Creativity & Culture Collision
A C-Words Creative Conversation with Scott King, Graphic Designer & Artist
February 2021
Scott King and I both attended the Graphic Design degree course at University of Humberside in Hull, Yorkshire. Scott graduated a year earlier than myself but his work left its mark. Whilst most of his peers, including myself, attempted to follow typographic rules and emulate the work of ‘real’ graphic design studios, Scott steadfastly followed his own path. More interested in producing work as a vehicle to project Scott’s opinions, his work even back then, had a bold functionality and attitude that made it stand out and shout to be noticed. I caught up with Scott in February 2021 to discuss his dual roles as artist and graphic designer, his complex relationship with art and why he’s been working on his storytelling technique.
Please give a short introduction about yourself.
My name is Scott King… I’m never comfortable saying ‘I’m an artist’, but I’m not really a graphic designer either, in the usual sense… so, I don’t know what I’d call myself, other than Scott King.
In my background research into you prior to this interview I read your creative work variously described as the following:
• ‘Steeped in, obsessed with, burdened by — the ethos and iconography of punk’
• ‘King has long been involved in bending the seditious visual strategies of gone-but-not-forgotten movements, Dada and Situationism in particular, to the economic demands of the youth media mainstream.’
• ‘The artists in CRASH! mimic a range of activities and services, from trading, marketing, spin doctoring, genetic engineering, and advertising to spying and hairdressing.’
• ‘King posits contemporary insurgency as homogenised consumer choice.’
• ‘Scott King’s artworks are infused with a cunning media savviness that deftly navigates between product, messaging, and desire.’
• ‘King fuses his mastery of a pop culture vocabulary with his cynicism about its consumerist nature by inventing pithy-sounding slogans, bereft of all meaning and sincerity.’
• ‘Part Situationist revolt and part satire, Scott King’s works are a synthesis of art, design, and advertising, delivered with a pop sensibility.’
• ‘London-based artist Scott King seems to have a thing about hedges’
How do you feel about your work being closely scrutinised and commented upon by art critics and what has been the most difficult critique?
I don’t think you can complain about anything they say, if you put yourself in that position of showing your work ‘in public’ or foisting your ideas on to a public… as almost all artists and designers do. In the art world you know you are doing badly if critics ignore you: it’s one thing to be criticised — but at least they are acknowledging you. When they ignore you it means you don’t count within (as they might say) ‘the conversation’. I think I’ve had as many bad or mediocre reviews as good ones… and it hurts at first. But really, it’s just someone else’s opinion; the opinion of a person you might have absolutely nothing in common with if you met them. All critics have their own agenda, they are all fighting to be heard or to champion the ‘right thing’, now more than ever it seems. But like anything else, you get some good critics, people who actually add something, and you get others who add nothing at all.
Tell us about the first time you realised you were creative.
I don’t know if you do realise this yourself do you? Not initially anyway. I remember at primary school, when I was about 6 or 7 — I drew a picture of Jesus in wax crayon, and Mrs. Haslam, the dinner lady — well, she loved it, she went mad about it really. Somehow, she got it exhibited in the foyer of the Grand Hotel in Scarborough, it was there for years apparently. Then when I was 11 or 12, I did a record cover design — maybe my first — it was for the Specials’ song ‘Stereotypes’. I did it in HB pencil and it was a picture of a drunken man, ‘wrapped round a lamppost on Saturday night’, you know, like the lyric in the song. I remember a teacher getting very excited about this, sending me from class to class to show it to the other teachers. So, I think, in a way, ‘creativity’ is foisted up on you isn’t it? In the same way that in my family I am considered to be useless at anything practical — my dad is a fitter/engineer, deeply practical and logical — and he decided a long time ago that I was useless at anything that wasn’t ‘creative’… and it’s true, but I don’t know if these things are a self-fulfilling prophecy… I don’t know how much of ‘what you’re good at’ is decided by external forces.
What was the path that led you to what you’re doing now creatively?
Same as above I think, I can’t really do anything else. I’m terrible at maths or anything scientific, a real dimbo, and reading any kind of instructions… well, I just can’t do that, unless it’s Lego, I’m pretty good at Lego.
Describe how you work professionally. Do you prefer to work alone or in collaboration?
My ideal is that I have the idea — I hone the idea until I can see it and I know it will work perfectly, then I get other people to do it. You know, you get the best photographer, you get someone who is better at typography than yourself, you get a better writer than yourself, you get someone who is more technical etc. That’s the ideal — it’s just being an art director isn’t it? I think I’m probably a natural art director, because what really excites me is the ‘big idea’. But, I work alone, from a studio at home — so I’m constantly on the lookout for people who might want to work with me. I’ve done a lot of collaborative work, CRASH! with Matt Worley being the most long-term thing — Matt is a historian and writer, he makes the ideas we have together seem very intelligent, when in reality they’re often just things we’ve laughed about in a pub. But, I’ve worked with lots of great people — photographers like Jonathan de Villiers and David Gill, who’s brilliance has brought many of my ideas to life. Loads of people, who have very different skills to me — like Will Henry, the illustrator, who I worked with on Anish and Antony Take Afghanistan or Rhys Atkinson, a younger graphic designer, who treats me like I’m a 90-year-old in a care home; but makes sure the things we do are done properly
Where do you find inspiration?
I don’t know really. I think like anyone, I have a set of interests and certain things strike a chord with me. But I rarely ‘just have an idea’ — it’s usually, I have a few half-ideas and I think about them until they merge into a single idea. I like to be given problems really… you know, I like a brief of some kind, even a vague one. I find it very difficult to focus sometimes — I can never see things through, I always start on something else, or start thinking about something else, before I finished the thing I am meant to be doing. I once did a show called. ‘Finish The Work That You’ve Started’ — that was a big ‘note to self’ I had pinned above my desk for the duration of making this particular show… and it worked, it was a good show.
Who are your creative heroes? Have they influenced your work in any way?
I’m not sure I have heroes anymore. I have interests, or people I’m interested in, even vaguely obsessed with — they’re usually tragic, male, dead. So, at various times I’ve had a lot of interest in people like Peter Cook, Dylan Thomas, Martin Kippenberger… you know, all the drunks. I find it harder now to know when or where I’ve been inspired — visually, I mean — I’m not going to go on about us ‘being swamped by digital information’, but I do remember seeing certain things in books as a student, 30 years ago, and being knowingly influenced, or wilfully being influenced by these things — maybe even just one black and white image… as was the case for me with Joseph Kosuth’s ‘One and Three Chairs’ or seeing the work of architects like Superstudio and Coop Himmbelblau, or the first time I saw a picture of Jenny Holzer’s work in Time Square around the same time. I’ve heard several musicians say ‘your strongest influences are always your first influences’, and I think this may be true in art as well.
You grew up in Goole, a town and inland port in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. How much does your upbringing in the north of England during the 1970’s inform your creative work?
I think it has recently — I seem to be trying to conjure up the spirit of 1970s Woolies on Boothfery Road in Goole. I’ve made countless references to the Goole branch of Woolworths in things I’ve done in the last year… so I don’t know what’s going on there.
At university you developed the foundation of your distinctive style by exploring the relationship between, ‘subject, medium and context’. One of the first incarnations of this approach, displayed at your final degree show, was a series of university branded fluorescent typographic posters (set in large upper case Gill Sans Extra Bold letters) informing students they could no longer put posters on foyer doors. The use of utilitarian bold typographic statements has remained a recognisable motif in your work ever since. How has this approach and style evolved over time? What reaction do you hope to achieve with this type of work?
I’m glad you remember that! That was a real breakthrough for me — because I desperately wanted to be a graphic designer, I just didn’t know how. I’d done illustration up until halfway through second year. I really wasn’t very good at it, and all my work looked like a very poor version of Jean Michel-Basquiat. Even today, if I try and draw, it still looks like that. I was really interested in language more than design — I’d started reading about the Situationists, I’d read Roland Barthes’ ‘Mythologies’, and I’d become very interested in ‘first wave’ Conceptual Art as well as things like Fluxus and Guerilla Girls. So, within Conceptual Art, there is often a very strong typographic element — or I saw it as that — what it really was, was a ‘word element’, a language element. I think this interest in language then allowed me to do typography/graphic design — because I’d been scared to do it up until that point — I didn’t get it, I didn’t get why people got so excited about Emigre magazine, Jonathan Barnbrook, Why Not Associates etc. I mean, that was what people copied at college, but I just thought it was decorative art really. So I started to think in terms of ‘context’ — thinking about ‘where the design would go’ rather than what it should look like — I approached graphic design backwards: first context, then medium (media, what it was on), then subject. That’s how those posters came about… I was just trying to think of the best way to upset those Fine Art students who used those foyer doors as their ‘community information board’. From then on, I always thought of context first… whether it be a record cover, a poster, or a magazine cover — I always thought about the space in which the work would appear, before I thought about what the work would actually be.
You graduated from the University of Humberside Graphic Design degree course in 1992 and headed to London. Around the same time the UK was said to be celebrating an era of increased pride in popular and youth culture labelled as ‘Cool Britannia’. This particularly creative period, saw a resurgence in the areas of British music, fashion, film, photography, design and art. Was it exciting arriving in London at this time and how did you first relate with the creative scene happening there?
Well, initially I was just excited to be in London. I was on the dole, living in Islington and had no idea where I was. I even remember once spending my last £1.50 getting the tube from Covent Garden to Leicester Square, which takes about 3 seconds. I did the whole thing that design graduates did then: rang people up and asked if I could show my portfolio… which I hated doing and had to really force myself to do. But, I was lucky, amongst others I got to see people like Graham Wood at Tomato, Phil Bicker, David James and Stephan Male, who was then art director at i-D, but was just about to leave. Steve really liked my work, because it wasn’t ‘real design’ and he sent me to see Terry Jones, who owned i-D. Terry gave me a job on the spot — I mean I started straight after the interview, helping him in his home studio… though ‘helping’ may be too strong a term. It was in January 1993 that I started at i-D, as a junior designer. This was before Britpop and that whole silly construct of ‘national pride’ and Cool Britannia; that really started a year later, as I recall. In those days i-D was on the top floor of a pretty grotty office in Covent Garden, it was much closer to an underground magazine set-up of the 1960s than a ‘bastion of cool’. All sorts of people used to wander in and out, people out of their minds, desperate to tell us about a club they had started, often a club that existed only in their own minds… it was good in retrospect.
In 1996 you initiated a longstanding collaboration with writer and historian Matthew Worley as CRASH!. This working relationship first resulted, in April 1997, with the publication of ‘Death to the New’, a reaction to new lad culture in the 1990s. Towards the end of the 1990’s your work as this collective gained traction culminating in the solo exhibition ‘Corporatism & Complicity’ at the ICA, London in 1999. How did CRASH! come about and what did you hope to achieve with its various activities?CRASH! was a direct result of me working at i-D — I wanted to merge what I’d learned, and some of the tropes of, a style magazine with the things I was really interested in like critical theory, the Situationists, punk… I had it in my head that I could make a composite of these two seemingly opposing positions. I didn’t know Matt Worley at the time — but one day I went to visit Big Head Pete, my friend and your friend from college — he shared a house with Matt back then. Matt wasn’t around and I snooped in his bedroom — it was a like a treasure trove of everything I was into — or everything I wanted to be into. Matt had all these bootleg punk albums, pre-punk stuff like the MC5 and Can — lots of books by Ballard… it was like a dream counter-cultural shop, all-in his bedroom. After that, I thought Matt would be the ideal person to do my magazine with. When we met, in a pub, we really got on — we laughed a lot — he was very bitter, like an old bloke, even though he was only 25… and he knew a lot more than me, he was doing a PhD at the time. I recognised that he would give substance to my idea — I am a pop tart really — I’m good at the pop and the jokes, so we combined this with Matt’s ‘academic’ writing and fury and it worked. Our aim was very simple: to be a thorn in the side of the media — or certain aspects of the media — it was the time of ‘Cool Britannia’ when everyone thought everything was GREAT! … and we thought it was shit, so we said so.
In 2000 you joined Sleazenation as Creative Director with a remit to redesign the style magazine. Although you admit it was a painful and hard fought process the subsequent redesign resulted in arguably some of the most iconic covers of the time. How did the idea to create ‘statement’ covers come about and what was your approach to the design of the rest of the magazine?
Well, in the same way CRASH! was my attempt to merge i-D with the Situationists, my approach to Sleazenation was to merge CRASH! with i-D. So, it became a sort of CRASH!-shandy. I never actually worked at Sleazenation — I only went in there to do what I needed to do. I had — or thought I had — an unspoken agreement with them: they paid me very little and I got to do what I wanted; which was mainly the freedom to do the covers as I wanted. My thinking was, and is, that you only ever remember a good issue of most magazines because it has both a great cover and one great visual story inside. So, that was my goal — I thought if we had those two things in every issue, it would work out ok. Some of the covers I did were great, if I dare say — some less so, and some were pretty crap — but that was inevitable with the process.. you know, we weren’t relying on a beautiful fashion image to carry the cover every time, quite the opposite. With the design inside, I decided to use only Helvetica and Times — the bog standard versions — the ones you got on every computer. I saw this as a kind of ‘ready-made’, using fonts that everybody had… it also cut out a lot of design decisions, which I like to do — that’s why I use fluorescent colours so often, you don’t really have to think about colour if you’re using a fluorescent. So, it was a kind of stripping down I suppose — I wanted it to look ‘adult’ rather than wacky or ‘anarchic’, and I think this worked, especially when you have content like ‘A Directory of Sheep’ or whatever, you know, a real guide to British Sheep… so much better to present that kind of content in a serious manner.
As an artist you say you have a complex relationship with art and art galleries. I read in your contribution to the book ‘The Creative Stance’ this could, in part, be traced back to visiting an oil industry sponsored show at the ICA, London in 1993. Tell us about this complex relationship and how it manifests itself in your work?
I thought I wanted to be an ‘artist’ — especially when I was younger. In my twenties, I was quite obsessed with the idea. The art world in London then — in the 1990s looked so much more exciting than the world of publishing… and certainly of design studios. But that’s only the superficial part of my reasoning -I did desperately want to do what I considered to be ‘my own work’ — I had this need. But I think I was very naive. I really did imagine that ‘art was freedom’, but of course it isn’t at all — no more than graphic design anyway — that is, if you want to be successful you are obliged to deliver your product ‘on brand’. I think, really, I just didn’t want to work in an office, I wanted to be free — that’s the most important thing for me, I’ve come to realise — not having to go to work, not having to sit in an office with people you don’t really like. So, all I try to do is maintain that now. I never did become a ‘serious artist’, and I don’t necessarily believe in that kind of thinking either — it’s a huge construct — a game that everyone has to agree to play. What I do is much often much closer to a crap T-shirt you might once have bought at the seaside. I mean, I think about this a lot, most of my greatest influences are shit T-shirts.
Your creative work successfully bridges commercial commissions as a designer and artistic activities. Besides budgets what are the biggest differences between working for commercial or artistic clients? And, how do you maintain your own creative signature when working in either world?
I think I just do what I do. There is no difference between what you might call ‘design’ and what you might call ‘art’… not really. I mean, a lot of what I do is far too direct and crude for most people to consider as art proper… and simultaneously, too obscure or personal or ugly to be considered ‘good design’. That’s not to say I can’t do work that is genuinely ‘art’ or ‘good design’, but I certainly think a lot of my work perhaps falls between these two positions. That said, it is the ‘in-between’ that I am really interested in — I like pop music that is too close to ‘art’ to be commercially successful (ie ‘pop music’) and I like art that isn’t necessarily opaque. So, it can be difficult. When things are good, I might find myself simultaneously designing records covers, having exhibitions and being commissioned to make artworks all at the same time — but when things are bad, I definitely feel like I’ve fallen through the cracks — fallen into the void that separates art and design.
You started your career as an Art Director but, over time, developed a multidisciplinary approach which sees you today credited as artist, designer, storyteller and writer. How did you develop your work across such a diverse range of media and what does this approach bring to your creative work?
I think my greatest strength is my ideas. Everything I do is ideas driven. So, in many ways I still am an art director. I rely on collaborating with people who are more skilled than me at writing, typography, photography or whatever. But, I think my natural inclination is towards storytelling. I’ve done so much design work and made work for gallery shows that are essentially storytelling. I really need to have a story before I can even begin. So, I’m thinking of recent record sleeves like John Grant’s ‘Love is Magic’; where we invented this whole scenario about John being in the recording studio, ‘in search of the perfect sound’, you know, like the craziest record producers or musicians, those stories that are part of rock’n’roll mythology: Martin Hannett forcing Stephen Morris to record his drums on the roof of the studio; Brian Wilson insisting on recording Beach Boys’ songs in a sandpit, to get the correct Good Vibrations. Or the last Saint Etienne album cover, for which I invented this over-zealous marketing man, who covered the record cover in hype stickers. Or in a gallery, or ‘art context’, where I invented this idea of ‘Britlins’ — a proposal to redesign Britain as a 1970s holiday camp. But it can be a problem too, like Britlins perhaps, trying to force all this story you have in your head — all these details — into something that is essentially only a visual thing. So, I really need to think about this — I really need to find a new way to convey my ideas, which is why, I think, I’ve started making these recordings of stories.
You appear to have curated a distinctive personal brand on social media, regularly posting engaging content related to your work. In my research for this interview I notice you have a habit of editing your feed, often deleting seemingly good content i.e. a recent post on your exercise in blind drawing the logo of The Jam onto t-shirts, another on your love for 1990’s Mercedes and a wonderful anecdote about your childhood fear of Christmas lights. How important is it for you to maintain your own personal brand and what are the important differences between your public and private personas?
I’ve never thought of it as a brand — though I know it should be. I’m not very confident on social media. That’s probably why I delete things. I’m a wimp with it really — if something isn’t immediately popular, I have a tendency to delete it. I think it’s because I only put something on Instagram once a week or so… if I posted something two or three times a day, I probably wouldn’t care if people liked it or not. It’s not a natural thing to me — I find it vulgar really — though I keep doing it.
2010 saw the publication of the comprehensive monograph ‘Scott King: Art Works’, dedicated to your multidisciplinary work across the fields of art and design. How did the idea for a monograph come about and a decade later is it time for a second volume?
I did it because I was about to be 40, so I thought it was a good time to do it. Maybe I should do another book — an update on that one — I don’t know.
You’ve successfully utilised the medium of storytelling in creative works such as the short film Kurt’s Lighter (2016) and the Industrial Coast audio tapes ‘War Story’ (2020), ‘Roy Castle and The Vandellas’ (2020) and ‘Strike’ (2021). As I understand it you call these ‘parables’. What led you to explore storytelling in your work and, in the case of the Industrial Coast tapes, what challenges does working with audio alone present in conveying your ideas?
I may have answered this earlier — but even at college I remember writing this little line, a sort of diagram, on the left, in a circle it said ‘graphic design’ then there was an arrow point to a circle in the middle that in it had the words ‘fine art’, then a second arrow pointing to a circle on the right that said ‘writing’ — you know, as if it was my life planned out in three circles… and that writing was the ultimate goal for me. I’ve been trying to write novels and plays for years, though none of them have ever been very good. Annoyingly, the best of my writing is all based on fact — or ‘once-fact’ that I’ve semi-fictionilsed and romanticised, until it becomes almost fiction. ‘Faction’ they call it don’t they? So, as I say, annoyingly, even in writing I find myself only been able to function in-between positions… I’m no better at writing fiction than I am at making abstract paintings, I just can’t do it. I can’t find the reason within myself… it pisses me off, but it’s just true. So I’ve been compiling true stories, things I can work on and spin into semi-truths, which is what the tapes for Industrial Coast are. It’s what a story I’ve just written for this upcoming book about The Fall called ‘Excavate!’ is. This is my main ambition at the moment, trying to work on my storytelling technique, and seeing what I can do with it.
Do you ever suffer from bouts of ‘creative block’ where you find it difficult to get your head into a freeflowing creative space? If so, what methods, processes, exercises or activities do you use to unblock yourself?
I suffer from a self-imposed creative block all the time. Almost daily. I think this is because I’m very good at having ideas, but not so good at executing them… or have never found a way that suits me entirely. I have an idea then tend to think, ‘how do I do it?’. This is where the problems, or the blocking begins. If I was a painter, I would paint, if I were a writer, I would write etc. The problem is, I don’t really know what it is I do — so I imagine this idea as a play/painting/poster/story and so on. I get stuck because I imagine too many possibilities, then often commit to none. I ruin my own day and it’s very frustrating. I think that’s why a lot of the things I do might end up seeming trite or flippant. The things I end up doing are often a reaction to the frustration of not doing what I intended to do, you know? You promise yourself ‘Today I will write 5,000 words and these words will form the basis of my first novel’. Then you write 3,000 words and they are not very good… so you end up making a poster that says ‘PISS OFF’.
How important is experimentation in your creative work? What has been the biggest breakthrough in your creative work that came through experimentation?
I don’t think anything I do looks experimental — the work I do looks exactly like the work I did at college, 30 years ago… most of the time anyway. I am much more excited by experimenting in a new medium, that’s probably why I’m alway trying to write, or why I’ve made records, graphic novels, spoken word tapes, work that’s been produced in a theatre (only once, not very successfully). So it’s the new medium that excites me… I always think ‘I’ve found my way at last! This is it!’, though it rarely is.
In your opinion can anyone be trained to become creative or is it simply something you are born with?
That’s very complicated. I think like anything — boxing, dancing, doing wheelies on your bike — some people have a natural talent for certain things, and of course, if you have a natural talent that ‘thing’ comes easier. Though I don’t think talent is necessarily a prerequisite for being commercially, or even critically successful — certainly not in art or design — there are lots of other factors at play aren’t there…
You’ve crafted a distinctive and powerful signature in your work without becoming formulaic. How do you keep your work fresh and exciting for yourself?
I think that what I do is quite formulaic — and that’s tough. You only recognise the work of a great painter (for example), or a great band, because it is formulaic. But what do you do when your formula isn’t working anymore? I am constantly trying to ‘find my way’ — find the thing I feel I was ‘born to do’ in ‘a style that is my own’. But I don’t think I ever really have. I think that demands a commitment to something much more specific than what I do — which is essentially ‘having ideas’.
The Covid-19 pandemic has forced the majority of us to re-address the way we work with negative and positive consequences. One of the surprisingly positive results, suggested in WeTransfer’s Ideas Report 2020, is that many of us have actually been more creative during the pandemic. As a creative how have you been coping during the pandemic, has it lead to new creative activities and what important lessons have you learnt that you will take forward in the future?
I really enjoyed the first lockdown — I was very positive and felt like the world had stopped, that I had time to think — that I could perhaps do some of the things I’d been meaning to do. But now, in January 2021, and after almost a year of almost constant social restrictions, I am totally fucking sick of it. To be fair, the lockdown did force me to take seriously my online editions shop, Service Industries, and I’ve really enjoyed doing that. It’s long been a fantasy of mine to make large, cheap editions that go straight from me to the buyer, so I’m really happy that I’m doing that — and I’m really pleased I made the ‘THIS IS SHIT’ poster, which was a direct result of Covid and how we’ve all been forced to live. But, now, I’d really like some freedom again, I’d like the world to start again… as I’m sure we all would.
And finally: What’s next for you creatively?
I hope to escape by writing something I can get lost in.
Instagram: @scottkingstudio
About the author:
Graham Sturt is an English Creative Director based in Amsterdam.
Originally from England, he lived and worked in London for more than a decade before relocating to Amsterdam in 2007 to follow his passion for Dutch design.
