Like Geoff McFetridge, Nikolay Saveliev is a graphic designer who plays in the astral sandbox of 1970s homage. But while McFetridge is content to revel in goofy California vibes inspired by high-school sketches and new-age children’s books, Saveliev’s work feels more like the woefully forgotten output of an unsettlingly avant-garde Ivy League minimalist with a soft-spot for the thinly-veiled formalism of sociopathic corporate art. And somehow, that’s incredibly fun. Saveliev is like Paul Rand’s misunderstood child prodigy, huddled over drafting paper until the wee hours of the morning, trying to add an enigmatic touch of hysterical beauty to a pamphlet about genital herpes.
His “Pop Matters” project, for instance, rehauls pop record sleeves from T.I., “Lil” Jon, Jessica Simpson, and a dozen others with the type of abstract precision you might expect from a text about Heidegger or Nuclear Physics. There’s something both hilarious and sublime about the gulf that Saveliev creates between the glitz and glamour of Kanye West and the scholarly sobriety of his restrained treatments. 140 copies of these faux-record sleeves were quietly slipped into various new and used record stores last year, in an art-prank that packed more punch than Banksy’s sorta-obvious and over-hyped Paris Hilton publicity stunt in 2006.
Just glancing at his stunningly beautiful RISD yearbook, or his program notes for a Michael Haneke retrospective film fest, you get the gut feeling that Saveliev actually cares about his audience. In the latter case, the designer circumvented the humdrum conventions of festival catalogues, forgoing the generic Kinko’s-stapled pamphlet. Instead, he crafted a set of separately sealed (spoiler alert!) pamphlets for each film in the program, lovingly presented inside a customized manila envelope. Relying entirely on his clever grasp of typeface and Haneke’s own striking images, Saveliev provided a unique, reverent supplement that no self-respecting cinéaste would leave under his or her seat at the end of a screening. That’s dedication.
Saveliev, who’s been garnering a lot of buzz on the internets lately, was gracious enough to answer a few questions. Read on to learn more about growing up in the shadow of a crumbling empire, the myths behind RISD, and the endless pleasures of Powerpoint-chic:
How long have you been designing, and what got you interested in the field?
My first paid design job was when I was 14, making computer game packaging for a small firm in Colorado; then I did some album covers, made piles of nice websites for things I liked, and created lots of kickdrum logos and band t-shirts. Nine years later, I’m still doing the same thing, but I get to work on a German fashion mag or a world bank in between kickdrums.
I’ve always had a lot of obscure interests, and doing design in service of those interests seemed like a good way to contribute and preach the gospel without directly partaking; it’s a sort of diplomacy, no? Essentially, I like to inform my friends about funny things.
Did you go to design school? What did you like/dislike like about your educational experience?
I went to RISD–the heavy emphasis on history, making meaningful decisions in service of content, an inherent skepticism of style, and encouragement of authorship were huge plusses for me. The myth plays RISD out as a sort of “great artist factory,” which it definitely isn’t, but there are always a few kids that do great things, and they usually feed off each other in the best ways possible.
What has the response been to your planted record sleeves for the “Pop Matters” project? Did anyone find the records and try to contact you?
Pop Matters was sort of a one-off that a friend of mine who worked at a local radio station saw; we brought it to his boss, and they gave us a little bit of money to seed them all over the Ocean State. The station got a few calls, which was great, but I never really got to find out exactly how much people liked them until they started getting blogged all over the place. I’m going to make another run of Pop Matters this year, but take all of the promotional content out and rewrite the insert; I’ll offer them up on my website for people to place in their own record collections.
What are your strongest sources of inspiration? Most unusual?
Well, I was born in Leningrad, Russia, and got a lot of my early childhood pop culture through a weird filter–the crumbling Iron Curtain. So I ended up thinking a lot of weird things were cool that would’ve probably never come to my attention had I had a regular All-American upbringing. But since I got to learn the English language from books, and culture from magazines, tapes, and records, & the Internet in this sort of immigrant-naïve way, I ended up with a pretty specific toolbox of tastes. I love folk-traditional culture and art, italo, industrial, new-wave, post-punk, and other 80s music flotsam, religious theories and sects, magical theories, hackers, bad cyberpunk novels, historical secrets, conspiracy theories, cold war geopolitics, and all sorts of other funny things. But on the other side, I just like pop music, being metal, and hanging out with my girlfriend. Regular populism mixed with serious obscurity works for me.
I like the idea of a consolidated aesthetic totality; what you make looks like what you listen to, sounds like what you wear, and speaks like what you believe in. In simpler terms, my girlfriend might look like she’s in a band I’d listen to, my haircut looks like it belongs in the chair I’m sitting in, and the work I’m designing might be written about in a book that I would read. Even my cat has to figure in there somehow. It’s a meticulous thing to maintain, but probably comes from the fact that I’ve discovered mostly everything through music, whether it’s ideologies, writers, artists, designers, cultures, subcultures, or other music. So it’s easy to tie things back into your work, as long as you keep your eyes and ears open, and maintain a healthy dose of critical thought.
I love what I can see of your zine, “The Dramatic Arc, Vol. I.” What’s the idea behind it, and are you planning future installments?
I’m putting a bunch of copies of Dramatic Arc together right now, so it should be up for grabs soon; it’s another case of me wanting to talk about things I love in a sort of obfuscated context. I took the lyrics from some of my favorite new-wave and post-punk staples, and holistically diagrammed them in this sort of ascetic Powerpoint-chic. The entire zine is filled with inside references to these bands and lyrics, which I hope some people might pick up on; ideally it’ll end up as an impetus for research–people might look up the lyrics, band histories, or simply listen to the songs. Hopefully, it’ll get a few people interested in some of this stuff, just because it’s in a new context; people who might have picked it up because, well, “hey, rad zine,” but ended up with a lot of hidden information and lots and lots of levels of content.
In Dramatic Arc Vol I., most of the songs’ content follows a classic dramatic arc. Future editions of the zine will play with other themes, but all will have a tie-in back into narrative structures. I’ll definitely never make a zine that’s just full of cool drawings; it’s gotta have a huge idealistic payload behind it.
Outside of straight graphic design, you’ve worked with photography, illustration, and even fashion. What direction do you see your work moving towards? Which mediums you would like to continue exploring?
I used to make music, which pretty much stopped getting finished while I was in college; I’m starting that up again with some friends, so hopefully I can get drunk and fall off a stage near you sometime soon again. Otherwise, I love working with other artforms, whether it’s writing or fashion or music; it’s a great way to see how other people sort of manifest their influences. Hopefully I can just keep making good work with people that I like, and keep learning while I’m doing it. I feel like I’ve just started.
