Consisting of designers Kalle Lindeman and Wille Larsson, K-W is the Stockholm-based duo behind the minimal-yet-striking compositions of the OH NO and WOW series, among others. Their partnership is motivated by a shared passion for experimenting with graphic design, using the skills from their day jobs at design agencies for their own colorful ideas. We had a chat as they took a look at their latest samples at the Wall of Art apartment.
Photos by Björn Eklund
How would you describe your artwork in one word?
W: Contrast describes what we do quite well. Differences between small and large, dark and light, warm and cold. I like the idea of being able to create a touch of contrast in an otherwise minimalist home with our art prints.
K: I'd say crazy, reserved. Crazy for the color world we often move within, and reserved for the simple graphic shapes we work with.
What does your design process look like?
K: It has looked quite different over the years, and in the beginning it was very loose. We didn't really have a process, we just went by gut feeling. These days we've got quite strict frameworks, which we really need to get anything done.
We usually divide the work into an exploratory phase and a finalization phase. In the exploratory phase, anything is allowed—we rarely say no to anything, instead trying to come up with as many ideas as possible. Often Wille does something typographic that we can start tinkering with, or we experiment with a new technique we haven't used before. For example, before the last release we spent a whole day with rice paper, a printer and a scanner. We both get very inspired by that.
Do you see your work as art or design—or both?
W: I've heard people try to separate the concepts: that art is purely expression, while design is about solving problems. I think we're somewhere in between.
What do each of you bring to the table as collaborators?
W: The most important ingredient in our collaboration is our friendship. Without it, the project would probably have gone down the drain a hundred times over. Kalle has an ability to nerd out and really push a software to its limits—he can conjure things up in everything from code and 3D to analog mediums. I myself am more specialized in typeface design, so I often contribute with the typography. It's a good mix.
What’s something people might not realize goes into creating a seemingly simple composition?
W: I don't think many people realize how much time is spent just on color. It often takes longer than the design itself. For us, it's about thinking about where our posters will actually hang, in people's homes—that's where color becomes absolutely crucial.
We've limited ourselves to only using a few colors. We can sit for hours building a small color world for a design that both works with the rest of our art prints and will also work in lots of different types of homes. It’s perhaps the most time-consuming part, but also what makes the collection feel right in the end.
How did the idea for your now iconic “OH NO” pieces come to be?
W: Originally, the idea was to design a very thick and geometric typeface, but the project fizzled out pretty quickly once I realized that it was turning out both ugly and completely illegible. A few years later, in 2019, I reopened the old files with a fresh pair of eyes. I wrote “OH NO” in capital letters because they were the most symmetrical letters. It's funny in retrospect, that the words OH NO were the ones that remained from my failed typeface project.
