In reality, the process of creating this design was much more complicated and the truth is: it wasn’t even my idea, but that of my partner. They looked over my shoulder while I was drawing and said: »Why don’t you make a black square?« The fact that I was the one who got the money and the fame for the design has been common practice in art history.

I also thought of art history for this design and imagined what a mashup of Erwin Wurm and Keith Haring would look like: blown-up letters combined with energetic patterns. The editors had only planned one bag, but they liked both designs so much that they had two bags produced.

ART not only asked me, but also three other artists for tote bag designs and then they presented the four of us in a multi-page article. Am I an artist? I was never quite sure—but with this article in one of Germany’s leading art magazines, I finally had the proof.

The story has a backstory: more than ten years ago, I was a freelance graphic designer at ART magazine. And a few years later when I was already specializing in lettering, I designed the cover of the magazine twice—for the 2015 issue on the DADA movement …

... and for the double issue on Documenta 14, which took place in Kassel and Athens in 2017.

Nevertheless, I never thought that my work would be the subject of the magazine.