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London's OK-RM (Oliver Knight and Rory McGrath) created Designing the Surface's graphic design and the concept behind the exhibition texts and captions.

Every finish of every product has a purpose, whether to tempt, protect or imitate. Designers are no longer confined to applying a protective coating; besides protection or decoration, it has become increasingly common to optimise and even to apply totally new properties as finishes. _Designing the Surface_, an exhibition on the final layer of products, presents a collection of artefacts grouped in five sections: Lustre (gloss), Patina (surface texture), Faux (disguise), Teflon (repelling) and Agency (militancy). Product surfaces are exposed as symbols of glamour and denial. At the same time, the credo 'form follows function' proves out of date now that a simple coating can enable new functions irrespective of form.

OK-RM's graphic design for Designing the Surface is reticent. It is centred on a catalogue in the form of a booklet whose pages, blown up to large format, reappear as texts and captions for the various themes in the exhibition. "The exhibition as a theatre, that was the idea behind the OK-RM design," Rory McGrath explains. "The design objects were staged in texts as characters in 'a moral performance'." This performative approach to design objects was a reaction to the concept of curators Chris Kabel and Koehorst in 't Veld, McGrath notes. In the exhibition, consisting of a collection of different pavilions, they reference a fairground setting.

In close collaboration with writers Jack Self and Kate O'Brien, OK-RM developed a double-layered play consisting of a scenario and a narrative. The scenario determines the position of the pavilions, while the narrative layer presents an experimental synthesis of fact and fiction, science and poetry. The script consists of six acts, in which a story develops thematically. "For example, act two is based on the theme Lustre," McGrath says. "Various objects combine in the setting of a festive dinner party, where they introduce themselves to one another and have conversations with one another. The result is a sort of popular theatre." In contrast to this theatre-like narrative, the graphic design is highly functional: each object in the exhibition is numbered and that number refers to a specific page in the script or to a formal caption.

In their work, Oliver Knight and Rory McGrath explore and experiment with conceptual communication structures. Performance and theatre are examples of this. The designers found collaborating with Het Nieuwe Instituut an extremely positive experience. They note that the institute encourages experimentation, providing the space to explore an idea to its outermost limits.

OK-RM, a London-based design studio founded by Oliver Knight and Rory McGrath in 2008, is engaged in ongoing partnerships with artists, curators, editors, architects, designers and institutions. A dedicated content-driven approach, with a grounding in conceptual thinking, forms the essential foundation of the studio. Recent clients, commissioners and collaborators have included 1017-ALYX-9SM, ETH Zurich, Vivienne Westwood, JW Anderson, The Guggenheim, The Met, Het Nieuwe Instituut, alongside collaborative projects with artists including Virgil Abloh, Juergen Teller, Fos and Gabriel Kuri. In 2016, OK-RM designed the British Pavilion for the Venice Architecture Biennale. As founder of the publishing house InOtherWords, the studio creates books and other printed matter in close collaboration with artists and other cultural protagonists. OK-RM's work has been shown in museums and educational institutions throughout the world and in 2018 it was awarded the Grand Prix at the Brno Biennial.

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