The sixth issue of Eight:48, ‘That’s the Funny Thing About Design…’, focuses on humour and wit in design. The issue features a forward from Andrew Byrom, as well as articles on wit from Keenan Cummings and Mark Ferguson and viewpoints from Founded, Maddison Graphic, Here Design, MARK, James Joyce, NB: Studio, Airside, Purpose and John Dowling from Dowling Duncan. You can order issue 6 through Eight:48 or Counter-Print.

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Humour and Wit in Design by John Dowling

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Can you tell me how you became a Designer and about your career prior to Dowling Duncan?

I wanted to be an artist but was told whilst studying for my foundation at Chelsea College of Art and Design in 1991 that I wasn’t good enough. I was encouraged by my tutor Martin Ursell to pursue a career in graphic design. Problem was, I had no real understanding what graphic design was.

I chose Newcastle to study for my degree for two reasons. The first being that at the time it was a really good course, placing great emphasis on hand skills and craft. Secondly, I wanted to get as far away as possible from home without leaving England. I was brought up in Islington at a time when it wasn’t the most desirable place in the world to live and the majority of family and friends never really ventured far from home.

I was never into the type of music that introduced me to designers like Peter Saville or Vaughan Oliver and so was never really influenced by them. I loved Ska and bands like Madness, so was brought up buying Stiff Records and living with 2Tone. After finishing my degree at Northumbria University in 1995 I went back home to London and completed placements at Roundel, Thumb Design, Roger Felton Associates and Area. It was Area who called me back after completing a three month placement to offer me a full time job.

Area was run by Richard Smith and Cara Gallardo – two ex Peter Saville Associate designers. It was a small studio with about four of us at any given time. This gave me the opportunity to work on some great projects, with clients such as Anton Corbijn, Depeche Mode, Nick Knight, SCP and the Serpentine Gallery. In 1998 we won a D&AD yellow pencil for the V&A exhibition catalogue, One Woman’s Wardrobe.

Area closed it’s doors in 1998 and through Richard Smith I was able to get an interview and a job with John Rushworth at Pentagram. I arrived at Pentagram during a time of change – Angus Hyland had just joined, Kenneth Grange was just leaving and Lorenzo Apicella with his team had just arrived. I stayed for over three years working on accounts for clients such as Amanda Wakeley, Hewlett Packard, Kings College London and Pantone. In 2001 I was approached by Sea Design to join their team, but left soon afterwards to join Vince Frost at Frost Design.

Frost was like Area and even Pentagram in the sense that the teams were small and it was very much hands on deck. I managed accounts for clients including Nike, Phaidon Press, Swiss Re, Serpentine Gallery and the first London Design Festival. In 2003, with Vince moving to Australia, I decided to set up Dowling Design & Art Direction. Matt Willey and Zoe Bather, now Studio8 Design, continued as Creative Directors at Frost Design, London.

In 2004, a year after setting up Dowling Design & Art Direction, the studio relocated to Newark in Nottinghamshire. In 2010 with former Pentagram designer Rob Duncan, Dowling Duncan was established. Now based in Newark, Lincoln, San Francisco and New York we work on a range of projects for clients such as Gap, John Lewis, HP, Phaidon Press, Google, University of Lincoln and Robert Welch Designs.

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Can you tell us about your working process?

That first initial meeting with the client is crucial. They talk and I listen, then I ask questions – loads of questions. Normally the client will say something in passing, something they think is irrelevant but this is usually the key that unlocks the door to a project. I work through a number of different routes, continuously speaking to the client, asking more questions, looking for further clues and making sure I’m on track.

I find that in the initial stages of a project I write quite a bit. I find it useful to have a number of projects on the go at the same time – one seems to feed the other. I’m very impatient and get bored quite easily, so I feel the need to quickly get my thoughts down on paper, no matter how absurd the idea, a quick scribble normally helps me figure out if it has potential or not.

I’m always questioning what I do and asking myself why? I find it extremely difficult to switch off and find myself thinking about a project constantly even when I think I’m not thinking about it. It’s the last thing I think of at night, and after my usual four hours of sleep, it’s the first thing on my mind in the morning. I throw ideas away but then revisit them and discover something new. I get to the point where I’m happy but then feel the process was maybe too easy and worry that the concept might not be quite right. I then start all over again until I run out of time and have to present to the client.

Each project I take on, no matter how big or small is extremely stressful, only because I make it so. I worry about my ideas, I worry about what the client may think, I worry about my work being relevant, I worry about the detail, I worry about worrying. This is the process I need to go through each time in order to get the best out of a project and the best out of myself.

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How useful can humour be in connecting with your audience.

An important element to me when starting a project is making sure there is a big idea, a concept that I can sell. Being able to justifiably stand there and defend my work and explain why I have done something in a particular way is incredibly important. I always make sure that the solution is relevant, on brief and beautifully executed – a good idea on it’s own is not enough. Providing that joy of discovery is crucial – engaging with the audience through the use of wit and humour is a powerful tool. It gives an idea personality, a sense of identity which can speak volumes about who you are and what you do. It breaks down barriers and can make a product, an idea or a company more approachable and desirable.

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Humour is notoriously difficult to analyse, but when do you feel humour is successful in Graphic Design and when do you feel it falls short?

I try to enjoy each project, even though I put myself through hell each time, and express this through my ideas and concepts. I have as much fun as possible and rigorously search for that ‘gift’ each project has under wraps. Trying to be too clever can result in the real message becoming lost and people left feeling confused and isolated – especially if they feel they don’t get the joke. When humour assists in selling an idea and doesn’t lose anyone in the process, it adds true value and provides that smile in the mind that people remember and revisit time and time again.

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What do you think about the current Design scene?

Clients are expecting and demanding, more than ever, a complete full service. For us it’s about concentrating on what we are good at and working on the things we need to offer to complement what we already do. Small seems to be the new big as most young and established designers are starting their own businesses. While larger agencies still command respect, smaller design studios are defining the cutting-edge of creative excellence more than ever before. I do feel we need to talk to one another a bit more and learn to share. Working together we can establish stronger links within the design community and come to appreciate each others work and the way we operate.

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How have the more witty solutions to briefs usually come about at Dowling Duncan?

In client meetings someone may say something, not giving it a second thought and I’ll pick up on it and center the whole concept around it. We then sell the idea back to the client explaining that it was actually their idea and visually show how we arrived at the final solution. The client then feels part of the process and has a sense of ownership over the project.

The use of wit and humour in our work usually comes about when talking through a project with the client, colleagues, copywriters, friends, printers, paper suppliers, students, even my wife (who is a physiotherapist). It may even appear when doing something completely different or when I think I’m not thinking about it. We are not overly protective or secretive about our work, if someone has a better idea, we’ll happily run with it. We rely heavily on collaboration as we can’t do what we do without the expertise of others.

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Do you have an occasion when you recall that a witty solution came from an otherwise dry subject matter.

Most of our witty solutions come from dry subject matters – this is where we can add value and provide the client with something new and unexpected but at the same time relevant. It may come from the name of the company, like Tinley Road, Custard Gifts and Qube Homes. Sometimes you inherit names like Pumpkin Pet Products, Seawater Greenhouse, Cool Gardens and Express Powder Coating – names that wouldn’t normally get you jumping for joy, but you learn to look harder. Producing something which looks playful and simple, as if it has designed itself is extremely difficult. It may look like it has taken five minutes to do but the true fact of the matter is it’s gone through a rigorous process which has been laboured over for a number of days, weeks, months or even years.

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What inspires you as a Designer?

For the last five years I have been part time lecturing at the Lincoln School of Art and Design. Teaching the next generation of designers is extremely rewarding and satisfying. Nurturing them through the years, helping them find a place in industry and watching them grow into a better designer than I could ever be – now that’s truly inspiring.

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What, in your opinion, that has been designed within the last few years (Apple products aside), will stand the test of time and prove a lasting legacy for this generation of creatives?

True solid idea based work, executed with wit and intelligence, crafted with care and precision. It’s about getting that balance right, to quote Paul Rand: ‘I have two goals. The first is that everything I do as a designer must have an idea: it cannot just look nice. The second is, it has to look nice. Without visual beauty, even a good idea will not pass.’