Design obviously plays a huge part in mono.kultur, and there is a lot of thought that goes into the production of each issue as we redesign it from scratch according to each individual artist we feature, so we thought it’s time to share a little bit more about the design concept of each issue. And with our new issue just around the corner, why not a quick glimpse back to summer, when we put together our still current issue #34 with Brian Eno.
The starting point for each issue is always the content of the interview, and since Brian Eno talked extensively about his interest in how art can trigger emotions rather than convey a clear message, we wanted to set up a similar experiment in using images not in a literal way, but as a setting for different moods. Eno, of course, thinks in the bigger picture and also likes working with bright colours – another element he talks about in the issue – so it seemed only logical to make use of the entire colour spectrum to observe how the different background colours affect not only the typography, set entirely in 100% yellow, but also how one reads and relates to the content of the interview. An effect which was a little difficult to control in advance, but ended up working surprisingly well, and certainly turned out to produce our most colourful issue to date. Interestingly, one book dealer complained that the issue had no images and was hence difficult to sell, to which we can only say that it’s exactly the opposite: it’s our only issue that has a full-bleed image on every single page! A paradox that Mr. Eno certainly would find amusing.
Since the conversation in itself is beautifully tender and entertaining, the typography was not meant to interfere too much, which is why we ended up setting the entire text in our house font, Akkurat – the only concession being that it was laid out in a very tight 3-column grid, usually not too pleasant to read, but which generates a somewhat breathless pace in reading, a little bit what we imagine Brian Eno’s brain to work like… The different heights of the columns, on the other hand, reminded us of inverted panels of an equalizer – another of these little random thoughts that make us smile after spending too many hours in front of the screen.
