∂Wow!—But How?

An Anthology of the Intersection

of Magic and Graphic Design

Lola Marella Ritter

Schläft ein Lied in allen Dingen, Die da träumen fort und fort, Und die Welt hebt an zu singen,

Triffst du nur das Zauberwort.

∂Joseph von Eichendorff, Wünschelrute (1835)
 IV

∂CONTENTS

Introduction ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂VIII

1µINSIDE OUTSIDE ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ XII

Sigils, Aesthetic, Magic∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ XIV

Substantiating Magic ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ XVIII

Designing Bon Iver’s

22, a Million : An Interview
with Eric Timothy Carlson
Emmet Byrne ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ XXIX

2µVALUE AND MEANING ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ L

Legible Matter
Morgane Vantorre ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ LIV

Magic and Happiness

Giorgio Agamben∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ LIX

The True Name ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ LXV

3µTECHNIQUES AND TOOLS ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂LXXXVI

Why Game Designers

Should Study Magic
Sebastian Deterding,
Gustav Kuhn,
Shringi Kumari ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂XCI

The Apparatus
Vilem Flusser ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂CXI

Six Sacred Principles of Design ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ CXXVI

 V

Magic Moments
Pellegrino Ritter ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ CXXXII

4µPERFORMER AND
PERFORMANCE ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ CXXXVIII

Magic is Afoot:
Interview with Alan Moore
Jay Babcock ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ CXLIII

The Alchemy of Creativity:

A Rollercoaster Ride Through
the Alchemist Operations with
Greetings from C.G. Jung
Madeline Ritter ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ CLXXXI

Image Credits ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ CXCII

Imprint ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ ∂ CXCIV
 VI

µINTRODUCTION

Children have a very natural connection to magic, they seem

to live in a world that purely consists of magic. Magic is real
and reality is magical, there is no separation between these
two concepts. One of my earliest remembered encounters
with magic is my father’s ability to make smurfs appear from
nowhere. He would show his empty hand to my sister and
me (and occasionally some of our friends, who we had to
convince of his powers), a hocus-pocus, abracadabra and some
flowing, buoyant hand movements later, a little plastic smurf,
no bigger than his thumb, appeared in the palm of his hand.
There was not even the slightest idea of searching for another
explanation, seeing this with our own eyes it was quite
obvious—he was a magician, specialised in conjuring smurfs.
Consequently, my sister and I would tell the other children:
“...yeah, so? Our dad is a magician, he makes smurfs appear
out of NOTHING!”
Growing up, we somehow lose this blind trust. Just seeing
something does not necessarily make us believe in it too.
We do not trust our own eyes, if that, what is seen, contrasts
our concept of what is possible. We need to find an explana-
tion that coincides with what we have learned. However, at
the same time we’re able to see the invisible, only by believing
in it.
There is a thin line between scepticism and the desire
to believe. It seems like we are mesmerised by seeing some-
thing new, something that surprises us, something that we
can not make sense of right away. Yet our next reaction is the
urge to immediately question it and find a way that explains
the impossible. To put this notion in a very short sentence:

WOW!—BUT HOW?

Witnessing a magician pulling a big fluffy rabbit out of a—

just seconds before as empty adjudged—black top hat.
Having someone pick exactly that black seven of spades from
a card deck, that you mentally chose without telling anyone.
The wow-but-how kind of reaction is not solely evoked by
classic magic tricks, which we know from circuses, movies,
 VII

or simply our much amused (smurf-magician) father. As a

graphic designer, this comparison of my practice and magic
is something I came across, too.
Furthermore, it seems like people are always looking
for something magical in the objects that surround them
and design may be a way to bring out that magic.

“There is something magical about design that can make

it genuinely moving. Or rather, something magical about
things, since the term “design” has long demystified
objects. Design is synonymous with trendy, expensive and
out of the ordinary. Beauty, stillness and contemplation
feel anomalous to design and yet it is precisely these
qualities that immortalise a thing: turn it into a changeless
object that is conferred with a mystical allure—without it
needing to be ennobled on canvas”

This statement by the art historian Hilde Bouchez emphasises

the idea that design carries something magical inside. There is
more to the concept of design than merely presenting a beauti-
ful surface or serving a solution-oriented function. Design con-
veys meaning, which may resonate deeply within its viewers.
The described magic, which design carries according to
Bouchez, is of course quite subjective. The “mystical allure”
or magic to be found in design may be perceived in very
different manners—always depending on the observer.
Doing my research into magical and graphic design con-
cepts, I tried exploring their common grounds. Ultimately,
I boiled my research down to four hypotheses, that touch
upon different aspects of magic and graphic design that seem
to intersect. This anthology is organised by these hypotheses:
each chapter represents one of them and contains a curation
of works by different authors and creators that in one way or
another support the hypothesis.
Another catalyst for this project was my interest in the
aesthetics of magic, and its ubiquity in contemporary graphic
designs. Magic seems to be trending, not only are magical
rituals very present in popular culture—think about astrology,
 VIII

tarot cards and witchcraft—the visuals of the practice have an

increasing omnipresence too.
Within the layout of the book, I considered and imple-
mented magic visuals, some quite obvious, some more hidden,
referencing elements of tarot cards, sigil magic and other ways
of magical communication.
I hope that this book—as a physical, designed object but
also with the information it carries—is able to create some
kind of magic and resonance within its viewer.
1 Bouchez, H. (2017). A Wild Thing, Art Paper
∂
Editions, p. 4.
IX
 X
X

1
Magic is about taking
concepts from the abstract
and moving them into
reality. Both graphic design
and magic can be used
to move things from the
outside to the inside and
vice
vice versa.
versa.∂Ω
 XI

Graphic design and magic are means by which abstract

concepts can be made comprehensible and tangible. The artist
Greg Fong once said: “Magic means that you can give yourself
an opportunity to stop analysing things”.1 It is a natural human
desire to always want to make sense out of things and it can
be unsettling when failing in the attempt. Instead of trying to
find an explanation for a process that is difficult to understand,
it is convenient and easy to justify this lack of understanding
by the existence of magic.
Magic is also not always tangibly changing the world
around us, sometimes it is about changing “our concepts in
relation to the world.”2 It can alter how we feel inside and it
can alter how we perceive the outside.
Just as magic, graphic design, too, can be used to unravel
an abstract concept through the process of making complex
information ingestible for a specific audience. Simultaneously,
it can manifest an inward feeling and make it visible for
the outside.
The following chapter explores the grounds of what is
real and can be seen and what is invisible and can be felt.
Things can be true and feel fake. They can be fake but feel real.
Graphic design can be used to create a feeling inside, or it can
be used to express a feeling to the outside.

1 Fong, G. (2015). K-Hole #5 A report on doubt, p. 31.

2 Flusser, V. (1983). Towards a Philosophy of Photo-
graphy, p. 17.
 XII

1∂INSIDE OUTSIDE Graphic design and magic can be used to move things from the outside to the inside
“Symbols act as portal to
greater knowledge and
understanding of the world.”1

These words by Hilde Bouchez

describe something that is deeply
connected to magic: the use of

SIGILS, symbols. Practitioners of magic

use symbols as a language, to cast

AESTHETIC,
spells, to protect themselves,
or to express intentions. There are
alchemical symbols, which desig-

MAGIC nate elements. There are religious

symbols and symbols that are
used by other groups of ideologi-
cal and philosophical beliefs.
Some symbols can be universally
understood, like the Hexagram,
which, in a magical context, is
used to call spiritual creatures.
An introduction into the Other symbols are specially created
practice of sigil magic for individual needs and desires,
as seen with regards to sigils.

Sigils were used in medieval times The creator of the sigil formulates INSDEOUT

to summon demons or angels, an intention, a positive statement,

that shall influence their way of life.
N S D T

who each had their personal seal,

a sigil. Nowadays, sigils are less In a creative process the written
about summoning external beings, statement will be condensed
but rather summoning something so that only a glyph-like visual
that is already inside of oneself. remains.
Sigil magic is symbolism mixed Visually, sigils have a resem-
with psychology. It is the idea blance with monographs,
that symbols can be charged with signatures, technical drawings
meaning, an intention, or a desire. or diagrams. The chaos magician
Through various techniques, Grant Morrison claims that
sigils are used to bypass the modern corporate logos act in
consciousness and enter the sub- many ways similar to sigils:
consciousness. While there seems
to be no right or wrong technique, “Corporate sigils are super-
many practitioners agree to the fact breeders. They attack
that the creation of the sigil is as unbranded imaginative space.
important as the practical use. They invade Red Square, they
And how exactly does sigil infest the cranky streets of
magic work? The little pictographs Tibet, they etch themselves into
are a symbolic representation of hairstyles. They breed across
the practitioners desired outcome. clothing, turning people into
 XIII

advertising hoardings... The images depict everyday ob-

The logo or brand, like any sigil, jects, that have a resemblance with
is a condensation, a compressed, the distinct appearance of sigils.
symbolic summoning up of the As aforementioned, sigils are
world of desire which the cor- mostly formed by merging letters,
poration intends to represent... lines, or other geometrical shapes
Walt Disney died long ago but into a new arrangement. Given
his sigil, that familiar, cartoonish their similar manner of creation,
signature, persists, carrying its they generally have a similar,
own vast weight of meanings, distinct aesthetic. Once having an
associations, nostalgia and eye on this aesthetic, one might
significance.”2 realise that it can be found in sur-
rounding, real-life objects, which is
Sigils are a substantial intersection an enchanting practice. Instead of
of graphic design and magic: the creating a visual to then charge it
two dimensional, flat visuals on the with value, why not re-use objects
one side and the depth and mean- and bodies we encounter every
ing that they can be charged with, day and charge those? The photos
on the other. address the interplay of object
Establishing this significant and concept, dimensionality and
theme, a photo series is following the value we give or do not give to
through this book dwelling on the our surrounding objects.
meaning and aesthetic of sigils. ∂

1 Bouchez, H. (2017). A Wild Thing, Art Paper

Editions, 2017, p. 48.

2 Morrison, G. (2003). “Pop Magic!”, Book of Lies:

The Disinformation Guide to Magick and the Occult
Being an Alchemical Formula to Rip a Hole in the
Fabric of Reality edited by Richard Metzger, Red
Wheel Weiser.
 1∂INSIDE OUTSIDE Graphic design and magic can be used to move things from the outside to the inside INSDEOUT N S D T
XIV
“What you fi nd-ah What you feel now XV What you know-ah To be real”

∂Cheryl Lynn, Got To Be Real (1978)

 XVI

1∂INSIDE OUTSIDE Graphic design and magic can be used to move things from the outside to the inside
∂SUBSTANTIATING MAGIC

The image series Substantiating Magic displays diagrams that

scientifically explain intangible metaphysical concepts. It is
a vivid example of how graphic design can be used as an out-
ward manifestation of inward feelings.
Diagrams are symbolic, yet abstract, representations of
information using visualisation techniques. In science, they
are often used to visualise “qualitative data”. This type of
data’s characteristic is, that it can be observed and recorded,
to characterise and approximate.
The following diagrams are not representing data that can
be observed or recorded, but rather data that can be felt and
intuited. However, being presented in this form, the intangibil-
ity of these concepts seems to fade—they become plausible.

INSDEOUT
N S D T
XVII
 1∂INSIDE OUTSIDE INSIDEOUTSIDE INSDEOUT INSDEOUT NSDT N S D T
XVIII
 XIX

1 Self Other

2 Self Other

3 Self Other

4 Self Other

5 Self Other

6 Self Other

7 Self Other
XX
XXI
XXII
XXIII

∂
XXIV
XXV
 XXVII

Emmet Byrne

Designing
Bon Iver’s
22, a Million :
An
Interview
with Eric
Timothy
Carlson
I E O U

This interview was originally published on Walkerart.org in October 2016.

The Walker Art Center is a catalyst for the creative expression of artists
and the active engagement of audiences. ©2016 the author
IEOU
 XXVIII

When I first started to see fragments of the artwork for Bon

Iver’s new album 22, a Million, I immediately recognised the
hand of Eric Timothy Carlson, an artist and designer based
in Brooklyn, originally from Minneapolis. Carlson’s work fre-
quently mutates from medium to medium, a sketch becoming
a poem becoming a sculpture becoming a shirt. Through it
all, the idea of reading—the fluidity between text and image,
the discarded pictographic origins of alphabets, the semiotic
slide between icon to index to symbol—guides his work.
Symbols especially fascinate Carlson, who has obsessively
explored their cryptic and explicit power within the realm
of music, having created logos, icons, and glyphs for a number
of midwestern bands like P.O.S., Gayngs, and Doomtree. In
Carlson’s world, symbols rarely speak with the intent of reify-
ing meaning, or branding something with repressive authority,
but in a way that evokes multiple readings at once, asking to
be adopted and infused with new life. It is this spirit that is on
ebullient display in his new artwork for Bon Iver. This work
is thick—an extensive collection of symbols and drawings and
Emmet Byrne

texts that spill out from the dense LP design (the legend/key
to the entire transmedia system) to populate Instagram posts,
giant murals, lyric videos, etc. The work is less a graphic
identity for an album and more a documentation of a colla-
borative network of players, places, times, and tools. In the
following interview we present the finished artwork, supple-
mented with process work and related materials. Eric takes us
down the rabbit hole, describing the intense, fluid work ses-
sions with Justin Vernon and others at the Eau Claire studios,
the numbers that permeate the track list, the influence of
digital culture on the new album, the prevalence of cryptic
symbolism throughout the Minneapolis/Wisconsin music
scene, and the Packers.

EMMET BYRNE: How were you approached to work on this?

Do you specialize in music packaging?

ERIC TIMOTHY CARLSON: It’s been a long process. Five

years ago, I received a message from Justin that said “I like
what you’re doing, and I want you to know that.” A year or two
later after actually meeting for the first time: “Can we work
 XXIX

on something together? You should come over and we’ll vibe.”

Music has always been an important aspect of my practice.
I’ve played music my whole life, and I come from a musical
family, raised with it. In college I interned with Aestheticic
Aparatus, screen-printing gig posters. My first design projects
were for friends’ bands, and posters for art/music shows.
Never really wanting to pursue any sort of traditional employ-
ment, I’ve made my way on small projects, working with
musicians and artists and performers.
I lived in Minneapolis for a decade before moving to New
York, so much of my work is born of that Midwest commu-
nity. P.O.S’s Never Better was the first complete art direction
project I had the chance to fully develop. It was a crash course
in working with an artist and a label in unison, and aligning

Designing Bon Iver’s 22, a Million: An Interview with Eric Timothy Carlson
the intent and capabilities of all the involved parties/minds.
I owe a lot to that community: P.O.S, Doomtree, Rhymesayers,
TGNP, Building Better Bombs, Poliça, Gayngs, Skoal Kodiak,
The Plastic Constellations, Marijuana Deathsquads, Dark
Dark Dark, The Church, Organ House, Medusa. It was an
opportunity to participate in defining a decade of music in
Minneapolis. For a couple of years, I also worked with Mike
Cina, who is a book and record collector, and really learned
and internalized a lot about typography and album art in my
time with him. My practice has expanded outside of that
through zines and the internet, but a lot of my work to this
day has spawned from this continuum.

How did you work with the Bon Iver crew to create this art-
work?

Some projects, you can see what the cover is supposed to

be—a floating image in the mind—or there are certain “rules”
that you’re supposed to play by that determine much of what
is being created. This project, however, could be whatever it
wanted to be. The original desire from the start was to create
a robust world of work. So instead of pursuing a specific vision
right off the bat, we just worked and experimented and tested
ideas. I worked closely with Justin. I worked at April Base—
the recording studio—a couple times a year, each time was
a unique experience focused on that stage of the music.
Emmet Byrne XXX
 XXXI
Usually with an intimate group of two or three guests (musi-
cians, writers, chillers, curators) and the studio crew, for a
week or so at a time, to make a unique creative space, where
each of us would be a part of defining that period of creation.
The whole Bon project is for the most part entirely driven
in house. Each visit would be a new experiment—creating
temporary installations and interventions, painting murals,
sharing books and inspiration, playing music. We came to
listen and work and get to know one another, to get a feel for
how to work and talk and think together. Not overthink any-
thing. Developing the conversation, making art, and sharing
our scope of vision and capabilities. In the rural setting of Eau
Claire, when it was freezing outside, almost everything took
place inside the studio, and we barely even left the property.

Designing Bon Iver’s 22, a Million: An Interview with Eric Timothy Carlson
It puts you in a certain headspace, and you develop a pattern
of waking up and just getting into the work and process of it
from noon to midnight—an uninterrupted cycle for a week at
a time. But we’d make sure to sleep and eat well too, and not
miss too much of the limited winter sunlight.
There were some early birds in the studio, and of course
the night owls as well. The amount of people shifted depend-
ing on what was happening, and the vibe changed depending
on who was around. I think the Indigo Girls were recording
the week before I first visited, and there was another project
in one of the sound rooms overlapping with my time there.
That first visit was one of the most frenetic, fluid experiences,
multiple projects developing and recording simultaneously.
Sax and string players visiting to record their own work, and
then session on the album in process as well. The later visits
were more focused—everyone was there for the album, in a
no distractions kind of mode.
I’m a habitual drawer, so these visits to the studio resulted
in an accumulation of many, many sketches, like writing. Later,
these sketch pages became a reference point for the final work.
There was an honesty in the notes and collection process that
very much influenced the final work.
 XXXIV

µON THE SYMBOLS

How does the artwork respond to the music?

The songs were all numbers from the start, multiple num-
bers at first. So we would listen to each song, talk about the
numbers, talk about the song, watch the lyrics take form,
makes lists, make drawings. Real references and experiences
are collaged in both the music and the artwork. I was able
to interview and interrogate each song—diving into weird
cores—and by the end of each visit, each song would develop
a matrix of new notes and symbols.
Between the numerology, the metaphysical/humanist
nature of the questions in 22, a Million, and the accumulation
of physical material and symbolism around the music—it
became apparent that the final artwork was to be something
of a tome. A book of lore. Jung’s Red Book. A lost religion.
The Rosetta Stone. Sagan’s Golden Record. Something to
invest some serious time and mind in. Something that
Emmet Byrne

presented a lot of unanswered questions and wrong ways.

A distant past and future. An inner journey somehow
very contemporary.

When I saw the artwork for the first time I immediately

recognized the feeling of it, the general design language.
The use of rune-like symbols felt very much like your previous
work, and like the work of some of your collaborators—but
it didn’t feel like Bon Iver, at least as I understood it. Was
Bon Iver looking for something different than their previous,
pastoral vibe?

Early on in the process, it was said, “I want each song to have

a symbol,” and I knew exactly what that meant. Symbols just
naturally come out of me, which is why I use them so much.
Icons, signs, symbols—they are cultural fragments and a
well made one can cut so deep into our language. I’ve been
mentally collecting these all my life. There’s an exercise I
enjoy—sitting down to draw out all of the symbols you know
without reference: logos, symbols, characters, etc.—and it’s
often surprising what comes out, what we have locked away
 XXXV

in memory. The anarchy A, yin yangs, Mr. Yuck, Super “S,”

Kilroy, peace sign, etc. I admit that one of my desires regarding
design and art is to add something to that deep cultural sym-
bolic well of knowing. But they also come from a decades-long
conversation within this specific community. I designed the
Gayngssymbol for Ryan Olson in 2010 and worked with
Doomtree in 2011 on their No Kings album, which also in-
volved the generation of a series of glyphs. These ideas—
claiming icons, masks, unknowables, unsayables, unpronoun-
cables—resonate with that community. The Artist Formally
Known as Prince. Zoso. CRASS. etc.
And as far as the feeling of the previous Bon albums,
I mean, they brought me in for a reason. That version of
Americana was ripe and appropriate when For Emma, Forever

Designing Bon Iver’s 22, a Million: An Interview with Eric Timothy Carlson
Ago and Bon Iver happened, but the Bon project didn’t want
to further perpetuate that aesthetic. The new album remains
explicitly connected to those before it, but the feeling has
undeniably evolved, as has the culture around it.
I spent years in a perfectly weird corner of the heartland
making apocalyptic noise art in the vibrant community of
Minneapolis. Landlocked blowers. High and low are just as
much the fabric of our home as is a melting pile of snow.
So on the surface, the new album aesthetic might seem like
a dramatic shift in the Bon aesthetic, but I see it true and
deeply bonded to its current state as well as the history out
of which it developed.
For 22, a Million—in their creation—they felt automatic.
I enjoy the puzzle of creating a ligature. Justin assigned a spe-
cific meaning to the numbers and a logic to their creation,
but in the end, they are open containers to be filled with new
meaning. Symbols in the context of music have a lot of power,
and people are very willing to own and wear/display their
cultural experiences and allegiances.
As the artwork developed, it became clear how we would
seed the material into the public. With 10 symbols, we would
make 10 murals, and 10 videos, and a 20-page book, etc. As
with many numerologies—just follow the numbers—be them
true or not. The artwork is a collection of hundreds of pieces,
icons, ideas, motifs, most of which are capable of standing
on their own. The proper album packaging is the legend of
 XXXVI

symbols, where you find everything all in one place. When

applying the art to outside uses (murals, ads, Instagram
posts, etc.), we could utilize individual components. But no
piece should be as comprehensive as the album packaging.

How did you land on the prominent use of the yin yang symbol?

In establishing that each song was to have a symbol or a set

of symbols designated to it, I wanted to also arrive at an over-
arching symbol, to house them all within. The yin yang proper
was in play loosely from the start, working well in the context
of the humanist/spiritual pursuits of the project. I created the
collage compositions for the LP package by hand at 33˝ 33˝,
as it proved the best way for me to deal with the amount of
material produced, and to massage it all into a sound and
organic composition. The center was originally occupied by
an altered mandala, as a satisfying placeholder, waiting to be
filled with the final symbol. The yin yang design we ended
up with happened while working in vector—on something of
Emmet Byrne

a whim. Changing the symbol into a square format proved to

be enough to keep it recognizable but make it unique to the
project. The “smile in the mind” bit of the “i” and “b” emerging
from the mark was the final step in both owning the mark, as
well as settling its roll. It is a simple design, two circles cen-
tered, but the point where they touch in the center is sensitive
and requires some optical adjustments. Following the geomet-
ric paths produces a little tick that requires massaging to look
right. The proportions of the “i” work within the proportions
system created for the LP design, and align with the typo-
graphic proportions as well. As organic as it feels, it’s a tightly
made structure throughout it all.
There was a short conversation as we arrived near the final
art design, where I wanted a very clear confirmation that this
was where we were going to land, “There are going to be yin
yangs and down crosses on your album cover ... and ... you’re
down with that?” and the response was more or less, “Dude,
yesssssss!”
 XXXVII

µON THE DIGITAL MILIEU OF 22, A MILLION

You’ve described the way ideas of digital collage, digital

formats, digital thinking really encompassed the creative
conception of the album, both musically and visually.

22, a Million to me still feels very tied to Emma and the self-
titled album. There is still the gospel and folk and mountain
songs, but in the studio I could feel and see the visceral dig-
ital collage of it all, how our technology and the internet has
truly affected the way we collect, organize, think, and make.
This album is built on our history of music, noise, poetry, and
Americana, but also seamlessly incorporates and celebrates
the technological nuances of our contemporary —employing

Designing Bon Iver’s 22, a Million: An Interview with Eric Timothy Carlson
it and expanding it.
Visualizing music has been an exercise I’ve practiced
since I was young. The first PlayStation had the visualizer
function where you could customize your equalizer/screen-
saver with the controller, responding to any CD you put in,
which informed a bit of how I approached it then. I try to
let the ideas be more expansive now. When I first heard
the digital disturbances crackling over these new songs, it
was such a trip, seeing layers and relationships I hadn’t yet
encountered. The computer so readily pairs with futurist
visions, pushing forward futuristic, technology-oriented aes-
thetics. But the reality of our relationship with digital tech-
nology always retains this messy pulsing humanity. Marshall
McLuhan predicted computers in every classroom, people
connected around the world, utopian vibes. Technically he
was very right, but we still have bad carpeting and ugly plaid
couches and gas station tchotchkes and dirty bathrooms.
Regardless of time passing, we remain in communion with
the century preceding us, and even the previous millennium
or two.

How do you understand album artwork in the context of

the digital music economy? Prior to the proper release of the
album, your artwork was published in a variety of ways,
from a cryptic track-list graphic approach on Instagram to the
YouTube lyrics videos. The graphics seem to be very front and
 XXXVIII

center in Bon Iver’s pre-release strategy—they are presented as

standalone thoughts, with very little context, in lieu of a slick
marketing campaign. Was this the intent from the beginning?

I believe Bon Iver has had unique success with both digital
and physical album sales, perhaps an anomaly of sorts.
Being of my generation, I can’t help but desire access to music
and movies and such things for free—I understand how that is
problematic, but upon tasting Napster, it was hard to go back.
Labels, album makers, vinyl fetishists—people love the rich-
ness of album art, the nostalgic object to own and consume.
It’s fun to produce that stuff, and much of the best album art
was made for that format. CD’s are junk, and Digipaks are
junk, in my opinion. (My favorite CD format is those massive
Case Logic binders of poorly labeled CDRs.)
Given the opportunity, I like to make artwork first for the
LP format because it is the most generous format for artwork
(assuming one pursues the object creation). Then I try to
find a good way to make a system of format conversions. I love
Emmet Byrne

old cassette tapes where they just drop the square album
art on the cassette cover, and type out the titles again bigger
underneath in the worst/best way. So honest.
Format conversions are such a crazy part of doing a big
release like this, because there are so many when it comes
to international releases: LP, CD, Cassette, Euro LP, CD,
Central/South American CD, Australian CD, Japan CD, etc...
all slightly different sizes, with different printers, different
distributors. Aspects of this obviously become a certain hell,
but I can’t help but pursue quirky packaging details in the
different designs, which, if done well, can result in so many
unique details that make each version special in their own
little mutant way.
When working with bands, I’ve often made the case that
they should find a way to make an album available for free,
since someone will do it anyway, and if you try to control it,
you end up keeping people away from the work. I can’t back
up any financial rubric supporting this, but it feels right to
me. Most of my friends are posting their work on SoundCloud
or YouTube. When they release an album that is freely avail-
able, the ideas that form around the real base are a little more
 XXXIX

true to humans than the rules as laid out by companies. For

22, a Million, there will be lyric videos that I created with
Aaron Anderson for each song that will be available for free
on YouTube (save the ad experience/big data), which is great
as it opened another gate for us to expand the language of
the artwork into an entirely different realm—time and motion
and the casually fluent—because internet.

Lyric videos are an interesting choice for an album like this.

Vernon references Richard Buckner when talking about becom-
ing comfortable with writing words that sound like something,
instead of lyrics with explicit meaning. “Sound things out and
find out what it means later. Gave me the courage to write like
that.” I feel like your cryptic use of symbols matches that strat-

Designing Bon Iver’s 22, a Million: An Interview with Eric Timothy Carlson
egy pretty closely. It suggests a deep, diverse world of language
but the viewer is allowed to fill in the meaning of what it is
actually saying. The lyric videos seem deliberately deadpan
in their delivery of the lyrics—a little too straight up for lyrics
that make very little “sense” at first listen. There’s something
unnatural-feeling about literally reading these lyrics while
listening to the music...

The lyric videos initiative came from Justin. I’m not sure they
ended up looking like what he was imagining, but that’s one
of the things that has been so great about the project: the trust
in the work of everyone involved. I was originally a little
hes-itant about the lyric video concept, largely due to the
quality of lyric videos in general, and because I was dreaming
of an entirely abstract/ambient visual component to live with
the music online, without typography. But many lyric videos
found online are made by fans—iMovie/After Effects motion
graphics class projects. I feel that that amateur aesthetic has
gone on to inform what official, professionally produced lyric
videos look like. Those videos are getting a lot of views, so
they are probably important to produce and control, but I can’t
imagine any of them are allotted budgets comparable to that of
a music video—they are more of a checked-off assets category
in the end.
But it was a good challenge, figuring out how to do it good/
weird/right, how to acknowledge the format, and how to
 XL

expand the album art into this realm. They didn’t need to be
explicitly narrative, and they didn’t need to live by the rules
of the print material. They are made for YouTube, to ultimately
listen to the music in that format—but we wanted to prod at
the format, and use it to expand upon the inherent digital truth
of the album.
The simple and natural aesthetic of digital collage that
these videos utilize is deeply rooted in the core of 22, a
Million. From the start, the note taking, the creative process,
and the music embrace the idea of digital collage. For example,
“10 d E A T hbREasT⚄⚄” samples a low-resolution YouTube
video of Stevie Nicks casually singing backstage. These lyric
videos where the perfect place to expand upon this digital
aesthetic. It would be amazing to take a 5K to New Zealand
and make all the videos of Gandalf blowing lyric smoke
rings, but we have a lot of readily-available capabilities in
our pocket already, and feel capable of making something
great on a napkin. I’ve always loved making design work in
text edit, for example. The initial footage from “10 d E A T h
Emmet Byrne

b R E a s T⚄⚄” is all video screen captured in Acrobat.

The video for “22 (OVER S∞∞N)” is a slowed down video
text message, with the lyrics applied in a broken subtitle gener-
ator, shot off the screen because it wouldn’t export correctly.
It feels right to leave some of these inconsistencies, like a
painting’s visible underdrawing. Something beautiful in
mistakes—techno wabi-sabi. Folk motion graphics... motion
graphics are so bad.
I like the idea of domestic psychedelia. Which isn’t so
much tie-dye as it is being half asleep on an ugly couch
and the floaties in your eyelids. The artwork certainly goes
to reference something ancient—a lore—but so does the
music, with the voice, the folk and gospel music. But it is also
inherently new, and defining what comes later, the future,
so it seemed important to address the contemporary, to break
the contemporary, and show how fucked up good and weird
our domestic tools can be through simple layered process.
 XLI

µON FOOTBALL JERSEYS AND RAINBOWS

It feels very natural, the way you mash up your ancient/

masonic-looking symbol system with contemporary, mundane
imagery such as football jerseys, bad YouTube videos, old
hotel rooms, beer cans, rainbows. What’s that about? Nostal-
gia? High/low? Irony? Is it recontextualizing the everyday
iconography we live with? Is it something much simpler?

I like the natural humanity of all these things. These just feel
like very human marks to me, from the fabric of communica-
tion and the material of our lives. I like acknowledging how
weird and aesthetic our environments and immediate cultural
surroundings are. Prodding at basic structures of communi-

Designing Bon Iver’s 22, a Million: An Interview with Eric Timothy Carlson
cation and language. At the same time, I’m drawn to these old
symbols, as they have so much responsibility for what we are
and how we communicate today.
The symbols are deeply ingrained in the social mind, and
define so much for us. We grow up seeing and accepting sym-
bols as part of our reality. Spades, clubs, diamonds, hearts:
where do these come from, and is there a deeper meaning?
Are they violent, or controversial, or of the tarot? The cross,
the star, sun and moon, the spiral: they all have vast meaning
and association inherently available to anyone and everyone—
owned at times by a particular culture or movement—forever
shifting, but retaining a trace of a cultural pulse.
The letters of the Roman alphabet developed out of other
symbols older and of meaning that no longer register in their
use. Fuelled by changes in regime and religion. Conquerers
assimilating the occupied. Symbols collage through time.
These simple things—jerseys, beer cans, rainbows—func-
tion in a similar way to the symbols. They too are symbols.
The beer can is there, suggesting traces of the people behind
the project. Everybody drinks the same Coca-Cola Classic.
Chipotle has the same burrito any place you eat it. The foot-
ball jersey—I mean, nothing ever got done at the studio on
Sunday afternoons because the Packers were on, and I was like,
“Noted.” It’s real. Though of course, contemporary symbolism
is heavily influenced by branding and advertising. I imagine
a good portion of the last century’s most enduring symbols
 XLII

come from that sector. “I Heart NY,” though an endearing

sentiment, in part serves an economic end. We so naturally
have embraced a form of communication now defined as
the social spaces of the internet. Images work in this space
in a way unique to the speed and format of it all. We can
accumulate and disperse vast immaterial fields of information,
sifting through it all collectively. This field absorbs all that is
fed into it and expands exponentially.
I’m not explicitly working to employ irony beyond what
is casually interlaced. I don’t see it as nostalgic or particularly
mundane—though at times perhaps critical, taking specific
notice of problems, things understood as ugly or wrong.
The Papyrus typeface. A simple awareness with unpleasant
polit-ical implications—the peripherals we blissfully allow
to escape notice. So re-contextualizing, yes, but also exposing
some truths.
Stop and smell the flowers, connect the not obviously
connected to new end. I find a lot of beauty in these things,
which doesn’t require aesthetic and defies design. Slick is
Emmet Byrne

good and buttoned up but so often such a facade.

We also collected a massive amount of found imagery
during the process, often texting these images back and
forth. Some of these images appear in the newsprint zine
released the day before the album came out in cities around
the world—drawings of my own, a number of images from
the Taschen Book of Symbols, a still from the Eames’s Powers
of Ten, and a napkin drawing from one of our first conversa-
tions about the album art. The found imagery also showed
up in other formats: the lyric videos, posters, etc. The actual
album packaging itself very strictly required entirely origi-
nal work, though.

µON TYPOGRAPHY

Why Optima?

I didn’t want anything too tricky. A system font felt good,

since I was working with the lyrics in text-edit documents.
Optima just looked so right spelling out “BON IVER”. It sung
 XLIII

the first time I saw it. I didn’t share it with them right away,
or even implement it in design off the bat—but it continued to
resonate every time I went back to it, which is usually a solid
test. The first example I found of Optima in use that stuck
out was the McCain presidential campaign, and I thought,
“That’s legit”—thought it was funny—so there’s your irony.
Helvetica-y was too sterile, and Garamond was too sentimen-
tal. Optima proved it could be both contemporary coffee-
table book and Magic the Gathering. Find yourself a font that
can do both.
I also just use Univers and Garamond for pretty much
everything I do, so I wanted to do some due diligence in
playing with other things. I had been using Courier New for
all of my process pdf ’s—because I think it looks great digital—

Designing Bon Iver’s 22, a Million: An Interview with Eric Timothy Carlson
when its all the same size (12pt or under), but kind of loath
it any larger.

How did you approach designing the booklet?

We knew from the start that we wanted a substantial booklet

in the LP. Upon establishing that all of the drawings would
be on the jacket, I was excited to limit the booklet to just typo-
graphy, and find a way to keep that experience just as rich
and nuanced as the rest of the system. I started using Courier,
and that immediately started evoking the feeling of concrete
poetry and ’60s conceptual art, employing the limitations
of a typewriter. The hipster in a coffee shop working on a
typewriter is the worst thing ever, and I was perhaps towing
the line of steampunk a bit, but the direction felt right. By the
time I was working on the book I had listened to the album
in process nearly a hundred times, so the layout decisions
proved natural and intuitive, knowing where the phrases
broke,making visual decisions in response to the music of
it, using parallel columns where the lyrics overlapped.
Personally, this approach also connects to strategies of work-
ing with text digitally, such as finding ways to successfully
break a blogspot layout.
 XLIV

µON THE BON IVER ILLUMINATI

One last question: How does it feel to blatantly expose the

Illuminati once and for all?

“Ouroboros! Obelisk!” Such perfect confirmation. I’d like to

note that there is no Ouroboros in that video.
µ
Emmet Byrne
 Designing Bon Iver’s 22, a Million: An Interview with Eric Timothy Carlson
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1∂INSIDE OUTSIDE Graphic design and magic can be used to move things from the outside to the inside INSDEOUT N S D T
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