with something else, another article, which is often what one does with other cultural questions, where you have an editorial framework around what is published. Where you have the possibility to follow up on things, do some interviews with someone. They often appear as loose fragments from everything else. Wouldn’t it be great if one had some architecture criticism, and then some single birds who delivered something once in a while? Then it doesn’t land inside a discussion which makes it possible to catch it properly. How does the conversation appear, how can one increase the design and architecture competence in newspaper editorials which makes it possible to have a, yes, so it doesn’t become these singular events?

SR       There was something they mentioned at KHiO, actually, at the first symposium about design criticism. They brought up a couple of examples from Norwegian media where there has been interest directed at Norwegian design, product design mainly, and showed some examples of articles that have been written. It proved that the articles have nice headings and pictures, but when one starts to read the articles one soon discovers that it is often just a list of names and some random design history thrown in which often does not relate contextually to what one is reading about. It is kind of like having a sports commentator writing design journalism.

MB       There are people with art backgrounds writing this too. One can notice they don’t have the proper terminology, or don’t really know what they are looking for. They are producing a criticism without really having any special engagement or opinion about what they are talking about. You can see it now in some newspapers that it is happening with architecture. There are people coming from other backgrounds writing about it, that don’t really know anything about it. One can hope it’s a sort of training process which will make them better at it. We have someone here, who has a one year substitute in Arkitektnytt, who’s name is Mikal Godø, who originally is a film critic and author, a very good journalist who started in Dagbladet. They didn’t have a permanent architecture journalist, so he started writing about it. The longer he is here, the more he will learn about the industry, the better he will write about it. And I think the more of these, that other fields dare to get a grip around architecture… It isn’t a problem that it is people with an art background that write about architecture, but they need to work up a position where it really makes sense what they are doing. Of course, the more people that dare to write about these industries, the more confident they, the editorials and the readers will adapt, maybe then the climate to receive critics, it will become better.

SR       That’s a good point. I think that, as a reader, when one is reading someones critique, one has to trust the person who has written it in order to believe what they are saying. Not that one should agree completely with the person –

MB       No, no

SR       That it should come as valuable information.

MB       Apropos the music criticisms, I remember, they had it there, right. If you read Natt&Dag at the end of the 90’s or early 2000’s you had very clear profiles. In a way you knew what they were thinking, what they liked, you knew their references so well that you knew when they said this or that about a record, whether it was good or bad what they said, you could tell by the way they were writing about it whether it was something “I” would be interested in. There were some voices back then that I really agreed with in a way.

SR       Because you get to know their writing style.

MB       You get to know the sender, you know who that specific critic is and what he or she stands for. Another about critique is that it is kind of a secondary occupation that someone goes into while they are studying, or right after, and then they leave it again. So they can’t build up a reputation as someone who has a critical voice which lets the readers get to know them, and that they also get to know their own project in many ways. There are some of these continuity questions that are central here.

SR       Earlier when I was looking for critiques or reviews, to find which models I should be interested in, what I think could perhaps work in Norway where we are not used to reading this kind of information. I wondered why we don’t really understand why we should read about graphic design. Maybe it’s advertising, maybe that’s a communicator, often associated with graphic design, that people don’t want to affect them. How do we then get these people interested in the discussion. Then I started looking at, like you mentioned, the music reviews from the ‘70’s, ‘80’s, as well as serious film critiques from todays journals like Little White Lies. Sometimes I think that the Cinemateket here has managed to create such a role for themselves that what they write about films and what they choose to show, are films we assume are good just because they approve of them.

SR       I think that it must be something about having created a situation where one has people who can write both at a high enough level to put things into the right context, but also on a personal level to make it interesting for people who have more of a general interest. This is where films become interesting for people who have not studied film history. But how can you commence such a profile in graphic design, which platform can one focus on? I think this, especially in Norway, is very difficult. What I found was that many of the authors I collected ‘disappeared’ around the mid ‘90’s. The same period as when media became how we know it today, where it is all about sales and headlines. This type of written criticism faded out, and where is it now? I wonder what platforms in Norway you think is more suitable to use to start a debate or discussion on graphic design. How can one channel such a debate? Without making it unapproachable for all people.

MB       A book can be a criticism in some ways

SR       Architects write for architects, that you have a dividing line that is very clear. Perhaps it becomes a project with many smaller projects about how one can erase the borders and make it more interesting for the public so you avoid a club, or bordered information.

MB       I agree that there is a difference in what’s happening on the internet, at the core of the discipline. And what, in a way, gets a place out in public. I also think I have worked a lot with the history of architecture, and in many ways see some of this practice as a form of architecture criticism. In many ways figuring out why things became what they became, what is the relationship between personal drive and larger ideological tendencies which happen at the same time. For example: I was writing a book which was my master thesis in architecture a few years back. Which talks about architecture in Norway between 1965 and 1970. I then saw the absence of some of these avant garde tendencies within architecture, where I thought: Do we have any of this in Norway at all? They were important tendencies internationally. Were there any architects working in the way that these international movements did? I started digging deeper into this, because their idea was a way… When they worked with what is called institutional criticism, I don’t know if you know this concept from the art world. It’s like a piece of art which in itself works to expose some underlying tendencies in the times or within the museums, or shall we say, it is a form where you place objects into a system to reveal various things in different ways. Or it works with irony or sarcasm, a piece of work that in many ways plays with the cliché or myths within its own discipline to in some way affect how the discipline thinks through bringing something completely absurd out through the artwork or project. It has a goal of making people aware of, or inform about something they weren’t aware of before then. Revealing. Hidden myths, or positions of power or, yes… There were two layers of criticism there, I wrote about projects that were a form of internal criticism in themselves, and I think the way of writing history was also a form of architecture critique. In my mind at least. Institutional critique is a form of discipline criticism which is about pushing the discipline forward, or criticizing through methods one operates with there and then which doesn’t happen in literary criticism. It happens on the inside, through the media one is working with. You’ll probably find loads of these kinds of subversial projects in graphic design as well.

SR       I think it’s interesting that you mention that history in your mind is a kind of critique as well, because graphic design in Norway barely has any history. Not only is it a young discipline, we haven’t been good at taking care of the history there is, especially in comparison to for example the Netherlands where they constantly deal with their history. What grounds for comparing do the Norwegian students then have? Do architects have a stronger history to base themselves on?

MB       Not so much, but probably more than you. But in comparison to for example the Netherlands which is a country in the forefront with regards to critique and history, an architectural superpower in Europe, we don’t. We have a form of canon, some architects who have been important throughout history. But when it comes to administrating the history, I would say that theory, the field of theory which often has a lot to do with criticism, it is hard for me to differ between theory, criticism and history in one way or another. There can be something that overlaps. Maybe it is the critique which lies in the bottom of the other two, theory and history. We in Norway now, the last years theory and history has become a lot better, especially at AHO in Oslo (Architecture school in Oslo), where there is a very strong environment for theory and history. Which has been very keen on rereading also the newer Norwegian architecture history, a sort of awareness around what one has, because otherwise the history has been very canon based. Then some books come out, then some more books as tributes to architects who deserve their own book. Now we have a more critical use of history which has grown and become stronger.

SR       I have thought that history as a form of criticism has been especially important the last years within graphic design because a lot of newly graduated designers base their profession on design for web, that it should just appear on the internet. That many base themselves so much on trend because it becomes clearer now than before when you had nothing but history to base yourself on. There are several hundreds of years of knowledge that gives us credibility. Maybe also for graphic design because most people know the tools we use, but the reason we do it and not the average Joe, is exactly the knowledge and history. It is a part of what’s important to build up on awareness and dignity.

MB       I agree with that. I think take a look at the first chapter in my book. When I talk about institutional criticism I also talk a lot about the architecture as an institution, like a kind of system which consists one the one hand of practicing architects, and on the other historians, lecturers, the large institutions which are preselected. The understanding of architecture as a field. I think it gives an interesting view into how one writes critiques, or how one relates to the institution. Is there something that tries to spring out of something, undermine something, or consciously build on something else. How does a piece of work relate to the tradition or the field on the one hand, or how does it relate to the world on the outside where it should be seen. Often you also have very specific functions within the institution, not just in the way of how it meets its users, but also how it is something fundamentally different or how others have done things earlier. How it works in the internal discipline discourse. Often a work of architecture is the most interesting on the inside. How it in one way or another relates or doesn’t relate to a tradition or discourse or how it can be problematic for a discourse are things often not shown on the outside. It can deal with larger problems one has been working on for a long time which one can be able to solve or not solve. It is this inside/outside discussion I often think is very interesting.

SR       Especially if one is standing on the inside. There is a lot that can be considered logical, interesting or clever. I often feel that when I have a “aha!” moment with relation to criticism, or what we should, what we are missing or how one should solve it. After some research I realized that most things have been tried, have already thought about it. I suspect that to get this project to work as a connection between outside and inside, it has to take the step towards becoming a hybrid or a collaboration on a different level than what I thought when I started. I definitely think that having conversations with as many different people as I can will help me in realizing what my thesis is really about.

MB       Here you are in a critic’s position. Where the critic is observing what he/she observes. Is it from the inside or the outside. This is why history is often easier. With a kind of historical distance it is easier to selectively pick what type of view you should have, than when you are looking at something very close to you in time. That’s when it becomes difficult to know which glasses you put on when you look at something.

SR       And who you’re talking to?

MB       And who you’re talking to, of course.

SR       And how. These three questions come up all the time. It started with an article from 1983, an article which requested critiques. So I have been working from 1983 until today.

MB       In Norway?

SR       No, this was international. I started with an article by Massimo Vignelli. But in Norway I haven’t found much about the subject. I got a hold of a journalist, Kristina Ketola Bore, who I talked to yesterday. She has a masters degree from one out of the two schools in the world which have this education. She lives and works in Norway at the moment, and she said it is exciting but very difficult to find out who you work for and what you can write.

MB       I have often thought it is more fun to write for the daily press. Try to link it up to a more general cultural discussion with references that maybe relate more to references you would use in other cultural fields. It can often be more exciting than writing on the inside.

SR       Do you think that it is mainly architects among the readers of Arkitektnytt?

MB       Architects are our target audience, so yes mainly architects. This is an article which looks at how three different critics operate when they write in architectural magazines and when they write in the daily press. There might be something interesting there.

SR       Yes, that’s very interesting. I found a comment from Rick Poynor. He had written an article about a book that would be printed in New York Times. Before it was printed the editor had changed the title of the article and added a paragraph with an introduction which explained what graphic design is and can be. Poynor then asked if it is just graphic design which needs an introduction before one can start reading about it. Do you do this with architecture as well? When you write for the daily press, do you feel you have to introduce it?

MB       This varies a lot. It is kind of like having to feel for it from one time to the next. Sometimes you need to be… That’s some of what’s nice about writing for the daily press. One can allow oneself to be a little more generalizing in certain aspects. You don’t need to write and write about small nuances, it is a different type of dissemination where you try to put the importance of a piece into some kind of context which can also be important for the reader. You always have to argue why something is important why it is important that you are writing about it in the daily press. But when you’re writing on the inside the project is important in itself, you don’t have to argue or legitimize your text in that way. If that’s an answer. No, there is something… I often think there is something very freeing about writing in the daily press. I feel one can, in one way or another, make room in every single article to make it relevant. But this again makes it important which glasses you look at the building with. It can’t be the nerdy, what should I say, clichés about subject matter then. This is why I often think that, something you observe there as well, is that at once we write for journals within our discipline we use a lot larger, harder words. It becomes more pretentious. It is clear that they maybe, in many ways, also think it’s more difficult to write for these journals because they feel that they always have to defend why they are writing for such a journal. They have to prove their knowledge in a completely different way. Instead of starting at a different level where you can include things that relate to society or culture.

SR       The threshold to participate in subjected criticism is higher.

MB       Or an imaginary expectation to what the subjected criticism should include in some ways. It can be more tiresome to read because you see that people are insecure. Especially because some of the writers aren’t architects themselves, but who come into the field of architecture. Then they feel like all the experts are looking at them, and they have to prove that they have a lot of knowledge. Then they end up writing things that aren’t so interesting. While in the daily press it becomes the opposite, you can jump directly to an important point and read about a project from a specific point of view which isn’t necessarily collected from a certain discipline. That’s what I think is the great question every time. Is there a template? Some people do that, think that they must write from a certain setup before they can write what they want. Or you can start in one place and say that if we read this project as a post in a debate where this person and that person has managed this and here you have an example of a project that is doing something else. This becomes a very reductive view. You can never say everything about an object anyway. It’s about finding some interesting introductions to how to talk about the project. If the critic themselves find it fun to write with an interesting view on something, it will be more fun for the reader as well. I think a lot of the ability to disseminate lies in that it can be a good or engaging text without the reader necessarily understanding everything, rather than giving an educationally edified text where you think someone out there expects something from your text. I tried to write a criticism for D2, where I felt there was a context with a lot of fashion, design and other things. It was surrounded by a lot of other types of references, which made it quit easy to understand the universe of D2, which lead one to think that if the reader can understand that, they will also understand this. So the context in which a text stands is important and can give an introduction to how one thinks about a text as a critic and which glasses one should wear.

SR       Did you take any form of journalism, or did you come straight from AHO and work your way into the world of critics?

MB       No, the writing. I went to the architecture school in Trondheim for three years. Then I moved to Oslo. Then I read theory and history of art and aesthetic theory. That’s where I got the tools really, to start to think and write about architecture. It came from theory of art and from general aesthetic theory. I did not have the tools, concepts or ways to understand things from my education which enabled me to write. So I took courses in academic writing at the University of Oslo, but it was art history, modern art, but I got the tools to read. Various interesting theories within art, that one can learn from, because it has an exemplary and well developed theory production. All of the various philosophical and historical thoughts have been picked up by the art field and put to use. There are many forms of art criticism that exists. .To become familiar with the tradition there, to find out how they talk about things within the art field. Can we move that into the field of architecture. Are there any of those glasses we literally can begin to use, start reading architectural history or read contemporary architecture through some of the tools from art history? For me this was very useful. I took a small writing courses at the architecture school as well, but I do not think it was as important. It is from the academic traditions that I still write. Then I got training through writing for newspapers. It was not so difficult to go into it. I do not necessarily believe that the best entrance to writing criticism is through journalism. I sometimes think that too much focus on the dissemination can be damaging for writing. For me it is a focus on the subject of architectural criticism. it is not a communication project, or journalistic project. It is a academical project for me. I think as an architect, it is part of the way I learn about Romanesque architecture on. In a way the reading, or tools for criticism I do not think you’ll find in journalism. One can learn how to write more effectively, formulate better and such. But I do not think you necessarily become a better critic, find an appliance or tool to read things through journalism.

SR       You mentioned finding tools, but that you had to go to the university to find tools for conducting criticism. This leads us back to education again. In this debate we consistently ask for is lacklustre may come from the fact that many practitioners and students that feel that they are missing the tools to express themselves publicly.

MB       At the same time you have the tradition within architecture, surely graphic design as well, that in many ways all discussions that they have about student work is a form of architectural criticism. Projects are discussed, every one contributes to the discussion, and are able to formulate their opinions whether it is regarding small details or larger overarching things, as well as retrieving historical references. The verbal criticism tradition is very active and probably exists in all the design disciplines. Seen in the light of this one can say that a lot of criticism is produced at schools. Then one can wonder why the threshold still is so far from this to producing forms of written criticism.

SR       I believe, at least within graphic design, that the answer is to be found in the lack of writing at school. In mu education there has been few written assignments and not much reading. We had the art history as a subject, but it remains a subject that skims content. We seldom have to justify the design choices we make in relation to design or art history. Perhaps it is also a factor that we do not discuss our written texts in the same manner as we would with our design work. Maybe there should a better discourse about the written assignments?

MB       The Art Academy in Norway offers many courses in different forms of writing, of experimental writing as well. It is an English friend of mine who has been a professor of writing and theory at the Art Academy in Oslo, named Mike Sperling. Very smart and interesting guy. A He has written a number of art criticism and is now working with artists and text, not necessarily to get them to become critics.

SR       How can you use text.

MB       For example on the relationship between art production and criticism, and so on. Regarding your question on how we relate to written texts at design schools. It is as you say, a text is a text, it is a hand in for a history assignment or the answers to exams. Where the focus is on whether you got the dates correct, while the text’s own ‘life’ does not matter. What Mike Spelling is trying to do is that he puts the emphasis on quite experimental tasks with art students. It is obvious that he thinks it has potential. Text is a way of thinking, a way to organize thoughts, he must see a great potential for artists. There are also people at the architecture school now, there is a tendency to focus more on writing. People want to try to experiment with criticism, essays, ethic and so on. It has always been a tradition that architects barely read books, and that they do not write. This has been the myth, and in periods also the truth. In many ways the subjects of art and design differ from the more academic subjects. The way we learn is not following an academic model, so the academic writing tools have been absent in our forms of education. But is will change. Mari Lending comes from literature, she is a professor at the theory department at architectural college and she has worked for many of those text courses with architects to get them to write more, to use writing, working with history, write revolutionary history, helping them find out of things, important events in architectural history, rewrite it and so on. This is something she has worked extensively with. It is a bit on the outskirts of the theme about criticism, but it is about how she develops a writing culture. Mari Lending has also written some architectural criticism too. She is probably more historically schooled in what criticism should be and the role of criticism. She may have something interesting to say about your topic. Architecture and graphic design has in common that we are both functioning as mercenaries. Art does not have that kind of role because they have completely autonomous actors. I think that architecture criticism and graphic design critique may well have overlaps. If it focuses on a more ideological form of criticism, from questioning the relationship between capitalism, sales, products and branding. The relationship between this and the form that you give it will result in quite similar issues for graphic design and architecture. It is not irrelevant fields to compare at all. Art and literature, both have strong and solid traditions for criticism. Even though they are completely different from ours, they’re also quite interesting in that way. Whereas when it comes quite specific issues there might be that one can find more things in common between graphic design and architecture.

SR       I am mainly interested in graphic design criticism because the media today already writes about product design, perhaps not as much as we want, but it does exist. Up until the redesign of the bank notes, graphic design has not been written much about in Norwegian media, this is one of the reasons I have been following Grafill and the exhibition of the bank note design contributions.

MB       There has not been any review of the exhibition. None of it.

SR       I saw that most of the articles posted online on the matter have been based on personal opinion, whether it is nice or not.

MB       That’s often how debates about visual identities turn out, when the major visual identities are released it, often, unfortunately, becomes lowlights in the debate. There is, in a way, not much understanding of the subject as such. It is seldom that a graphic designer or a professional expresses their opinion on the logos for big companies such as DNB (The Norwegian Bank) logo or Gjensidige in a serious debate when those logos are to be released. Rather, they ask five on street questions about whether it is pretty and or not.

SR       I found an article in Eye Magazine where they claimed that commenting on design has become a bit like sports commentating. That the online comment fields resemble football tributes.

MB       I think it is connected to a basic understanding of the design as something to be used and utilized by all, so therefore everyone can have opinions on anything. When it comes to art, it is different. All art is not for everyone. You have a specialist group that are curators, museums, collectors- people who are, in a way, authorized to have opinions on art. In a way, one can then justify the art one does not understand by saying that it is its own thing. While design can not be that way, for their nature should design be for everyone, it should work for everyone. If you have a weird poster for a poetry festival in Western Norway. Then the viewer can understand that it is not important that everyone understands it. And then it may be something that is peculiar and strange, and not for everyone.

SR       When the viewer can recognize that it is for a user group he or she is not part of?

MB       On the other hand you have the DNB logo. In that case you can stop people on the sidewalk and ask: “what do you think about this logo?” And every single statement will mean equally as much. And therein is where the public discussion has a problem, a short circuit, because it is not certain that the man in the street understands the logos features, understands that the logo looks like this because it will have to function both as ten feet high and five feet wide on the outside of a building, at the same time it is supposed to function in a small size on a website. That these are the reasons it looks like it does. That is part functionality. “Why it’s green?” “Yes, it’s because…”

SR       That there is a whole process of thinking that lies behind, which is not visible to the man in the street.

MB       When someone is stopped on the street it becomes a bit like: “jaja, okay.” Then there is this distortion of how bank logos are. It is the same with innovative design- what should I say, the design work that takes things a bit further. What is innovation in design, is often a bit incomprehensible to people. People can not see it, it is something that one often can not appreciate in the present time. In the same way as with visual arts such as theatre, or literature. The problem within the design field that we do not have individuals with authority, who can stand up in society. Which perhaps can be seen in Netherlands, Germany or England in a slightly different way. Someone who can stand up and say, you know what, take it easy guys, this is good.

SR       I have thought that it may have something to do with the short life of graphic design projects in comparison to many of the other forms of culture and art.

MB       Perhaps. Now, the Guardian, who said that the banknotes were going to be classics. This type of concept on a banknote – I think that’s a bit problematic to bring up so early. Firstly, it must be used. Secondly, it’s not even finished yet, these are just sketches. It must actually be used in a market and function as it should, over time, then one can say it is a classic. The Seven chair by Arne Jakobsen is a classic. It came in 1954. A newly manufactured chair can not be a classic.

SR       Netherlands obtained –in the 70s– designers to redesign their banknotes, but there are few others who have done this, that I know of. There, these bank notes became a classic, but before this was said there were many discussions due to the design of these bank notes.

MB       Last time Norges Bank did this was in 1930. There was an exhibition at the artists’ union. Then there were twelve proposals submitted, and in 1930 there wasn’t something called ‘graphic design’. Then, it was artists or graphic artists, those who create art with paper. It ended with public debate and criticism, mass criticism and complete breakdown. It was not realized.

SR       The idea was there in 1930.

MB       Yes.

SR       As I said in the email, I think the concept of design criticism in itself is quite difficult to define. There are many opinions about what it could and what it should be. I of course have one opinion.

MB       What do you think?

SR       Can you tell me what you think of the concept ‘design criticism’ and what role it should have, or not have, in Norwegian media?

MB       What is the design, right? What should it be and what will it be used for? I think this is the criteria it must be judged on. And that is design criticism. You have a descriptive part- an analyzing and judging part. That I think, should be the design criticism. You describe the object you see, describing the poster or packing solution, describing the visual identity or website. You describe what you see. So, you take an analysis of functionality, how it works, what it should be, how it meets a need. How it meets an audience, which issues it solves. Then, finally, an analysis or conclusion about it. This is what I consider design criticism to be, what do you think?

SR       Actually, to some extent agree with what you say. I have found an excerpt of a text by Rick Poynor where I personally think that this is the way we should do it. He wrote about serious film criticism: “This area had hugely knowledgeable, talented, independent writers who earned a living from their enthusiasms by writing critical journalisms for a broad, smart and demanding readership. That might include academic people, but was open to anyone who shared the writers perspectives, passions and taste.” I have been thinking that a way of doing critical journalism, that does not necessarily become too academic and leads us to a level of discussion where it is only about opinions and discussions between graphic designers alone, but that manages to take a step away from the aesthetic aspect alone. “Is it nice or not?” Often I find that design criticism should focus more on the “how?” I think that it should be as much about what it does in the community it is in, whether it is public space or private space, its purpose, as mentioned, perhaps what process it had, about materials and choices. Then we can look at the aesthetic of it and give personal opinions.

MB       What problem it will solve? What it is made of? It is often important ask. An interesting question is for example: In Norway we have two pretty important design competitions. One is called Merket for God Design (Award for Design Excellence) and the other is called Visuelt. The Award for Design Excellence is a competition hosted by the Norwegian Design Council. They have chosen criteria on who should be awarded the Award for Design Excellence based on how the design works. So, those who submit to the competition must document: “Okay, here we have created packaging design for fish, and the customer has doubled turnover because that package was designed as we have designed has made etc, etc.” To prove that the design worked. Another example is if we say that we have in a way redesigned the magazine Dagbladet on Saturday, it has made the circulation go up with so and so much, in this and that way. This means that it is the business sector that wins the prize, the Award for Design Excellence goes to the employer. Do you understand?

SR       It has to do with marketing?

MB       It is like this. What is design? Design is a client who has a product, a service, or something that will be designed in one way or another. Whether it’s a chair, a logo, poster or something else. That is why the employer has to submit and thence receive the Award for Design Excellence. Our competition is Visuelt. What we are saying is that it should be innovative, it should be exciting, it should be that which pushes the discipline forward, takes it one step further. It should be the exciting, innovative design. This is our profile for Visuelt. You can say that the Award for Design Excellence is a competition where the business community sits in the jury, as well as private sector representatives. While in Visuelt, the jury there are only designers. 100% designers. One can ask, “okay, how is design judged?” In this case it can be, like I said previously, that the weird poster for the poetry festival in Sauda is the one that wins gold in Visuelt. Because it is a designer that has done something new. A new material, a new expression, a new font, a new composition.

SR       So, a part of the goal with Visuelt is to cheer on those who do make bolder choices within Norwegian design?

MB       Innovation, those who take it a step further. Whether or not the poetry festival actually doubles their visitors is not interesting. That is not an obvious criteria in the same way as in the Award for Design Excellence. You can say that the profile of these two design competitions creates a pattern. Those who win the Award for Design Excellence are like that – those who win Visuelt are like this. There are some who may say: But, the Award for Design Excellence, that is what design is. Because it is a client who has a task to sell more products. It’s design, which is why we have design in the first place. Then we can say: “no no, that’s not why, it is a subject.” Design is part of the cultural expression, this is part of... It has mechanisms other than just cold cash and function. There are also other things. Right in the middle of this discussion, one can draw parallels to design criticism. Design is also part of a culture that expresses a country. It is part of a bearing cultural tradition, it’s also part of the profit maximizing mindset of the business community. Right in between there is, you can say, there is a long discussion...

SR       It is very interesting with the difference between a cultural and a business approach to design, when looking at the potential use of graphic design criticism.

MB       I believe that much of the design debate that really exists, that does not exist in the public, is not to be found in the debate pages in DN or Aftenposten, but are found in the Grafill environment. It can be found at our breakfast meetings. That is where the debate exists.

SR       This is related to a question I wanted to ask you. I assume that this, the existing debate in the Grafill environment, is part of what you have been trying to create by hosting lectures such as the one by Sara De Bondt a little while ago?

MB       When I started working here five years ago we were located in an apartment a building in Frogner, and this made me think that we can not be an extrovert organization like this. What we are working to create an interesting meeting place for the creative industry. That’s what we do. We think that it is extremely important for graphic designers in Norway to be professional, audible and visible. Many people in Norway know what a fireman does, you know what a doctor does, you know what a teacher does, but you do not know what a designer does. Therefore, it is important for Grafill that we say what a designer can do for you. What does a designer do? What can one do? What issues can be solved? It can be done in different ways. One is to be a bit like an aggressive artist organization that says we need more scholarships etc. An organization who cultivates the complexities of being misunderstood. “You do not understand, you are stupid, everyone else out there is stupid.” Taking the role of the angry artist or designer organization. We have chosen the opposite strategy. That is to say: “Look how clever we are! Dear world, take a look at us, look here, come here, attend our breakfast meeting, attend our workshop, take part in the things we do. Then we can tell you what we are doing.”

SR       Your workshops are open to everyone, not just members?

MB       Yes, it was open to everyone and it was sold out. We had the Visuelt festival this weekend. It was sold out. There are very few design festivals in Norway and Europe that are sold out, but that was the case here. We see that when we have something about ebooks, it is incredibly important that the young editors of CappelenDam, Gullendal, Aschehoug come here to see which illustrators are good at making children’s books on iPad, for example. That it does not become an internal seminar for designers who work with ebooks, but publishers taking an interest in this place as a venue to learn, and to meet.

SR       To understand what knowledge is available.

MB       And to acquire new acquaintances, getting into an environment. What we see on our openings is that photographers, publishers, artists all come here, other people than just we designers. It is very dangerous for a trade organization to make a small tribe of special interests, to frame into and build a misguided reasoning. Whoever bases their view on the idea that everyone out there is stupid in the head who does not realize how brilliant we (ed: designers) are. So we have chosen to say: “look here, take part in our projects.” Back again to your topic. There was one who once said: “We have one problem here in Norway, it is that there are no designers that stand out. There are no designers who are interviewed, who have opinions about different things.” In Finland, Alvar Alto was on the Mark banknote before they got the Euro. In Denmark, everyone knows who Arne Jackobsen was, everyone knows who Bruno Madtsen is in Sweden. In Norway we have Arne Korsmo, but no one knows who he is. When he contested with Alvar Alto, Arne Jackobsen and Bruno Madtson in the Milan Triennial in 1952 it was he who won the gold medal, but nobody knows about that. Therefore, one can ask why design history in Norway is so weak. There are many reasons for that. The museums, communicators, the institutions. Maybe it’s simply that we are a sporting nation.

SR       I have thought that there is a perhaps is a connection to the collecting works within design. We may not have had such a strong tradition of preserving and showing off. It could be that the lack of the story gives people the impression that it does not exist?

MB       There is no definitive, chronologically organised, literary work about Norwegian design in that period. It is embarrassing to say it, but it’s true. Students come here and ask for more information, but we do not have it. Why do we have this tradition? Which shoulders should we lean on? We, who are 25 years old, who are being educated today. Who is part of a tradition? Who is part of an environment? Where are our roots?

SR       The design criticism I would avoid discussing too much is the hero based criticism, I do not know if it should even be called criticism. Typically, international blogs, websites or books on graphic designers are often hero based, focusing on the designer and his work. The advantage of it is often that these heroes from the past, such as Wim Crouwel in the Netherlands, have a strong affect on how we think about education in Netherlands.

MB       Yes, we had the Visuelt seminar now, so we had a conversation with Leif Anistad. I do not know if you were there? Do you know who he is?

SR       No, I don’t know.

MB       It says something in itself, that you do not know who he is. Leif Anistad is the man who introduced graphic design in Norway, he made the Norwegian Hydro logo among other things. He had a conversation with Aslak Gurholt Rønsen from Yokoland.

SR       Aslak I know of.

MB       Yes. Aslak is a design historian. Aslak collects a lot. You should really talk to him. He is one of the practitioners that takes some responsibility to preserve a collective consciousness, a collective history. Acquiring and collecting. He has had some historical exhibitions here; Melin and Osterlin among other things. What I wanted say was that students come here and ask: “where can I see the history, where can I take part in things?” We had a wonderful exhibition here last year, I can give you the directory afterwards. When the Art and Crafts school, in Ullevollsveien, next to the Industrial Art Museum closed, they were about to move to Seilduksfabrikken in Grunerløkka around 7 years ago. In the attic there were ten cardboard boxes. There was one called Masiar, who teaches at the master’s program in Visual Communications. He went through the cardboard boxes and discovered that there were a lot of exciting things and said to the librarians: “You must take care of this.” The library responded by saying “we will throw it away.” He thought that this had to be saved so he took it home with him. The Art Academy moved locations and he contacted me. First, we granted a scholarship from Grafill to catalog the content of the boxes, and find out what it was. Then we provided another scholarship to have an exhibition here. And it is an archive. In the past, KHiO, the Art Academy, wrote letters to the known designers in 30-, 40- and 50’s. Max Bock, Jan Tschicold- the most important typesetters and designers in these times- and they received letterheads, business cards, catalogs etc. The school also collected journals from the time when they published things as well. There is so much quantity of quality in that collection, there are amazing things! We had to have an exhibition about it. Now there is a publisher called Peculiar Facts and Kristina Ketola Bore was among those who worked in the project group. It says something, when the librarian at the Art Academy institution, who actually has responsibility for these things is thinking, “no, you know what, this is just trash, throw it out.” Then someone takes private initiative to rescuing this collection, some of it of high quality. Welcome to Norway… Speaking of which, when they redesigned the SAS hotel in Copenhagen, there were quite a few eggs and swans and the like thrown away.

SR       Yes, who would know then that furniture would be considered as design classics fifty years later?

MB       Yet, another thing I just remembered. Norwegian Critics’ Associations. There is one called Tale Bjerke. She had a seminar on design criticism at KHiO.

SR       Yes, I was there, this summer.

MB       As daily manager of Grafill, I thought, first of all: why did they not invite me? Secondly: why am I not talking at this seminar? Thirdly: Grafill is the only one in Norway who has actually paid journalists who write features on both and critiques on design. Why is it not even mentioned? I wondered what to do about this. That is when it’s visible that Norwegian Critics’ Associations derives from art history. It isn’t design history who writes about design, there are art historians who write about design who have an art history perspective.

SR       Which can be wrong at times?

MB       That is the problem. I remember when Rød from Aftenposten wrote about the Olympic Games design when it was presented in 2014. The critique was far out, I thought. It was a bit condescending, judged on the basis of being an art work and not as a result of design. Not judged on function or that it needed to be for the broader public.

SR       I often think that, to make criticism work as a public discussion, we might need some sort of a hybrid between the academic side, with art historians etc, and those who are in the field of design, who work with it. It is quite an ideal thought, but perhaps what we should ask for is better communication between these two fields, if we are even thinking about creating design journalism for public media and not just in our own journals.

MB       Yes, perhaps it would be interesting to have a conversation with the Norwegian Critics’ Associations. We are, in a way, standing on their doorstep. The exhibition we have now is based on the confidence of Norwegian design. When the Guardian and the Telegraph etc writes about the redesign. These banknotes actually received amazing reviews worldwide, but no mention in Norway. Nothing. It is really strange. It was in Aftenposten this weekend, I spoke with the journalist and said that,now the case isn’t really about the banknotes, the case is really that this has received a major international attention and become a success internationally, and Norwegian media have not gotten it at all. That is what’s the matter.

SR       I have been following the online Norwegian newspapers for a while, archiving what I came across when searching for keywords such as graphic design. Right after the redesign of the banknotes arrived I found one comment in Aftenposten, but I did not really understand the scope of this project until I read the article in the Guardian. I honestly think it is quite embarrassing to see the results I get when searching for graphic design in Newspapers.

MB       Very embarrassing.

SR       Most of the time, graphic design is mentioned as a subordinate clause. Only a few times did I find articles about actual projects. With the exception of the recent interest in the redesign of the passports and banknotes. I have been looking all the way back to 2003 in their online archives. For example, the competitions we previously discussed were documented, but only as photo series, or photo galleries.

MB       Features. It is Feature; it is descriptive, not analyzing or judging.

SR       It was all about how it looked, and who won. A short thank you and goodbye.

MB       Which perspectives would you say that you have on this, how do you think this works in the future, did this design solve its task in an interesting way?

SR       I think that most readers can certainly have an interest in understanding what graphic design is about, especially these competitions, but if they do not get any guidance there will be no growing ground for the those who are interested. Perhaps with the exception of picturesque objects such as books.

MB       We have the competition Årets Vakkreste Bøker (The Most Beautiful Book of the Year). In Norway today there are over fifty awards every year that go to the book industry. And those fifty prizes all go to a writer, a bookstore or a publisher. This years publishers, Norwegian Booksellers’ Prize, Gyllendal prize etc. Then there is one single prize that goes to the designer. Årets Utvalgte Bøker (Chosen Book of the Year) it was called before. We think the beautiful is a difficult concept, but that is another discussion. Paper quality, typography, cover, photo, overall, in other words it is about book design. The Netherlands is of course an amazing example. We get really quite good press coverage at Årets Vakkreste Bøker. It is in Aftenposten and it is in Dagbladet. I think this is because, in a way, it is the only competition that celebrates designer. It is the designer who wins the gold. It is not the publisher, nor the author, it is the designer. I say in all contexts that we must remember that the author does not write a book. It is not the writer who writes the book, there is a misuse of the word, the author writes a text. And the text becomes a book. It is very important to remember this. They say that I have written the book. No, you have not written the book. You wrote a text, on a computer, and that became a book. In that process there is a designer who has given thought to the paper, the cover, the format, the typography and so on, everything that creates the reading experience. The reading experience becomes something completely different than what the writer alone could create. Årets Vakkreste Bøker, has somehow lifted itself to a place where publishers are beginning to form an interest in who the winner of the prizes are. Because publishers can decide how much they want to spend on design, on paper, on the cover, the binding etc. We believe that we are now in a very positive trend where the quality of Norwegian book design is on the way up. After eBook came, actually, but that’s another discussion. We have had “The Most Beautiful Books of the Year, Swiss Books” here; one of the world’s best book competitions. There were 200-300 people standing for hours and studying the books. This is a core of book designers in Norway who are very good at it. There we have hit a market. It’s not just designers, there are also publishers and editors who come here. I think that it is not nerdy, they are collectibles. Really, a lot of those books are art objects.

SR       Globally, books have been collectible objects for a while already. In the Netherlands you can find designed books as part of permanent exhibitions in museums.

MB       That is what is so interesting about the banknote competition here, it is that we have nothing to be ashamed of. We are good. There is good competition. There are many good designers in Norway, there are many talented designers in Norway. They compete well. So we have not understood a shit of it. Aftenposten did not understand it, neither did Dagbladet or Dagens Næringsliv. They have not understood it.

SR       Do you think that part of the debate in Norway is about confidence? If we would have an increased confidence in general or a deliberate remuneration of designers there would be more room in the media for debate?

MB       What I saw as a young director of a design museum, (Industrial Art Musem) was that we had many visitors. But there was no overall view, there was no chronological history of Norwegian design, nothing. There was very little to find if one were interested in a Norwegian designer, or in Norwegian design history. There is very little to see.

SR       It might be interesting to see if the recent exhibition at Hennie Onstad, about Norwegian Bauhaus, is a sign of an increased awareness?

MB       Yes you can say that. It’s a bit the same as with the banknotes. If we look at it all, as an overview, we have nothing to be ashamed of. Emprix.no is a website with a focus on cartoon criticism. We sponsor the site, and have helped building it up. The launch was right before summer. A website for comic critique.

SR       It’s very interesting that we have managed to create a forum for comic criticism in Norway, and yet we have not managed to do the same for graphic design. That they have managed to set up a platform for discussion, where the rest of visual communication has not succeeded.

MB       That is a very good point. I think it is related to several things. One is that graphic novels in a way are part of a literary genre, in the same way as poetry and novels. Comic needs to get people to understand that comics can be something other than Phantom and Donald Duck. So, there are very many graphic novels that are adult novels, for grown up people who read graphic novels to acquire knowledge on a subject. While the world around us thinks comics are for kids, but it’s something else entirely.

SR       They have worked hard to get recognition for years?

MB       We, I, and the cartoon group have also worked politically. Now, comics are inside the procurement of cultural council. If you look at their achievements from the perspective of graphic design, one can ask why graphic design still do not have a serious website, a journal or the likes that focuses on criticism. Which is quite tragic really. One could say the same about industrial and fashion design.

SR       If you were to start a forum or publish a journal with design criticism, based on the model of film criticism, which platform would you think is the best to use?

MB       Designkritikk.no

SR       It is actually a domain that Norwegian Critics’ Associations or KHiO have acquired already, it was mentioned at the symposium I went to. Nothing has happened on the website yet. Do you think that design criticism should take place primarily online?

MB       Yes. Such as empirix.no, barnebok.no, kunstkritikk.no or yes, as designkrtikk.no. We had one magazine called Snitt before, that we stopped publishing four years ago. What we did was save the editorial budget and bring it onto the website instead. So, we publish the weekly articles from journalists, design critics, or design journalists. Feature journalists write about design for us. It is not hardcore design criticism, it really is not. We think that maybe we should make a publication using 40-50 the articles we have written, to give it an extra value, extra life. We have an interview with Sara De Bondt, we collect and write about the lecturers that come here that have interesting things to talk about or show. But those articles easily disappear, virtually speaking

SR       This was the reason that I was interested in platforms. There are websites that collect design criticism, that have become quite popular and that are well curated. But because they are online it is also up to those who are interested to do the research and find those pages themselves. This again makes it a niche, something for specially interested people. For us, only us.

MB       Martin Lundell, do you know him? A professor in Visual Communication at KHiO? He was granted a scholarship to research the term graphic design and he explored that through conversations at the various design universities and colleges in Europe, to look at the development of the term graphic design. When you work in a European context, what do you understand the term graphic design to be? How do you educate graphic designers? I see that there are practitioners from abroad who come here to Norway, both foreigners that come here to settle down and work, and Norwegians that go abroad to take their educations and return. One can see that when they come here they have other perspectives on the subject than for example those who took their education here at Westerdals, KHiO, or KHiB.

SR       You easily feel as if you are part of a very different conversation.

MB       Then it is about what you understand the subject, or term, to be. It is quite central for a discussion on what criticism is, and how to do it; how to judge or criticize. This has implications for how the criticism turns out, that is the point here. Where does the concept of design stand? How are the perceptions of design? What kind of practitioners are being educated, how do they look at the subject and the context around it. Martin Lundell and Karl Jurgens will work with this subject. Through conversations with deans from Amsterdam, Berlin etc.

SR       If we go down to the core of what we are asking for, then it is just that which you mention; we are asking for a basis for comparison. Rick Poynor wrote that some of the times when he got his articles in print in the newspapers, he experienced that the editor wrote an introduction to what graphic design is. The point being that he did not know of any other art field that operates with a critique, where an introduction is needed.

MB       I think most people do understand what graphic design is. They have a concept, an understanding. They understand that it is a layout, but if you expand the concept, and call it Visual Communication, then I think many people will experience less of an understanding of the term. The work of a graphic designer is quite simple to grasp. The work of an illustrator is also quite simple, it is in the drawing, in the expression or in the physical manifestation.

SR       It is difficult to engage in design criticism the writers themselves, are unsure of who has the copyright to a work, or who did what within a project. It can be problematic to write constructive criticism when this is unclear, and therefore it can become more a critique of the content, which is often made by others than the graphic designer him or herself.

MB       I worked with a communications advisor some years ago, and he came with a funny idea. He ran some sites for food and wrote a lot about food and said that: people are the very interested in food and I have an idea that you can try. This came about when we discussed how can graphic design can be put on the map, how to get people to understand that it is visible everywhere. We’re really quite fond of, and dependent upon, quality visual communication in the environment to orient ourselves, to get experiences etc. But how do we get that message forward in a good way, so that people will understand. Then he said, pick out a designer, so you and the designer go and eat at a five star Restaurant. Go to Maemo, go to Bagatelle. First you take on the sign, advertisement, menu, font, chair, table. So you can be designers who judge everything but the food. The art on the wall, carpet colour, but not the food. It is very funny. It is somewhat the same with Årets Vakkreste Bøker. A book smells, and it is part of my tactile, physical, experience of reading a text. To actually smell what the book smells like, this is the three dimensional object that is called a book. It is part of the experience of sitting here and eating this food. How is the menu, how is the typeface, and so on. I see because I care about it, and I work with it. But those who do not work with it, they care as well, because it is part of their total experience, just like it is with a book.

SR       It is perhaps often taken for granted, that one is not aware that it is part of what defines your experience.

MB       Svenske Teknare, our sister organization in Sweden has a slogan that goes: “Det syns det vi gjør” (It shows what we do). I think that is a good slogan. It is a bit like that, yes it shows what you do, but jaja. You take it for granted and easily think that it is not so often important. Therefore, it is cool with that kind reminder in the banknote competition. The whole world, watches but we have not understood any of it at home. Why not, really? That’s where your problem really starts.

SR       Why is this not in the media? Some journalists said at the seminar on design criticism that they will often write more critically and go into more depth of design, but also that they will be limited by editors and editors in advertising. Then I think again that maybe Norwegian newspapers is the wrong place to start, but how do we get out to the people then?

MB       I think like that at Grafill, we march on. We publish articles, we put editorial budgets, we write about things, we open up the doors. We drive on and do our arrangements.

SR       Almost a bit like a foot soldier. A lot has happened with Grafill since the first time I heard about it. A lot has also happened in Norway since I moved. To begin with I thought that I would not come back.

MB       It’s strange, I asked some students at KHiO what they want to work with and they said, ‘books’. That is really a bit special because the book industry is on its way somewhere else. Quite certainly, many books will be produced in the coming years, but…

SR       The Netherlands has become very web based, we have not progressed that much from the traditional graphic design, but there is a lot of focus on the network, coding, eBook, etc; new methods.

MB       We have had some workshops here with ebooks etc. Both the problem you are mentioning, and what you are looking into, is interesting for us.

SR       First can you tell me about your work description, and how this maybe relates to design criticism in Norway. Just a quick, first introduction.

KKB       Well, as I mentioned via email, my MA is in something called design writing criticism, which is a course that was made up of one part that was quite academic and historical, while the other part was more trade-related- meaning that is had journalistic intention, if you will. So, that was what I worked with on my MA; design criticism and what that can mean, and that is also what I continue to work with in my practice today. So, I teach a bit, I just came back from Estonia where I taught a week of workshop for the graphic design students- talking about writing and reflecting, and about how those two are intrinsically related to each other. Apart from actually writing about design, I am also going to go into the structures of the design field. And then, I’m part of a small publishing house and we work with these kinds of questions as well, and I work freelance as a writer, and teach history and theory at the academy here. For me, it’s about all of the different things that design writing can be, because I don’t believe it is only about producing a piece of text, it can be so many other things.

SR       What kind of media in Norway do you write for?

KKB       Mainly, I write for trade publications. And I write for D2, and I just wrote a piece for Aftenposten K, and so on. And what’s kind of interesting is the things where I am most critical are not the pieces that are published in Norway, it’s for international media. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of room to do actual critiques of design in Norway, and there are several reasons for that I think. One thing is that to have that kind of critique in the media, it also needs to exist in the field, I believe. It can’t just be in the one place, it needs to be triggered and fueled by something and so, when there are so little critical activities happening in the field itself, it doesn’t lend itself easily to write about it.

SR       I had an intention of asking you about this, because as far as I understand in Norway, the word criticism or ‘krittik’ has kind of a bad connotation, it’s something that people don’t want to find themselves doing as it feels as if you’re stepping on the toes of your co-workers. And it’s a very small community. Do you have any ideas or thoughts about this?

KKB       Yeah definitely, that word has really negative connotations in Norwegian. In some ways, it does in English as well, but I believe it’s been taken in a much more constructive way in the English language. In Norwegian, we tend to think of it as something that’s just negative, while critique is something that I believe actually has a positive viewpoint, or intention because it is about saying that there is something good about something, or that has the potential to be better because it is, in fact, substantial in some way. And in the more academic world, it’s just a given that having a critical mind frame is something that you need to have to produce something good. But when I was working on my MA, I chose not to use the word ’critique’ because of what you say, because people think it’s negative in Norwegian. It doesn’t have the same culture or legacy that it does in English. So, I chose to focus on reflection instead, which I think is the starting point for any critique. But also, design critique is for me not only about these, kind of, ’reviews’ of something. Design critique can also happen in a written piece that is about looking at a specific tendency or development. Critique is about contextualisation and understanding something from a historical perspective as well as in a contemporary one. So, it’s about seeing something existing outside of the ’objects’ frame, but as part of the society, if you see what I mean.

SR       So I can assume by the way you’re talking about critique that you’re maybe a little bit against the traditional way of looking at designers; the ’hero’ designers, or the ’unique’ designers?

KKB       Well, I think it’s definitely one part of the design field, looking at Jonathan Ives, or Dieter Rams and all these big people that do exist, in the way that we tell the story of design. So, for journalists it can be an easy way to sell their stories- to focus on the people behind, because I think we are always curious about how someone works. We are all a bit voyeuristic, so that is an easy way to tell a story. It is a problem in design writing, because the focus has shifted from the object to the person who produced it, who is usually part of a team. So, it is a very black and white way of telling a story which goes against what I just said about the critique being about seeing something in a more nuanced way.

SR       I find that difficult sometimes, when I’m just trying to understand what criticism of design can be. I want more of it, and I find that I’m calling for a discussion. But I find it difficult to understand with whom am I discussing, and what am I actually looking at. Especially in cases today, where you have design being made by so many people with such different backgrounds. I narrow it down to graphic design criticism in my thesis but the fact is that you can’t always say graphic design criticism. And maybe here in Norway it’s even more difficult. You said earlier that ’it’s not a review’, and I kind of locked on that one because just recently I read Rick Poynor’s text ’it’s time for being against’, where he clearly states that the serious film journalistic model would be a good example to introduce design criticism to people.

KKB       Yeah, I think that as part of the design field, we tend to think that what we do is the most interesting thing in the world! And I think for anyone who’s in a creative field or who works something they’re very passionate about I think that’s the case and, I think it should be. But I think we also have to acknowledge that not everyone is going to be as enthusiastic as we are about a certain typeface, or the way that a layout is done, or whatever. I think it is also the way a review is written, a review and critique are not necessarily the same thing. I know that in music journalism, for example, the reviewer has been scrutinized because the question is what it actually brings to the discourse. For example, here in Norway NO is a magazine that’s trying to talk about music in a more substantial way than a simple review can do. So, even though critiques are perhaps something that can enhance the field to the public, I don’t think that’s the most constructive way to go about it. I think it’s more interesting to try and find it within the context of a larger society, rather than just picking out what’s good or bad about the way something is done. Perhaps that is the discussion that we have internally in the field.

SR       But you think there could be some kind of writing about the field of design that actually compares it with the rest of the society, putting it into something other people understand, and maybe saying something about why it’s important or what changes it makes?

KKB       Yes, but then again, I don’t know if you read a recent piece on design observer about design journalism and the way that it’s about ’3D printing’, and these other big headings that we see across the internet especially. It’s a very easy way to write about design because you can use these crazy events, like ’3D printing the moon!’ Or these ’bio-technologies that make your sneakers heal overnight!’. This kind of design journalism is becoming more and more used, and it’s a very easy way of communicating what something is but it doesn’t necessarily say that much about the field, or how it’s developing, apart from this crazy invention that someone’s done in the name of design. So I think that for design to exist for a larger public, it probably needs to have a bit more of something to relate to than, for example, a print magazine piece about a new typeface.

SR       It makes a good point. How may of the readers would find it very interesting that there is a new typeface? If there was to be a platform then, I’m sitting here thinking about my assignment writing this and noticing that there is no one approach, I don’t have a linear understanding, many of the approaches might even be wrong, and lastly I don’t even know if I will have a conclusion. Probably not. But I liked the idea of having these conversations with all of these people about where this platform would be. Do you imagine it to be media, or is it online, or is it in maybe Grafill, the discussions they do/ post? I mean, how do you imagine this?

KKB       I think it needs to exist both internally and externally, and I think it needs to exist within the context of other culture. Which is the way that design exists in the world as well. To isolate it for just one side that’s just about design criticism, whatever that is, I don’t think is going to be very constructive or beneficial because it’s going to be too introverted.

SR       That would be kind of like the graphic design writing for graphic designer’s books, as much as I love them.

KKB       Yes, they serve a certain purpose, but not the one that design criticism should serve. They are two different things, I think.

SR       The recent book by Sara De Bondt Graphic Design History in the Writing, I feel it serves more as an introduction to graphic deign than as a history that we have in writing. Or as an encouragement to write.

KKB       Yeah, but I think that is what it is supposed to do as well. Graphic design is a really young profession, and we’ve started to write our history properly kinds of the last 20-30 years. So, it’s bound to have a lot of potential for improvement. You also see these kinds of books by Adrian Shaughnessy and Tony Brooks and these limited edition publications are really easy to market and they reach young design students who are really just hungry to see all of these crazy styles that were done. And I think it’s important because it’s a part of telling history, but I don’t think it drives our profession forward in any way, it more documents what has been there, which I guess you could say is also part of progress.

SR       Maybe in the future it’s nice to have the past?

KKB       I think when these historical reinventions, or looking back to the past is done, it’s usually because there’s a need for it in the present, or we see that it identifies with something that is going on now. That there is a certain interest in the same kinds of questions that were asked at one point and so on. But, for me if we’re going to talk about design criticism, I think that it belongs in a bigger media than the trades, and that it needs to sit in the context of other cultural criticisms.

SR       So, it shouldn’t be boxed? That’s why I chose to say graphic design criticism, because you find art criticism, architecture criticism, music/ literature review, product design criticism, and then it all becomes very niche when you start sorting them like that. The same way as the role of the designer, maybe if you start sorting us into separate boxes

KKB       It’s a really hard topic to try and solve, because it also becomes a question of what the format for it should be. Right now I’m speaking of graphic design criticism as a written form that tries to contextualize and so on, but then you have criticism that can happen through objects, and then the discussions that you have are also a way of having design criticism along with exhibitions. So, there’s no set way of doing it. The way that I’m trying to do it as a practitioner, when I’m writing in a journalistic way, is trying to put it into a larger context of culture. For example, we did an exhibition at Grafill, almost a year ago, and that was an exhibition where we tried to reflect on graphic design history and graphic design presence, and I also see that as being ’criticism’.

SR       Maybe especially here in Norway, where the presence of graphic design history is quite none-existent. One of the reasons I find it so interesting to focus on Norway right now with this assignment is because I can see that there has been a very big change just in the last four years, since I left, and people are kind of speeding ahead towards something within design, but at the same time, discussions here seem fruitless compared to what I’m used to.

KKB       I came back because I felt there was a need to start having these discussions here, and that there was room for it. But there is no clear direction, and there is also this thing in Oslo where people are quite happy to go home at 17:00. And when things are going on at Grafill, it’s usually the same kind of people there and usually everyone knows each other. This is the case in most countries, but I think especially here. I was really surprised in how little people were actually engaged in their profession, outside of ’just’ making, if you will. There was no, or, a lack of discussion outside of that. It’s work, and then you’re done, you go home. Maybe these people are at home and discussing it with other people, but that’s not in public space. It’s not very generous. I think it needs to be taken more into the public, if it is happening at all, and it’s a way to take ourselves seriously. It’s a way to show others, outside of the field, that we do take ourselves seriously and that the profession is an important one.

SR       I’ve been a bit scared mentioning ’value’, because you can have value in graphic design as value of the individual, made object. Does it have value even though it has a short lifespan? Or does it have less value if it’s close to advertising? Or, what is the value of the graphic designer considering that you might be the medium for someone else’s message? I mean, most times you do work with other peoples content, with other peoples words, and alongside other peoples direction line. So, defining what value means in these situations I also find very tricky.

KKB       Yes, and I think it will have different value for different designers. But, looking at it in general, I would say that graphic design is very valuable because it has a very quick reaction to development. Graphic design can be produced really quickly, both from the designer and the printer, or if it goes on web. So, in the design field, I find it’s the discipline that has the quickest reaction span, if you can call it that. And that has a lot of value because it can tell us stuff about our society that architecture would perhaps use ten years to do. So, I think that most designers will put themselves into the work that they do even if it’s not in the content it’s still in the form-giving, which is also part of the message that is being communicated.

SR       I’ve been watching Freedom on the fence, about Polish poster traditions, and then I read this book called My Work is not My Work by Pierre Bernard, and both of them deal with posters in public space, although I believe you can adapt those to most graphic design. What you’re saying on the bottom line is that graphic design is almost more valued in the situations where we have kind of bigger problems to deal with; political problems- getting designers to redesign the money. Like here now and in the Netherlands in the 70’s to re-adapt the values and encourage new looks upon the government. Or if it’s because we are in a political uproar, and we need to establish new morale values, or like the Polish during censorship, as a way to establish morale among the people and envelop new hope. In all these situations, the posters have been acknowledged as quite valuable and very important. But in situations where we don’t have these kinds of roles as the ’value-maker’, the value of the poster and the value of the work also kind of diminishes. So, a question, if you really want to put it on a knife edge is, do you need big world problems to make important work?

KKB       No, I don’t think so, but I think that a text that is often used in design education, a text I used last week with the students in Tallin, is George Orwell‘s ’Why I write’. He talks about how as a writer, he writes against something and asks the question. I think he was writing it in the 1936, and I think that’s the point with the civil war in Spain, and Hitler is a growing power in Germany and so on. And the way that he writes is to write against something, to have something to protest against. The way that I read the text, he believes that gives his work extra value. And I think that’s the case with design as well, because you’re doing a service in a much stronger way. But, even if we’re not in these dire situations, design is still a way to understand who we are. Culture is what defines us as human beings, and design is part of culture and so on. You can kind of back track it that way. It’s definitely a way to understand who we are, and I think that will always be important. It is really big because design criticism is about design, and design is everything almost. And it comes in so many different shapes and formats and intentions. But, as an answer to your question; yes, design serves a bigger purpose in dire situations, and wars bring with them a lot of new inventions and ways of working. Especially for industrial design, wars have always proven to be really beneficial for the development. And posters help inform people and that’s basically what graphic design does, is communicate. So, yes, but I still think it’s important in the normal, in times of peace and so on.

SR       While in times of peace, another thing that kind of introduced the value of the graphic designer to me again, form another side, was a discussion about the soft power that graphic designers have vs the hard power of politicians and CEO’s. The people of graphic design would sit with the soft power and the ability to choose your assignments, choose your work, choose your style and what you say with it. Do you think this is something that’s trendy to be more aware of now?

KKB       Right now I think we’re in a funny time of graphic design because after the mid-2000’s, where designers were really working as publishers, trying to understand who they were. You know, self-publishing was at a high at the end of the 2000’s. Forms of Inquiry, dot dot dot, all these publications, we are not seeing it today. There is a new generation, I don’t know if you even call it a generation, but the Stewart Bailey’s aren’t prominent in this new wave of designers that are working now. So, even if they are still self-publishing, I feel as if designers are not as active as they were, perhaps ten years ago.

SR       That would be the other side of this discussion that I’ve found. I mean I’m kind of testing the water here just and asking you, ’am I right, am I wrong?’. The other side, compared to this soft power, I mean the soft power article was calling for people to wake up and realize, what can you do? And then the other side of the discussion again says that people care too little about their own ability or don’t understand enough the ability they have within the profession. And that is why the discussion of graphic design kind of loses out, because people don’t understand their responsibility.

KKB       I think that this self-publishing has been done now for some years, and people are thinking, ok, while self-publishing was a bit radical six or seven years ago, it’s not now. It’s just almost one of those things you are expected to do working as a graphic designer, working in the cultural field. And therefore, graphic designers working in the cultural field who always have a need to be inventive and push forward, aren’t doing it because it’s already been done. So, it’s a question of, ’what can I do instead?’.

SR       And everything radical becomes normal.

KKB       Exactly, and it’s as if people are searching for the next new thing to do, new way of publishing, new way of self-expression and unfortunately you see designers going into the art field instead, to have that desire fulfilled.

SR       More and more people are suggested to do their Master in fine arts, after a Bachelor in graphic design. I know this in the Netherlands.

KKB       I can imagine that being the case. I think that’s a real shame because there lies an opportunity to develop the field and push forward into these outer limits of what we define as graphic design. It sounds as if I’m really negative now, I’m not, I actually think we’re just at the starting point of something new.

SR       A lot of schools are focusing less on printing, more on web design. They don’t know which direction to push us now because they also see the change. They don’t know if web design is right, but they certainly try to give us something that they didn’t give people before. So, at least you have something new, but the feeling of not really knowing which media you’re supposed to focus on is very present in all students.

KKB       That’s why I think we shouldn’t push people into the art field, but let them think conceptually within graphic design. As you would in arts, not necessarily choose the medium first but choose your idea first and then the medium that goes along with your idea. But web design can be so avant garde, so I think that is where the new self-publishing wave is going to come, if we’re going to call it the self-publishing wave. SR       I was thinking that’s where the real discussions for criticism will take place. I was looking for blogs, one was called something simple like ’art and design’, and they have up to 20,000 clicks in a day, and they collect and curate criticism from around the world. The only problem I can imagine is as soon as you go online, is that somebody would have to find you. Because otherwise you have the need for advertising, and advertising is what makes being online annoying and then it’s a viscous circle. How do you make what’s online available to everybody? I was thinking that a platform online for design criticism would be what it needs, but then you kind of meet yourself in the door immediately.

SR       I don’t have a good solution! I think, again like I just said, the format- understanding the idea before you choose the medium. Why should we have design criticism? I think that’s the most important question to answer, and then how, and then choose your medium. I was also wondering, one thing that maybe more present in Norway than what I noticed in the Netherlands, maybe because I’m in art school, is the difference between the designers that design for the market, and the designers that design for the culture, and I think our two design awards, Visuelt on one hand, and Merket for God Design represent two sides of graphic design maybe even more than Årets Vakreste Bøker.

KKB       Visuelt is also quite commercial, but not as commercial as Merket for God Desig. Merket for God Design is by Norsk Designråd, who have focus on the more business. So, the things that they award there are the things that are benefiting the more financial sectors. While, Visuelt is more about the aesthetics but it’s still very commercial projects that win, andÅrets Vakreste Bøker is the cultural field. I know designers that won’t submit things to Visuelt because it’s too commercial. They are not interested in the discourse that’s happening in Visuelt, and I totally understand that even if I believe that they all have value, because they represent different sides of the field and even if we’re going to attempt, in this art school setting, to dismiss the commercial aspect, that’s also a very important part of graphic design.

SR       The reason I’m asking is because as design criticism, graphic design criticism should be, like we talk about so many times, ‘including’ and put in a bigger setting. That it should also have room for not only criticism, as in direct criticism, but also opening and understanding. Both these fields of graphic design, which can be quite tricky sometimes seeing as they have a tendency to very much take a standpoint away from each other’s approach.

KKB       But I think that’s something that happens a lot in the Netherlands, and a lot in Norway, while in England you have quite a lot of companies that work all over the field. OK RM is a really good example. So, even if there is this line, and people choose to practice in certain ways and with certain clients, it sometimes feels a bit unnecessary to be so pedantic in your practice. I think both of those sides can try to see that value in each other’s work more perhaps, but these divides have always existed and they always will, and they don’t only exist in design, they exist in the larger society as well. People have things that they consider to be more important and that they want.

SR       We’re closing to an end, I think, but I’m curious how did you find your MA and what made you desire to do this?

KKB             I was looking through different MA’s because I wanted to develop my thought patterns. I did my Ba in fashion journalism, and I ended up writing mainly about design. Then I worked for a couple of years doing some marketing stuff, and writing on the side, and it just wasn’t doing it for me so I decided to do an MA and I found that MA because I knew that I wanted to go back to London, and it was just all of these pieces falling together for me. And the people who were running it were really clever people that I respected. The MA itself for me was an epiphany, to be a bit dramatic.

SR       Do you think you have the ability, now that you’re back in Norway, I mean obviously you are still writing about criticism so you probably hope to bring it back.

KKB             Yes, I hope that there’s room for it but I’m not sure if there is yet. We’ll see.

AGR       I’ve always been very engaged in the history of Graphic Design, but I became more occupied by it a few years after I finished school. The first few years I was more concerned about getting my company to work, eventually I became engrossed in history. I often thought about the fact that when I went to school we never learned anything about the history of Norwegian graphic design, they were always talking about Bauhaus or isms, styles that had existed internationally, and nothing about what had happened in Norway during that time. I started to dig into it, that was how I began to be interested, and the rest just added to it.

SR       There is one thing I thought about, which I think is very interesting, if you read about design criticism, or graphic design criticism especially, there is always the point that we, as a discipline, do not have any history. Because we have not taken good enough care of the graphic design history. Particularly in Norway.

AGR       Yes, Internationally I think they’ve been more attentive to graphic design history. In Holland, for example, graphic designers are probably very aware of their history. I would not think this is a problem there?

SR       Maybe not with equal basis as here? I do not know much of Norwegian graphic design history, so it is difficult for me to compare.

TTN       There is very little that is documented in writing in Norway. I spoke with a former teacher of mine last week. She said that this year a colleague of hers died, and it dawned on her that “whow, he’s never written down anything, so he just brought everything he knew to the grave with him.” I think maybe it’s a bit like the situation in Norway.

AGR       It’s probably because it is, in a way, a fairly invisible profession. And it is also a field where all the designers are in a hectic work schedules, constantly with new deadlines, so they do not have the time to write anything. Or, very little. That creates a situation where, especially perhaps because it is a field where there traditionally has not been a habit to evaluate what you are doing, or beyond purely practical things.

SR       If you look at architecture or art, the evaluation is a part of the process. When a project is complete, you expect a debate or criticism. While in graphic design, you are finished when a project is delivered.

AGR       Maybe it is about the fact that architecture is more visible to the people and it affects people to a greater extent. It is a subject that has, in one way or another, a higher status, which makes it more likely that educated architects suddenly become competent to write about architecture in the media instead of working as an architect. While as for graphic designers it’s not so, this applies to other design professions as well. It may not be so likely that one becomes a writer. Perhaps it does not occupy people to the same degree.

SR       So for designers it is is a bigger leap to become writers?

AGR       Yes, but it could be that this is, in one way or another, changing. Because today there are so many graphic designers in training. Because of that, there are more people who are occupied by it, and it is perhaps more likely that some will start writing. Maybe if there is a long economical crack, and the graphic designers do not get work at all, some might be forced to take another approach. Those situations might actually be positive somehow.

SR       That we almost need a crisis for us to write?

AGR       Yes, but also because so many are educated as graphic designers today. It is not so unlikely that suddenly someone finds out that they are not so interested in working with design, but prefer to write about it. It’s really strange that no one is doing that already.

SR       I came in contact with one, Kristina Ketola Bore

AGR       She is not educated as a designer?

SR       No, but she has an MA in design criticism, writing about graphic design criticism in Norway. She was the only one here in Norway that I found. To me it seems like there is a wave of graphic design critique, that it has become something one should talk more about..

AGR       Wave here? There was no wave. (everyone laughs)

SR       Maybe not in Norway, but perhaps it has been on a more general basis? It faded away for a period, but it seems that there has been a new upsurge recently, that there is more interest for criticism, or at least about graphic design writing. Whether this is writing for those outside the design field I am not so sure.

AGR       It is strange that graphic design as a subject is in close contact with letters and language when, really, nothing is written about it. It’s a bit absurd.

SR       There was one who said that graphic designers like to brag about the fact that they hate to read.

TTN       I think that is a trend that is beginning to turn. If you look at Unit Editions, Occasional Papers and such examples, different people who specialize in writing, and not just the books from Gestalten, where they showcase logos of horses on one section and birds on another section.

SR       It was Occasional Papers, or Sara De Bondts book that made me want to work with design criticism. Rick Poynor believed that graphic design criticism should be shaped by the model of serious film criticism, and how they write reviews. Not written by academics, but journalists, who put the criticism in the context of society and which are interesting both for those who are academically interested, but also for others. He claims that this is the best model if we want to write graphic design criticism for daily press, where everyone should be able to take interest. Do you think this could be something for Norwegian media, if you get a well written, or well formulated text about graphic design?

AGR       I do not know, I hope so.

TTN       Yes, but periodically there are written texts about product design in the media. Something I’ve noticed, at least in one case, where it was pointed out that the journalist who had written the article had no knowledge of the profession. He was a former sports journalist who had been allowed to write about anything design related. It was something Andreas Engesvik had pointed out. It may not have anything to do with the question, but.

SR       But it is interesting. I have searched online on the biggest newspapers in Norway to see what I would find if I look up graphic design. Of the hundreds of articles I have, there is only one or two that are actually about graphic design. That changed a bit when the redesign of the banknotes came out. Suddenly there were some more articles related to the actual topic.

AGR       Nevertheless, in almost all those cases (ed. written articles on the re-design of the banknotes), there has been no critical debate around the design. There could easily have been, but there is no one who has evaluated, none that I have seen. Perhaps the one in Morgenbladet, but I have not read that one.

TTN       The bank notes have been presented as “happy news” at the end of the news broadcast. This is the kind of approach Norwegian media took too it.

SR       Very happy with the international attention?

AGR       Yes, or it was as a colleague of mine said. We discussed exactly that, how the bank notes had been covered, and he believed that it was always presented as a fun thing that came in between all other topics: “Well, here we have the new bank notes.” This is no basis for a discussion, it becomes just like this: “Yes but we do not like it”, “it’s ugly” or “it’s nice”. There is no one who has tried to convey what Snøhetta planned with the pixel design, why have they chose a winner and then chose to take two other design proposals and just slap them together. There has not been any such articles, as far as I’ve seen. It may be that the one in Morgenbladet was interesting, have you read it?

TTN       No.

AGR       He writes extensively on architectural criticism, so it might be alright. I do not know.

SR       Last Friday?

AGR       In Morgenbladet. What I saw of it, and I talked to Thomas about, was that much of the article was focusing on why we have a re-design for the bank notes, it will only be disappear anyway ... But that is not necessarily the case. So it is not certain that these ones will be the final bank notes. He had obviously not looked completely into it. But he tends to write quite reasonably.

SR       What was quite exciting with the bank notes, as I noted, was that it was only after the international press wrote about the competition that it started appearing in Norwegian media. The first articles I found were in Aftenposten and formulated more as a comment that one of their designers had contributed to the winning design.

AGR       It was at least in NRK. The cover of it in the international media was also influenced by the same approach: “Look at this fantastic Scandinavian design” And it’s not really an interesting topic.

SR       I found one that thought another design that deserved to win. They believed the one with the children drawings should win.

AGR       I made that proposal, so I’m glad to hear.

SR       Really, haha, that is good.

TTN       Was that on buzzit?

SR       No, it was on a Dutch blog.

AGR       The Dutch, they have understood it.

SR       The reason why I followed the project was that I noted that my fellow students in Netherlands talked about the bank notes, and it was through them I got to see the whole selection of design proposals. In the Norwegian newspapers I only got to see the chosen designs.

AGR       It’s exciting. At the same time I do not understand that if a Dutch blog writes about the Norwegian bank notes and believes that another bank note would win then I wonder what their judgment is based on. It was a pretty complex job, and there are probably many things about the Norwegian culture they do not know, and what the task was.

TTN       I do not think the bank has communicated, in English, the idea behind the various proposals.

AGR       They have not done that in Norwegian either. Except that one.

TTN       The little thing that was on the blog.

SR       I went to the exhibition yesterday and got an aha experience when I read the criteria; what should be included and what it should convey. It gave me more insight than the newspapers.

AGR       Back to the to the Norwegian media coverage, it is a bit like “new banknotes!” and conveyed without telling what designers have thought about this, how it should work. There is no analysis from those who write it. That is what creates idiotic discussions in social media.

TTN       But what we talked about in relation to when a new logo is launched. Such as the Avinor or the Olympic Games logo. They got a lot of silly and negative criticism. But I find it odd that large firms are launching something that is published in the media, and they know that is going to be in the media, that are big events, that they do not have more of an offensive on the coverage to initiate a more critical analysis so that the project can be explained. Instead of it just being like “here is the new Avinor logo” and then the commentary field under the online articles are filled with slaughter of the design. Because there is no one with the background to think anything about the design except for some guy standing and holding one paper, with a logo on that is something of an advertising image.

AGR       It is even difficult to get professionals to give opinions on something. For example, the Olympic games profile of Oslo, to which I was very critical, and I thought that this is as bad as it gets. So I wrote it online.

TTN       Equally bad as everyone else?

AGR       No, I tried to comment on the issues, explaining why I thought it was poorly designed. But that was the first round of the application. When they got to the second round it seemed as if they had corrected everything I commented on and it could be that, for me, that was not a part of the project. It could be that there were many rules they should follow, that some of the rules were things I pointed out without knowing it. For example the way that the text should be left-aligned, and that they actually really thought “ok, this does not look so good in the first round of the design, but in the second round it should work that way,” And I think it’s often important to think I like that. It may also happen that they read what I wrote ... “there is something in what he writes” hehe. At least I was taken aback afterwards because I felt that “wow”, and thought that maybe actually I was a little harsh, and perhaps I was wrong, maybe they had thought that some of it would work better in round two. It is difficult to criticize in a way, when one does not know all the content of the projects. The same goes for the banknotes, for us who have worked on the project. It can be hard for people outside to see that there are very many things that are considered, this is what I wanted to say in relation to criticism. We sit here and say “yes, but there is no design criticism” and it is the profession itself that is to blame for it. One does not simply say that we are always misunderstood and complain that the coverage of design is poor, because there is no one who writes anything themselves. When we had a professional journal (ed. Snitt) previously there were none of it.

SR       Are you referring to Snitt?

AGR       Yes, if you have read through Snitt, we’ve actually red through many of the Snitt editions in the past few weeks. Reading through all the numbers, or at least much of it.

TTN       A lot of it.

AGR       It’s shockingly bad. One wonders somehow whether there has been any editor at all.

TTN       Or, the last number had an editor who maybe should not have been working in this field.

AGR       Yes. When the academic community themselves deliver these kinds of texts, then one can not complain when the media write about it a dumbed down manner.

SR       It is a very good point. Often when I read through texts to prepare for my thesis, I found comments that discusses that. We complain about the lack of criticism, but there is no one writing criticism either. Academic graphic design criticism has repeatedly been declared both starting and ending. Where did those who wrote the articles on how we should spend more time on graphic design criticism go? Why are they not writing the criticism themselves?

AGR       It is very easy to be talking about having too little design criticism, but there are no other texts around the subject either. And that is as important, I think. It is equally important that you try to write about the subject at all. If there had been a magazine that wrote sensible about font design, then that would have been sensible.

TTN       I think that there are two things that are important with a magazine/ journal. One is that you have a kind of discourse, the second is that it will become a document for the future. In the way that we have been reading though fifteen year old journals, such as Snitt.

AGR       Ghastly poor.

TTN       Although it is not so good, it still captures aspects of its time which are not saved anywhere else. What captures the details of the period we work in? It is not stored anywhere. In about 15 years, this period is just a blank, not present, holes in the story.

AGR       I think Snitt eventually got so much negative feedback on the journal that they chose to lay it down, and decided to use the money on a gallery instead. Grafill seems to be improving, when I was a student I thought that it was an organization I did not want to have anything to do with. And today it’s not like that at all. I think that with the new leader they have had a very positive development, although there are things one can be critical to. They have a not-so-thought-through relationship, I think, to mediation and what to spend money on. It seems they went from having a periodical without an editor, or with a completely hopeless editor, to having a gallery without a curator, to having a website without an editor. The focus seems to be that there should be exhibitions, but there is no one who has the overall responsibility. I think it is related to the fact that it is aiming to be a membership organization, amazingly democratic, and everyone is admitted. Where traditionally what has been printed by them has been a bit like “all illustrators submit a drawing with the theme of football, so we press up postcards.” They have no goal then, with what they do. Then the postcards are sent to all publishers, and this would lead to those illustrators somehow getting a job. And that I think it was something that, it is perhaps something they stopped doing, but I think it was very natural, that was how the members would have it. And the organization functioned because it was an important to channel for reaching out to potential jobs, but today the postcards would have no effect. Because we have social media and internet. It is positive I think, because the organization must think differently.

SR       Redefine what they should work on.

AGR       Yes, but they still have that problem. But it is an organization that has been so dysfunctional that it is a hard change to make.

SR       What do you think about the design competitions that are in Norway?

AGR       We discussed it yesterday!

SR       Merket for God Design

AGR       We actually spent the whole day discussing that. I think that it is a bit so so. We participate in competitions, but we participate in the Årets Vakkreste Bøker and Visuelt. The reason is that these are the only competitions that I see as relevant to submit to, because I see no point to submit to Merket for God Design. It is very expensive. I remember when I was a newly educated student I spoke with a designer who had just won the award, but he did not know how happy he really was to win it. First he had to pay to enroll, and it cost probably three times as much as it does in Årets Vakkreste Bøker.

TTN       3000 respectively.

AGR       When he had won, he had to participate at the event, bring the customer and pay for dinner for the client and himself or something like that. And then when he won he also had to pay for publishing the catalogue. Finally he was left with a bill of something like 12,000 NOK. But it is also very difficult with the profession in these matters, because there is such an extremely big difference in the economic situation of different places. So, like a cartoonist who might live on nothing, or a designer who operates in a slightly different way than the big companies, and have less money, versus a large firm with 60 employees engaged in the branding of Avinor. For them there is only one fish in the ocean, it is nothing for them compared to the value they can get from winning. I think that if Avinor then wins Merket for God Design they will be super happy because it means that “this is good” for they won the Merket for God Design. Submitting to competitions is based on tactical reasons. It contributes to good relationships with the customer, it is a bargaining chip. In relation to Årets Vakkreste Bøker and Visuelt. I think it is absolutely fair to submit work to Årets Vakkreste Bøker because it is an arrangement that is much more sympathetic than Visuelt. It is completely different. Here, all the designers who sit to work with books rest of the year come to participate, the prices for the best books are delivered, and the book industry follows it quite well. If you win a lot there it is good bargaining chip. Perhaps it even enables you to get a new project, or you get more from the publishers. It is positive in relation to that. Visuelt on the other hand is a bit of everything.

TTN       Everything should get prizes in Visuelt

AGR       But that it is actually misguided. There are actually fewer prizes now than what there have been before, the same goes for Årets Vakkreste Bøker. Okay, they have not gone down by much, but they may have cut down by 10-20 percent on the number of prizes.

TTN       There are 40 awards in gold I think.

AGR       Visuelt? Yes it may well be.

TTN       There are a lot of categories.

AGR       One might cut down a little bit, but it is a subject that is extremely wide. From cartoons to profiles such as Avinor, so it does not work to narrow it all down. The subject is supposed to cover both interactive design, animation, comics, illustration and graphic design. It’s a very large spans.

TTN       How is it in the Netherlands? I know that Switzerland has a contest in which designers that I acknowledge are participating.

SR       We have the Graphic Design Festival in Breda, where there are many of both teachers and students participating. In the Netherlands it seems like there is often something happening in relation to graphic design. I wanted to ask you about the history part of your work. You’ve had some exhibition of collected works?

AGR       Yes. I’ve had several. The last one was an exhibition that we had on Grafill. That’s what’s good for instance, about Grafill now. It is possible to say that I have a project and apply for some money, for it also is a place one can exhibit. I think this is better than the magazine was. So, there was an exhibition about Melin and Osterlin. These are two designers that I accidentally picked up a book of when I was a student and have since been very concerned about what they have been doing. It has been very important for what I was doing myself. So I have just collected all I could find from them, so suddenly I sat with 100 things or something like that. There is a exhibition scholarship at Grafill, so I applied for it. That resulted in the catalog and perhaps a bigger book, and an exhibition in Sweden. I started a small publishing house. Then I came across an old photo book, so I got some support from here and there, and republished it. This was purely a reprint of an old book. I’m not just interested in graphic design history then, I’m interested in form history, history of photography, art history in general.

SR       A small publishing house, how long have you been at it?

AGR       Since 2008 or something like that.

TTN       It has recently been laid down.

SR       What does one need to be able to start, if not criticism, then a more active discussion. Which platform could conceivably work?

AGR       It is actually the second thing which is slightly positive with Årets Vakreste Bøker og Visuelt. There are so few venues for designers to gather. That way I think Visuelt og Årets Vakreste Bøker are good, in that we meet there, and something happens. It might have traditionally been a bit too much focus on that “now we give prizes to those beautiful books”, then you are sort of finished. One could always imagine Årets Vakreste Bøker to be more a case of sharing out the prizes, and in the week after invite ten designers to come to talk about their projects. Because this would create a form of communication around the event. The same with Visuelt, they should try to make it more public-oriented, and not only a kind of internal seminars for designers. But I do not quite know how to achieve it. Oslo Comics Expo is one example, it is perhaps a little different with cartoons, but there it is the mass of enthusiasts who are interested in it. Perhaps Visuelt has been a bit too focused on the Hot Shot from abroad telling a successful story about how he works and it ends with that.

TTN       It’s funny how, I think, that Årets Vakreste Bøker gets much more media coverage than Visuelt.

AGR       I think that there are literary critics who write about Årets Vakreste Bøker. There are many book interested people who write about it. That is also a bit funny. In an old Visuelt, while I was a student, there was a book that came out, and someone in the field criticized it. It caused disruption within the design community because everybody knows each other, it is a small work field. It is perhaps not so small anymore.

TTN       It is still quite small.

AGR       It is still quite small, but back then it was like everyone knew everyone. We had worked with each other. And it was as if all of the teachers I had at art school were from the same generation, had all worked together at different times. The only positive was that they had different interests, different approaches on the subject. It was quite problematic that there was such a club. What happened was that there was one who wrote a critique of the book. And the criticism was really quite straightforward. He said that the exhibition was good, but the book was very poorly designed, which was problematic.

TTN       He commented harshly on how the book was given shape.

AGR       Yes that was what he primarily talked about. I think it is a bit the same as with Årets Vakreste Bøker. It is primarily written about because there are people who are interested in books and literature who write about it. Or that it is literature reviewers. I remember there was one year where there was a book by Knausgård or someone that won, and there was much talk about it. Media wrote things like “Knausgård won another award!”, and not about the designers of the book.

SR       Årets Vakreste Bøker is one of the few prizes in Norway that goes to the designers of a book. There are something like 50 awards in Norway for books, but only one for the design of it.

TTN       Yes, there is only one focused on the design of books.

SR       When you mentioned that Årets Vakreste Bøker should incorporate more lectures or conversations, should it be more like festivals? I was just at BRNO, the graphic design Biennale in Czech Republic. They have an exhibition that stands over a longer period, with both student contributions and regular contributions, workshops, as well as a weekend of symposium and discussions.

TTN       You were there one year, were you not?

AGR       No. I was invited one year, but I was not there.

TTN       There are not so many lecturers there? There are only four or five?

SR       It was a bit more than that, we were there for three days. I was with NODE this summer. There were around 12 lectures during two days, also with openings in the evenings with the exhibitions.

AGR       It is really a good role model for Grafill. Not all who work in the organization that have antennas for what happens. I’m sitting in a board for Grafill and each year, once a year, we meet at a dinner. There was once a discussion on whether Visuelt should go directly on TV, and I just thought that I do not think it is the way to go.

AGR       I think that it might not be the right move for Grafill, but the organization is democratic. They ought certainly to have been in BRNO, seen how the Biennial is, I assume it is alright. Or the festival in Chaumont.

SR       You think of poster festival in Chaumont.

AGR       Is it still a poster festival.

SR       The name still

AGR       I think it’s very much like graphic design because that poster is not any longer so defined.. I think that Grafill should have been at the festivals and seen how things are done elsewhere.

TTN       I think they go around occasionally.

AGR       Martin was at least on D&AD and saw how it was. D&AD or Swiss Design are both awards that we think are very good, but there are certainly problematic things there as well. It is not certain that it is transferable to Norwegian conditions either, as Årets Vakreste Bøker. The book industry in Norway is running better than it does in other countries, and it is such a small market. Therefore, one must have subsidy schemes. In comparison, at the same award in Switzerland there are no categories. In Switzerland the winners are photo books, art books, silkscreen printed fanzines, a very different type than the winner in the Årets Vakreste Bøker in Norway. If the Norwegian competition was based on the same criteria as the Swiss one it would no longer be as interesting for the book industry.

TTN       They do not care about silkscreen printed fanzines.

AGR       And they might say that some in the book industry think it is very nice, but that’s not reality, it’s not like we can make money on it. Then one might just make the competition irrelevant to the book industry, and it is not what you want to achieve. One sincerely wants to perhaps honor participants, make book design applicable, and one wants the book industry to care about the price.

SR       In Norway, it is perhaps more important to create confidence or attention, than it is to focus on niche markets. I think maybe Norway has changed much over the last four years, since I moved, with regard publishing, print and perhaps especially Grafill.

AGR       But because of it think that it is good if Grafill is trying to change the two prizes, and they must try to change what they’re doing. But, it’s a little difficult to find a democratic way.

TTN       Grafill may not be the correct outlet for everything. It would have been very strange on their website, for example, if it had published a very sharp criticism of some work a member of Grafill had done. So they have been in a somewhat difficult situation I think.

SR       It is in their ethical guidelines that one should not criticize fellow members, in a negative sense, with the exception of constructive criticism. It has more ethical guidelines.

AGR       It’s problematic.

TTN       I think that the hardest part in Norway is that everyone knows each other. I think it is so that people don‘t want to step on each other’s toes. That those times where there has been any form of discussion, It has faded out pretty quickly. It’s hard to discuss with colleagues in such a small work field, there is little room to not be friends. Or what do you think?

AGR       I do not have so many friends, but it is true.

SR       If you compare it with England or the Netherlands, those countries provide more room for discussion because there are so many who are trained and work in the field that it is difficult to get that problem?

TTN       It is a bit difficult to answer, really. But I think that many are afraid of being perceived as difficult to deal with, meaning that they might not get a job at a later date. I do not know.

AGR       I think so.

SR       In relation to Norway? Yes, I have previously thought that from the outside, Norwegian graphic design seems like a bunch of friends where it can be difficult to get in or get a job. It proved to be a wrong assumption. From a distance it seems at first that it is a small group, with the same names coming up, same designers, same clients. Is it because it is small environment?

TTN       Those I hang with out with when I’m not at work are often designers, but it’s people who work in advertising agencies, others in large branding agencies, others work in small agencies like we do. If I then go out against anyone involved in a practice that is not right for me then, it becomes a little strange maybe.

SR       I think it depends on how one understands the criticism, I think it can be different. This is why I want to talk to as many people as possible for this thesis. What should criticism be? I discovered when I started writing that criticism could certainly be as one reads it. But it might also be positive.

TTN       Yes it could be positive criticism as well.

SR       It can be about talking something up, direct attention. It follows then that one might think that there is something else that should not have this attention, but that makes it a criticism.

AGR       Kritikk as a word, in Norwegian, has only negative connotations, while in English then it’s not the same. In English it may be a word that can be both positive and negative.

TTN       I think it would have been very interesting if I had a criticism of anything I had done in the negative sense, just because, I do not know. It’s never happened to me. I do not think I know anyone that has experienced that.

AGR       No I do not think so. I’ve rarely seen any writing on graphic design.

TTN       One sees it more abroad. Experimental Jetset have got their first years slaughtered by Rick Poynor for example. That would not have happened in Norway.

SR       It might come to Norway as well. We must find ways to express ourselves, and platforms in which to do so. It need not be the slaughter every time we say something. Do you think there is any room for graphic design festivals in Scandinavia?

TTN       They call Visuelt a festival.

AGR       Yes, they do. I said it to Martin last year. Can not you try to make Visuelt more audience friendly. Create a festival. If there is an organization that actually has the capacity to do so, it is Grafill. Not DogA or such. The organization is completely misguided. You could be able to get to it. Then he said that it was taking water over his head and he said “I don’t think so”. Then suddenly comes Visuelt festival… I understood nothing of it.

TTN       I think Visuelt works. I did not pay a penny for Visuelt this year, so it could be that was the reason it felt better. But it had different lectures, close to Mathallen, workshops etc.

AGR       I also thought that it worked surprisingly well, I was very skeptical beforehand.

TTN       They had conversations, but there were a few things I did catch. I have not been to graphic design festivals abroad, so I do not know.

AGR       Neither do I. So I do not know, but that’s where I think that Grafill may not always perceive things properly. They talk about getting a collaboration across Scandinavia, which I really think is very positive. It’s such a small area, that if you had a journal could equally well have been Swedish, Norwegian and Danish really. If you have a festival, it too could be that Norway is responsible one year, then Copenhagen and Stockholm etc. That could be a way to solve it. But it seems that in the organizations they visited, it is not always easy to know how they work. It could be that the organization in Sweden is as badly organized as DogA.

TTN       The difference is that one does not know the industry in the different areas.

AGR       I hope Visuelt will develop more in the direction we saw this year, only better. And they ought to go and see some of the other festivals that you talked about.

TTN       What kind of festival was it you mentioned.

SR       BRNO in Czech, but it is not coming until the year after next. Chaumont, and also the Design Week in Eindhoven and the Graphic Design Festival in Breda. Then there are also versions of a festival, more like gatherings, for example bring your own beamer events.

TTN       It is in Oslo now, Bring your own beamer, at Mesh

AGR       What is it?

TTN       You can bring projects and beam it.

AGR       It is the kind of things that has emerged now. During Visuelt there was suddenly also Webdagene, for web design and interactive design. Then there was the innovation week or something like that.

TTN       I did not fully understand what it was.

AGR       I read a bit about it in the newspaper. I also thought it was a bit strange that they have managed to add Visuelt at the same time as two other festivals. It’s not so tactical in a way. Grafill is a small organization and it is limited, so Visuelt was completely packed. In that regard it was no problem. They should maybe try to get the festival to be more visible in the cityscape. Or that people see it in greater degree.

TTN       What I think is good with Visuelt it that they host it over two days and there is a big program. People take time off from work to go there, or their work will buy them tickets. You suddenly meet people who work in Bergen, Trondheim or Tromsø who come to Oslo, and one can meet colleagues one would not meet otherwise. I do not know so much about the program, or the festival in general. Now I’ll be a little careful here, but Grafill have quite a few things that happen. There are events based on volunteers, lectures and stuff, and that there are exhibitions. I think that it has become a gathering place that is quite important. And that much of the program that does not happen during Visuelt is quite interesting in a relation to the subject.

AGR       In relation to Visuelt. The change that happened this year is positive I think. It should be that the festival managed to coordinate with other places. Perhaps they could collaborate with the art industry museum to have a retrospective about a graphic designer at the same time, or an exhibition of graphic design. Maybe they could have done it so that DogA had an exhibition at the same time.

TTN       That was related.

AGR       That was related to the subject. And the shows could have been on longer, so that the festival got a longer lifespan. Ok, it was intensively for two days. Same with Grafill, they had an exhibition there during Visuelt, and they probably will have every year now.

TTN       I do not think they had one last year.

AGR       No they actually closed last year.

TTN       People coming all the way from Tromsø.

AGR       They must have the gallery open I think. They ought to delegate things out to a greater extent. I’m thinking that if Grafill had called DogA and said, ‘can you put up a exhibition at this time’, said that they got an exhibit application last year which they think could have been at DogA during the festival. Asked them to contact him or her. I just think that they could always arrange so that there were some exhibitions and other events.

SR       Oslo has many galleries, more than I am aware of. There must be someone that Grafill can work with, not just the largest ones.

AGR       But I think many of the galleries are not interested in graphic design. They are just interested in art or photography.

TTN       Graphic design is a bit like low culture.

AGR       That’s it. And that is part of the reason why the media coverage is so poor. I think in Norway there is much more hierarchy than what is the case in other countries. Literature, visual arts and opera here are much more important, and graphic design is the absolute lowest.

TTN       It is pretty much in-between.

AGR       It is not true if you are a member of Norwegian artists. An older Norwegian designer said that it’s a bit of an honorable thing when you are a member of Norwegian artists. So he pays with delight the thousand NOK a year to be a member there. While this is not the reason people are members of Grafill. At least not yet. It probably never will be because it must be open and inclusive.

TTN       I don’t know Grafill so well, but the organization probably does a lot of work that is not as visible.

AGR       Grafill is very important. They do a good job in many areas.

TTN       Managing scholarships and such.

AGR       There was a shift in Norway, within the design environment, first in the 50s and then it was a big crash in the 70s where design, or it was not called design yet, the crafts movement forked at this point. You got crafts on the one hand and you got those who worked with industrial design on the other side. Where those who worked with crafts stood in their workshops, made ceramic cups and sold directly to a consumer, they were making art. The group went their way, and they got scholarships and governmental arrangements and became part of the art world. Those who were in the industrial design, they worked with mass produced furniture and needed no scholarships. It was said in a seminar a few weeks ago that there are scholarships within a subject/field, it allows one to operate in a slightly different way. One can get some other types of projects, one can do more research. Also located in scholarships, is recognition. When crafts has a scholarship, or art has a scholarship, it gives a sort of recognition and self-esteem to a subject. This is often important too. There I think that Grafill should work a little, get into government grant schemes.

TTN       I think it is very divided within the graphic design industry. Some believe that this is a commercial vocation, we shall have no government support and pay artists. People should manage on their own. But then there are others who want to engage in a way, pay artists then have the desire to spend their time on things other than fierce commercial marketing. I think it is very divided today.

AGR       It’s a very extreme tension.

SR       Is there any distinction also within the schools?

AGR       I do not know. I know Kunsthøyskolen best. It has been so badly run, and they have been so selective that there are only 15 students entering each year, and you must go through two rounds of auditions. It is an exhibition. It should be possible to pick up people who might be on to something, or seems a little talented. This I think results in a different type of person attending the school. At the same time the environment has been so bad that I think those who have gone there might not necessarily become adept because of school. But again they have perhaps gotten in contact with the other disciplines at school, which makes it very different than schools such as Westerdals. While Westerdals, for me, seems to have worked much better. A kind recruitment farm for agencies. The other schools I do not know, simply.

TTN       I think it is clearer abroad. I do not know if it’s because schools are attempting to be more clear and to tell what they are doing. When I applied for schools here, I went to Westerdals. I did not know the difference between Westerdals and the Art Academy. It was a little accidental on my part, I knew someone who had gone to Westerdals. So when I applied there, I did not know what the difference was. I think that when you choose to go on Gerrit Rietveld then you have in a way made a more deliberate choice, they convey that they are taking a very alternative approach.

SR       Perhaps because the Netherlands is a small country, with so many schools, the schools make sure to express their intention better?

AGR       Perhaps it also creates a kind of competitive relationship between the schools that is healthy, they are working to get better. We visited lots of studios. The only thing that was good with KHiO, was that there was a professor who had contact with very many studios, and because of that we visited many. At one place, when we were in the Netherlands, I remember that they said that it varied very much between which schools were good at what time. Suddenly, for a period of two, three or four years there was a school that was doing well, suddenly there was another who took over and became the most interesting. It could be because it is such a small country.

SR       I also think it is very healthy that final exhibitions of the schools are set to the same period. There is much fuss and high expectations around it.

TTN       It is almost the same here, with Westerdals and KHiO being so close. I realised afterwards that Westerdals is like a recruitment school

AGR       It may seem like that because Westerdals has art direction and has in a way been an advertising school, perhaps because of it. That if you go on graphic design there you suddenly know someone who attended the author department and get a job in one agency, while at art school you do not have it at all.

TTN       But there can you the suddenly become acquainted with someone who became a curator

AGR       Yes that is true, and that is probably what makes them different.

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