Tilteed

Artist Interview: YAWN

Curator’s Statement:

This illustration reminds me of the Sword in the Stone, minus the medieval stuff. I can’t quite decide whether the sword is stabbing the floating patch of land and releasing dark matter, or if the matter is being released as the sword is pulled out by some mystical force in space. Either way, this design sparks a strong sense of curiosity, as if there were a story being told right before my eyes. Now the next step is to figure out exactly what this story is. I love t-shirt designs that lead me on such a wonderful cognitive journey!

How did you come up with the idea for Releasing Dark Matter?

We are members of NONSTOPNERDS ( http://www.nonstopnerds.com ) - it’s a collective of people mainly from the school Annika went to and Sandra is graduating from right now! There was a Nonstopnerds Exhibition in our hometown (Dortmund, Germany) but we had an exhibition a short time before that already and didn’t want to show the same works, so we sat together one weekend and drew a bunch of stuff with markers loosely around the theme of space, stars and magic. It kind of just happened, we both started doodling and then it kind of fit together (more or less). The shirt design is the digitalized version of one of those drawings.

Can you give us some information about YAWN? How did you decide on that name?

It was something like this:

We both really like drawing letters and words, but never really knew what to write except for the song lyrics we had in our heads or liked. So we usually wrote something like “yeah” or “wow” - so somehow that lead us to putting positive and fun words like this together and we ended up with YEAH AWESOME WOW NICE a.k.a. YAWN

Only later we realized that it was not so well chosen Google-wise. But Annika made it her goal to put us on the front page of Google search and she made it happen after a week of heavy frustration

We’ll be printing a shirt ourselves soon with just those words. But probably only 10 or so with handmade silkscreen stuff.

What has YAWN been up to lately? Any fun projects?

We made a few band shirts for German bands, they are not all out yet though. We also made some album art but it’s also secret until it comes out in summer. Sandra is working on her final thesis at school doing illustrative fonts right now, they can be seen in July here: http://www.ffffonts.com, but right now it’s only a teaser! And Annika is working in a graphic design agency she founded with friends after graduation about 2 years ago: http://www.radau-gestaltung.de

If you found a magic lamp and could each make one wish, what would they be?

Sandra: VANS authentic shoes in EVERY existing color, please!

Annika: 2000 dollar each month to buy me a house in iceland and somewhere in the alps.

We already know that you two create wonderful art. What I want to know is do either of you have any special hidden talents?

Sandra: I used to be able to rollerblade really well. I jumped over trash cans and other crazy stuff cause we didn’t have a skate park where I grew up. I don’t do this anymore though and wish I could skateboard. I am also able to watch a whole season of a TV show in one day but I don’t know if that is a TALENT. I can also listen to the same song the whole day (sometimes even for weeks when I REALLY like it, the people close to me don’t approve!)

Annika: I recognize every song in the radio after 3 secs, even the ones I hate! I can ski really well and I would like to do it the whole wintertime, but there are no mountains where we live.

Are there any websites that you want to share?

Just our website: http://www.weareyawn.com, every other site you can find us on like twitter or flickr is linked there!

Is there anything else that you want us to know?

Tilteed rules! And Dunz0 is probably the most polite and nice curator ever!