Swedish designer Viktor Hammarberg has worked with some of the biggest names in music, but his multilayered, instinctual creative process uncovers a much deeper relationship between music and design. Zooming in on this relationship, as well as the art of nostalgia and the importance of the early internet era aesthetic, writer Jynann Ong speaks to Hammarberg about the various ingredients that made his work go viral.
Like most artists, when Viktor Hammarberg steps out on the path of creation, he has a rough idea in mind. But for the Swedish designer—whose work you’ve probably seen on EP covers for the likes of SZA, Rosalía, Steve Lacy and Peggy Gou—it doesn’t always pan out that way. “My ideas are more like written sentences than visual ideas,” he explains.
At the nexus of his process is an abstract concept which forms a rough blur in the mind’s eye. For example, he likes to research symbols, but instead of visually referencing the form, he turns the symbol over and over, thinking about how it can translate into a concept. For instance in “HELL,” he expresses his take on the meaning of aspirational glamor, using the famed Hollywood sign as his vehicle and subverting the meaning by transforming the scaffolded letters. Like a sculptor, he chips away until a shape emerges. “What I want to convey is more about the process and experimenting. I let the process dictate how something will visually look.”
Digging through Hammarberg’s prolific portfolio, we uncover a digital native’s inner world: a confident hand at combining bold color and snappy editing, and applying filters of nostalgia. It all began on Instagram, an outlet for Hammarberg’s experiments while he hunkered down at various odd jobs. “I was working at a restaurant when I started it, then it kinda took off, then I got fired during the pandemic. So I thought, maybe I can convert these followers into something.” Soon after, artists started reaching out, and he was “thrown” into the music industry.
Though his initial foray into the music industry started unintentionally , music has always been integral to Hammarberg’s life. A graduate of Stockholm’s Hyper Island—an alternative arts school focused on a hands-on, team-building approach—Hammarberg recalls his most valuable learnings: “producing music and getting to know some of my best friends.” He quickly realized an office environment didn’t suit him, and spent his hours questioning the traditional creative route. The designer remembers the significant period of experimentation with fondness, pondering music’s relationship with art while expanding his musical horizons from strictly emo to all avenues of electronic. Making music paved his approach to design. “They align,” he explains, “I always produce minimal beats, which are just the bare essentials. And that’s my design philosophy as well.”
As the artist crafted both music and design simultaneously, he developed a cross-cultural process where the two mediums intersect. Intuitively, his designs developed an album art aesthetic, reflecting notes of what he was listening to at the time. “I was just expressing myself,” says Hammarberg, “then artists started contacting me and it took off from there.” He has a strict ritual for designing. He creates the work on a computer, exports it onto his phone and looks at the work on the small screen. From this new perspective, he detects fresh insight into the quality of the work.
When it comes to inspiration, Hammarberg doesn’t rely too heavily on references, believing they can’t help but show up in the final outcome. Instead, he wants to convey the emotion of nostalgia. “It’s such an intense, weird, unexplainable feeling,” says Hammarberg. “It’s kind of like a drug.” Growing up in the late 90s and early 2000s, his idea of nostalgia is centered in the aesthetic of the early internet era, an addictive but indescribable feeling that he’s lured to explore and embrace. “If something I make feels nostalgic while also feeling contemporary, that’s my personal goal,” he says—noting his work for Steve Lacy as particularly meaningful for achieving this feat. Elsewhere, Hammarberg creates this through the frequent use of noisy textures, transporting the viewer back to pre-digital, fuzzy VHS tapes. In “EXIST” he plays with the semiotics of the universal “exit” sign, remaking it into a reminder to “exist.” As for music, when a song uses nostalgic samples, he’s transported into that warm, evocative feeling. “I know that if I travel back to those eras, it wouldn’t be so awesome,” he says. “But it’s just that romantic aspect. Of longing and growing up.”