New talent: Giles Dun "out of kilter"

Graphis, Sep/Oct 2002 by Twemlow, Alice

"I'm not a computer geek," says designer Giles Dunn. "People look at my work and think I'm really techy," he continues. "Actually I'm not. I'm still using Freehand version 5." Dunn admits that he loves the structural quality of technology and this fascination is evident in the technical filigree pattern he employed in a series of ads for Hewlett Packard. But it is the search for a human or organic connection to technology that compels Dunn and makes him so valuable to a company such as Hewlett-Packard.

Working with Steve Luker, creative director at Publicis & Hal Riney until January 2002, Dunn conceived a series of humanistic visual metaphors to depict the functions of H-P's mysterious gray boxes. A clay-dripping handprint is paired with an abstracted computer mouse; an iridescent beetle with a strong and portable laptop; a many-tentacled squid with a network server, and so on.

So how did this misfounded reputation as a techno-designer arise and how did Dunn, a British-born, technology-eschewing, feelance designer land the Hewlett Packard print campaign?

Dunn, who moved to New York in 1995 after a flue-year still with British design guru Neville Brody, sought freelance work in arenas that allowed the most self-expression-record covers (for Ryuichi Sakamoto), book jackets, flyers (for an underground club called Organic) and a magazine called Map. As part of his quest for the ultimate medium and client for free expression, Dunn wrote to John Plunkett, creative director of Wired magazine and asked to do a visual essay. Here, Dunn believes, was the genesis of his perceived association with technology. "The design briefs were amazing" Dunn recalls. The art director would send a quote from the lead story and ask Dunn to Interpret it. Once Dunn's Initial doodle was approved, he'd develop it into two and sometimes three spreads; an indulgent canvas that allowed him to make narrative explorations within the spreads and between them. The natural extension of this kinetic playground veered into the fourth dimension of motion graphics and Dunn concedes that this was when he began to make forays in that direction. Though not lacking in confidence, Dunn Is a reluctant self-promoter and a slow-- starter on the design circuit He seems to prefer it this way though, perhaps because of having witnessed the temporary exile that premature stardom conferred upon his first employer Brody. Dunn describes his five-years at Neville Brody's studio as his graphic design apprenticeship. Dunn graduated from Central St. Martin's In London during the late '80s, In his words "completely unemployable as a graphic designer." For three years he had been given tree reign by tutor Phil Baines to pursue his predilection for experimental imagemaking and sculptural typography. It was only because Brody saw some potential In his idiosyncratic portfolio that he got a job at all. At Brody's studio he proceeded to receive his baptism by fire with hardcore design jobs such as signage systems for the National Gallery of Germany In Bonn and the Tel Aviv Opera House.

Finally, when playing bass to Brody's lead guitar stopped being satisfying and it was time to spread his wings, Dunn chose New York-partly driven by the necessity for distance from Brody and partly Inspired by the romance of New Wave American cinema that he had been raised on.

Whether composing visual essays on aspects of social technology for Mrad or communicating the value of an Intel Pentium III Xeon processor, Dunn's approach to a problem is the same. Once he has gestated on an idea for a project for "however long It takes," and before he goes near the computer, Dunn begins to draw. "I'm passionate about the craft aspect of design," he says. "I love drawing and I think you can tell people who can't draw in their work. The proportions aren't right" And Indeed, the compositional proportions in his work do seem rather painterly; derived more from the Golden Section than from Muller Brockman.

Much of Dunn's work is characterized visually by the uneasy dynamic or mismatch created by an organic or gestural element existing within, or escaping from, a grid or typographic structure; what Dunn describes as a "calligraphic brushstroke In an Incredibly constructed space." This technique Is particularly evident in a CD packaging solution for Ryuichi Sakamoto where a length of film whiplashes in, through and out of the grid in which the typographic Information is contained, creating a visual dissonance for the viewer to resolve. Dunn's obsession with form also leads him-inevitably he thinks, living In the intensely iconic environment of New York-to exploit found objects, playfully subverting their meaning, as in the series of Organ- flyers, for example.

Dunn is a nomadic practitioner, an email will find him in either London or New York or, during the weekends, surfing at Montauk. Many of his clients relationships are, in fact, friendships and this level of trust allows him to work long distance. Not a team player, Dunn prefers his role as a satellite outside the world of the design industry, dipping in whenever necessary-as a hired gun for a midtown branding agency or as a freelance designer of the symbolic language for Sprint's third generation cell phones. Along with the benefits of freedom, however, his status as a loner brings its own problems of isolation.