‘The Tomato Design Group’ – A comparison to their competition
In this following analysis, I wish to
investigate the methods that The Tomato Design Group apply to their work. I
will compare the methods of other graphic design groups to Tomato’s in order to
build a structure. This method of comparing will enable me to show how Tomato
uses unconventional methods in their design.
I also want to look at Tomato as artists
in their own right and relate them to others who have worked in similar ways to
them. These include artists from a range of disciplines; photography, film,
print, typography, image making, sculpture, conceptual writing and phonic art.
The artists are Chris Cunningham, Aphex Twin, Square Pusher, Stanley Donwood
and Man Ray. When talking about Tomato I feel I must also talk about the band
Underworld, who the design group are closely intertwined with as two of
Tomato’s designers are band members (Karl Hyde and Rick Smith). Rick Smith’s
opinion on Tomato and Underworld is they are indifferent-
“Tomato is Underworld,
Underworld is Tomato”
My reason for choosing this topic is that
I admire the works of all the artists above and aspire to work in such original
ways as they have undertaken, but this is not intended as homage to the work that
Tomato have created. I am interested in the area of Graphic Design and I am
attracted by the way in which Tomato work and how it has brought them success.
I want to see whether this originality leads to the perfect formula for triumph
over competitors. This discussion will also motivate myself in the right
direction and increase my knowledge of the above artists.
Tomato is a London based company
comprising nine men: Steve Baker; Michael Horsham; Karl Hyde; Jason Kedgley;
Rick Smith; Simon Taylor; Dirk Van Dooren; John Warwicker and Graham Wood. They
came together in 1991 as Tomato. They have convinced companies they are the
founders of a new way of working experimentally. They portray themselves as
being a new movement, a link between graphics and music even though it has been
done before in the 1960’s with the use of psychedelic record covers. I believe
that Tomato is a place where they arrive not knowing what the task will be on
that day, but knowing it will be an adventure- different, spontaneous and
exciting. If we all went to work in the mornings to a job we loved which
beholds new treasures each day we would all be much happier people. Tomato has
now branched to New York and Japan; they have released their own clothing range
and a new branch called Tomato Interactive. This is how Tomato describe who
they are:
“Tomato is, and always has been,
about conversation. Ideas come from this conversation and these ideas are
formed in any media as an appropriate response. This part-intuitive,
part-intellectual response gives tomato the freedom to discover and experiment
with many different media. Sometimes this conversation is purely within Tomato
and at other times this conversation is with those outside of Tomato. There are
several projects such as underworld and urban action that are collaborations
between specific members of Tomato and others that are closely connected to us.
Sometimes Tomato forms the space where this expression exists (in our published
works and in the Tomato gallery), sometimes others offer a space for our work
to inhabit.”
John Warwicker claims that trying to
define Tomato with words and terms just reduces what it is. He feels that to
define Tomato is wrong. I feel what he is trying to say is that Tomato is a
constantly changing program that moves with the times. It follows popular
culture and trends thus to pin point it is to stop it from migrating to its
next stage. Tomato needs to be given the freedom to evolve and mature. Tomato
are pleased that the Internet market has crashed. This means that it will get
more interesting because the market has crashed and companies are working for
quality, rather than rushing web sites and trying to get rich quick. They found
the same happened with CD-ROM’s. They became interesting when people realised
they were not going to make a quick buck and spent more time on the creative
side rather than financial.
Tomato believes they are market leaders in
a very small market, not many companies are doing what they do. They feel they
have got good at what they do because they love it. With companies where people
are on a strict salary there is a lot of pressure for those individuals to not
turn work down. Tomato are the opposite, it is a great pressure for them to
take on too much work. If they are going to spend 3 months on a project it had
better be good.
Tomato deem that large companies such as
Nike and Coca Cola ask Tomato to create an image for them due to the fact that
because they themselves are so large they grow distant from the culture that
they are in fact trying to reach out to. They need companies such as tomato to
define their culture for them. Tomato being a small group of individuals who
live amongst cultural changes and values can determine what will attract and
sell and therefore are right for creating an image for large companies. Tomato
is full of fresh ideas and trying out. They trust they are at the edge of
creativity and they are able to assimilate and respond to cultural changes,
they are after all creating for this movement. Not many graphic design groups
would consider video taping a photocopier light scanning across an image.
Simple everyday imagery that we see with the naked eye can just become enhanced
on film. Simple. This is what makes Tomato so different from traditional design
firms. Large companies see Tomato as being young hip people who associate with
young hip people. They have their own trademark style, because inevitably they
are individual artists. Like a photographer will be asked to produce an image
in his or her style for a magazine etcetera, Tomato are asked to do the same.
They are all on the same level and all have their own expertise. This is unlike
a graphic design company, which will be based on a hierarchy of senior
image-makers at the top down to junior designers at the bottom. This relaxed
environment is what makes Tomato thrive.
The feeling that Jason Kedgley witnesses
from Tomato is more companies are chancing on Tomato due to the
multi-disciplined staff that they have to offer. Tomato is therefore being
offered work that graphic design companies would not traditionally work on.
They may or may not be skilled in these new frontiers but they will accept them
and add a fresh approach to the problem.
An increasingly growing trend that design
companies are moving towards is creative coalitions. One of Tomato’s new
spin-off project groups, Tomato Interactive has worked in this way with EC1
Media who work on content programming for broadband and digital media. A
creative coalition means that one company will do all the groundwork for a
project supplied to them by a client. This company will be the lead company and
will employ the skills of other design groups. A good example of this, the
Circus-led ‘Inscape’ project. Circus worked with architects, web designers,
CD-Rom creators, identity designers and interior designers for Inscape, an
investment management company. The companies were able to purely work on
designing while Circus took care of managing all the marketing.
In my opinion companies are only just
beginning to follow techniques now, in the new millennium what Tomato has been
doing since the 90’s. Many companies are now producing spin-off companies.
Tomato included with their clothing range Urban Action and Tomato Interactive. It
has become a growing trend that professional boundaries have become blurred.
Photographers that print make, designers that use photography and typographers
that write web pages. On one hand this is a good movement because a designers
photographic skills in my judgment will be distinctly different to that of a
photographer. I know for a fact that graphic design has had a vast influence on
my own photographic processes with the use of double exposures and micro
collages placed on a 35mm negative carrier. There are also problems with spin
off’s. They are created by the ‘mother’ company, which has made a name for it
self. If the spin off does not succeed then the mother company will not suffer,
but if the mother company goes down so will its predecessors.
I
have chosen a selection of artists that I am familiar with and feel communicate
the ideas that Tomato put across. Most of the artists are contemporary with the
exception of Man Ray. I chose Man Ray, as he has been a great influence on
designers with the images he produced using methods such as photograms that he
claims to have invented. He called them ‘Rayographs’ - made by placing objects
directly on photographic paper and exposing them to light. As a painter,
sculptor, and filmmaker, as well as a photographer, Man Ray was able to compile
his range of techniques to collage them with one another in an attempt to
create ‘disturbing objects.’ Man Ray was able to change the way he
worked in time with the artistic movements. He moved from Cubism to Surrealism
and onto Dadaism. This flexibility was what allowed him to develop a range of
different skills. This is how Tomato works. They move with the times and
develop new skills on the way. They are
able to compile the different techniques together, namely music and digital
media.
I consider Aphex Twin, also known as
Richard D James and Square Pusher, also known as Tom Jenkinson to be a
comparative to Tomato’s experimental use of sound and music. Aphex Twin and
Square Pusher are Drum ‘n’ Bass / Electronica composers. Drum ‘n’ Bass is still
non-mainstream dance music, which is regarded as being ‘underground.’ It’s
sound is much heavier than dance and is closer to rock music. Some rock
musicians are transferring between the two. Richard does not use conventional
instruments but rather prefers building his own instruments or customising
originals. He claims that he does not like being taught anything and is more
keen on being experimental and teaching himself. I am enthusiastic about the
Drum ‘n’ Bass genre so both these artists are pleasing and influential to
listen to. Although one particular Aphex Twin track on the album ‘I care
because you do’ named Ventolin is
unpleasant to the ear with high pitched squealing. Although I have to skip the
track after a couple of minutes it shows that Richard is not worried about what
sounds pleasant, music can be ugly. Although Underworld is not classed as being
the same field as Aphex Twin and Square Pusher their musical style is very
experimental so some tracks are appealing while others are to me, awful
sounding. In my opinion this ‘new’ sound works best with video accompaniment.
Underworld started out much like the Drum ‘n’ Bass scene is now, an underground
following. About five years ago they became more mainstream and the phenomena
of Underworld began. Underworld have released a DVD named ‘Everything,
Everything’ which contains music from a live show. Tomato accompanies this
music with their footage. This is an artistic approach to working rather than a
graphic design approach. The whole feel of the video is that Tomato created
this purely for a video installation. This pushes the boundaries of the
stereotyped ‘slick’ feel that graphic designers emulate. Chris Cunningham has
directed and produced atmospheric, moody videos for both Aphex Twin and Square
pusher and Tomato has done the same for Underworld.
Tomato’s films are not as specialised or
as polished as Chris Cunningham videos but I feel they hold the same
experimental flare that holds the audience. Use of lighting effects and sound
are very prominent in both Tomato and Cunningham videos. I am pleased to see
the link between music and ‘art & design,’ although Chris works mainly on
music videos and Tomato for advertising the gap between the two styles are not
miles apart. Tomato used powerful lighting effects in their advert for Radio
Scotland with flashes of light that I can only describe as a lightning affect
over a typographic image and a spillage of colour.
I have chosen Chris Cunningham to relate
Tomato because both have been at the forefront of digital imaging. Chris has
worked with big names in the music industry creating videos for them. Madonna,
Bjork, Aphex Twin and Square Pusher are among the names. Chris creates scenes
that ooze with atmosphere. An atmosphere that leaves the viewer on the end of
their seat just waiting for something obscure to happen, and something obscure
normally raises its ugly head. Chris Cunningham did not go through college and
university as we would expect but was able to get into the movie production
scene at the early age of 16 working with Clive Barker on Nightbreed and with
David Fincher on Alien3 creating the monsters and aliens. The biggest influence
he says has been on his life was Kraftwerk who were in the business of creating
ambient music in the early 1980’s. Chris was influenced not just by their music
but also how they portrayed themselves in concert and on album covers as being
androids.
Album cover design is a particular
interest of mine and it is a ritual to look through the in-lay cover and
analyse images and typography. One of the most experimental album covers I have
witnessed of late is Radiohead’s most recent album Kid A. Radiohead are a band
who originated in Oxford and have become world famous for the sounds that they
create from their music. Kid A is the prowess of Stanley Donwood in conjunction
with Radiohead front man Thom Yorke. Stanley uses conventional art methods of
paint on canvas to produce images. These images are then photographed and imported
to his computer where computer rendered graphics are applied to the painting.
This use of the conventional and technological formats is what links Tomato
with him. Graham Woods (Tomato) poetry and conceptual writing also ties a bond
with Stanley Donwood who writes short stories that have a Dada approach because
they are full of nonsense. This is also a very artistic area for a graphic
design company to be involved in. Only Tomato would allow such a talent as
writing poetry and conceptual pieces to be given any consideration in the world
of design. This freedom that is allowed by Tomato for these nine men to come
together and share whatever they feel is appropriate would never happen in a
hierarchical atmosphere. This strong relationship that Tomato has with the
creative arts is what I feel brings out the best in the design work they
produce. This is also what makes them so appealing to companies.
So here we are now in the year 2001,
Tomato, are they still ripening or have they passed their sell by date?
Tomato has convinced large companies that
they are the right type of people for the job of creating a cool, hip image of
culture today. The link between music and design has been perceived as being
original, and the fact that Tomato use their own images and music/sound effects
does bring a fresh alternative to other graphic design firms. They follow
popular culture and trends and are not scared to go with the flow of these
cultural changes. This enables them to keep up to date with the times. This
experience attracts large companies to contact Tomato and ask them to define a
culture for them. The multi-talented staff finds the work that they do an
inspiring experience. They find their job fun and are able to relax in the
environment with eight others who are as dedicated to the field of art and
design as they are. Willing to discard everything they have been taught, the
process of creating new imagery by experimentation without worrying if it does
not work out has allowed Tomato to develop new, original styles. They have also
been allowed the chance of trying out fields of work that would not normally be
given to graphic design companies. This is because companies chance themselves
on Tomato to come up with fresh ideas.
Tomato has expanded their branch into
smaller more specialised areas of work known as spin-offs. These spin offs have
been created within the last two years and seem to be doing as well as Tomato.
This is how Tomato describe their current achievements:
“Tomato has worked on television
commercials, documentaries, film titles, installations, music and sound design,
publications and typography, architecture, branding and strategy documents, and
the design of brand identities and languages.
We have also published three books 'Process; a Tomato Project', 'Process; a
Tomato Project, Munich' (as an accompaniment to our installations at 'die neue
sammlung'-the state museum of arts and crafts in Munich ) and more recently
'Bareback'.
In the past year we have set up our own film and video production company
(Tomato films) and our own interactive media company (Tomato interactive).”
They have had the opportunities to branch
into America and Japan, two countries that are renowned for the technological
excellence that they emit. Tomato has recently completed a tour of Japan where
they went to schools and colleges and ran workshops with students. The
workshops were held in Tokyo between 20th March and 12th
April 2000. 48 students attended and produced work with Tomato. A large-scale
exhibition of their work was also erected while they were there which runs from
the 10th March to 1st April 2001. It was held at the
Laforet Museum, Harajuku, Tokyo. The exhibition was named ‘Real and Imaginary
Flowers.’
Tomato can be strongly related to artists
rather than designers in the way that they work. Tomato is a space in which
they come to and share and take ideas. There is no hierarchy in the way that
they work. Because of the way that they work and the influences of music and video
and the presence of Underworld Tomato is moving closer and closer to
installation work. Comparing this with traditional design groups that compile
work in books and/or portfolios, we can see that Tomato is a different breed.
All the evidence is there to suggest that
Tomato is going to be with us for a while longer yet. The Tomato is still
ripening, but how long will it be before someone takes a bite?
3,106 words