The jacket - Typographic experiment
Everybody who has worked in the restaurant industry knows that it isn’t easy. Lots of stress, too much work, ungrateful bosses and hopeless hours. This jacket is both the stone filled backpack result of that as well as the armor against it.
Techniques: Cutout, clippings, copy writing
Inspiration
The location
It all started in a restaurant by Holländargatan in Stockholm. Through one winter I was standing for 5 minutes a day outside, freezing in just t-shirt and jeans. If only I had a jacket.
The building blocks
Holländargatan is full of square patterns, thrown together haphazardly. I really didn’t like how unplanned and scrappy this felt, so I decided to work with this. I started with building with Lego blocks, trying out what shapes I could create, but they weren’t exactly right so I decided to sketch blocky letters inspired by the Lego blocks instead.
The two-facedness
I wanted to talk about all of the horrible things you get told as a waitress, as well as about the things that you really needed to hear but was never told by the people in power. Us colleagues used to compliment each other, so to represent all of their different voices I decided to complement the blocky harsh words with complement in paper clippings. Different letter, different voice.
The final resault
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The front
Full of these harsh words you always have to hear, that rarely ever has reason. All these expectations that are so unfair. Glittery gloss for those words that hurt a little extra.
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The back
In the middle: the heart, the job advertisement. Written as they should be written, with all it’s lies in plain view. At the top, the compliments, waiting to be heard. crumpled up into little knots of “why do you never say anything good to me”-pain.
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The heart
The job advertisement, the heart of the whole world of lies. Written as they should be written. Written as they really mean it. Placed into the frame work of the Swedish Employment Service for maximum authentication.
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The compliments
Represented in happy streamers, the compliments that never were said cover me like armor. If only bosses said things like these, the morale would be so much higher. Fold these down to protect yourself from getting hurt. You are good enough.
