ALICIA JOHNSON AND HAL WOLVERTON
JOHNSON & WOLVERTON, NEW YORK/PORTLAND, ORE.
LENGTH OF RELATIONSHIP: 20 YEARS
Hal Wolverton and Alicia Johnson met in the early ’80s while
working on a fashion show at New York’s Palladium, which Johnson
was directing. Almost immediately they found themselves living
together. “The studio we were working in happened to be my
apartment in Brooklyn,” Wolverton says. They started with no real
experience, learning to do by doing, and developing a unique style.
Married without children, someone else governs their lives.
“Emit Barker, our chocolate Labrador, our ever-present muse, our
conscience and ballast, and designers’ best friend. We have repeatedly
chosen to pass on opportunities because of their impact on
him,” Wolverton says.
Their brand marketing and consulting firm brings them work
covering a broad range, from logos and identities to advertising
and photography. Current client, Jaguar, is keeping them in New
York with glamorous junkets for shoots. Work starts at the crack
of dawn.
“I make lattes,” Wolverton says. “Alicia puts out global fires by
e-mail. I feed the dog. We taxi to work. We have endless reviews
and meetings, and when everyone goes home, we either finish our
own work, or we say fuck it—what we need is a glass of wine.” For
housework and cooking, there’s MasterCard.
“We almost always work as the leaders, from different angles
of the projects we work on,” Wolverton says. “I’m hands-on at the
inception of most work, setting the design direction. Alicia does
most of the strategic development, and we usually collaborate on
the conceptual development.”
Of course there is the occasional rock in their collaborative
shoe. “We’re both extremely opinionated and generally come at a
problem from a really different perspective,” says Johnson.
“Since we have no inhibitions with each other, the conflicts
can be a bit much for other members of the team,” Wolverton
admits. And yet it works. “She brings an unironic beauty to the
things she touches.”
“I like Hal a lot,” Johnson says. “We make things together. We
hang out. We fight and laugh. It’s just life.”
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