Clarisa

What inspires you?

Things/art/people that don’t cater to any conventional notions of cool. I think that’s why I’m attracted to things that are made for or by children; toys, books, drawings etc. These days especially the drawings of Gunilla Bergström in her books about the boy Alfons Åberg. For me cute things feels like a ‘fuck you’ to the established hierarchy of good and bad taste, because the cute is sort of powerless on that scale. I’m kind of proud to be an illustrator for that reason, even though in an art context it might be seen as something less, or at least as something not as highly valued as, say, an abstract painting or an installation. Perhaps ‘Cute’ is to me what ‘Disgusting’ was for the punks.

Can you please explain how the process of designing the logo* for Clarisa came to be?

I was fooling around with some letters I had drawn at another time just for fun, and suddenly I realised that they had this sort of Disney logo meets the Barbie logo -vibe and it felt like a style that would suit Clarisa. I’m not really a type-designer, so my apologies to the ones who are real professionals at that ;-)

If you’re working on something interesting at the moment that you wish to notify people of, here’s a good opportunity to do so:

I’m currently putting together a reading group in Copenhagen together with my two friends Clara Pasteau (from Clarisa) and Veronika Vidø. It’s still in its early stages, but I’m so excited to start whenever we’re allowed to gather in larger groups again.