TYPO Magazine

Courtesy of TYPO Magazine I would like to present an interview that was generated for G4, which consisted of a questionnaire directed at a small group of Czech Designers from Bohemaia including myself.

Thanks to the patience of all those who collaborated. I also have to thank all you other guys that I’ve recommended, and took part in this interview namely – Lukas Veverka, Petr Skala, Adela Svobodova, Iva Pechmanova, Tomas Brousil.

Questionnaire:

1. How do you perceive the work of older designers? In what way is your approach different from theirs?
2. What is most difficult for young designers to learn in order to succeed in practice?
3. Do you only cooperate with Czech clients, or do you also take commissions from abroad?
4. When looking at the upcoming talents, who do you think will become the most successful?
5. What is your professional dream? What commissions would you like to work on, and why? What do you want to achieve in design?
6. Did you study or work abroad? Was this experience beneficial, and how?

My personal view of the works of older designers is a mixture of admiration, respect, and inspiration. I won’t bother the readers with a long list of names; instead, here is one recent impression. In Steve Krug’s book called Don’t Make Me Think I came across an interesting point: if you really want to understand something, you must begin to teach it.

Jan Tschichold

The crucial moment in my own perception of design and the ability to distinguish between the various approaches and styles came when I had to prepare materials for lectures. I was inspired by J. Tschichold, L. Sutnar and W. Crowel.

Once you know

how to work

Well I don’t think our approaches differ all that much. Yes, they are formed by the available technologies, but the essence is the same. A number of processes became automatic, but this does not mean that creativity has suddenly moved to the back seat. Once you know how to work with your tools, you can spend more time with the actual composition or design.
Speaking generally about the young: their indisputable advantage lies in their age and their ability to adapt quickly, their increased ability to integrate in an international environment, their knowledge of foreign languages, and, finally, their ability to clearly describe what is it they are doing, what techniques they use, and how things or artwork work.

Academic designers

Academic designers, those who are academically prepared for the job, have many advantages. Unfortunately, in Bohemia, no one seems to see these advantages; moreover, no one seems to be able to show them to these young designers themselves.

could you imagime

imagine 70 / 1

2 The most difficult task for every young designer is to become and to remain visible in the market. Just imagine that, in England alone, 9,000 graphic designers left the universities this year, and all of them are out looking for a job right now! Only those who will make full use of their own abilities, including the art of self-presentation, will be able to make it. I’d like to give one example. Our medium-sized company was looking for young talents. Since I am more involved in the academic environment than my colleagues are, I was given the task of selecting the students who were to join our team. I went to pretty much all the exhibitions and presentations of graphic design, typography, illustration, media, animation, and 3D modeling, and I chose nearly 70 suitable students. After that first, purely visual selection, I looked at them information-wise. This revealed a number of details you don’t realize at a first glance. In the end, there was an interview. From all these 70 students, only 9 were invited for the interview, and only two got the chance to work for us. Nobody can spend this kind of time searching for the right person.

relationship as a

mutual harmony

3 I work with Czech clients; one of the best and most reliable ones is the SGI Company, whose visual presentation in the Czech Republic is my responsibility. Our relationship works in total, mutual harmony — through our dialogue, we always find a solution which is, at the same time, a quality design fulfilling the expectations of both sides. We understand the market and the final user, we have well-proven methods and a system of management built over six years of cooperation. I have also had the chance to work with a number of top architects that I would like to mention. The studio of Zdenek Sendler, the Czech branch of Eva Jiřičná, the Ateliér Interiér Design of Petr Vágner. Thanks to them, I have developed my own Flash Content Management System, which is now successfully distributed in the UK. I also participate in the presentation of some of Czech fashion designers, such as OLO & Jakub Polanka, SFS, About Taska, and studio Duclair.

Czech design stars

4 The stars of Czech design are those whose work is promoted abroad, yet are widely known to be from the Czech Republic. Among others, Tomáš Brousil has my undying admiration, as does David Březina. Then one must not forget Tomáš Celizna and his new media works, and Vojtěch Dvořák.
5 My first professional dream was to work for SGI, and it came true. My other dream was to work on projects with global impact, and this was fulfilled last year with the RED Central Limited company, where I finished the designs for Monopoly, FC Sao Paulo, and
FC Arsenal Coach Clinic, but also for Style Guide Transformers Animated and Lazy Town. Another goal was a position with full responsibility as a Senior designer in project and this was fulfilled recently through Uber Creative and a web site Innovation Lab for EASTMAN.

digital typography

Apart from all this, I would like to finish a book on digital typography. I would like to present it in a series of open workshops for university students, not only in the UK, but also elsewhere. The book is to be published in Czech and English versions, and is to focus on typography and its rules applied in new media, both in theory and in practice.