Graphic design is political: Jonathan Barnbrook on how we can build a better industry

Walking down Bavaria Road in North London, it’s relatively easy to guess which building might house the studio of designer Jonathan Barnbrook. Among a neat line of terraced houses is a building that is darker and taller than the rest. This is where you’ll find Jonathan, his small team of designers, and their friendly cat Lou.

As a studio the building feels like an apt symbol of Jonathan and his position in the design industry. Renowned and admired as one of the greatest British designers, he’s never capitalised on his Grammy award-winning and Design Museum-exhibiting success in the same sense that his peers have. If it were someone else of his stature you would expect floors of staff working away on identities, bold signifiers of accolades won dotted around the walls, and PR emails every so often flying out with the next piece of work. Instead, Jonathan often just emails those he dreams of working with, in the hope of receiving a reply. His own email to us about a new project, which led to this interview, still had “Bowie designer” written in brackets in the subject line, as if we wouldn’t remember who he was.

Born and raised in Luton, Jonathan jumped into the practice of graphic design at a rare young age. From school to college, Saint Martin’s and the Royal College of Art – a trajectory he says is down to free education – his dedication and skill in the medium was discussed across the industry before he even graduated from his masters. Post-education Jonathan set up his own studio immediately, a move he puts down to feeling “unemployable”.

From here, an array of projects began – from David Bowie to Damien Hirst, Penguin Books, AdBusters, the Occupy movement, several famed font releases – leading the designer down a path of thoughtful and often political or music-focused projects. Most recently, however, the latter has become more of a focus, as the designer and his wife Anil Aykan launched Fragile Self. An electronic duo who place as much focus on visuals as music, their album took several years to make and includes a 480-page tome visualising the poetic detail of each song.

It’s a career that most dream of, and that most envision before the temptation and competitiveness of the creative industry get in the way. In fact a graphic designer’s tendency to separate their interests from their practice has always slightly baffled Jonathan, who has always steadfastly marched in his own direction.

INT: What kind of person were you then? Were you a hard worker?

JB: Where do I start. I mean, I was a workaholic from the age of 16 to 30. I’m still a workaholic, but you have to find some context and an area outside graphic design that allows you to have space. Even when I was at college I would work every day in the summer holidays; I still don’t even know why.

INT:That is a lot of dedication!

JB: I was obsessed with this thing that happens on record covers, or that happens in a piece of branding – sorry I don’t like the word “branding” – but where you create a new universe. When you put typography and image together, it’s like when a major artist releases a new album, there’s suddenly a universe of sounds and atmospheres there. That’s how I felt with every piece of work. I just wanted to keep creating that world really. I had very strong feelings about the things I was interested in, not because I had any kind of career plan, but more because I couldn’t see the world in any other way than the one I wanted to portray. I couldn’t understand other people doing other things.

INT: But you gained a lot of attention when you graduated?

JB:Yes. Of course part of you likes that, but part of you is very worried. I spent six months before I left the RCA petrified of what people would think, and then I thought, who cares really. It’s weird to be “famous” before you leave college and it was the start of the “popstar graphic designer” which is a sneering term. I didn’t really think about it. It helped in some ways, to be stronger, but I wanted to be a good designer in the classic Bauhaus design sense. You’re there to improve the world, you’re not there to fight, it’s a partnership with people. It sounds naive in these dystopian times, but that was always my criteria.

INT:I suppose it’s more about facilitating an environment where people feel they can say that?

JB:There are also lots of people who just don’t think of it as an issue in graphic design. They say: “Well, this is my job, I am a graphic designer, I do this for companies and politics has nothing to do with it.” But the absolute decision to be a graphic designer is a political decision. Graphic design is at the heart of capitalism. It’s at the heart of encouraging consumption – you are consenting to that as a graphic designer.

INT: It’s almost 20 years ago now that you and a group of other designers re-signed the First Things First manifesto. How do you feel about that now, or what difference do you feel it made?

JB:Well, like anything, you can’t say this changed or that changed. At the time, it caused quite a lot of outrage, especially with some bigger design groups. They felt threatened by it – even though they justified it by saying something else – they felt threatened by it. I still stand by signing it. I look at it the same way as I look at my work with the Occupy movement, maybe the world didn’t change totally, but we changed the field of discussion.

I think First Things First was one of those things that, at the time, made design much more political. When the computer was introduced, there was a lot of hope that it was going to go back to individuals working and cross-community work. Of course, it didn’t turn out that way and all those people doing amazing, individual work went and worked for all the corporates. Their subversive meaning was completely undermined. There had to be something said.

It’s also the reason why I worked with AdBusters – because they tell the truth. And not just the truth as to how I see it, I thought they told the universal truth about consumption being bad and design being complicit in that actual evil act. I didn’t give a fuck about whether I wouldn’t get a job because of it, because I felt that the issues were more important. And I don’t necessarily want to work with people who are upset by that.

Graphic design is very good at critique, too. AdBusters wasn’t this scrappy A4 leaflet, it was actually advertising being fought by itself. All of those seductive things that made people over-consume or made them feel inferior about themselves were being turned against advertising. It was extremely powerful at the time. It was a chance to tell the truth.

INT Has it brought you a new sense of gratification in comparison to your design work?

JB I would say yes, because although I’m responsible for the content generally, if you’re working with a creative artist, they’re the bigger picture. As a good as a designer that you try to be, and although it’s your point of view on them, what you’re trying to do is put them in the best possible frame as it were. So, to create the content yourself is really good actually.

There is also the fact that it’s much more personal, and there’s a bigger risk. It surprises me how people who have been into music or art all of their lives can expose that. Designers are the most anal-retentive bunch – they’ll close off their private life from their professional life. Not just in their personal lives either but in politics too, which is another area where I didn’t compartmentalise. So it was that defining of the emotional content.

INT It feels like there are too many projects to discuss with you. What are the ones you actually enjoy discussing?

JB I do like talking about David Bowie, and it is usually what people want to talk about. It was just such a unique experience, to be with somebody at the cultural centre of the 20th and 21st centuries, and it was a very pleasant experience working with him. Working with Damien Hirst, too, was entertaining. It was 1997 and Blair’s government had just got in, and Damien was at the centre of art really. To be around that person was a good time. Some good parties. It was a lot of fun.

INT Did he see it that way?

JB No, when we were working together he would always listen. That’s what was good about him – people always say he doesn’t make his own artworks, but he knew who was the right person to make the right thing. I also tried hard not to explain things too much. As a graphic designer, you’re taught logic all the time. Things have to be rational. You have to go to the client and explain why you did this and did that. But when you work with an artist it’s different…

For instance, for David Bowie’s V&A exhibition, I put in four roughs of The Next Day cover. He went to see the exhibition, secretly, and phoned and asked why I’d put them in there. I said “Oh shit, should I get them removed.” He said no, but he wanted me to know that by doing that I had changed the final object. And he’s right, if you over-explain, or explain too much, something loses its immaculateness. I learned from Damien Hirst and David Bowie not to explain. It’s also why I’ve not shown all the roughs of Black Star because it would diminish the final thing in his existence.

INT: It would also feel strange, or inappropriate, to do that now surely?

JB:Well, he wouldn’t mind. That’s what I learned, and it was a very generous way of telling me. He was always so generous – never dictatorial. He was another person who understood that everyone has their role. A musician. A designer. Someone once asked me if there was anything unexpected about David Bowie, and I found something looking through old emails the other day – he used to say LOL quite a lot.

INT:Do you ever listen to the Adam Buxton podcast?

JB: Of course!

INT:I re-listened to the episode after Bowie died recently, I never knew he used to log on to forums and talk to his fans. I just thought it was the nicest thing.

JB:That was his saving grace. He was actually really appreciative of where he was in life. He wasn’t a rockstar who demanded everything and felt entitled, he was genuinely amazed he was in this wonderful position and he appreciated the fans.