The Working Words: Dafi Kuehne
We* first met Dafi Kühne at a lecture at the Center for Book and Paper Art at Columbia College Chicago in October, 2011. It was in context of his visiting artist workshop and lecture, where we saw his work. He held his lecture in English, which we were quite astounded by. Could you go to Italy and do a lecture fluently in Italian? Exactly. What struck us the most in his talk, was his statement, that he couldn’t care less if his poster looked letterpress printed or not. It’s was more important that the visuals served the occasion, namely that the work could be the best it could be.
The work notion, of using the printing process in all of it’s materiality, to make quality work, without the expectation of it looking like “precious” ephemera, was a breath of fresh air. We hadn’t heard any letterpress printer vocalize this ideology. In the States so often, letterpress printing gets hijacked by a nostalgic motivation, making things look forcefully “Americana”. His approach in experimenting with materials for the medium to create powerful graphic language (pressure printing, laser cutting...), influenced our work greatly since then. We just recently printed a project, m0ire Nr. 1, with cyano and aniline dye, pushing our own expectation on how we could use the press and everything between for exploration. As we were visiting Switzerland this past Summer, our colleague and friend, Stefan Huber, was so kind to setup a studio visit at Dafi’s shop in Glarus. Dafi was so kind to take some time to answer these questions:
You have been out of school for four years. You run your own business. What do you enjoy about it?
When I was finished with my studies at Zürich University of the Arts, I made a personal commitment to myself, a promise. If I were to work in the graphic design field, I would either want to execute my own ideas of good graphic design or do something completely different – like wait tables or work as a bricklayer.
I started off with designing posters, invitation cards and little brochures on my letterpress proof press which I bought during my studies in 2007 along with a bit of type. I thought I would be looking around for another job as soon as I ran out of money. I did run out of money pretty quickly but I didn’t end up quitting due to my own commitment I made.
I think that the common notion for many people is, that if they have no money pressure on their back, they will have more freedom to do what they want to do. So many designers take on a "normal" design day job, which they usually don’t like too much, and they try to do "the good stuff" in their free time. Some of them end up doing really great work and at some point manage to make a full-time job of it – some of them don't make that leap. I personally realized that I was being much more efficient and creative in finding and creating jobs when I didn’t have money. For me, I really had that "money pressure". Due to the promise I made to myself, I knew that there was no option to do bad or cheap graphic design jobs. I had to create my own payed jobs and ultimately establish my work as a designer and letterpress print maker. At the beginning, nobody ever asked me to letterpress print a poster using some weird analog and digitally produced printing forms – I really had to push this agenda myself. But at the end, you can’t really establish yourself in any field, if you do some “bad” stuff to make your money.
Being artist and printer means mastering a double work load at all times. How do you balance between experimentation, developing ideas and administration tasks? What has been the hardest challenge for you in the process?
Yes, I am a designer; and also yes, I am a print maker. But they always come together as a pair. I normally don't do some design-only or some print-only projects. In my projects—the concept and design phase—I account for certain amount of time to experiment. I sometimes find new ideas and inspiration, while trying out new stuff for an ongoing project. Sometimes it won’t pan out for the actual project I am working on, but sometimes it does come into inclusion for a next one. Of course there is a big part of administration in my work. In the beginning this was kind of a hard thing to accept. When I started, I thought that the majority of my job will consist of developing concepts, designing and producing. But there is a side to having a practice that is just as big as the other parts namely studio-logistics and administrations. I talked to many artists in different fields about this subject and this really helped me to see, that it’s a very important component to establish your work.
You recently acquired a pantograph which you have customized to your output needs. What has this new tool help you discover in your work?
I am still in the process of setting my pantograph up. I did a lot of “print block” production with digital tools like the laser cutter when I started. Although I really still like using those tools, I have started to increasingly use more analog design and production tools. The pantograph is a router that follows a certain path, by following a pattern with a stylus. For example, you can cut a piece of wood in a certain shape, or you can cut from a digital produced pattern, or also from a hand cut piece of chipboard. I am very much interested in the analog way of reproducing printing forms, such as letters, with this tool. Because I know that I have access to other, more digital tools, I like the idea of creating and producing letters in an all analog process. I set up the pantograph this Spring but I am still in the process of testing different router-bits, speeds, materials and cutting proportions. I am pretty excited about it!
You are currently teaching for a window of time at Virgina Commonwealth University in Richmond in the States, in a perfect world, what would you want your students to pick up from you?
I am teaching in the Graphic Design Department at Virginia Commonwealth University for two full semesters. I have an undergraduate class, a graduate class, and a mixed class. Some are letterpress classes and some are "just design" based projects classes, though also these design projects have a strong connection to other production tools. Aside from technical typographical knowledge (analog and digital), they will hopefully learn to work with typographical layouts and to experiment with technical printing tools, and to understand how important it is for a designer to know their own production tools. This would enable them to not only do design well, but also implement good design within print productions.
If you could change one notion in the medium of letterpress what would it be?
I wish that letterpress was not so much about preserving old craftsmanship, though I think that is really important, but moreover that it would be perceived as a design tool. Sometimes people use letterpress as an excuse to just produce and not design. In my opinion, a poster is not good because it’s letterpress printed. It’s good when it’s designed well, may it be for digital or analog output. Yet, it has to have the same or better typographic quality for printed matter. It has to compete with any other medium. Letterpress technique is a production tool. It can also be a design tool – but letterpress is really not a concept in itself.
Any projects you want to mention here? Shout outs?
For any of my projects, visit my webpage: www.babyinktwice.ch
PS: Dafi will be giving a lecture and leading a workshop at Wayzgoose, Friday November 8th, at Hamilton Woodtype.
* Interviewed by Sonnenzimmer
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I’m a big fan of the work of both Sonnenzimmer and Dafi, and it’s great to see more of this kind of design thinking/craft context highlighted online. And my intent here is not to diminish the quality of Dafi’s work (or Sonnenzimmer’s fine profile), rather I want to respectfully dispute the overstatement that :
“In the States so often, letterpress printing gets hijacked by a nostalgic motivation, making things look forcefully ‘Americana’.”
Admittedly, it does happen. But there are scores of US based artists and designers who use letterpress as a tool for producing conceptually driven work, and they’ve been doing it for decades. Just as there are many, many European and international artists, designers, and printers making work that rely heavily on familiar Victorian and Western American tropes.
Macy Chadwick, Dennis Ichiyama, Emily McVarish, Ashley John Pigford, Sara Langworthy, Emily Larned, Jack Stauffacher, Tricia Treacy, and myself (just to name a few) have always utilized the process of letterpress printing (along with any other suitable technology) in the service of design and concept manifestation. And I’ve been telling my students for a decade that letterpress is not a concept. . . and I certainly didn’t invent that idea.
Did Dafi spend time at Hatch Show Print learning how to design and print letterpress posters?
Thanks for these comments. One thing that I just want to point out: I don’t say that there is no design and concept based letterpress work around. And I also don’t say that there is no interesting people around who are pushing the limits of letterpress.
I just feel that sometimes, letterpress printed posters, postcards are invitation cards (…) lay back on the aspects of design, because they have that very catching printing quality (so they might think they don’t have to compete with any other printed product in the aspects of design). And often exactly these letterpress printed products stay in a very limited radius in the content of actual graphic design.* I just want to say: Letterpress printed products can have that distinctive “letterpress look” – but they don’t necessarily have to. There are also many other sides to it, as you also mention by listing other designers/printmakers.
I also don’t say that I don’t like the old craftsmanship or old technique. Actually here is the backside of that “old technique sucks” picture: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nicksherman/6915590973/
And I do say, that preserving is a very important point to keep letterpress printing alive and make it accessible for a younger generation. As Amos Kennedy is pointing out, personally I also learned in a very traditional and old US printshop (Hatch Show Print in Nashville TN), which has been doing great poster works and a great job preserving a 134 years old piece of printing history. I really had a fantastic time learning to design and print posters for actual events from a very old archive of woodblocks. But for me, this is just one side of letterpress printing and in my job as an actual graphic designer and letterpress printmaker in Switzerland, I focus more on other aspects of letterpress printing.
* I also feel that since almost all of the younger generation designers work with the computer, they really fall in love so easy with what they can to with an old analog tool – that they sometimes stop thinking critical about the design aspects of their products. And it is very easy to fall in love with letterpress equipment… haha.