ARIANE
SPANIER
Ariane Spanier is a Berlin-based graphic designer who is covering a wide range of analog and digital disciplines, from designing books, posters and identities to moving images and animations. In 2020 we had the pleasure to welcome her on stage at the TOCA ME Design Conference.
Ariane Spanier is a Berlin-based graphic designer who is covering a wide range of analog and digital disciplines, from designing books, posters and identities to moving images and animations. In 2020 we had the pleasure to welcome her on stage at the TOCA ME Design Conference.
Ariane Spanier, Modern young priest taking a selfie
What is your background and how did you get into design? Would you please introduce yourself.
What is your background and how did you get into design? Would you please introduce yourself.
I am a graphic designer and work mostly in art and cul­ture. I design in between print and dig­i­tal. I am not partic­u­larly special­ized in one thing, but I cer­tainly love type and lan­guage. I grew up with art and design through my par­ents, it felt nat­ural to go that way too because I was surrounded by it.

For a split second I wanted to get into film before I start­ed to study design in Berlin, but this was rather a quick de­tour on the way to admit to myself that design is the better option. I fig­ured that out when I, during an in­tern­ship in a little tv-pro­duc­tion com­pany in Leipzig, enjoyed designing busi­ness cards for the presenters more than the rest of the job would offer.

I grew up in Weimar where 19th century authors and poets, painters, com­posers had left a strong cultural mark and where the Bauhaus was found­ed before it moved to Dessau. The Weimar Re­pub­lic earned its name from the town and we know how that ended, the Nazis had a strong­hold there, and also had built one of their noto­rious con­cen­tra­tion camps right on top of a little hill over­seeing the town. There was beauty and horror, culture and the darkest moment of our his­tory closely inter­twined in this place I come from.
Ariane Spanier, The Future is bright and full of borders
Ariane Spanier, MOCA Skopje
Ariane Spanier, Typomania
Ariane Spanier, MOCA Skopje
Ariane Spanier, Typomania
Ariane Spanier, Mariken Kramer
How can we imagine a typical working day in your studio?
The past year, during the pandemic, I've been working mostly alone in the studio with one or two freelance collaborators working re­motely. While I cannot com­plain about too little work, there have been long periods of full home­school­ing for my kids and very limit access to school. It's still a highly exceptional situation.

But usually we would be 3 people in the studio, starting between 9 and 10, have lunch either inside, cook some­thing or go out to one of the many places in the neigh­bor­hood, work more, then usually there would be a kids break late after­noon, until I would often start again to work a bit in the evening, because I like the quiet­ness of the night. Or I might go out for a drink with a friend. I miss to have people coming in for work, to have in-person ex­change about ideas and look very much for­ward to taking that up again as soon as schools are prop­erly open again. My studio is con­nect­ed to our home, which made it an easy shift though, as the whole work­space is set up as always.
You cover a wide range of design fields and mediums, from designing books, posters and identities to moving images and animations. Do you have a favorite medium or is it just this variety that makes it interesting for you?
I start to get restless if I'd work on 4 books simul­ta­ne­ously. Only a vari­a­tion of different mediums, topics or fields can keep me inter­ested and moti­vated. This also means I prob­ably don't master any of it. But I believe for myself it couldn't be a dif­fer­ent way. It's really per­fect to work on books, posters, iden­tity pro­jects, and maybe some moving images and shift­ing in-between as one can cover many media. If I get stuck with one, I can easily turn to the other and maybe get going with the first one better. I don't think that's un­usual at all for graphic designers. In this pro­fes­sion lies a multi­tude and complexity.
Ariane Spanier, Berliner Ensemble
Many of your works show a very creative and playful approach to graphic design and typog­raphy. Sometimes you even use your own hand­writing or experiment with differ­ent materials and objects. What is your design and work process like?
I try to keep doing things that excite me and I enjoy. If I want to work with objects for the sake of it, I do it. If I want to design a typeface I'd do it even though I know I would never become a real type designer. If hand­writing fits to a project - yes, let's get the brush out or better, let's design a hand­writing font. I work to entertain myself, as self con­cerned that may sound.

I don't consider myself too experi­mental, I am too little struc­tured. You have to be a bit of a strategic scientist for that I think. But each time I get to some­thing that just happened during a process and it would be sur­prising I am most satisfied.

While I am probably more "in the mo­ment" work­ing, I want results and to move on - I am in the same time a hard worker and could also enjoy to typeset recipes in a cook­book or try to take the same photo for the 50th time. Some­times I like to com­pli­cate things in pro­duction and like to chat with pro­ducers to get it done.
Are there any artists or designers that influence your designs? Where do you get your inspira­tion from?
I sometimes wonder what designer I would have become if I wouldn't have been at Stefan Sagmeister's studio many years ago. I wasn't there for very long, I had just grad­u­ated from the acad­emy and was a little unsure how all this would work out. I knew I really wanted "some­thing", but didn't know yet exactly what that "some­thing" in design was. To come to New York and to see this seri­ous­ness in joyful design that was pro­duced in his studio, was what clicked. That defi­nite­ly influ­enced me a lot. It is so im­por­tant to pick the right place for your­self in a first job. What if it's a boring agency where you don't get exciting things to do, your view on the pro­fes­sion might get distorted in a wrong direction?

Of course I look a lot at art, many of my clients are artists and we show draw­ing art in our annual Fukt magazine for con­tem­po­rary draw­ing that I co-edit and design. All of this flows into a cos­mos of things that I am in­ter­ested in, that I enjoy and navi­gate through. I could sit in a cine­ma and watch 6 hrs of Jonas Mekas diary films without get­ting bored or tired. Has it in­flu­enced my design? No, but I believe that every­thing we see, and every­thing that touches us shapes our way of think­ing and feeds into our idea making in some way.

I love the Austrian poet Ernst Jandl, his often hu­mor­ous con­crete poetry is some­thing that res­onates a lot. While I could list names of artists, design­ers or film­makers whom I find very in­spir­ing like (wild mix!:) Barbara Kruger, David Shrigley, Bruno Munari, John Waters, Erwin Wurm, Fischli and Weiss, Neri Oxman, Jenny Holzer and 1000 more, I could go on with old masters like Vermeer, Hieronymos Bosch, Magritte, Edward Hopper, I love old Persian manu­scripts with their illus­tra­tions too - without being able to point out a direct influence.

Our personal wirings are a major key ele­ment in idea de­vel­op­ing, I believe, be­cause even if you follow crea­tive strate­gies from a book, it's you that de­cides at the end for one idea or another and there is a rea­son for it. I think there are a lot of un­con­cious de­ci­sions made based on interest, humor or aes­thetic pref­er­ences and experience.

Some sources of inspiration we still miss so much right now in many places - museums and gal­leries, concerts and theaters still being closed. I recently went to the Egypt­ian Col­lec­tion in Berlin when it was open during a short period and can't explain how much it meant to look at hiero­glyph­ics again in real life, where you see the stone, the metic­u­lous work that went into carv­ing these out, where you get that sense of time that you only get when you look at a real object.

Traveling, change of scenery, would normally be trig­ger­ing too. As soon as I would hop on a plane or train alone, some­thing in my head starts to take off too. It's the trav­el­ing it­self, the mov­ing in-between two points that crea­tes a space for your mind to slightly expand. Once you are some­where else, where you haven't been before, you are open­ing up and look at things through the "all is new" glasses, which simul­ta­ne­ous­ly seems to re-shift thoughts into new directions.
I sometimes wonder what designer I would have become if I wouldn't have been at Stefan Sagmeister's studio many years ago. I wasn't there for very long, I had just grad­u­ated from the acad­emy and was a little unsure how all this would work out. I knew I really wanted "some­thing", but didn't know yet exactly what that "some­thing" in design was. To come to New York and to see this seri­ous­ness in joyful design that was pro­duced in his studio, was what clicked. That defi­nite­ly influ­enced me a lot. It is so im­por­tant to pick the right place for your­self in a first job. What if it's a boring agency where you don't get exciting things to do, your view on the pro­fes­sion might get distorted in a wrong direction?

Of course I look a lot at art, many of my clients are artists and we show draw­ing art in our annual Fukt magazine for con­tem­po­rary draw­ing that I co-edit and design. All of this flows into a cos­mos of things that I am in­ter­ested in, that I enjoy and navi­gate through. I could sit in a cine­ma and watch 6 hrs of Jonas Mekas diary films without get­ting bored or tired. Has it in­flu­enced my design? No, but I believe that every­thing we see, and every­thing that touches us shapes our way of think­ing and feeds into our idea making in some way.

I love the Austrian poet Ernst Jandl, his often hu­mor­ous con­crete poetry is some­thing that res­onates a lot. While I could list names of artists, design­ers or film­makers whom I find very in­spir­ing like (wild mix!:) Barbara Kruger, David Shrigley, Bruno Munari, John Waters, Erwin Wurm, Fischli and Weiss, Neri Oxman, Jenny Holzer and 1000 more, I could go on with old masters like Vermeer, Magritte, Hieronymos Bosch, Edward Hopper, I love old Persian manu­scripts with their illus­tra­tions too - without being able to point out a direct influence.
Our personal wirings are a major key ele­ment in idea de­vel­op­ing, I believe, because even if you follow crea­tive strate­gies from a book, it's you that de­cides at the end for one idea or another and there is a rea­son for it. I think there are a lot of un­con­cious de­ci­sions made based on interest, humor or aes­thetic pref­er­ences and experience.

Some sources of inspiration we still miss so much right now in many places - museums and gal­leries, concerts and theaters still being closed. I recently went to the Egypt­ian Col­lec­tion in Berlin when it was open during a short period and can't explain how much it meant to look at hiero­glyph­ics again in real life, where you see the stone, the metic­u­lous work that went into carv­ing these out, where you get that sense of time that you only get when you look at a real object.

Traveling, change of scenery, would normally be trig­ger­ing too. As soon as I would hop on a plane or train alone, some­thing in my head starts to take off too. It's the trav­el­ing it­self, the mov­ing in-between two points that crea­tes a space for your mind to slightly expand. Once you are some­where else, where you haven't been before, you are open­ing up and look at things through the "all is new" glasses, which simul­ta­ne­ous­ly seems to re-shift thoughts into new directions.
Ariane Spanier, Fukt Magazine #19
Since 2006 you have been the designer and co-editor of Fukt magazine, which is one of the world's leading and inspiring magazines for con­tem­po­rary drawing. Could you tell us more about the magazine and the idea behind it?
Fukt magazine is turning 20 this year! It is pub­lished an­nu­al­ly and it was found­ed by Björn Hegardt, my partner in life when he was still at the art acad­emy in Norway. And yes, its a niche ma­ga­zine entirely focussing on draw­ing. I came on board after we met and very slowly it became the maga­zine for con­tem­po­rary draw­ing, maybe just be­cause we never stopped, and others gave up. It's driven by our sub­jec­tive selec­tion of inter­national artists who work in the medium of draw­ing, which seems to resonate with a lot of readers inter­ested in drawing.

I am in the fortunate position of de­sign­ing a pub­li­ca­tion that's ours - we can test stuff and if we fail we don't have to report to anyone but our­selves. I put a lot of emphasis on the cover de­signs, because its the first thing you see of a book or ma­ga­zine and some­times the only reason it would get picked up. There is never a drawing on the cover because the ma­ga­zine is full of them and because I like to play with type. After all, letters and words are draw­ings too. Once we had real little chains at­tached to a cover that made the letters change shape when you moved it or paper disks that would break up the title when you turned them.

For our recent issue I designed a foldout cover in a way words would change into different ones after you pulled it out to its length by fill­ing in new letters into the gaps. Art work se­lec­tion and rhythm in the lay­outs is very carefully and con­sid­er­ably done in a way the draw­ings can be most enjoyed by the readers, usually we give the artists loads of space and pages. We do inter­views with artists about their work, life and the stories around.

It's a small independent magazine if you look at team size. But I think it speaks to a lot of people because secretly many people love draw­ings because it re­minds them of their child­hood. We all did draw­ings when we were kids and then most people stop at some point. I think drawing is the most im­me­diate form of ex­pres­sion, it is even ours before we can speak or write. It is some­thing utterly basic to human kind and we all, in one way or another, know that and feel connected.
Ariane Spanier, Fukt Magazine #18
Last but not least...
Coffee or tea?
Coffee.
Last but not least...
Coffee or tea?
Coffee.
Daytime work or night shifts?
Both-ish. Night shifts by heart (and electric light), daytime by society.
Daytime work or night shifts?
Both-ish. Night shifts by heart (and electric light), daytime by society.
Black and White or color?
Excuse me, definitely both. I always want to keep things black and white and end up with loads of color or vice versa. I only wear black clothes, but I love colorful fashion on others. I love almost all colors except 2 or 3 shades of brown and yellowish green. But black is color of graphics, of draw­ing, of an idea, of form, of concept, com­po­si­tion. Color is emotion, it's feeling and at­mos­phere, joy or loud­ness. I will never decide for just one of them!
Black and White or color?
Excuse me, definitely both. I always want to keep things black and white and end up with loads of color or vice versa. I only wear black clothes, but I love colorful fashion on others. I love almost all colors except 2 or 3 shades of brown and yellowish green. But black is color of graphics, of draw­ing, of an idea, of form, of concept, com­po­si­tion. Color is emotion, it's feeling and at­mos­phere, joy or loud­ness. I will never decide for just one of them!
Solo artist or team player?
Solo artist by heart who knows she neither can do, or knows every­thing herself.
Solo artist or team player?
Solo artist by heart who knows she neither can do, or knows everything herself.
What is your all-time favorite song?
How dare you, I give you at least 4:
1) Idiotheque since ever, by Radiohead. I just love its so­phis­ti­cated sad­ness, really makes me happy, but I have still no idea what this song is about.
2) Straight to Hell by The Clash, I just enjoy this one, every time.
3) Slow Savage by Idles. It is the only song I like of the Idles.
4) Samt und Stein by Velvet Condom, well you know, Berlin and Synths, I really fall for anything that sounds like this, simple, melodic and even danceable.
What is your all-time favorite song?
How dare you, I give you at least 4:
1) Idiotheque since ever, by Radiohead. I just love its so­phis­ti­cated sad­ness, really makes me happy, but I have still no idea what this song is about.
2) Straight to Hell by The Clash, I just enjoy this one, every time.
3) Slow Savage by Idles. It is the only song I like of the Idles.
4) Samt und Stein by Velvet Condom, well you know, Berlin and Synths, I really fall for anything that sounds like this, simple, melodic and even danceable.
Ariane Spanier starred at TOCA ME 20.
Ariane Spanier starred at TOCA ME 20.
Interview by TOCA ME in May 2021. Photos by Ariane Spanier and Ines Schmich.
Interview by TOCA ME in May 2021. Photos by Ariane Spanier and Ines Schmich.