“I could – possibly – have had an art career”: meeting Scott king
The covers of i-D and Sleazenation. Legendary concerts rendered as meticulous 2D plans, attendee by attendee; then Debrism, then self-sabotaging, shaping cultural landmarks, making architecture despite refusing to study architecture. We had a lot to discuss with graphic designer and writer Scott King, and we did. He sat down with Andrea Veglia to talk about all this and much more.
AV My first memories of Scott King’s work go back to the early 00s. The first two things I remember are probably the I’m with Stupid cover of Sleazenation, November 2002 and the big, limited edition screenprint Rolling Stones of 1998. I did not relate the two things at the time. I knew the magazine, then one day at the Artissima fair I saw Rolling Stones. To my taste, it was the coolest thing on show. The amazing thing is that Benedetta and Francesca visited in different moments. We all met at the end, and they both said they had seen a supercool work. And it was Rolling Stones for the three of us!
It was only when we visited the Sonia Rosso exhibition of 2003 that I did realize that Scott King the artist was also the creative director of Sleazenation, and art director of i-D -one of the defining fashion and culture magazines of the nineties- before that. In 2008 the Guardian wrote that “former art director Scott King is drawing rave reviews for his original artworks”, and in 2010 JP Ringer published his monograph, Art Works. Now, Wikipedia defines him an artist and graphic designer. So does the Tate website, while his own site casts him as graphic designer and writer.
Since very early on it seems that you like to move between different registers, as if you can’t choose what is your real identity: in the Renaissance transitioning between different forms of art would have been considered normal -the mark of true genius-, in our society confusing the consumer might equal self-sabotage…
It was never my intention to move between different forms; or to self-sabotage – but that is probably what I have done.
I am just interested in ideas – or more particularly, ‘my ideas’ – and it never occurred to me that these ideas should perhaps be ‘contained’ or re-modelled to fit within a particular medium, or ‘re-fashioned’ to so that they were unmistakably ‘by me’.
My approach is very much ‘ideas first’ – and in that respect I might be more like an old-fashioned ‘ad man’. I have no loyalty to any particular way of doing things, I always do whatever I think is the best way to convey ‘the idea’ … and it is this, rather than a wilful act of self-sabotage – or – a desperate desire to work across various media, that had dictated the work that I’ve made.
I often look back at things I’ve done that were successful – for example the diagrammatic representations of rock concerts – and I think, ‘Why didn’t I just keep doing those? … I could have been rich … I could have been popular… I could have had a ‘trademark style’’. There are so many things that I’ve done: the balloons, the PVC pie charts, and so on – that I could have just repeated ad infinitum, and – possibly – have had an ‘art career’. The problem is I don’t have the capacity to think like that … I’m a kind of idiot, when it comes to business and ‘self-help’.
There are also many things that I look back on and wish I’d done completely differently – where I’ve become ‘stuck in the wrong medium’ – where I have not been daring enough. One example that springs to mind is the show I did at Studio Voltaire in London. I had this brilliant idea: to redesign Great Britain as a 1970’s holiday camp. I was so excited about this, it was perfect, and I should have tried to write it as a novel – a commercially successful novel, available to ALL should have been the goal – but I tried to make it into ‘art’ in an ‘art gallery’ and it didn’t work out … I’ll write it as a novel on day.
Is it true that your father wanted you to become an architect?
He did. My dad is a fitter/engineer and a great pragmatist. He’s retired now, but he trained as a car mechanic, then went on to work for British Aerospace, then – like many men in our area – went to work on the power stations; and finally to Humber Kitchens … which became MFI … the sort of Ford Motor Company of mass-produced ‘fitted kitchens’; where he was the maintenance foreman for many years. I am telling you all of this to try and create some context … I was, I suppose, ‘artistic’ from an early age: drawing and painting – and my dad recognised this, but he had no idea what ‘being artistic’ could lead to in terms of a career; so the only thing that he knew of where being ‘creative’ might be useful was architecture – hence, from an early age, he told me that I should become an architect.
There was no ‘art’ where I grew up – not in the traditional sense of someone growing up in a city that had museums, galleries, and ‘living artists’; the only artists around us were people who’d do a pastel drawing of your kids – or your Labrador – for £20 … you know? Amateur artists. So my dad, I think, was a bit scared of me ‘being artistic’ because he had no idea what it might lead to in terms of ‘making a living’.
As it turned out, I was so terrible at maths, anything scientific, or even anything practical – so I was never going to become an architect. This worried my dad for a while; and it was only when I went on my art foundation course, and told my dad that I wanted to be a graphic designer that he began to relax. I don’t think he really knew what a graphic designer was; but it sounded professional and less whimsical than being an artist (as he understood it); so he was very supportive of me studying graphic design.
In fact, I remember him coming home from the pub once, having met a graphic designer – and he was really pleased – it turned out this bloke had a business – designing milk cartons, letterheads and logos for local companies – and my dad could see how that was useful, ‘real work’, possibly even lucrative… so me becoming a graphic designer appealed to his deep pragmatism.
Where did you get your education in arts?
I did a foundation course in Hull; which was the nearest city to where I grew up, in Airmyn, a village next to the town of Goole.
The foundation course is a one-year ‘starter course’ that you take straight after school; an introduction to ‘the arts’; while on foundation, you apply to do a degree in your chosen ‘specialism’; the basic idea being: you go somewhere else – another city, become a ‘real student’, leave home, etc.
I was obsessed by going to Newcastle Polytechnic. It was all I wanted: to go to Newcastle and do a degree in graphic design. I was very naïve, and just presumed that because I wanted to go to Newcastle, they would naturally give me a place, but they didn’t. I was devastated, because I’d made no plans to go anywhere else; so my tutor sent me to see Jamie Hobson – he was the leader of the graphic design degree course in Hull; and Jamie gave me a place there.
I was very grateful to Jamie – I don’t think I’d have carried on with higher education if I’d have been forced to have a ‘year out’. But, I was disappointed that I wouldn’t be ‘going away to college’; Hull is only 25 miles from where I was born – and I carried on living at home for the first year. It was all bit sad really… you know? Other people from my foundation course had gone to Manchester – Manchester in September 1989 – imagine that? The height of ‘Madchester’, The Hacienda, Happy Mondays and The Stone Roses … it must have been so exciting, and I was stuck in my childhood bedroom, commuting to Hull, every day. But, on the bright side – it was cheap – and I had nothing to do but work, so I did – I worked obsessively.
In retrospect, what were the defining influences for you at that time?
I think, perhaps in the second year at college, when I was about 20 years old, I realised that I did have a culture of my own. I’d been brought up to believe – or perhaps had naturally assumed – that ‘art was for other people’, that it belonged to an intellectual middle class – that the things I loved: pop music, scooters, ‘youth culture’… and all of that… were somehow ‘not art’ or not even ‘culture’; and that I’d have to re-learn, that I’d have to change my interests – or worse – become a ‘professional graphic designer’ – but, somehow, in the second year at college, I realised that I did have a culture, that I did have a voice – however small – and that I could make work that was about my own interests and passions. So – I think I combined things. This was also the time that I started to make connections: realising how the Sex Pistols connected to the Situationists, how Joy Division connected to JG Ballard … you know, real ‘Wilfully Anxious Young Man’ stuff in many respects … but somehow I began to equate Conceptual art with – for example – Happy Mondays. I could see that Happy Mondays were just as much ‘art’ – if not more so – than the things that had already been approved of as ‘art’. I democratised my interests… if that makes any sense? I was very interested in ideas – to me ‘the idea’ was everything, and I became very interested in ‘first wave’ Conceptual art – people like Joseph Kosuth – and I think my work became a hybrid of Conceptual art – in particular language and its context – and my own interests in pop culture. I remember being in a constant state of anxiety, because I couldn’t work quick enough… couldn’t read enough… I stopped doing the college-set projects and just started doing my own work. It was exciting really – and I was lucky – having all that time to read and to make the kind of work I wanted to.
How did you end up working as art director at i-D magazine?
When I left college, I moved to London – in September 1992 – and signed on the dole and started to look for a job, or something to do. It was great. I got about £40 per week and lived in a bedsit in Islington. This was, of course, pre-internet, so the only way you could contact people was by ringing them up. I hated having to ring up designers, advertising agenicies or magazines asking if I could show them my work. I was embarrassed, but I knew I had to do it, or stay on the dole. I’d force myself to call one number per day, and see if I could show that person my work. I can’t remember how, but I met a young designer called Darren Ellis, and he was very kind to me. He knew all the ‘hotshot’ art directors of the time: Tomato, David James, Phil Bicker, Peter Saville, Stephen Male, etc. and he introduced me to them. I was very lucky, because all of these people liked my work. I kind of got ‘passed around’ – even to the point where some of them would call me and ask me to go show them my work … which was a huge relief! I think they liked the fact that what I’d done wasn’t really graphic design, but a sort of Conceptual art that looked like graphic design. Anyway, through Darren I met Stephen Male – Steve was the art director of i-D, but he was about to leave; and he kindly recommended me to Terry Jones, the i-D publisher. I went to see Terry just before Christmas 1992, and he gave me a job on the spot. I started working for him straight after the interview… which was a shock; not least to him, as I accidentally butchered all these proofs he’d asked me to cut out neatly.
For people unfamiliar with the jargon of magazine colophons, an art director is responsible for the overall aesthetic of a magazine, and coordinates a team of creatives -photographers, graphic designers, illustrators- bringing the vision to life. It’s like the director of an orchestra, or an architect. Were you comfortable in that role?
Yes, that’s what an art director does. I wasn’t employed at i-D to be the art director though. I’d only just turned 23 and was employed as a designer. This was the very early days of Macs – and, at i-D, the Mac was only really used as a way of generating typography. The process was this: you’d put a load of possible headline fonts and possible body copy styles on to a page in QuarkXpress, then print them off along with the images you needed – then you’d use the photocopier to size the type and the images ‘by hand’ – pasting the layouts on to boards. Nothing was designed on the computer – Terry was very against that – arguing, quite rightly – that ‘a magazine is a three-dimensional object’. So, we’d make the layouts by hand, on to boards, then they’d be copied back on to the computer – then sent away to be made as films for print … it was actually much more complicated than this, but I don’t want to bore anyone.
My job was both to make layouts – usually for less important (or ‘non-fashion’ features) then help to copy them back on to the computer. However, I was completely inept on the Mac, and I soon got found out … I’d lied to Terry, telling him I was ‘adept in QuarkXpress’… he must have been quite pissed off when he realised how useless I was – but – rather than fire me, he promoted me to a more creative role … and because I nagged him for a year, he made me art director when I was 24. He was very kind to me, Terry. I wasn’t the easiest employee/apprentice; but I learned a lot from him… it took me a long time to appreciate how much he had taught me.
Graphic designers usually obsess about fonts. For conceptual artists using words as primary medium, they are the only embodiement of their work. What is your relationship to fonts?
I think all fonts are just ‘signs’ – they all have inherent worth – a bubble font signifies ‘fun’, a typewriter font signifies ‘hard information’, etc. I don’t have that ‘real graphic designer’ thing of only using the purest Helvetica that was forged from Swiss know-how. They all have an inherent ‘sign’. I cannot stand most ‘real graphic design’; it is so dull … and the people that make it are only adding to the continuum of pointless ‘good taste’.
And still, you seem to have a penchant for Italian – more specifically torinese – know how: in the opening manifesto of Sleazenation, February 2001 you made an open endorsement of the Eurostile Bold Condesend typeface, a font you used widely. We can find it in the covers and posters of Crash!, a journal and series of exhibitions you did produce with Matthew Worley, and even on the cover of your own monograph, Art Works (JRP|Editions, 2010). I couldn’t help but notice it, because the PAT. log is set in Eurostile bold extended. We used it intuitively because it conveyed “future and progress”, only later we did realize that it was designed by Aldo Novarese for the Nebiolo Foundry in Torino, whose dilapidated ruins are one block away from our studio…
