John Bengtsson

John Bengtsson
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Välkommen! I’m John, a graphic designer living and working in Stockholm, Sweden. Some of my works include the book and website for furniture design project The Kinship Method, the creative coding community Sunday Sites, a magazine for digital natives by the name of Tangents, the title design and poster for an award winning short film & AFU – a poetic archive over UFO sightings. I also like to make fonts in my spare time.

The Kinship Method

Book design, together with Samira Bouabana, and website for Margot Barolo’s project The Kinship Method.

In the project, designer Margot Barolo invited her colleagues Erik Björk, Mia Cullin, Andreas Nobel and Fredrik Paulsen to a group experiment where each designer made three chairs in three rounds – like a relay race or the game of telephone – based on the preceding group member’s creation.

The book consists of photographs by Karin Björkqvist, texts written by the five designers, as well as transcripts of design therapy sessions held by Salka Hallström Bornold.

The layout of the transcript pages playfully echoes design elements found in the chairs, a theme of playfulness that extends to other parts of the book. The deliberate, almost brutalist placement of footnotes and headlines introduces a dynamic contrast to the elegant main typeface, mirroring the diverse ideas and styles manifested in the chairs themselves.

The book was among the chosen for the Svensk Bokkonst award in 2021
with the following justification (translated from Swedish):

“A sophisticated and dynamic book where the graphic design becomes an integral part of the narrative. All components of the book are activated through the graphic elements, which also serve as illustrations. The design creates entry points for interpreting and experiencing its content anew with each reading.”

Just like how the chairs came to be, the website is inspired by, and builds upon, what came before.

The navigation, which takes its inspiration from the cover of the book, features summary- and detail elements that expand and become the sections that make up the site.

Project by Margot Barolo.
Book design together with Samira Bouabana.
The book is published by Arvinius + Orfeus Publishing.
Website design and development by me.
Photography by Karin Björkqvist.
Texts by Margot Barolo, Erik Björk, Mia Cullin, Andreas Nobel and Fredrik Paulsen.
Design therapy by Salka Hallström Bornold.
Exhibited at A House Ark in 2021, Rian Designmuseum in 2021 and Sven Harrys Konstmuseum in 2020.

Further reading:
Designboom
Rian Designmuseum
Svensk Bokkonst
Arvinius + Orfeus Publishing

Sunday Sites

An ongoing project for encouraging people to explore the interconnection between art, poetry and the web.

Originating as my bachelor graduation project at Beckmans College of Design, the project involves virtual sessions held on Sundays, where participants and I spend two hours creating experimental websites using only HTML and CSS.

Each session is guided by a creative prompt, such as “Pick a song you like and make a site based on its title.”

After two hours of coding, we come together for a casual show-and-tell session, sharing and discussing our process and resulting creations. The websites are then showcased on SundaySites.cafe, functioning as the information hub and gallery for the project.

Some of my own creations for the project.
Click here for the full list.

Since its inception in 2020, Sunday Sites has evolved organically, maintaining its core structure while gaining energy with a growing community. Alongside the regular sessions, I’ve had the opportunity to conduct several workshops as a guest teacher at Beckmans, all focused on the project.

In a testament to its community spirit, the project now sees its regular sessions organized by longtime contributor Tiana Dueck, while I take on a more background role as time permits.

An early version of the project website.
Promotional photo for the graduation exhibition, by Albin Händig.

The website can be accessed at SundaySites.cafe.
Read about the project on the graduation exhibition site.
My mentors for the project were Mattias Jakobsson, Lina Forsgren & Peter Jakobsson.
Promotional photography by Albin Händig.
Tiana Dueck is the current organizer of the sessions.

Tangents

Tangents is a music magazine for digital natives. Translating the way we navigate the web to printed matter. A magazine that aims to combine seemingly different music related topics by proposing how they connect with each other.

The magazine’s look is heavily inspired by traditional large format newspapers like The New York Times. In contrast, through eliminating headlines and blurring the start- and endpoints of the pieces, the layout allows the reader to move through articles, quotes, forum posts and interviews in a non-hierarchical way.

The result is a more internet-inspired structure where the reader should be able to dive into the magazine at any page and move on from there in any direction.

By linking the texts through underlining the contact points, the connections and transitions are made easier for the reader to follow.

This first issue deals with the topics of noise, repetitive music and techno culture.

We brought some green crayons to the release party and encouraged the guests to draw anything they wanted on the cover. An homage to all those mindless scribbles people have done on newspapers through the years.

Made in collaboration with Sara Dunker, Måns Peterson & Reidar Pritzel.

Printed at Newspaper Club, London, in broadsheet format with an edition of 50.

Wasteland

Poster and title design for Gustav Bondeson’s short film Wasteland.

In collaboration with Måns Peterson.

Wasteland won the award for Best Drama at Chicago CineYouth Festival 2019 and it’s available for streaming here.

AFU

Website with an interactive map over alleged UFO sightings in Sweden.

While searching the Archives for the Unexplained, we came across an Excel document titled ScanCat, which consists of thousands of UFO reportings, most of them from Sweden. We decided to make that document more fun and engaging by bringing the data to life and focusing on the vague, abstract, almost poetic quotes from the reports.

Concept, design and some development together with Måns Peterson, Anna Febe Knutsson & Adam Siversen Ljung.

The project was part of a design relay where the whole class worked on repurposing existing digital archives in teams of four. More credits can be found on the site.

Two typefaces in progress

Björkis is the working name for this typeface inspired by political posters from the 60’s and 70’s.





❷ This is Äsch, or Aesch. Either one is fine – it doesn’t mind!

Education

2017 — 2020
VISUAL COMMUNICATION
Beckmans College of Design, Stockholm

2014 — 2016
GRAPHIC DESIGN & COMMUNICATION
Södra Vätterbygdens Folkhögskola, Jönköping

2013 — 2014
FILM STUDIES
University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg

2012 — 2013
GRAPHIC DESIGN
Hellidens Folkhögskola, Tidaholm

2012
MODERN DESIGN IN SCANDINAVIA
Lund University, Lund

Experience

2021 – Present
DESIGNER
Essen International, Stockholm

2019
2 MONTH INTERNSHIP
Lundgren+Lindqvist, Gothenburg

2016
4 MONTH INTERNSHIP
Ritator, Stockholm