COMING SOON

This season, (capsule) commissioned Berlin-based artist Tina Berning to illustrate her vision of our community. Berning produced two complementary pieces, one inspired by our men’s show and the other by the debut of our women’s. Her signature, figurative illustration style, often on found paper, manages to speak volumes with a whisper. Here the (capsule) community becomes a gentleman ready for work with shirt sleeves rolled, studious beauties and magic, daredevil tricks and texture; all at play amidst a mysterious red line. The proverbial common thread, perhaps?

Name: Tina Berning
Age: 39
Hometown:  somewhere in Bavaria
Currently live in: Berlin
Favorite clothing brands: Dries Van Noten, Marni

Can you give us a brief history of your life as an artist -- from your first days of crayons and markers to where you are now?
My first box of wax crayons I got from my Swiss grandmother when I was five. They were the finest Swiss crayons, Caran d'Ache, and I haven't used any other crayons since. I decided to become an artist when I was six, I guess because my mother made me such a beautiful artist-costume for carnival, with a wooden palette and paint splashes all over. I never revised this plan -- I studied illustration, spent some time doing graphics and have been happily working on my artistic career for ten years.
 
What has been your history of illustration for the fashion industry?
Actually I started illustration, working for the automobile industry. My first fashion thing was a special for a German magazine called Allegra. They used to have these supplements you could tear out, and I was privileged to do a fully drawn, 30-page fashion special. That was in 2002 and since then, fashion has always been an essential part of my work. There have been endless fashion spreads for magazines, monthly fashion columns, a horoscope just showing shoes. I have been doing portraits of all the important fashion columnists for the New York Times, working for fashion companies, smaller ones like the wonderful Danish Iben Hoj (check out her knits!) and bigger ones, like a campaign for RARE.
 
How has that affected the growth of your more personal work?
Because my work is always figurative, clothing, as the package of my figures is an important part of my art. Knowing about fashion enables me to use it consciously, to enhance expression of the figures or to drop certain hints. Beyond that, the endless play of volume, lines, shapes and structures is always inspiring.

The paper you use for your illustrations often plays a part in the finished piece. Are you a collector?
Oh yes! Any blank paper I can get hold of, I take back home. Flea markets, abandoned houses, trash paper bins. I love the history and memories old paper implies.
 

The theme for the (capsule) art work was "community" and you rendered a proverbial common thread among other things. Any thoughts on the theme and the finished pieces themselves?
They are my favorite pieces, maybe, that I have done all year. I wanted the workers to seem to be concentrating very hard, absorbed, they don't show off, they are busy, they take things seriously, everyone works for himself but all for a common aim.
 
Upcoming exhibitions or new projects?
Italian photographer Michelangelo Di Battista and I started a co-operation for Vogue Italia two years ago and we're busy developing two other projects together. I'll do another exhibition sometime in 2010 and I am excited to see in what direction this will go…

This season, (capsule) commissioned Brooklyn-based artist Mike Perry to illustrate his vision of our community. Perry’s signature line style coupled with a soft, spot watercolor application is brought to life with pops of color and fill-ins using fabric patterns. Here our community becomes a global dreamscape of spools and reams, helping hands, chutes and ladders, sunsets, galaxies, seasons and tides. Pretty accurate, we’d say.

Name: Mike Perry
Age: 27
Hometown: Kansas City, MI
Currently resides: Brooklyn, NY
Favorite Brands: APC, blank tees (in the last year I have committed to not wearing any graphic tees), J. Crew is good right now. I keep
it simple.
 
Your web address and company used to be called Midwest Is Best. Now you’re in the big city. Can you talk about your background and its influence?
I grew up in the ‘burbs, but the really rural ‘burbs. I had typical neighborhood experiences and as a place to grow up it was very good, comfortable, safe. But it was rural -- I found a dead horse that had been eaten by wolves in my backyard. Skin was stuck to the bones.
My grandfather, we called him “the mad scientist” was an inventor and artist, we moved a lot because of that. My mom is just a rock. She encouraged me as an artist, was 100% supportive. That completely informed everything about who I am. She taught me to take chances and experience things. When I was in middle school, she got laid off and we were really poor, but instead of being uber defeated, she went back to college. She’s my role model. I went to college in Minnesota and it was a great first city experience. It was supportive and my attitude was to make the most of everything. I put in all the hours it took to do it. I developed great peer group and we’re still close.
I graduated in 2002.

What next?
I got a job with Urban Outfitters after college. I was really fortunate. It was a dream then, -- all the things I was into, they were doing. I applied and went thought the typical just-graduated unemployment scenario, went into debt, sent my portfolio out, didn’t hear anything. Then I got a phone call from Jim Datz (my mentor and we now share a studio in Crown Heights), quickly moved to Philadelphia and jumped right in. I couldn’t believe for a second I even had this job, so I hustled hard and I did so much extra for the company – I would redesign the logo for example, and then they ran with it. So I got to push my book and work.

It’s great you came away with so much. Usually you just hear about UO ripping off and using young artists.
I know, there’s a website devoted to stolen designs. But there are different worlds within the company and there are super creative people who are making the print materials, graphics, store displays. It’s important to pay attention in an environment like that, to the way things work. It was so important for me professionally, like we’d work with freelancers, it takes a week to get back to them just because we’re busy. You have to see things from the inside. I did so much – band-aids, a Lomo camera, a 3D typeface, and there’s a great post-work relationship. It’s a club. Once you work there as a designer, they say you always have a job there. I worked there for three years and finally got a chance to produce a catalogue (that was all I wanted to do), I finally got the shot. I met my current girlfriend (photographer Anna Wolf) on that shoot and she lived in New York, so I moved.

Now what’s life like?
We share a studio in Crown Heights and live in Prospect Heights. We wanted big space and to be able to walk from home to work. We found a space in a converted Heinz Ketchup factory that is the go-top reference model for green construction and renovation in the city right now. The whole building is an artist’s building. It’s called Big Sue.

Sounds great.
I never go into Manhattan; I don’t even have a monthly MetroCard. There’s an incredible community blossoming here. The businesses
that have been opening have been really special. There’s a skate/flower/antiques shop. The owner isn’t changing the original space, just reinterpreting it. He’s building skate ramps for the neighborhood. Really doing it right.

What are you listening to?
I listen to a lot of talk radio – I love the show called Radio Lab they only produce one show per season. It’s This American Life meets Cartalk. Clever banter, all about science – my favorite subject. Bon Iver, Smog, Lil Wayne and podcasts.

Computer versus hand work?
They’re fully integrated for me; one wouldn’t live without the other. Computers are tools, not the end all be all. All I know is, don’t base your education on what software you use – you’re going to be outdated quickly. Technology changes all the time, I use whatever’s there. In my practice, there are only so may hours in a day that I’m willing to sit in front of a computer. The question I ask myself is what else can I do to not use the internet all the time?

You make a magazine called Untitled that is sold almost exclusively through your website. How did that come about?
I really wanted to do a magazine, I think every young designer does. So I did it. I kept meeting photographers and other artists and we’d always talk about how we never got hired. I tapped into my own cash and made a forum for myself and my peers. It’s a great opportunity to collaborate, it’s fun to work with other people. Right now, I’m letting other people direct issues and stepping back into a publishing position. Untitled has drawings, fine-art, photography, poetry. The next one’s a science issue.

And Untitled also has fashion.
Well, it’s not necessarily a fashion-slanted magazine. But fashion is the thing that helps makes it a magazine? Question mark? (Laughs).

Any thoughts about the piece you did for (capsule)?
Well, community -- I’m big into it. It’s a really important thing for me. I grew up in the midwest and everyone assumes it’s all community-oriented but my neighborhood in Brooklyn is the smallest town I’ve ever lived in. It’s super important to who I am and the work that I make, and it’s never been that way anywhere else. I see you guys as smaller little guys who may get beat up now and then, exactly how I see my friends and I who are all creative; we all go out and shoot the shit but build into important conversations about work and industry. How that turns into a drawing, well…the fabric pattern elements are my favorite part of the drawing.

For 2009, (capsule) commissioned Manchester-based illustrator Si Scott to create a drawing inspired by our community. The result is an homage to change – specifically the yearly passing of the giant hunter Orion who’s cycling out in late winter makes way for the appearance of The Pleiades and a season of rejuvenation.

Name: Si Scott
Age: 31
Hometown: Leeds, UK
Currently live in: Manchester, UK
Favorite brands: CP Company, Engineered Garments, Edwin, Nudie, Adidas Original Trainers
 
Can you give us a brief history of your life as an artist -- from your first days of crayons and markers to where you are now?
I’ve always drawn, as long as I can remember. . My mother always said she doesn’t know where it comes from; no one else in my family is an artist. Soldiers and war pictures when I was young, like most. But I never liked to copy anything. Even at a young age, I never wanted my work to look like anyone else’s.
 
You are well known for spearheading the design world's love affair of late, with decorative typography. Was typography something you've always been into? Why and how did using it manifest and evolve?
When I was at college, I was looking for a way to express my work and I found that through using typography, I could communicate my ideas a lot better. It was like a missing link that I was looking for. I needed something to anchor it. Of course now I’m trying to move away from it a little bit but anyway…I always wanted to do my own thing and never copy anyone. That’s where it came from – we’d have an assignment and other students would jump on the computer, having the latest edition of a graphic design magazine with them. I’d try to go against what everyone else was doing. I wanted my work to be my work. I wanted people to look at it and know it was mine, even when I was at college. Before I really started to incorporate typography, I was writing song lyrics down, I had little books full of things I’d read and heard. I always really liked artists like Jenny Holzer who used type in the public demand. Song lyrics resonate with me, the emotion in the lyrics…lots you don’t even know what they mean; you develop your own interpretation of them. That’s a quality I’d like to have about my work….
 
Who are your favorite lyricists and wordsmiths?
Interpol’s Paul Banks. Joy Division, the Smiths, the Pixies – there are too many to name. It’s impossible. In terms of books, I like to read a lot of historical non-fiction, about the World Wars. And music, rock biographies.

You often cite music as a big inspiration....
I’m very into music. I like Manchester because it’s the music capital of England and I go to as many gigs as I can – I went to four in five nights the week before Christmas. I used to play the drums. I’d like to be a music critic now. I’d love to be in a band, but I’m tone deaf. You know Andy Rourke (bassist from the Smiths)? He lives around the corner from me – I get a bit star struck when I see him.

iPod, CDs or vinyl?
On the desk in my studio I have an iPod dock.

Do you listen to playlists or albums?
Always whole album by album – I’m a bit of a traditionalist.
 
What are you listening to late at night when no one else is up, and you’re working?
Mellow – Bjork and Tricky. Accoustic Neil Young. Massive Attack. Again, too many to name.
 

What has been inspiring your personal art these days?
I look at fashion magazines and music magazines more than graphic design. I’ve always wanted to do more fashion stuff. I like anything classic with a nice twist. Classic things that have been around but that are interpreted in new ways – that’s something I try to do with my work. Decorative, hand typography has been around forever but I do it in my own way. I’d like to collaborate and work on a campaign for a designer I like, help with image. I don’t know anything about designing clothes.

The inspiration for this season's (capsule) art was celestial and about fallen giants -- do you have any thoughts on the work you produced?
Big advertising jobs pays the bills, but sometimes it’s not the most creative work. Doing things like the Orion piece is sometimes a lot more rewarding, creatively. You get more freedom. On this job it was almost, coming up with something visual to illustrate an idea – fortunately this idea was nice.

Si Scott is the Manchester-based illustrator and graphic designer best known for his distinctive and ornate, always hand drawn, illustrated typography. He has lent his talents to clients like Nike, Paul Smith, Atlantic Records, Samsung, Volvo and Unicef. Scott has recently opened the concept lifestyle boutique Paper, Scissors, Stone in Leeds (www.paper-scissor-stone.co.uk) and plans to relocate to New York sometime soon. See his work at www.siscottstudio.com