He’s got range: from designing typefaces to live visuals, Osvald Landmark has a lot going on

It’s hard to put designer Osvald Landmark’s work into a neat little box. Deftly juggling his role as a Senior Designer at New York-based design studio 2x4 and his personal practice, Landmark has built a body of work with an incredible range. From designing a typeface, crafting an ice sculpture installation, creating identities, to working on live visuals for plays and operas, he’s got a bit of everything going on. This thirst to “keep trying new things” is exactly what allows him to swiftly move from one project to the next, always letting his research-driven approach guide him along the way. To cut ourselves a slice of every pie he has his finger in, we had a conversation with the New York-based creative about the breadth of his projects from last year, the ones he’s got coming up, and why intuition steers the work he picks up as part of his personal practice.

RB Hi Osvald, you’ve been up to a lot lately! How has the year been going, so far?

OL 2023 was a prolific year – I feel very lucky to have had a bunch of talented and interesting collaborators reach out to me over the last year. Working with people in fields other than graphic design always brings me great joy and valuable insights. To keep working on fresh projects is something that’s very important to me and enables me to keep trying new things and continue to shape my practice instead of being stuck in old unfinished work. I’ve had a pleasant snoozy start to the year, but I’m starting to gear up for a new bunch of really exciting collaborations unfolding in 2024.

What truly drives me is the process in its entirety, from start to finish.

RB You work on a score of projects along with holding a full-time role as a Senior Designer at 2x4. Across these two parallel aspects of your practice, what kind of projects, brands or stories do you find yourself most interested in?

OL What truly drives me in any sort of creative work is the process in its entirety, from start to finish. The initial act of acquiring knowledge through exploration and research is always fun – I get to be a silly little expert in all sorts of things. And then afterwards I go digging for the right idea in that whole mess of things I’ve learned. It feels like framing a tiny window of something very complex, that still tells the story of a much larger thing. That process is oddly similar across most projects that I’m doing – everything from a fashion campaign to a zine about the end of the world in Norse mythology.

Working with fashion brands is a new thing for me; it requires an immense amount of focus and intention to support each idea, especially when working as a collective design studio on a huge project like Pradasphere II – the second iteration of an exhibition tracing the culture and history of Prada – which was the biggest project I worked on last year at 2x4. When I work on my own projects, I tend to lead much more with intuition rather than intention – it feels way more natural to me. But I definitely strive to be able to use those two approaches more fluidly between the poles of my practice in the future.

RB Last year, you released your book, Shape Sifting. Could you tell us a bit about what inspired you to work on it, and the ideas that you explored through it?

OL Over the last three years I’ve taken a lot of time to reflect on how I want to make a living doing what I like and that drove me to do all sorts of collaborations and later, I tried doing some writing as well. I’m never going to be a writer, but I was surprised how much it has helped me to write something as simple as a designer’s statement that really encapsulates what I find interesting about graphic design.

Anyhow, Shape Sifting is a reconfiguration of all the process, sketches and research I’ve done since moving to the US in 2021. The purpose of the book was to explore what it means to filter out reality.

It’s really just me exploring the notion of discovering by removing – and the metaphor of filtering as a creative process. My counter-thesis to conventional truth-seeking is to look outside of what is real, at the unreal or the unfathomable. Filtering out reality has the potential to become an antidote to various types of blindness to the world.

RB Why did the book call for a visuals-heavy approach?

OL I like the idea of the reader understanding without understanding, so I added a small amount of text as subtitles, but you don’t really need to read in any particular order – it’s quite non-linear. I think a lot about challenging what is seen but unknown, to penetrate the highly visible. The paradox that things can become indecipherable when seen up close is to me a bewildering and enchanting irony that in many ways mirrors the experience of navigating real life.

TWIST is constantly evolving and might be something completely different than a magazine in a couple of years.

RB You’ve become a Partner at Twist Magazine. What’s Twist all about? Also, what got you interested in working with the publication?

TWIST is a notebook and toolkit in conversation with those at the shattered edges of art, architecture, fashion, music, design and technology.

TWIST also consists of Sam Harding, Manga Ngcobo and Yusuf Sühan Bozkurt who are writers and architects. It all began in Johannesburg but since issue 2 we’ve been based out of the UK, EU and USA. It’s kinda crazy that I actually never met any of them IRL, but we’re still able to make it all happen. We work really well together – one thing I find appealing is the little age gap between me and the other three. TWIST has a leg planted in both Gen Z and Y which to me is super exciting, because I have never worked with people younger than myself before.

The design of TWIST is something that will evolve over the coming issues – we’re still finding our voice visually. One crucial part of the design system is inviting other designers and artists to completely take over a series of spreads. TWIST is constantly evolving and might be something completely different than a magazine in a couple of years, it probably should.

RB To add to all of that, you’ve also released a typeface, Mule Cargo. What sparked the idea for it, and how did you arrive at its form?

OL Mule has been underway since 2019, so it was about damn time that I got to finish it. I arrived at the letterforms from a simple gesture of expending the outer contours horizontally, but optically keeping the negative space inside the same. I’m happy that I got to use it in my book; you can buy the typeface here.

I’m not that good at coming up with stories of my own – I get sidetracked way too easily.

RB If you look back at your recent work, is there one project that stands out to you, which is emblematic of the kind of work you’d like to do more of?

OL I really enjoyed working on live visuals for a play in Copenhagen called Matronym by the very talented actor and writer Amanda Hermansen. She approached me with her story which was a very compelling narrative about female ancestors. I was able to work with her and the cast recording 3D point clouds which we projected on the set throughout the story. I also did the audio for the final scene of a seance, where they summon a bunch of ghosts – it was super intense in real life!

I’m not that good at coming up with stories of my own – I get sidetracked way too easily. That’s why I love working with other artists or clients who have a story or message that I can interpret and evolve visually. I definitely want to keep doing live visuals and projections.

RB When it comes to your freelance work, do you go looking for the right projects or clients, or do they find you?

OL I try to always document my work, so potential collaborators know what I’m up to. I’ve been fortunate enough to meet people in person and online who are interested in working with me, so it feels quite natural when opportunities pop up.

RB Over the past years, you’ve created sculptures and live visuals, as well as posters and identities. What do you enjoy the most about working at this intersection of art and design?

OL A lot of graphic designers operate in the intersection of art and design which can be super problematic, because it often means that you’re doing work for a low wage, but you still have a client to please. Depending on your client, a project can either be completely worth your time and effort, or could even lead to a situation that’s the worst of both worlds.

That’s why I’m doing my best to separate the work I’m doing into two categories. The first is the bread and butter, which is still super fulfilling – but I’m putting in hours to pay the bills. The second category is any work that I have energy and time to do outside of my bill-paying jobs. I love these projects, but I usually only accept this kind of work if I’m given the freedom to execute the project in my own way. I try to stay clear of the grey areas as much as possible.

My most successful collaborations were with people I enjoyed having conversations with.

RB You’ve worked closely with many composers, artists and performers from around the world. What would you say makes for the most fruitful and fulfilling collaborations?

OL All of my most successful collaborations were with people I enjoyed having conversations with. Usually, a collaboration starts with one party with an idea and another party receiving an invitation to take part in that idea – getting all the information can sometimes be hard, but this is crucial to me, so I spend a lot of time in this process. From there on, it should evolve naturally, and in my opinion, each party should have enough trust in the other to give up complete control over the other party’s field or work. I would never collaborate with someone if I felt like they did not trust me to deliver something that was going to resonate with them.

RB When was the last time you did something for the first time?

OL I’ve spent way too long thinking about this. I guess, technically speaking, the answer is… Always?

RB Looking forward, what are you most excited about?

OL I’m stoked to work more with composer Keiko Fujiie – I did the visuals for her opera ‘Là-bas ou ici’ last fall. It took place in Burkina Faso, where she worked with local musicians for over two years. Then, we’re aiming to spit out another two issues of TWIST this year; and finally, I’m going to work with my twin sister Ottilie Landmark for the first time ever. She is a brilliant photographer based in London, and I’m going to be designing her book. Next thing, I’ll be doing a little talk on Nordic Runes with Shibboleth – a nonprofit arts organisation – which is going to be held at Printed Matter in New York this April. So all in all, it’s looking pretty busy!

Osvald Landmark