Oliver Payne & Nick Relph catalogue
Serpentine Gallery, London
A catalogue designed in collaboration with Oliver and Nick to coincide with their show at the Serpentine Gallery, London.
I find it hard to collaborate, but I am always eager to try. I don’t like designers who never compromise. I like suggestions from others. Maki from Åbäke told me a story of a difficult client who was very controlling, he wanted the title to be in bold, the email address to be red, the all the names to be bigger etc. I have never seen the finished poster, but really like the thought of it. An awkward hybrid of considered design with input and art direction from the client.
Working with Oliver and Nick was not exactly like this, but they did have some very specific ideas of how the book should be. I really like their films so was open to forming a book as a collaboration, to result in something special that captured the essence and spontaneity of their practice.
London Transport fabric cover, mobile phone ring sound chip, reproductions of rubber stamps, misc. photographs, hand written notes, a flip book smiley face, German translations, essays, an interview, a selection of invited submissions, input from the Kunsthalle Zürich who co published the book, a very tight deadline, and a tight budget made it the most complex book I have ever designed, but now it is completed it looks the simplest.
