Otto Dettmer: 09.03.2009

Otto Dettmer started out in 1991. He left a graphic design course in Bristol and began screenprinting in 1995, during his time completing an MA at Kingston University. He thinks that screenprinting is much more effective than work created digitally. He is a strong believer in self-promotion and recently sent out a green and black mailer in the form of a poster that is folded into individual images. "It's all about being able to get work in the first place." He thinks the best form of self-promotion is actually doing work. In the beginning he made the mistake of creating too much self-promotion and spent too much time thinking about the next job when he should have been thinking about the actual work he was creating. He currently lives in London.

He enjoys working with shapes and postitive and negative space. He liked the way magazines used to look as they used to have a lot of white space but now they try to completely fill a space. He feels that in France, clients tend to be friendlier and more personal, they want to get to know you and that could get you a job whereas in England, it is much more business-like and there is more chance of getting a job through your portfolio instead of your personality. He feels that the Telegraph is good for illustrations. He thinks that some art directors often go for the safest option so that the editor doesn't disapprove,

Influences: El Lisittzky, Russian Constructivism, Rodchenko, Majakovski, Broigul, Klucis...

He often shows his work at book fairs, but they can be very expensive for a small amount of space. He likes to combine photography with flat shapes. He also finds playing with text in unusual ways fun. His work is influenced by consumerism and consumption but also draws parallels with religion, with things such as temptation and greed.

When creating work, Dettmer spends about 2 hours creating a rough and 1 to 2 hours developing it into a piece of work. He sources material from old black and white films, such as those of Alfred Hitchcock , Fritz Lang and more theatrical and over the top films. He likes the use of straight lines in figures. He likes creating work for books as he feels that he can go crazy in what he is making.

I didn't think I was going to like the work of Otto Dettmer at first, and some of it was not to my taste, but I like the more simpler images, such as the ones above. I like this as they are bold and have a clear message. The problem I have with my own work is to overfill a space and I think that I could learn something from Otto's simplicity within his work. He was also a very nice man and it is nice to see someone enjoying success when they are also nice people. Another aspect of his work which I would like to apply to my own work is his use of colour. Though it appears he is confident with colour, he often uses only several colours due to the screenprinting technique to his work. Some of his pieces reminded me of the work of Saul Bass.

Visit his website: OTTO DETTMER