The history of graphic design (and particularly 19th-century design) in Iceland is not on most—or likely any—non-Icelandic course syllabi. In fact, design historians today who are digging into the little-known legacies of lesser-known design hubs seem to have forgotten that innovation and derivation underscored virtually every nation that required graphic communications as a staple of their economies, including Iceland.
How many readers have even thought about what forms and styles of design, typography and illustration defined and conditioned Iceland’s commercial growth over the past century? I don’t see any hands raised!
Well, soon the chronicle of this deeply frozen history will be uncovered with the first of a two-part textbook, Íslensk Myndmals-Saga, by Gudmundur Oddur Magnusson (below).
I was born in 1955 in Akureyri—a town in northern Iceland—population now around 20,000 people. I lived there until I was 21 years old. I then moved to Reykjavik to attend The Icelandic College of Art & Crafts in 1976. That school was established in the 1940s (since 1999 it has been known as The Iceland University of the Arts). It took some time to enter the design practice—I always intended to be a graphic designer because of vinyl album covers and posters. But after foundation courses I changed my mind because something exciting was happening. The spirit in the school was changing from being a hardcore modernist school into being post-modern, with heavyweight Fluxus artists on the international level. Swiss/German artist Dieter Roth moved to Iceland in 1957 (he was originally educated as a graphic designer). He did some major interior design inside my head. He was an alcoholic and changed the classroom into a pub. We also had a Fluxus artist from Vienna, Hermann Nitsch, and the French Fluxus artist Robert Filliou—this was between 1976 and ’79.
I went through my first detox and rehab in 1984. After that I got a job as an illustrator in a graphic design studio and found out that I knew nothing about typography. So I thought I better change my path from dreaming more and more and doing less and less smoking pot, in the world of fine art, and go for what I always wanted—graphic design—and applied for school on the West Coast of Canada in Vancouver in 1986 (then the Emily Carr College of Art & Design). I met many good educators there; the one who influenced me most was Friedrich Peter (Vivaldi and Magnificat—in the Letraset catalogue). This was the time of the change from analog to digital. We got the first Macs in 1987. I graduated in 1989. I could work after school for one year but then immigration told me to get married or hit the road. I started to teach in this then-new environment for graphic designers and was part of the generation to change the Icelandic College of Art & Crafts to university level in 1999. I taught graphic design or visual communication until 2019, when I became a pensioner and freelance designer. I still keep the position of being research professor at Iceland University of the Arts.
8th Edition of International Design Research Awards
website link: design-conferences.sciencefather.com
Nomination Link : https://x-i.me/susnom
Registration Link: https://x-i.me/susreg2
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