Number 04

Number 04 is the Utah based design office of Chris Mann, Davis Ngarupe and JP Haynie. They work in areas such as curation, brand identity, exhibition design and creative strategy with clients including Need Supply, Hypebeast and Nomia. We recently caught up with one of their Partners, JP Haynie, to talk about their studio and some of their work.

EM How did you guys come together to form Number 04?

JH We started designing and publishing books in early 2014, that Spring we had an exhibition at Studio-Shop in Los Angeles and that kind of kicked things off. Then in late 2015 we decided to do the studio full time.

EM How do you manage your time between Number 04 and your publishing platform Actual Source?

JH Number 04 and Actual Source work hand in hand. We separate our days into doing tasks for both companies, but Number 04 typically takes the majority of our time.

EM What’s the idea behind the ‘flipped’ identity for Actual Source?

JH The identity for Actual Source comes from an exhibition we put on at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art in 2015. For 6 months we made a process book, documenting all of our ideas for the show. After we were finished we printed the book, which ended up being over 1000 pages. The book was sculptural, but instead of showing the book itself, we made images and sculptures based on the physical form of the book. We liked the idea that looking at an image of a book can be more powerful than holding the book itself. Every thing in the show exists a few levels from its source material and is intended to be taken on its own, at face value. Leaving the viewer to question what is the actual piece? Is it the book? Is it the image of the book? The word ACTUAL being upside down is a typographic expression of those questions.

We wanted it to feel more custom so we created a flexible system that had some constants but could change from feature to feature.

EM Your new visual direction for Hypebeast Magazine moves away from the minimal and high end look in favour of a raw and expressive approach. Why did you feel that was the way forward?

JH We actually think that it still feels high end while being expressive. We didn’t want the publication to feel precious like the previous versions were. We wanted it to feel more custom so we created a flexible system that had some constants but could change from feature to feature.

Sameness can become stale after 5 issues, we wanted people to buy every issue and get something that felt new every time.

EM What’s the coolest and weirdest things that have been submitted to the ‘Draw’ section at the bottom of your site?

See below.