Creativity king for Jono as live visuals lead to Lerwick studio
JONO Sandilands describes himself as a graphic adventurer, and it’s an adventure that can be traced back to a now-antiquated Windows 95 computer and the software MS Paint.
As a young boy in Lerwick, he would design homemade labels to print out and fix to VHS tapes of Christmas films and other programmes taped off the TV.
These days, things are a little grander. If you’ve ever seen a big music gig in Shetland the last couple of years you will likely have been entranced by visuals projected behind the band, heightening the experience and adding an extra layer of immersion.
It is also likely that they were done by Sandilands, as he stood somewhere in the room whizzing up the magic in real time, in response to the music. In addition to various graphics it might also feature live video of the band performing, or shots of liquid ink (a turntable with water and coloured oil)…and once there was even live “poppadom art” beamed onto the backdrop.
The popularity of the live visuals, which have graced stages at events like the Rising North festival, Boppapalooza and Riffmas and at venues such the Clickimin and Mareel, has proved to be the catalyst for Sandilands launching a new studio in Lerwick.
In addition to the live visuals, Studio Oh! No! provides a base for his other creative exploits like graphic design and workshops.
Shetland News meets Sandilands at the studio, tucked away in a lane near the old Garrett, underneath the coffee shop Blyde Welcome.
It’s snug, and has no windows, but you quickly get the vibe that it’s a haven for creativity. Maybe it’s the eye-catching prints on the wall, the projector, the double-monitor computer.
“I think I’ve fallen in love with this weird little space under Blyde Welcome, up a lane,” he says.
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“I think there’s something special about what I offer to people, because it’s not just about live visuals. It’s about graphic design, it’s about workshops, and possibly selling my work as well.”
Let’s start off with the live visuals. The roots run back to the Tall Ships Races in 2023, when Sandilands was asked by Mareel technician Tim Matthew to consider trying live visuals for late night DJ gigs at the venue.
He was reluctant at first – “I’d rather be in a dark room somewhere working on graphics” – but came round to the idea when he researched what technology he could use.
“I’m used to video design being something that takes a long time,” he says. “You have to spend hours working on a video, editing, animating, rendering. It’s a lot of work. But there’s so much advances in technology now that a lot of this can be done in real time.”
At its most simple, Sandilands can create, there and then, what you see on the backdrop at an event. It is unique, and responsive to the music.
“That’s what excites me most is that at an event, there’s this thing that’s happening that can only happen at that time to those people in that room, the people who have bought a ticket to come to this special event,” he says. “Their experience of coming to the event is heightened with live visuals.”
Since the Tall Ships the word of mouth has spread, and he is now a regular at most large scale gigs in Shetland.
Big on the spirt of collaboration, Sandilands has also often worked with fellow local creative Chloe Tallack on live visual projects, including at Rising North and more recently at the Night Mix DJ event at Mareel.
For the latter, Sandilands, Tallack and DJ Liam Drosso were located on the auditorium floor, slap bang in the middle of the action – doing their thing as revellers danced the night away. Which is not exactly hiding away in a dark room…
And what about the poppadom art? That one saw “food scientist” Jenny Watt filmed getting hands on with the crispy foodstuff while indie band The Poppadom Kings, of course, performed at Rising North in the Clickimin this summer.
“It was chaos, but it was exactly what it needed to be,” Sandilands says. “Not everyone would have realised that was happening in the room, but Jenny could respond to the music.
“It was incredibly messy. But that’s a good example of how working with people really heightens this.”
One of the highlights so far is working with live visuals for Northern Irish rock band Ash, who headlined this year’s Rising North.
“I can remember my brother showing me Ash as a teenager for the first time, and getting that album and listening to it,” he says.
“So being part of the team that put together visuals for this band that I’d listened to almost my whole life, is kind of unreal. That’s something that Rising North has brought – that opportunity and trust.”
The increase in live visual commissions eventually led to Sandilands making the tough decision to leave his job at Burra art organisation Gaada, where he got to indulge in his love of printmaking.
Rewind back a few decades, though, and there is Sandilands sitting on his Windows 95 desktop PC.
From MS Paint and homemade VHS labels to learning webpage language HTML, Sandilands was “always mucking around with things”.
“I quickly realised that I wanted to be a graphic designer,” he says. “Eventually I went away and studied that at Gray’s School of Art [in Aberdeen] and came back and worked at Shetland Arts as their first graphic designer.”
Sandilands may not be your archetypal graphic designer. He has his own imaginative style, and likes making things. Try his ‘playable prints’, for example, which at first place look like an illustration of a pinball machine.
But there are buttons on the side which trigger a digital pinball game on the print, meaning people can truly interact with the artwork as they play along. Sandilands has also merged art and ping pong, and has used conductive inks with electricity.
Sandilands later headed to Bristol to study a masters degree in printmaking, before moving back home to Shetland again.
He will be letting folk in to see the Oh! No! Studio this Saturday (14 November) for an open day, between 11am and 4pm. Family friendly, people will get a chance to try live visuals, make badges, browse prints or just say hello.
But despite only getting keys for the basement room in August, the move hasn’t been without issue – the flooding in Lerwick of late October, namely.
“On that day I had a lovely workshop, and then I sat down and replied to an email from someone asking how I was getting on at the studio,” he recalls.
“I think I sent that at ten past one, and at half past one I was standing up at the top of Taylor’s Steps looking down at this swimming pool, this carnage.”
Water was streaming into the studio, with Sandilands rushing in to move valuable equipment onto tables. As the flooding subsided, and drains got back to normal, he was helped with a pump and other equipment to clear the room.
The floors are thankfully bone dry as we met last week, but black bags of sand remain at the doorway.
The rendezvous came a few days prior to plenty of discussion on social media about the use of AI, or artificial intelligence. As a designer, Sandilands acknowledges that organisations will be exploring generative AI to create graphics because it can quickly process high levels of information.
“But what I’ve been really reassured about is an awareness from people who know that is AI,” he says.
What he can offer is a creative and personal approach to making a poster, he says, including getting the client directly involved – if they want to.
“I love that process of this hands-on approach where someone is involved in the process of making,” Sandilands says.
“I’ve been so overwhelmed with the support of people. I know I’m new and that’s an amazing thing right now, but I do think that personal approach…we’re human and we’re making things, and I’m sure a lot of people are striving for that.
“We want to retain that idea that we are the people who are making things.”
Oh! No! Studio will be open to the public this Saturday (14 November) for an open day, between 11am and 4pm. Its entrance can found in the lane to the right of Nomadic Pizzeria, through a green door.
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