SPARK
SI-013, from issue 3: a subjective guide genuine conversation, 2022.
All ideas are conversations aren’t they? There are ones you might be having with yourself or with other people. You gotta have conversations with yourself to translate ideas.
Harold Bennett is an independent writer and designer who recently designed The Interviews (Volume 1),a book compiling The Brand Identity’s first 57 interviews with designers and studios from all around the world.
HB I quite like diving into topics that are not much talked about. There is this one podcast run by two British comedians, James Alcaster and Ed Gamble, called Off Menu. They run a dream restaurant and each episode they bring someone on. At points their conversation taps into the really niche, almost completely mundane decision making behind their guest’s choice of food. Let’s say the guest wanted to have a hozen duck wrap. They would ask: “how are we making this wrap?”, “When you are putting the sauce, are you spreading it with the back of a spoon or just dumping it on there?”, “Are you putting the duck on next or the vegetable on next?”. I find this mode of conversation that captures a mental image very interesting. Otherwise, I wasn’t very comfortable talking about mental health earlier but I just noticed my thoughts become a load on my shoulders if I don’t release them in conversation. So having the right conversations leads to mental comfort too.
UDÖ How can a good conversation form a good idea?
HB All ideas are just conversations aren’t they? There are ones you might be having with yourself or with other people. You gotta have conversations with yourself to translate ideas. That’s why I sometimes believe ideas are summarized communication.
UDÖ Is that a chicken and egg situation? Conversation leads to ideas, and ideas lead to conversation.
HB I’ve never dwelled on my past. Even though I don’t really think about past achievements I must have learned from every single one. I learned a lot of what I didn’t want to do. If I stopped moving forward that would be the ultimate failure really.
HB Maybe ideas are conversations with intention. The mission and maxim behind an idea get combined with conversations around that idea to form the idea itself.
UDÖ Tell me about your interview with the musician, Arlo Parks. What would be the intention behind a conversation with a musician?
HB In an interview, the interviewee forms the narrative. It is a little bit more candid than an article. It’s structured yet you let conversation lead the way. You are really handing the spotlight over to the other person. The audience cares more about them than you anyways. You are aiming to get Arlo Parks’ opinions to meet its audience. You never want to have a really long interview that would be off putting for people to read. You want it to be digestible and entertaining.
HB Then writing an article on it is more appropriate. It very much depends on the subject matter. There was an article I wrote for TypeOne Issue 1 which is about the role of typography in activism. I interviewed quite a few different voices there and I wanted to have this article as their space to speak because they were talking about issues that really affect them. If I was to translate their words to an article it would lose its honesty and the significance behind their words. So sometimes an article can be a powerful vehicle. It is so rewarding to speak to individuals that come from points of reference that haven’t experienced personally. I always want to remind myself that writing is not a passive role and your entire life experience is behind the context of your writing. However, you are also leaning to the life experience of others who have first person experience to your story.
UDÖ I am also curious about the book you designed (with Alice Sherwin) for The Brand Identity that publishes their interviews between 2015-2018. What happens when you switch roles to a designer represent editorial content visually.
HB The interviews that happen in brand identity are all about ideas and process. So, we wanted to go for a typographic approach that contextualizes those interviews. For instance, we would cross the name out and rewrite it, if a studio has changed their name. Or we would have these reflections on the interview printed upside down to the interview in the past, so they are literally reflecting from the page. On top of that, we were really interested in the idea of archiving and preserving conversations that could be revisited in the future. This brought the idea of the book of interviews having a PVC cover, that allows you to take the conversations with you to a bus without worrying about the book being damaged. So, these conversations are protected in a way?
HB I knew I had to go to therapy for a decade, but there has always been an excuse to not go. Oh I have deadlines, or Oh I am graduating (...). But I ran out of excuses when my friend (who I am very open with mentally) suggested this place. Every single person in the world should go to therapy. Even if you are the happiest person in the world without any problems, you should go to therapy. You always know that you should have balance, but it’s really hard to practice it without a structure. When I started freelancing, I had a three month period that I only had a single day off, including weekends! Places you go mentally are not worth it at all. I was speaking to Joe from Studio Nari and he was like evenings and weekends are sacred. That was quite an important realization for me.
UDÖ What would you do if you weren’t in the creative industry?
HB I would be a gardener. I can’t remember which Phoebe Bridgers song it is but it says: “romanticize a quite life, there is no place like my room (...)”. She got a place with a garden but then she realizes she hasn’t gardened at all since she has been there. It’s also on the Here Comes The Cowboy album by Mac Demarco: “The cowboy that dreams of the city, and the city-boy that dreams of being a cowboy.” It all comes down to enjoying the context you have chosen and you are in at that moment.●
Follow Harold Bennett here
interview by Utkan Dora Öncül
Spark Interview-013