The Daily NABF
2026
03/
What the NABF
The Fine Art of Not Giving a FAQ
NABF is a graphic designer who paints. Which is already slightly suspicious. He takes graphic design — type, composition, colour, visual hierarchy, the whole business of making something catch your eye — and puts it on canvas. That‘s the whole deal.
Then there are the references. Some are obvious. Some are probably only obvious to NABF. A logo, a phrase, a picture, a stupid idea that has been sitting in your head for twenty years. Sometimes it looks like a joke. Sometimes it is a joke. Sometimes you get the joke. Sometimes you eat the bear.
He calls it No Art But Fun.
There is a certain laziness to the work. Not the lazy kind where nothing happens. More the kind where you know when to leave something alone. A line could be cleaner. The composition could be tightened. The paint could pop. There could be improvement.
So he stops.
Nothing said.
No thing sad.
That probably sounds like a very clever artistic strategy. It isn’t. That’s the problem with art. He has no problem with art.
“The paintings are very personal, sometimes stupid, sometimes smart, and quite often both. They borrow, quote, mock and remember. They don’t seem particularly interested in behaving themselves.
I don’t know what I am doing.” Christian Juelich
He knows when a composition works, when a typeface hits, when something is better left slightly wrong. He also knows that overworking a joke is usually the fastest way to kill it.
So he stops.
Nothing said.
No thing sad.
He calls it No Art But Fun.
That probably sounds like a very clever artistic strategy. It is.
