Interview

Pierre di Sciullo, the new graphic designer of the Stedelijk
The playful anarchist

In January the French graphic designer Pierre di Sciullo was selected by a jury to design the new corporate identity of the Stedelijk.  Since then he is travelling between Paris and Amsterdam to conduct orientating interviews with curators, getting an accurate idea of the identity and the plans of the museum. 'I screamed of joy'.

Who is Pierre di Sciullo?

'I am 47 years, born in Paris, and autodidact. For about three weeks I attended an art school and then I was fed up with it. I was extremely hungry, searching for new things, for inspiration, and there all I found were frustrated teachers living far from reality and the professional life. At that time I had never heard of graphic design and typography. Then I took a job in a laboratory where I started working with monkeys.

At the same time I started editing my own magazine. Well, copying. I called it "Qui ? Résiste" and my website is still called the same. That magazine was my ticket for meeting other graphic designers and at the same time the basis for all my experiments. There I was able to find out what I wanted: designing letters by confronting text and image.'

What caused that need?

'I already wanted to do creative things for a long time. When I was seventeen, the thing I wanted to do most was making comics. So being able to co-operate as a director on the animation film Fear of the dark, two years ago, with famous comics authors, was a dream coming true. At first I had several tedious jobs for money and in between I kept publishing my own magazine. In issue number five I started to design  letters. The same esprit I had then, I am now trying to hand on to my students. I encourage them to experiment themselves and thus find out what it is they want. I don't want to be a guru, because I am not. I might be a strange graphic designer because it is hard to put a label on me. But I like that. I want to keep an open mind for everything and stay curious.'

What did you do when you heard you had won?

'I was home alone in the South of France, in an old house, very quiet. Then Gijs van Tuyl called. I answered the telephone and Gijs told me I had won. I said to him: 'You're joking!'. And then the line went dead. He called again, but in the meantime I screamed of joy. It was a big surprise, because the other candidates are very good. I did try my very best and firmly believed in my design. But in the back of my head I was thinking: no, I will never win because the others are too good.'

What does the Stedelijk mean to you?

'Much light and many masterpieces - that is to say, long ago when I visited it for the first time. But now in the field of graphic design it is one of the most important museums in the world. In France it is very famous with graphic designers. Several French designers exhibited here. Like Pierre Bernhard, a very good friend of mine. I was here when he received the Erasmus Prize in 2006. But foremost the Stedelijk to me is: a museum that wants to act in the centre of modern art'.

What is the most important thing you want to express in a new design?

'I will try to develop an identity with several meanings. When people will be looking at posters and advertisements they have to experience that the Stedelijk is a very vivid, divers and rich phenomenom. The most important thing will be that it will reflect the museums perception of life and art.'

Can a new design be a complete break with tradition? A break with all designs for the museum made before you?

'I can answer that by citing Arnold Schönberg: 'Every tiny part of a chain has been made by a revolutionary'. But in the whole everything is connected and even a revolution is built on what was before.'

What is your view on critics that regard your style as rather retro?

'I sometimes do see references in my work to other designers. Sometimes I think: well, that is striking, that seems to have a connection with the work by Roger Excoffon, for example. Sometimes I know what causes it. Because I made a certain geometric decision that resulted in a resemblance with work by another designer. But sometimes there is an unexpected resemblance. I am not nostalgic, that in fact is my answer to your question. But I cannot close my eyes to the world, I am in the middle of that world. My work results from that world. I create something new using everything around me.'

And what about the comment that your work is strongly rooted in the French tradition?

'Well, what to say about that. I am French. But I don't agree with that comment. I do feel somewhat connected to modern French graphic design. By trying in my work to connect to the street and not just to design for an elite upper class. Let's say that I take into account the political dimension of graphic design. Like Jan van Toorn did here in Holland.'

The jury report mentioned 'a playful anarchistic mentality'. Are you such a playful anarchist?

'Yes, I do like that. As a graphic designer one is strongly inclined to bring order into your work.  You almost automatically change in a 'man of rules'. And I am not a man of rules, I don't want to be that either. As a designer I don't want to be a policeman for the artistic rules of the museum, if you know what I mean. The corporate identity I design must be open minded to it. '

Will you be moving to Amsterdam?

'No. But I will be there very often, because I want very much to get in touch with the tone of this city. But my space to be really is that small suburb of Paris.'