OFFSET2013

4 EVENTS SINCE 2009 95 MAIN STAGE SPEAKERS 160+ HOURS OF CREATIVE PRESENTATIONS, DEBATES, CONVERSATIONS AND CELEBRATION

2010 2009 Anthony Burrill Asbestos Brad Downey Chip Kidd Chris Haughton Daniel Danger Dave McKean David Shrigley David Smith (Atelier) Experimental Jetset Graphic Thought Facility James Jean Massimo Vignelli Oliver Jeffers Harry Pearse (Pentagram) PJ Lynch Rich Roat (House Industries) Scott Burnett (Studio AAD) Serge Seidlitz Showstudio Sir Peter Blake Tara McPherson The London Police The Mill

Adrian Shaughnessy & Tony Brook (Unit Editions) Aiden Grennelle (Image Now) Alan Clarke Celestine Cooney Daniel Eatock David Carson David O’Reilly DJ Shadow Emily Forgot Steve ‘Espo’ Powers Gary Baseman George Lois Lance Wyman Linda Brownlee M&E Mark Farrow Martin Haake Nate Williams Philip Hunt (Studio AKA) Nick Roope (Poke London) Scott Dadich (Wired Magazine) Steven Heller Tomer Hanuka Wooster Collective Zach Gold

2012 Andrew Essex (Droga5) Antoine et Manuel Conor & David Conor Harrington Eike Konig (Hort) Erik Kessels (Kesselskramer) Evan Hecox Friends With You Jessica Hische Johnny Kelly Kevin Waldron Kyle Cooper Michael Bierut (Pentagram) Olly Moss Paula Scher (Pentagram) Pony Richard Gilligan Rinzen Seymour Chwast Shepard Fairey (Obey) Stefan Sagmeister Steve Simpson UVA (United Visual Artists) Von

2013 Ben Bos Ben Fender & Imogen Hammond (Drive Productions) Ben Newman Bob Gill Calef Brown Chris Silas Neal Ciarán ÓGaora (Zero-G) Craig & Karl Eoghan Kidney Faile Gavin O’Sullivan (DDFH&B) Hvass & Hannibal Iain Tait Ji Lee Jonathan McHugh JR Kate Moross Louise Fili Natasha Jenn (Pentagram) Niamh Sharkey Oliviero Toscani Sarah Illenberger The Stone Twins Vaughan Oliver

A LIFETIME OF INSPIRATION!

INSPIRING MINDS SINCE 2009 Can you believe that this is our fourth in five years? It’s hard to believe that what started as a simple conversation between three friends back in early 2009, would become what OFFSET is today.

We have been blown away by everything: the energy and enthusiasm of speakers who have come to Dublin to share their stories; the positivity of the delegates who come to be inspired; and by the support of our partners over the years, they have helped spread the word about OFFSET and helped make it bigger and better year on year.

We’re delighted how OFFSET has grown to become one of the world’s biggest creative events.

And what great times we’ve had – remember the standing ovation for George Lois?

Pony’s giant inflatable baby? London Police’s Dog Songs?

Well there’s more to come. This year will see delegates travelling from all over Ireland and further to join us in the heart of Dublin’s docklands. And, once again, we’re returning to the stunning Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, now the true home of OFFSET. On the Main Stage, our line-up features 24 of the world’s greatest illustrators, designers, photographers, filmmakers, advertisers, street artists and digital innovators – individuals who are reshaping the way we think about visual communication and ideas. In the the more intimate surroundings of the Second Room, we’ll have in-depth interviews with our speakers, discussions on how to get your creative career moving and debates on the state of Irish creativity, and more.

Most importantly, the weekend offers the opportunity to connect, not only with industry legends, but with each other. We’re delighted to welcome you all to OFFSET 2013.

Thank you for your support, Bren, Richard & Peter

OFFSET2013 PARTNERS

A huge thanks to you all for making OFFSET2013 happen!

FRIENDS OF OFFSET2013

THANKS!

The management and staff at Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, especially Stephen, Izy, Liam & Kate The speakers who have been so generous with their time Everyone who helped us with the book this year All those helping us in the Second Room and djing at the party, we couldn’t pull it off without you All our partners who have helped spread the word and supported us to make this event happen All the Friends of OFFSET who helped us directly Brian Herron for his insights and opinions on our site and blog Our amazing team: Tess, Cara, Albert, Gav, Niall, Lynda, Philip, Gary, Rua, Richie, Fabrice & Emma All the contributors and photographers (Eoin, Hazel & Richard) who documented the OFFSET creative project All the delegates who’ve supported us over the years, YOU make the effort worthwhile And, most importantly, our patient partners and families Gisèle, Lisa, Lucy, Charlie, Holly Rose & Tilly

T H E O F F S E T CREATIVE PROJ ECT 2 0 1 3

If OFFSET is about anything, it’s about inspiration.

We’re looking forward enormously to this year’s event, but we thought it would be fun to look back at what has gone before. After all, with 95 Main Stage speakers and over 160 hours of presentations already in the bag, there’s a lot to look back over!

We asked some of the best creatives in our great city to choose a quote from a previous OFFSET speaker, and create a new piece of work inspired by it, and then share it in some way as a gift to Dublin.

We love the results. They’re even more inventive, clever and inspiring than we expected.

Here they are...

Sean & Yvette chose Tomer Hanuka (2010) We picked Tomer Hanuka because we liked his message; that creative work is always driven by a need for self-expression, whether consciously or not. We had just read an article on Susan Sarandon’s ping pong clubs so thought it would be interesting to use them to spell out our quote. We spent an afternoon drilling holes in over 300 balls and then strung them onto red washing lines. The next step was wiring it to a clothes rail to make a giant abacus. We dragged it down to a carpark one night and we have to say that the security staff at Tesco were very understanding. www.seanandyvette.com

James Earley chose Richard Gilligan (2012)

“I love creating a portrait that’s true.”

As Richard’s main passion is portrait photography, I felt it was fitting to create a painted portrait of the man himself.

The contour lines that make up his features mimic the skate ramp bowls in his latest photography book DIY. Thanks to Steven Ryan for the photo that I referenced for the piece. www.inputout.com

Maser chose Conor Harrington (2012) www.maserart.com

Ground (Gary Boylan & Ciarån Murphy) chose Gary Baseman (2010) Gary Baseman’s quote was machine carved into a wood and handpainted to look like a metal Dublin street name sign. It was installed on Hatch Lane in the early hours of a cold Dublin Thursday.

Thanks to Art from Artisan for carving the sign. www.ground4d.com

Steve Simpson chose Seymour Chwast (2012) Possibly a really obvious solution to a great quote – but I really wanted to draw a digger :) www.stevesimpson.com

Emma Conway chose Jessica Hische (2012) This piece is quite a literal reflection of the quote, “make things you wish existed”.

It includes illustrations of things I wish existed, such as: a printable and edible burger; a window that you can change what you are looking out at; a radiator coat...

And so on.

I pasted it up in Dublin city centre on an empty hoarding site. Over the last number of years there have been many empty sites and shops in Dublin. I think this quote is a perfectly positive message, which encourages people to dream big and to occupy these spaces with their ideas and hopes of what they’d like to exist in this city of ours. www.emmaconwaydesign.com

Cian Brennan & Aishling Costello chose Friends With You (2012) Thanks to Leigh Ellis for all of the help in building the sandwich. And Moses Rowen for the giant copper spike holding it all together. twitter.com/cianbrennan twitter.com/aishlingerin

Detail. Design Studio & Matthew Thompson chose Nick Roope, Poke London — Offset 2010

The focus of Nick’s talk — the unseen work involved in realising every project — is something that we can relate to. We also liked its dual meaning when located in an less familiar Dublin environment. Big thanks to John Dunne / Neonfix.

www.matthewthompsonphotography.com www.detail.ie

Associate chose Erik Kessels / Kesselskramer (2012) From Erik Kessels OFFSET talk, we drew inspiration from his belief that “the idea” should be the most important thing in what designers do. We chose the quote, “Ideas are there, you just need to pick them up and use them,” and created a modular typeface which we printed on canvas bags. Each bag is hand-painted and individually numbered. They’ll be available soon on the streets of Dublin, so we can reduce the use of plastic bags and save the planet a little bit.

Photography by Eoin Holland. www.associate.ie

Fuchsia MacAree chose Martin Haake (2010)

“It’s nice to go to the supermarket and then you find people are buying your soups.”

For my piece, I took some items from Oxfam Home on Francis Street, did some illustrations on them and then donated them back to the shop. I made two cushion covers, risographed two prints, and painted a pot and a fishbowl. The decoration for each piece is loosely based on an RTÉ documentary about two Dublin kids who snuck off to New York in the 80s, and a concrete Stonehenge on Achill Island.

Recording: Little Beast, expert sewing: Laura Gilsenan www.fuchsiamacaree.com & phewsha.tumblr.com

Renate Henschke chose Massimo Vignelli (2009)

“If you can’t find it, design it.”

The long Irish winter could only be enhanced by the addition of this coat to anyone’s wardrobe.

Materials – Hot water bottle, boiling water.

Thank you – Clíona O’Flaherty for the photography www.renatehenschke.com

Gisèle Scanlon chose Shepard Fairey (2012) “Repetition works!” Shepard Fairey explained how, in art, an image can be created and repeated over and over again to great effect like his first André the Giant OBEY sticker.

My interpretation as a writer is that a word, phrase or characterisation can also be repeated to success in literature. Searching within myself for something worth repeating, I often feel like Jack Nicholson’s character Jack Torrance in The Shining. I repeatedly visit the book shop Hodges Figgis, my favourite place in Dublin for inspiration, when I’m creatively stuck – hence my typewriter and its location.

Thank you to Hodges Figgis. www.thegoddessguide.com

Aisling Farinella & Brian Kenny chose Paula Scher (2012)

“The more you make, the more you want to do. The more you do, the more you realise everything is possible.’’

I was blown away by Paula Scher at her OFFSET presentation. I used the opportunity of creating a piece for OFFSET to collaborate with projection mapping designer Brian Kenny, as I was excited about the possibilities of combining projection mapping and fashion film.

We projection mapped a piece on a large-scale structure combing hand painted type, a contrast of maximalist and geometric fashion designs and music with positive vibes, as a way to pay homage to Scher.

The project became an amazing collaboration with a super-talented group of people.

Stylist, Creative Direction : Aisling Farinella Projection Mapping, Animation : Brian Kenny Custom Lettering : Chrissie Abbott Cinematographer : Jamie Delaney Fashion : Helen Steele, Mary Callan, Sinead Lawlor Music : Los Rapidos by Orquesta Model : Aisling Redden, Morgan the Agency Hair : David Cashman, Morgan The Agency Make Up : Jennifer Quinn for ana-lee Location : The Laundry Room, South Studios www.aislingfarinella.com cargocollective.com/lightscape

MODERNGREEN chose Stefan Sagmeister (2012) In a homage to Stefan Sagmeister’s Aiga poster we scratched our chosen quote into a male torso, filmed it and projected it onto the offices of MG, Camden Street.

Thanks to Chris, Rob, Ken & John www.moderngreen.com

Denise Nestor chose Daniel Eatock (2010)

“I’m interested in circular logic – projects where it’s difficult to find the beginning or the end, something that’s complete.”

The piece is an animated sequence of drawings of a bird taking flight, then falling, dying and taking flight again. It moves in a constant, looping, circular motion making it difficult to tell where it begins or ends. On a basic level it’s about the circle of life but it’s also about exploring circular form and movement. The piece was also inspired by Daniel Eatock’s circle drawings.

Thanks to John Mahon at The Bernard Shaw and Hazel Coonagh for photographing the piece. denisenestorillustration.com treesforthewoods.blogspot.com

Fatti Burke chose David Shrigley (2009) Shrigley was discussing how his fans often ask him for sketches to be used as tattoos, but remarked that “sometimes, things can be taken too far”. As a lover of all things inky, I saw this as an opportunity to go too far and get this piece of advice permanently engraved on my arm. It’s good to remember that the simplest solution is often the best, and to save going overboard for a special occasion.

Credit where it’s due to my wonderful tattoo artist Paul Aherne of Spilled Ink for humouring me and doing such a brilliant job as always. Thanks to the lovely Eoin Holland for photography.

And thanks in advance to David Shrigley for not committing any heinous crimes that will make me regret having your name on me. www.fattiburke.com

Pamela Quinn chose Linda Brownlee (2010)

“What you leave in and what you leave out.”

During her OFFSET talk in 2010 Linda Brownlee spoke about the importance of being selective as a photographer – choosing how a photograph is framed to include some objects and omit others, selecting some pictures from a shoot to show, and holding others back. Linda also spoke about the importance of creating ‘space’ within her portrait work and using this space to frame her subjects. As a textile designer, I was drawn to all of these ideas as the use of space, particularly negative space, is hugely important in textile design. Sometimes, deleting parts of pattern to create more negative space within the design often results in a more balanced and successful print. In order to illustrate the idea, I created an animated pattern using sections of Linda’s work juxtaposed with a positive/negative damask pattern which gradually fills the screen through a series of blocks.

Thanks to Linda Brownlee, Alan Butler and Stewart Lambert. www.quinnconfrey.com

Philip Evans chose Kyle Cooper (2012)

“The more you give away, the more you get back.�

Instead of enduring bureaucratic headaches, a bunch of friends got together and put their own blood sweat and cash into a DIY skatepark.

Thanks to Rob, John, Steve, Al and everyone who worked on this place. No thanks to the lads who stole all our tools! www.formatperspective.com

Mr & Mrs Stevens chose Friends With You (2012)

“Dive In” & “Wing It” We just love the work of Friends with You. We love the bright, joyful naivety of their awesome inflatables. The simple wonder of their site-specific installations. As we listened to Sam & Tury speak at OFFSET2012, two phrases jumped out: “Dive in” and “wing it”. Made sense to us because, you know, fear is the enemy of creativity. Initially shot down by ‘the man’ at the Office of Public Works, we decided to go guerrilla on its ass… So, armed with our own lilliputian flotilla of not-particularly-awesome inflatables, we quite literally took it to the bridge and hoodwinked a couple of gullible art-types to document the fun.

It’s our little tribute to the joys of flying by the seat of your pants, a buoyancy aid for the age we live in. Be not afraid.

Photographed by Tristan Hutchinson. Filmed by Paul Mahon. www.mrandmrsstevens.ie

Peter O’Dwyer chose Steve ‘Espo’ Powers (2010) Recounting a story about two guys he knew in New York who had said they’d smoked a million dollars worth of drugs, Steve wondered what it would be like to actually say, “let’s go smoke a million dollars”. The quote was incorporated into one of his paintings. My take on it is acrylic, transfered on to this old fire extinguisher that I found in my basement.

Thanks to The Little Green for letting me install it. www.iloveOFFSET.com

Alan Clarke chose, em... ‘Alan Clarke’ (2010)

Dear Offset, Thank you most kindly for your invitation to take part in this magnificent Offset Creative Project. Your threat to, “visit one-thousand unmentionable horrors upon my house,” if I declined to submit, was entirely unnecessary; I am delighted to take part.

As per your suggestion, I reviewed the presentations made by many of Offsets wonderful past-speakers, with a mind to finding a quote to use as a starting point for a my piece. During this process, I decided on a whim to view my own presentation, which I had allegedly made during Offset 2010. Imagine my horror and bewilderment – imagine it! – when I discovered that my presentation had not , in fact, been delivered by me at all. Although I have my suspicions, I cannot say for certain who the charlatan purporting to be me actually was.

Despite the fact that the sinister imposter said little of interest and his delivery was amateurish and buffoon-like, here and there, amongst the clap-trap and quasi-philosophical carnage, were sprinkled a few unexpected nuggetoids of semi-precious wisdom.

“God cannot see through pasta,” pronounced the rascal.

“One must not leave appliances plugged in at night, electricity might leak out and stain the carpet,” he advised, the shuffler.

“Darkness is merely bruised light,” he opined.

However, it was the following morsel that really piqued my interest: “Wise men learn by ham, fools by broccoli.”

So, with this insight echoing in my hindbrain, I decided to quote ‘myself’, whoever he was! I therefore retired to my atelier to create an image that might do justice to that scrap of delicate lucidity.

Regrettably, I have not been able to include any photos of the work in progress.

My atelier is located in a tree, and unfortunately there is insufficient space for a photographer. My atelier wasn’t always in a tree of course; that would be foolish.

However, when I originally chose its location, I failed to notice a small sapling growing underneath my desk. Then suddenly, over the next sixty years, it grew into a majestic, adult oak, marooning my atelier in the lofty vault of its boughs. When required, I myself am transmitted to the upper portions of the tree by marching ants. I have not trained them, they go that way anyway.

Other solid items such as paints, paper, brushes, etc., are also thus ferried aloft.

Liquid provisions, such as inks and gin, are poured on the ground around the base of the tree and transported upwards by capillary action in the tree’s xylem.

I hope you like my picture, I lost most of the third finger on my left hand during its production, leaving me with only seven.

Yours sincerely, Alan Clarke 

www.mralanclarke.com

Havas Worldwide Dublin chose Wooster Collective (2010) The quote we picked is in reference to Wooster Collective talking about the Billboard Liberation Front, whose manifesto states: “Our ultimate goal is nothing short of a personal and singular billboard for each citizen.”

This interpretation of the quote was programmed onto an LED road safety sign. For the installation, we drove the sign around Dublin all night, finally stopping to display it outside the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre. www.havasww.ie

“The thing for me is that I’m not really hindered by craft…”

David Shrigley

Aiden Grennelle chose David Shrigley (2009) I drew my inspiration from a comment

“The thing for me is that I’m not really of his Offset talk. He stood beneath an image of a veryby crudely made set of salt hindered craft.”

David Shrigley made at the very start

and pepper cellars, bearing the words

I drew my inspiration from a comment

“cocaine & heroin”.

David Shrigley made at the very start

of his OFFSET talk. He stood beneath

an image of achuckling very crudely-made set And after the had subsided

of salt and pepper cellars, bearing the

he said:“cocaine” “the thingand for “heroin”. me is that I’m not words really hindered by craft…”

And after the chuckling in the audience had subsided he said: I“the have always feltisprofessionally obliged thing for me that I’m not really to rene my to my utmost ability. hindered by craft craft…”

Using work by revered craftsmen as

I have always felt professionally

benchmarks.

Butmy recently I’ve obliged to refine craft to mybecome fascinated withusing 3D printing. still utmost ability, work byIt’s revered

craftsmen very muchas in benchmarks. it’s infancy but it’s an

But recently I’ve become fascinated

amazing production toolvery to be able to with 3D printing.

It’s still much

experiment All an myamazing results are a little in its infancywith. but it’s

production tool toI be “amateurish” but likeable theirtocharm. The experiment with. All my results are a

resulting 3D pieces like rough little amateurish but look I like more their charm. sketches than3D products.

The resulting pieces look more like

rough sketches than products.

II wondered to take take wondered ifif itit was was possible possible to

David’s hilarious salt and pepper cellars,

cellars, transpose to Dublin, transpose them tothem Dublin, replacing his replacing his signature handiwork with

signature withlandmarks, 3D printed 3D printedhandiwork architectural

architectural and still tightly tightly-kernedlandmarks Helvetica and retain

the humour.

Whatand do still you retain think? the I kerned Helvetica think they’re pretty funny. I’d love to

humour. do you think? ISt. think see themWhat in Reads of Nassau or

they’re funny,I think I’d love to see them Carroll’spretty Irish gifts. they’d make

nice ovenofgloves too.St or Carroll’s Irish in Reads Nassau gifts.

I think by they’d make nice oven 3D Models 3D Dave gloves too.

3ddave.blogspot.ie

www.imagenow.ie

Aiden Grennelle inspired by David Shrigley

3D Models by 3D Dave 3ddave.blogspot.ie

Hazel Coonagh chose Chip Kidd (2009) Chip Kidd spoke at the very first OFFSET and it has remained one of my favourite talks over the past four years of the conference.

I loved his attitude and the humour he has towards his work. For some reason this one line always stayed with me. Chip used it very effectively and flippantly over the course of his talk, so I wanted to do something lighthearted to match the humour of the quote.

I made a trip to Talbot Street to pick up some fetching red footwear and roped my unsuspecting father into modelling them for me.

Thanks Da! www.hazelcoonagh.com

OFFSET SCHE FRIDAY

10AM

SATURDAY

NOON

1PM

MAIN STAGE SECOND ROOM BEN BOS

10AM

JONATHAN McHUGH

SARAH ILLENBERGER

IAIN TAIT

ROUTES INTO...

DESIGN WITH SEÁN MONGEY

NIAMH SHARKEY IN CONVERSATION WITH CALEF BROWN

LOUISE FILI IN CONVERSATION WITH ADRIAN SHAUGHNESSY

IN ASSOCIATION WITH DESIGN, PRINT & PACKAGING SKILLNET

IN ASSOCIATION WITH CHILDREN’S BOOK IRELAND

11AM

NOON

HVASS & HANNIBAL

THE STONE TWINS

JI LEE

ROUTES INTO...

ILLUSTRATION WITH BEN NEWMAN

OLIVIERO TOSCANI IN CONVERSATION WITH STEVE HELLER

VAUGHAN OLIVER IN CONVERSATION WITH ADRIAN SHAUGHNESSY

IN ASSOCIATION WITH DESIGN, PRINT & PACKAGING SKILLNET

IN ASSOCIATION WITH ICAD

IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE 100 DESIGN ARCHIVE

11AM

NOON

1PM

MAIN STAGE SECOND ROOM CRAIG & KARL

LUN

1PM

MAIN STAGE SECOND ROOM NIAMH SHARKEY

10AM

SUNDAY

11AM

EOGHAN KIDNEY

CHRIS SILAS NEAL

GAVIN O’SULLIVAN (DDFH&B)

ROUTES INTO...

PHOTOGRAPHY WITH PHILIP WHITE

PIVOT PRESENTS POP UP CITY

WWW.POPUPCITY.NET

OLIVER JEFFERS IN CONVERSATION

IN ASSOCIATION WITH DESIGN, PRINT & PACKAGING SKILLNET

IN ASSOCIATION WITH PIVOT DUBLIN

IN ASSOCIATION WITH ILLUSTRATORS IRELAND

LUN

LUN

E D U L E 2 013 6PM

MAIN STAGE SECOND ROOM BOB GILL

NATASHA JEN (PENTAGRAM NYC)

FAILE

FAILE & JI LEE IN CONVERSATION

BEN BOS IN CONVERSATION WITH CONOR CLARKE

BOB GILL IN CONVERSATION WITH STEVE HELLER

OLIVIERO TOSCANI

IN ASSOCIATION WITH ILLUSTRATORS IRELAND

3PM

4PM

5PM

6PM

MAIN STAGE SECOND ROOM BEN FENDER & IMOGEN HAMMOND (DRIVE PRODUCTIONS)

LOUISE FILI

VAUGHAN OLIVER

IAIN TAIT, DDFH&B & DRIVE PRODUCTIONS IN CONVERSATION

LE COOL DUBLIN PRESENTS PANICDOTES

TRUE STORIES OF IMPENDING DEADLINES, DEADBEAT CLIENTS AND HUMAN ERROR.

NATASHA JEN IN CONVERSATION WITH SCOTT BURNETT

IN ASSOCIATION WITH ICAD

IN ASSOCIATION WITH LE COOL

IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE 100 DESIGN ARCHIVE

3PM

4PM

5PM

JR

6PM

MAIN STAGE SECOND ROOM BEN NEWMAN

KATE MOROSS

CALEF BROWN

THE 100 DESIGN ARCHIVE PRESENT ‘IRL > INTL’ IS THERE SUCH A THING AS AN IRISH VOICE IN DESIGN?

ELLEN WEINSTEIN, ROD HUNT, STEVE SIMPSON & JONATHAN McHUGH IN CONVERSATION

ADRIAN SHAUGHNESSY PRESENTS THE WORK OF HERB LUBALIN

IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE 100 DESIGN ARCHIVE

IN ASSOCIATION WITH ILLUSTRATORS IRELAND

IN ASSOCIATION WITH UNIT EDITIONS

CIARÁN ÓGAORA (ZERO-G)

SUNDAY

NCH

5PM

SATURDAY

NCH

4PM

FRIDAY

NCH

3PM

Ben Bos— Man of Ideas In conversation with Conor Clarke (Design Factory) for OFFSET2013

CC Ben, fantastic that you are coming to Dublin.

Is this your first visit?

BB No, I’ve been to Dublin before. But strangely, I have the feeling that I’ve been there twice before. There is one occasion I can remember very well, the ICSID Conference in 1978. I do remember heading out for a jog from my hotel (long distance running became an obsession when I started training for my Himalayan adventure). Also, during our stay a few of the Dutch delegates were invited to our Ambassador’s residence for a reception and I remember the security was very high because of The Troubles with the IRA. I also went to Kilkenny, which had a lot of design activity at that time.

CC As a backdrop to our conversation we will have some visual cues and I thought I would start with this iconic photograph from 1963.

This image was such an inspiration for us when we were setting up our own design group back in the early 80s. You all look very ‘cool’ and very serious about the great adventure you are about to undertake. Can you remember what you were thinking when this photograph was taken? You look so deep in thought?

CC That was a bit before my time as a designer, but we did meet ten years ago in Amsterdam.

I’m looking forward to our renewed contact and I’m about to read Design of a Lifetime for the second time – one of my favourite books.

BB Of course, I remember meeting you with Andrew Fallon and your Irish friends at the launch of Oranje & Green back in 2002 – I found your photo in the book, very helpful for jogging the memory of a man with an overloaded hard disc in his head! By the way, handle your copy of Design of a Lifetime with care. The English version is now offered on Amazon for $550, so in a few years time it might restore your pension!

CC I live in hope!

Are you looking forward to OFFSET? BB Very much. My main message will be that graphic design is more than a profession – that it is a way of life, always on your mind, like a great love.

BB Conor, at my age the art of remembering is certainly not at its best. So the answer is short and sweet: NO! About a year ago a colleague of mine was writing about my former teachers at the IvKNO (the predecessor of the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam) and asking me about what projects Charles Jongejans, our principal tutor in typography, had given us? My reply was, “Dear Jan, that was 56 years ago, I just have NO IDEA!”.  But to be fair, I do have some clear memories of that time. The photo was taken in my own room. The Herengracht building was under total refurbishment, it was one of the most severe winters of the century. Every time I look at the picture my eye is drawn to the attitude of Benno

Wissing – he looks very animated and alert, about to spring up with an idea or suggestion.

At that stage I had been working with Ahrend for nine years – starting out as their copywriter, taking evening classes at the Amsterdam Graphic College (graduating in layout after one year with honours), followed by five years attending IvKNO evening classes, four or five days a week (also graduating with honours). I was also running a small design practice of my own at the same time, and developing my position at Ahrend as the ‘man of ideas’. This approach ensured I became art director there eventually.

At the time that photo was taken, I had the feeling that my ‘practical’ experience as a designer had been virtually non-existent.

So there I sat, surrounded by the already famous Wim Crouwel, Benno Wissing and Friso Kramer, our ‘Senior Designers’. Painfully aware of my humble achievements, I allowed myself the title of ‘Junior Designer’, emphasising the big gap between the ‘Senior Designers’ and myself.

I was given the responsibility of supervising the studio staff.

So what I might have been thinking when that photo was taken (in February 1963, I think) was: “LISTEN, ABSORB, NOTE, LEARN” and “TRY TO RAISE YOUR OWN STANDARDS AS FAST AS POSSIBLE... YOU CAN DO IT!” Overall, my output had been very limited at that time and I was not too sure that I could cope with the expectations of the Senior Designers.

Was I stretching too far? What heights could I reach? Later I realised that ‘Junior’ was indeed a bit unwise – the title ‘Designer’ would have made things easier for me. I had probably settled for ‘Junior’ because of my great respect for the other guys.

-------------------------------BEN BOS GRAPHIC DESIGNER NETHERLANDS -------------------------------FRIDAY 10AM -------------------------------www.a-g-i.org/member-work/profile/62 --------------------------------

CC It was very modest of you to describe yourself as a ‘Junior Designer’. And yet Wim Crouwel was only two or three years older than you at that time. You were a great admirer of Wim. Do you think he helped to shape you as a designer?

BB Yes, although he was only about 640 days older, he really did have a great influence on me at that time. Wim had achieved a lot more than I had in only a couple of years and he was by far the most innovative designer among the small group of ‘real’ graphic designers working in Amsterdam back then.

At the IvKNO, Wim was my absolute design hero. From time-to-time he gave me commissions for texts, illustrations, layout jobs and work he was not too interested in doing himself. My dream was to make some ‘Crouwel’ style work and eventually I made a poster that I was happy with. From then on I knew I was on the right track.

CC Your logo for the Randstad Uitzendbureau was created around the same time Wim was experimenting with the New Alphabet, a font based on the limitations of the computer screen.

Was this perhaps an influence on the Randstad ‘r’ symbol?

BB Many people share this feeling with you, but the Randstad ‘r’ is just another sans serif letter – the great difference with the ‘New’ version was that I used circular elements to make it more refined, far less academic and basic. And of course, I mirrored it to create the symbol, which is more human, like arms reaching out. I added an emotional element to the design. The circular parts were chosen because I also wanted to address the very high percentage of female temporaries in those early days of employment services.

Over the years, I came to the conclusion that the great difference between Wim’s approach and my own was that I considered ‘emotion’ as a real and valuable aspect of the functionalist philosophy we shared. It took a long time before I realised that my approach was different, but no less valuable.

CC It must give you great satisfaction to see a logo you designed in 1967 still in use today?

BB Well yes, but I have no contact with Randstad HQ and its communication department anymore. In 2010 that organisation (then called Uitzendbureau Amstelveen) celebrated its 50th birthday. They asked me to design a special logo and for the first time in my life they rejected my proposals. Not just one, but five of them! After the last refusal the communication manager told me that he would have a go himself, assisted by his daughter – never a good idea. They then invited a small group to make a book on the history of Randstad. I was interviewed by the author over two days, gave them a rich collection of slides, and travelled to the studio several times to advise them on the design.

Curiously, I never got a copy of the book.

But later I understood why. I myself had a special celebration on the occasion of my 80th birthday, that same year. My wife Elly had secretly organised a big event in Amsterdam – lots of guests and speakers (including a former Randstad communication director), films, a projection of my work on three huge screens and finally a presentation of the book Ben Bos 80, From Our Reporter which included 12 stories I had written over the years about special ‘adventures’ with my clients. Two stories were about Randstad and one in particular about their American CEO. The story was humorous, but also honest and revealing. My feeling is that they were not amused. So we lost contact after 44-years...

CC Many would say that you were the ‘unsung hero’ of Total Design, but your star has risen in recent years, especially with the publication of Design of a Lifetime. But perhaps Benno Wissing was even more of an ‘unsung hero’ and less wellknown outside of the Netherlands. How do you rate him and his work when you look back now?

BB Early in my time at Total Design I started working a lot for Benno – he was a great teacher. In many ways I learned more from him than I did from Wim at the academy.

Benno was very generous and was open to sharing his knowledge and skills. He was a great designer and became famous of course for his signage system at Schiphol Airport.

Benno’s warm personality made him initially a valued colleague and eventually a true friend.

I remember in 1968 he was quite moved by the Paris student protests – he had a rebellious spirit, which unfortunately coincided with his midlife-crisis. He had a lot of personal difficulties at that time, and we drifted apart. Benno left TD finally in 1972 – this was a great disappointment for Wim who regarded Benno as his only true peer. Benno started his own small design group, remarried and ended up as Professor at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in the US. Sadly, a few years later he had a stroke and was paralysed. Happily in 1991, I was invited by the RISD to make a presentation and workshop and as a result Benno and I were reunited and renewed our friendship. After that we remained close and we visited him every year until he passed away in 2008.

I wrote two small publications on Benno Wissing. One on the occasion of his Honorary Membership of the BNO, in 1992. I also made an exhibition of his work in the ‘new wing’ of the Stedelijk Museum. I wrote another article on him for a series called ROOTS which is produced by the designer Robert van Rixtel from Eindhoven.

The issue on Wissing came out in 2002 – Elly and I also made a short film for the presentation of that ‘cahier’.

Looking back, yes I believe Benno was a truly great designer. His clients were very diverse, and in many ways, I think the challenges he faced – which many would say were less glamorous than Wim’s work in the cultural sector – marked him out as a highly-creative, versatile and innovative designer. The results of his work in identity design, signage for airports and hospitals, retail design and of course his work for the Holland Festival stand up to scrutiny even today. He was simply with Total Design for too short a time to reach the level of fame he truly deserved.

CC You are best known for your identity projects with Randstad and Ahrend. However, one of my personal favourites is the identity you made for Furness (Logistics & Distribution). In recent years, there has been a lot of talk in design circles about ‘modular’ or ‘dynamic’ identities, but surely this was one of the first examples? Can you tell me a little bit about the thinking behind that project?

BB Yes, of course.

A personal favourite of mine also.

Furness, HQ based in Rotterdam, was a multifaceted holding company. When we started to work for them back in 1968, all their business was related to maritime activities. They owned extensive quays, harbour and warehouse facilities in Rotterdam and Antwerp. They had a small fleet of sea-ships for the transport of liquid gas and were in the business of loading and unloading ships – they also had domestic and international road transport. Very soon they added activities in insurance, computer services, real estate and expanded into car and van dealerships. Many of their original activities were born through by mergers and acquisitions. So what they wanted from me was a ‘mother-logo’ for the holding company itself, as well as ‘related logos’ for the subsidiaries.

I was attending the 1968 Icograda meeting in Eindhoven. On the first morning, during an interval, I drew one ‘maritime’ flag and added another one on its ‘tail’ and went on for a while.

I was almost convinced that I could form a whole circle that way – the circle of a holding company, ‘embracing’ the diverse divisions of the group.

Colour for the holding company? Sea-green.

That’s it, the concept for Furness was there!

An hour later, there was an announcement –Russian tanks had invaded Prague to crush the Czechoslovakian uprising. There was great emotion. My colleague Stanislav Kovàr and his young daughter Zuzana were devastated and had to return home immediately.

The Furness concept was accepted very shortly after that and I developed it with my assistant Wim van der Weerd, who eventually made the design guidelines manual. All divisions were colour coded and had their own specific logo. We applied the identity to all equipment, buildings, ships, vehicles and printed material – designing the internal and external magazines and annual reports for two decades. The project was celebrated and featured in a prestigious Japanese book on identity with 12 pages showing the variety of applications.

Our fee for the circle logo was 18,000 Guilders, the most expensive logo I had made to date and a record amount for those days! They were a very good client and were willing to accept advice. They were influenced a lot by us, especially in their personal behaviour – for instance their dress code became less formal, more like designers...

And every year, when I completed the design of their report (which I did in their office, as the figures were confidential), when the last page was signed-off, we went to Holland’s best fishmonger restaurant next door, and had a marvellous dinner with the finest, fried sole.

CC Although your work for Ahrend is welldocumented and celebrated, curiously most of your work for them was before and after TD. I am interested in why Ahrend regarded you as their ‘man of ideas’ and I am also interested in your own little design studio FORMatie2, also formed a time during which you were busy working on projects for Ahrend.

BB When I joined Ahrend, I worked initially as a copywriter but soon developed new and innovative concepts for their publicity material.

We produced a magazine for their clients and I came up with ideas, a new kind of prose and concepts. We won several national publicity awards for it.

Soon after this success, my boss, the head of publicity, went to the board with a plan to exploit our creative reputation by turning us into a profit centre. He then invited a colleague of mine from Ahrend Hilversum to become the art director of our creative group. He wanted me to contribute to their work for external clients. I was angry about the situation and I let him know about it in no uncertain terms.

We didn’t speak one word more than necessary for a whole year. Happily in that year, the founders of Total Design approached me to join them so I could announce my departure. A few years later, Ahrend developed a very innovative new approach to office furniture design called Mehes, a distinctive furniture system which is still going strong today. So my former boss at Ahrend agreed a ‘peace deal’ in order to be able to give me the commission for the promotion of all new office products but now under my Total Design umbrella.

When I left Total Design in 1991, Ahrend organised a three-way pitch between Total Design, BRS and 2D3D, where I had gone to work. We won that pitch and it was the beginning of a new relationship. At the end 1993 I left 2D3D to make my hands free for Randstad USA and Ahrend. With my wife I founded a small studio which we called FORMatie2 and from there I continued to work for Ahrend until 2004, 50 years after my first contract. I then organised and designed a small furniture museum (Ahrend Mobilium) at their flagship store in Amsterdam.

CC Ben, we’ll finish our conversation there and thank you for being so open and honest. You have given us great insights into the history and workings of life at Total Design, a studio in which you were a vital player for 30 years, and that was arguably the most iconic European design group of the 20th Century. More importantly, it has been a privilege to learn more about your life and experiences as a designer.

I hope you enjoy your time in Dublin and especially at OFFSET.

McHugh started out as a scenic artist – whacking up great big murals on construction sites across Europe – before packing it in and deciding become a internationally recognised illustrator instead.

Fair enough, right? His work has featured in 3×3 and he’s picked up all sorts of awards for his editorial work including: Gold at Association of Illustrators Images34; Gold at the SAA Illustration Awards London; European Newspaper Award for editorial illustration; and a BMX, won in a drawing competition, aged 11.

His most recent projects include weekly op-ed illustrations for the Financial Times, large-scale sitespecific mural illustrations for the Titanic Belfast building and artwork for billboards and animated TV ads.

Tell us about those murals in Berlin?

So no pressure then?

After art college, while I was in that tricky limbo stage of waiting for my life to start, I took a job as a scenic artist on a Warner Bros. theme park near Düsseldorf, working with Bugs and Daffy and Porky Pig. Not exactly as achingly cool as your ‘murals in Berlin’ line suggests, but it was an amazing time!

You have to tap into the topic very quickly.

I find it best to approach the text with the unfettered eye of an intuitive idiot – that, and try not to think about the clock too much…

I was plonked onto a building site in the middle of a German forest miles from anywhere, living and working on the site with a bunch of joiners, welders, bricklayers and about 50 other recent art graduates who were there for the same reason I was – i.e. to make a bit of money, and then go back to our lives again.

‘Deferred gratification’ we called it – doing something you don’t like doing, in order to fund something that you do. A lot of other really talented illustrators, photographers, sculptors, painters and designers from all over Europe were living together in a prefab camp on a building site in Germany, so it was a bit bonkers. We were working long hours mural painting, sculpting and scenic painting in temperatures as low as minus 15.

I even got trench foot at one point. It was character-building stuff, I learned a lot and it gave me a thick skin – I couldn’t do what I’m doing now if it hadn’t been for that experience.

Trench foot isn’t contagious, is it?

You do a lot of work for the Financial Times. We’re assuming that means lots of last-minute deadlines, coming up with ideas, and executing them quickly. What’s that process like?

Terrifying. There’s a common recurring dream that I hear people have, in which they are back in school taking an exam that they have done no revision for, and they wake up sweating and in a blind panic – I’ve never had that dream, but doing the FT illustrations on a Friday afternoon is a bit like that for real.

Every week, I get a brief at lunchtime (or later) for a 5:30pm deadline and have a few manic hours to do a piece on a subject that I have no prior knowledge of, that I can’t do any prep for, and whatever visual I come up with will be on the internet in a few hours.

And then in the finest national broadsheet newspaper within 12 hours.

At the moment, given the state of the world, there must be a lot of call for disaster related images for the FT. Is it tough coming up with more ways to portray global financial catastrophe? (In other words, how do you stay creative?)

There are a few pieces on that theme but you do get a surprising range of topics to tackle – they always have an interesting angle so it’s not usually a problem. The articles are pretty meaty stuff, there’s plenty to dig your teeth into. To have such great copy to work with every week is amazing. The FT op-ed pieces are usually written by some real heavy-hitters – cabinet ministers, respected historians, Booker Prize-winning authors, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, etc, so being creative isn’t really a problem when you’re working with such well-written copy.

I usually have about half-a-dozen initial ideas for each piece but have to discount a lot of them due to the ridiculously tight deadline and the fact that they would not be physically possible to finish in the time available.

You do a lot of paintings that have a very different feel to your editorial work. Does your approach change for personal projects?

I used to work in that style for commercial projects a long time ago, but got frustrated at having to speed through them to meet deadlines. So I started doing some for fun so that I could take my time and just enjoy the craft of painting. People seemed to like them and I got asked to do more.

I still get emails and phone calls enquiring about them, although I don’t get much time for such indulgence at the minute.

For me it was an attempt to forget about deadlines and just lose myself in painting for a bit – nothing more than that, really.

They are a little pastoral retreat that I can disappear off to if I want to chill out! I think that part of the fun in studying and creating artwork is to try to recapture a feeling you had as a child when you looked at everything fresh for the first time, with no baggage or associations, and were just excited by simple things – colours and shapes and little details.

There’s a little bit of that in those wee paintings for me.

Whatever I come up with, the most important thing is meeting the deadline. There’s a blank space on that page that I need to fill and the presses are waiting. It’s an interesting discipline, to say the least.

We read in your bio that you live in a windmill. Is that true, and is it difficult to find furniture for rooms with curved walls?

I’ve moved out now but until a few months ago I did live in the vicinity of a windmill, in a cottage attached to one. I say cottage, but it was probably originally one of the outbuildings where they kept pigs or something. The windmill doesn’t have any sails anymore though, so it’s more of a truncated cone these days.

It’s on top of a hill overlooking Belfast Lough, and at night I could see three lighthouses from the window of my studio.

-------------------------------JONATHAN MCHUGH ILLUSTRATION NORTHERN IRELAND -------------------------------FRIDAY 11AM -------------------------------www.beepencil.com --------------------------------

-------------------------------SARAH ILLENBERGER DESIGN / ILLUSTRATION / ART GERMANY -------------------------------FRIDAY 12PM -------------------------------www.sarahillenberger.com --------------------------------

-------------------------------SARAH ILLENBERGER DESIGN/ILLUSTRATION/ART GER -------------------------------FRIDAY 12PM -------------------------------www.sarahillenberger.com --------------------------------

Illenberger takes all these things, and makes other things out of them, and then photographs the thing she’s just made. And then you look at it and it’s like, the most wonderful thing that you’ve ever seen and you’re kinda asking, ‘is that digital? Is that photoshopped?’

And then you figure out, wow, no, that’s like a thing she’s made!

And it’s wonderful and quirky and tangible and real and just the most perfect thing you’ve ever seen, really. With work that’s this so individual, who better to describe it than then the artist herself…

“I

describe myself as an illustrator. I make three-dimensional things but I also photograph or style and build sets for photo shoots.

I’m a visual communicator.”

“Building and making – the whole physical action – plays a major role in my work. But the most satisfying part is when it’s photographed and it works as an image. Usually afterwards, I throw the objects away because the photograph is the final piece of work.”

“I always feel constrained or limited on the computer, when I only have the toolboxes on the right and the cursor on the left and only this little field in the centre where I can express myself.

I somehow need 360 degrees, and all the colours and materials around me to create something.”

“One of my main targets is to communicate humour or to uplift people. A spontaneous reaction of making people smile.”

“Commercial clients ask me to present their product, and as part of my approach I ask ‘what does this product remind me of or what does it resemble?’ I find what visual language is behind it and try to create a world around it and present the product inside this world.”

“I like to collaborate with specialists in other fields in order to create bigger or more extensive projects. Berlin is a great city because there’s so many specialists here. You just have to find them and convince them of the idea. This kind of collaboration is very fulfilling.”

-------------------------------IAIN TAIT DIGITAL INTERACTION UK -------------------------------FRIDAY 1PM -------------------------------www.plus.google.com/+IainTait --------------------------------

“The idea was that you would submit a photograph online and we would ‘Warholise’ it and then put it up on the front of the Tate website and you get your 15 minutes of fame. What was interesting in that was, not that we took photographs and made them look like a Warhol painting, but the fact that we did it with almost no technology” The campaign was for the Tate Modern and the year was 2002.

Poke London was rising from the ruins of several Nathan Barley-esque startups and Iain Tait, who had founded the new agency along with Nick Roope and others, was intuitively exploring what internet advertising could become.

“We investigated building a machine to make the Warhol prints automatically but we didn’t have the skills, or the budget, or both, so we ended up doing them by hand. We got lots of entries so we only Warholised the ones with the most interesting images. Actually, this problem of scarcity worked because people knew that they had to submit better pictures if they wanted a chance to get a Warholised version of themselves. I still look back on that fondly as a ‘hacky’ solution to a problem.”

“Other agencies were saying, ‘We make advertising. Now, how do we make advertising online?’ Instead, we were web nerds, thinking about what the web and networks represented and asking, ‘how can we use that to get people to be more interested in mobile phone tariffs?’”

In the ten years since that project, Tait’s career has taken him from London to the US, including a stint at Weiden-Kennedy in Portland, and finally to New York and a role as Executive Creative Director at Google Creative Lab. But throughout it all, his core insight hasn’t changed.

That’s the defining thing about Tait’s work – the ability to take a good idea and find a way to affect a deeper connection with an

“It’s about connecting people with people. At times, technology can feel really transactional, the feeling that ‘I’m dealing with a computer here,’ rather than dealing with a person. Digital marketing works best when there’s the realisation that at the end of the network there’s another human being. There’s a need for human connection no matter how much it gets abstracted by the technology.”

audience. Which is exactly what he did at WiedenKennedy with the Old Spice Guy. He took an incredibly well-loved icon from a TV ad campaign, who would be normally completely inaccessible and impenetrable, and brought him to life.

If it sounds strange that someone who has spent his career in advertising is speaking in terms of ‘connectivity and technology’, rather than ‘target markets and brands’, than you’re starting to get where Iain’s coming from.

“In Poke, we all ended up doing advertising by mistake. None of us came from advertising backgrounds. We were all, first and foremost, interested in technology and people using technology. We were interested in how technology was changing the world.

“It just so happened that at that time in the early 00s, advertisers and the advertising industry were just starting to see that the web might be an interesting way to get brands in front of people, so there was money and creative opportunity. And that’s why a lot of artistic people get drawn in to advertising. It’s a great place to have someone else fund the research and development into your art – and you only have to compromise some of the time.

Perhaps that’s why Poke’s work – using GPS positioning on a bull in a field as an online contest mechanic, or having a balloon race across the web – seemed so different to what was coming out of other agencies at the time.

The ad – you remember it, right? – had already proved a smash hit for the brand and they were looking for new ways to extend it.

“I was incredibly fortunate to walk into that as a piece of work. Here was this amazing character that everyone loved, holding a product and talking directly to camera – which is a really rare thing – and people were thinking, ‘this guy, that just tried to sell me body wash, I would like to engage with him more’.

“It was a straightforward thing for me to say, ‘you should make him talk to people, because I think they’d really like that’. My role in that was unskilled but it was coming from thinking about networks and connections rather than wondering how would advertising treat this thing. That coming together of those two worlds was a successful moment.”

Calling it a “successful moment”, is doing the campaign a disservice. Over a few days, the Old Spice guy, Isaiah Mustafa, responded to tweets and comments from the internet at large in his own inimitable style.

And everyone went nuts. Reddit was flooded by Old Spice related links, celebrities such as Alyssa Milano and Rose McGowan tweeted questions and posted videos responses, which all combined for tens-of-thousands of new Twitter followers for the brand, hundreds-of-thousands of YouTube views, and a moment of shared connectivity around the globe.

Tait’s idea got people to love an online experience so much that those good feelings transferred to the brand by osmosis.

And that’s what he’s now bringing to Google Creative Lab. “Five or six years ago there was no advertising at Google. Creative Lab was charged with developing the first advertising content. Now there’s a mature and well set-up marketing team, so it doesn’t need Creative Lab to make ads anymore. That means we’re able to start playing around with other ways of communicating what Google does, and how we can get people to love the things that Google does, in new and interesting ways.

“And some of that is making communication-like products, and figuring out what happens if you inject storytelling into product design.

“That’s where having this interesting, little creative-arts annex to Google is like the flip of what’s happening in a lot of creative agencies where they say ‘lets put a bunch of engineers in there and see how they can infect the culture’. Here it’s the other way around.

“It’s been fascinating to have been on both sides of that for the last few years.”

------------------------------BOB GILL ILLUSTRATOR / DESIGNER USA ------------------------------FRIDAY 3PM ------------------------------www.bobgilletc.com -------------------------------

My Bob Gill Moment

by Annie West

I had my first Bob Gill Moment when I was 21. I had just started studying graphic design in Dun Laoghaire Art School (now IADT).

I was having a tough time though, having abandoned forever any hope of becoming an arty artist. Too mucky.

I switched to the rather more sterile, obsessive compulsive environment of ‘upstairs in graphics’ and was immediately swamped with a torrent of rules about what you could and could not do; what was allowed but more so what wasn’t.

Rules? Why so many rules?

I wasn’t a huge fan of rules and as a result found myself, more frequently than everyone else, on the graphic design naughty-step.

I began to wonder if I had made a hideous, awful mistake by changing horses in midstream and leaving Fine Art behind.

There was a small library in the college, full of books about the Old Masters and anatomy and drawing (not my strongest subject).

I spent a lot of time in the library. Not necessarily to read anything but more often to cool off after another bout with my tutor, muttering about b**ing rules and ef**ing what you can do with your stupid rules anyway. And why do I have to? And why should I anyway? And what’s wrong with doing it another way?

It was a fine Spring day. The birds were singing, the clouds scudding across a clearblue sky as I mooched around in the library, fuming, looking for answers. And there, right in front of me, sprang the words: FORGET ALL THE RULES YOU EVER LEARNED ABOUT GRAPHIC DESIGN.

Seizing the volume with both hands, knocking the librarian off her feet, I dived for the reading table. Not another sound was heard that day apart from the turning of pages and the occasional guffaw of laughter.

The book was by Bob Gill. Everything he said and showed in that book, and I do mean everything, made perfect sense to me. I spent the next month boring my fellow students to tears in the canteen with my, ‘a-veil-had-suddenly-been-torn-from-my-eyes-and-I-graspedwhat-graphic-design-was-capable-of-being,’ rant.

As my interest in graphics increased, the number of friends who wanted to spend any time with me rapidly declined.

Some years passed, and the arguing with tutors continued. But I had someone on my side – every time I was reminded of the ‘rules’ I reached under the desk and waved Bob Gill’s book in my tutor’s face, much to the amusement of the assembled students. I ended up, somehow, graduating with a very nice Diploma, a couple of job offers and an award. As I cleared out my area for the last time, I ran down to the library to have one last look at Bob Gill’s book.

I had grown attached to it. And it to me, I felt. I didn’t want to leave it behind. I thought briefly about all the other graphic design students who could, in future, benefit as I had from this amazing book. And then I thought, “sod them,” and shoved it up my jumper.

The irony of this story (for there can’t be a story without a little bit of irony) is that a couple of weeks later someone else stole the book from me. I suppose it’s a mark of how good a book is by the number of times it gets stolen.

I’m in my fifties now. My second Bob Gill Moment happened just last year, coming up to Christmas. My firstborn, Amy, who is stomping about in my metaphorical battered, old shoes studying what they now call Visual Communications in IADT (same as me, pretty much, just a swankier name) says she’d like a book from Santa this Christmas. “What book?” says I. “Have you ever heard of a fella called Bob Gill?” says she.

The air stills. The birds fall silent.

I hear a roaring in my ears.

The air stilled. The birds fell silent.

I heard a roaring in my ears.

INCLUDING THE ONES IN THIS BOOK.

Photograph: Ellius Grace Model: Ellen Egan Both are students in Visual Communications at NCAD

-------------------------------NATASHA JEN (PENTAGRAM NYC) GRAPHIC DESIGNER TAIWAN -------------------------------FRIDAY 4PM -------------------------------www.njenworks.com www.pentagram.com --------------------------------

Define ‘designer’ as you see it at this point and time.

There are professional designers and there are amateurs of various formal and critical levels. Previously the ratio between the two was probably 2:1, and now it’s perhaps 1:10,000.

I just made up these numbers to illustrate a point that with the distribution of digital technology, in the form of tools and knowledge, people’s interest in design has never been this intense. Everybody can design on their touch-screen devices.

The conventional definition of ‘designer’ as we understand it is no longer adequate to describe what constitutes a designer, or who is allowed to design. I still think a designer needs to be formally and critically trained, but when I see people design on their phone and then Tweet it, Instagram it, Facebook it, Pin it, I tend to get a two-second identity crisis. But it is fascinating to see that design can now be a kind of accessible entertainment.

Has this definition changed much since you were in college?

Yes. It has only been merely 11 years since I graduated.

The designer, as I understood it back then, was someone who had to go to school to become one.

Who/what else has served as big influences/inspiration?

I’m gravitated toward works – in art, architecture, fashion, graphic design, music, literature – that have deconstructive, collagist, or hybrid tendencies.

You’ve worked at several impressive studios – baseNYC, 2x4, Stone Yamashita Partners and now at Pentagram.

How important were your experiences in other agencies in helping develop your sensibilities?

When I was a ‘job-seeker’ back in the day, I deliberately pursued the first three offices. I did so because I was interested in either the types of works they did, or the particular world in which they were interested in and operated within. Which means I was prepared to be influenced in certain way. Of course all these experiences had different levels of significance on me. Not so much on my sensibilities, which I think are innate, but on my approaches to a certain degree.

And what do you do to stay inspired?

I have a hard time relating inspiration with ‘doing’. Inspirations are random and accidental. I don’t do anything particular to be inspired or make plans, such as, “I am going to a museum to be inspired this weekend”. Nor do I believe that there are activities that are inspiration-inducing. I can be easily inspired by what I encounter everyday, in a random way... Or I can stay bored for a whole week. That’s just life, isn’t it?

What did each place teach you that you still carry with you?

I prefer not to look at my work/how I work through the lenses of other offices, nor try to articulate their work/methodology on their behalf. I have total respect for them but I just don’t like to keep looking back.

What about Pentagram? Has it had an effect on how you work as yet? Do you think it will?

I’ve only been there for (almost) a year. It’s hard to say. But the greatest thing about Pentagram is that we, the partners, are all autonomous. Each of us has complete liberty to make our own choices, from the way we work, the projects that we’d like to do, to the sizes of our team. There isn’t such thing as a centralized ‘Pentagram Way’. In that light, my experience has been completely free, although it has been really fulfilling to see how my partners work.

I interviewed Paula and Michael at last years OFFSET. When I asked Irish designers what they wanted to hear about, they were very interested in Pentagram and how it worked.

There seems to be almost an obsession amongst designers about Pentagram – why do you think this is?

Pentagram has 40 years of history. From this historical perspective it perhaps has a kind of monumental, untouchable mystique that can be intriguing, but it is still a small-sized practice in comparison to big branding agencies. It has produced a tremendous amount of work, in its breadth and depth, and I don’t think you can find many comparable bodies of work in the field. Many of its partners, past and present, have also made important contributions to the discourse. But they are all completely different designers from one, to the other. There are many seemingly contradictory qualities about Pentagram that can be fascinating.

Paula said last year that Pentagram isn’t for everybody, that some who are approached about partnering say, “no”.

What informed your decision to say, “yes”?

As I mentioned in my previous answer, one important thing about Pentagram is that each partner is autonomous. From a business perspective my team and myself are a ‘startup’, and to do a startup on the Pentagram platform is a rare opportunity.

Having the agility, flexibility, and creative energy of a startup, on top of a well-established, respected, 40 year-old platform is an interesting question to answer.

I didn’t want to say “no” to that.

Your canvas is incredibly varied, from the usual books and logos, to identity systems that change over time, to moving images on buildings. How do you manage to work so fluidly across such diverse projects?

My interests are wide, and I tend to carry them into my professional life. I think being stimulated by different, or even alien things, is important for me.

Do you have a fixed approach/process? Could you outline how it works from first meeting to completion?

I like to open up the ideation and sketch process as wide as possible so every designer’s mind is excavated and potentials are explored. Typically when a project kicks off, everyone on my team works on the assignment. We’d research, draw references, look at precedents, find unrelated but curious models, and critique. Once a couple of convincing arguments emerge, I’d close the ‘imagining’ process and we’d get analytical/interrogative about what’s on the table.

Could you give us an idea of some projects you’re working on?

It’s a mixture of extremes: big and small; artful and industrial; corporate and indie; spatial and flat; self-generated and commissioned. It seems crazy but I’m comfortable with this diverse mixture. We are working on an animation for a global architecture firm. We are working on an exhibition about Pentagram for the Ningbo Art Museum in China. We self-generated the exhibition content, scheme, and titled the exhibition Pentagram: Remixed. From the title you can probably get a sense that it won’t be a typical, boring retrospective exhibition. I am particularly excited about this project because it deconstructs Pentagram in an unexpected way. We are also working on a photo campaign for a well-known fashion designer. We are designing packaging for a luxury brand’s home products. We are working on a way-finding system for a mixed-use site in SuZhou, China. We are going to start an identity project in Thailand. We’re also working on the first book series for StoreFront for Art and Architecture in New York.

How do you think our role as designers will change over the next 20 years?

We are in a service industry and I think there are two types of designers. One is to answer exactly to a client’s requests, and to provide services. Another is to take the client’s needs, reinterpret them and try to create something better than what was initially defined. The first type will still remain, but the role of the latter will become increasingly important because we must think how our work impacts people’s behaviours in a world where culture can be instantly and rapidly distributed.

What are your ambitions?

Are there particular types of work you’d like to do?

Places you’d like to work? Approaches you’d like to try?

I’d like to stay creatively activated and see my work has positive effect not only on the design field but on general public as well.

Do you do any teaching?

What advice would you give to young designers?

No. But I am going to teach in Fall 2013. I don’t have advices to ‘young designers’ because I don’t think I am old enough to speak like a Yoda yet.

Interview by Scott Burnett (Studio AAD) www.studioaad.com

The Lincoln Centre for the Performing Arts is a sprawl of buildings, covering 16 acres in NYC’s Upper West Side. It’s home to the Metropolitan Opera, the New York Philharmonic, the Julliard School and the New York City Ballet. It’s a high-art, high-culture mecca for the city’s well-heeled sophisticates.

And tonight, on a freezing February evening, it’s also home to Les Ballets de FAILE. Standing outside of the NYC Ballet, over five stories tall and almost glowing under the lighting, there is a giant tower, constructed of thousands of individual wooden boxes, screen printed and painted with deconstructed images inspired by the ephemera of the city.

“We ended up on the shortlist and met with Peter Martin, the head of the Ballet. He seemed to take to our work right away. At that point, we had seen the space at Lincoln Centre and had an idea to do a large-scale tower, something we’d been wanting to do for a while.”

This is the first part of a two-stage collaboration between the Ballet and the art collective, FAILE. And it’s an extraordinary work.

“It was one of those things that was really immediate and quick,” says McNeil, “followed by five-months of constant creation and a pretty staggering workload.”

“The company was reviving their art series, where they’d worked with amazing artists over the last 40 or 50 years,” says Patrick Miller one of the two Patricks that make up FAILE – the other being Patrick McNeil.

“At the start of the project,” says Miller taking over the story, “they gave us access to their archives and we spent a couple of days down there going through everything and just kind of taking stock of where they’d been, the kind of things they’d put out there, the printed

ephemera, the costumes, their visual language.

We poured over all of that, which is akin to some of our normal processes – looking back, to make things that speak to today, through a common language that we all can relate to.

“We found some really new and fun things to riff off of and to play with; things that we thought spoke to us and to our generation and that fit with what we were already doing, our more normal imagery, and that became Les Ballets de FAILE.” “The archive was amazing and a great leaping off point,” adds McNeil, “but actually going to the ballet itself expanded our idea of what the creative possibilities could be for the narrative and how abstract we could go.”

Historically, the Art Series collaborations were a way of opening up the ballet to new and younger audiences. This year there is the event in February, with all tickets costing under $30, and a second FAILE collaboration to follow in May. And everyone gets to leave with a little piece of FAILE art: a screen printed two inch wooden cube, an element of much larger pieces of work.

-------------------------------FAILE ARTISTS USA -------------------------------FRIDAY 5PM -------------------------------www.faile.net --------------------------------

Part of a loose street art movement that would grow to prominence over the course of a decade, FAILE’s contemporaries included the likes of Shepard Fairey (OBEY), BAST and WK Interact. The two Patricks were insiders in an increasingly artistically relevant and exciting underground movement that was creating outsider art, usually illegally.

“In the beginning, it really was just about getting out there,” explains Miller, “we were in school at the time we were experimenting with visual language and the power of image and what had meaning to us.”

And FAILE’s approach was different to most of their peers.

“Everything that was around at the time seemed to be very masculine and had this aggressive take to it,” says McNeil.

“We tried to do something that was in contrast to the fight scenes and political propaganda inspired pieces. Our first series of female nudes was a reaction to that.”

“Something softer, more of a classic art theme,” agrees Miller. With their art-school backgrounds, FAILE’s work drew lines directly to the décollage and pop-art movements of the 1960’s. From the outset, they were consciously tried to push what street art could be.

It began with wanting to interact with their environment, to create a dialogue with their generation and with cities they travelled to – and they did a lot of traveling – but there was a constant push to evolve the work into something more resonant.

“We felt like we were reaching a certain saturation point on some level,” says Miller, “and we had to figure out how do we keep evolving. I think that’s what lead to a lot of the projects like the Temple, the arcade shows and the Prayer Wheels.”

Miller tosses out the project names pretty casually, but each one represents a gigantic amount of work and massive public acclaim – particularly the arcade show, Deluxx Fluxx, a collaboration with BAST, which featured old re-furbed video-arcade machines given the FAILE treatment.

“Our work just evolved over that time from us being everywhere and putting up a lot of work, down to focusing on a few really great pieces. Spending a lot of time on fewer things and making them a little bit more meaningful.”

“We’d make something that would lead to the next thing,” says McNeil. “The work we do on the street, gets broken down and gets ripped and juxstaposed against things you don’t expect. And that process informs the work we do in the studio and feeds into the art.

“It’s a great balance in that way.”

“Everything that was around at the time seemed to be very masculine and had an aggressive take to it.

We tried to do something to contrast the fight scenes and pieces inspired by political propaganda.�

-----------------------------OLIVIERO TOSCANI PHOTOGRAPHER / ART DIRECTOR ITALY -----------------------------FRIDAY 6PM -----------------------------www.olivierotoscanistudio.com ------------------------------

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Sometimes careers, rightly or wrongly, are identified by works so extraordinary that other successes seem to pale. Hugely successful brand campaigns for Esprit and Chanel, collaborations with Elle, Vogue and GQ or founding Fabrica, the international centre for arts and modern communication research, might have been crowning achievements in other people’s careers. But then, it was Toscani seared the United Colors of Benetton brand into our collective brains.

With ad campaigns that featured death-row inmates and AIDS patients in blue jeans and bright jumpers, or a billboard with an image of a naked, anorexic woman in a fashion-shoot pose, Toscani has welded social commentary to clothes and courted controversy.

At the same time, he has articulated new purposes for advertising to serve in our culture and redefined how brands can engage with the global collective psyche.

His highly-acclaimed career in the advertising industry aside, he has also long been regarded as an important artist noted by critics as having turned American pop art’s optimistic idea of consumerism on it’s head.

Yet, as Toscani put it himself: “All I’ve done is put a news photo in the ad pages”.

“I still can’t understand why people are shocked by something that obviously exists. It’s like in a family that always avoids talking about its real problems.”

“Toscani doesn’t offer any answers,” said Time Magazine in 2007. “But perhaps by putting selling and suffering on the same page, some good questions start getting asked.”

Children’s Laureate of Ireland, a 52 episode TV series produced by Disney and Brown Bag Films successfully launched, and award-wins all over the place – this author/illustrator is on a roll. Her work is drenched in saturated colours, with bold brush-strokes defining simple shapes, complimented with smart typography. Her most recent picture book, On the Road with Mavis and Marge, won the Junior Book of the Year Award at The Irish Book Awards and was short listed for the Bisto Book of the Year Awards. We asked Mags Walsh, Director of Children’s Book Ireland, to sit down with Niamh just as they both jetted-off to launch a European-wide touring exhibition of Irish illustration.

MW: You’ve had an amazing career as a picture book maker, winning awards and winning-over readers for nearly 20 years. The last year has brought two very exciting developments: your inauguration as Laureate na nÓg and the premiere of Henry Hugglemonster. Can you tell us a bit about both?

NS: The fact that both the Laureate appointment and the launch of Henry Hugglemonster have coincided has made 2013 a busy year for me, and it’s been a lot of fun. As an illustrator, for almost 20 years, I’ve spent a lot of time working alone in my studio. With both the laureateship and the collaboration with Brown Bag Films and Disney, I’m now working in creative teams, which has been very satisfying.

I’ve nurtured the Hugglemonster/Hugglewug family for eight years now, so seeing them make their screen-debut makes me very proud, and thankful for all of the creative input from the Hugglemonster team at BBF. The laureate team too are enthusiastic, supportive and knowledgeable – no idea is too ambitious. And so together we’ve been able to realise some really innovative creative projects.

-------------------------------NIAMH SHARKEY ILLUSTRATION / AUTHOR IRELAND -------------------------------SATURDAY 10AM -------------------------------www.niamhsharkey.com --------------------------------

MW: What does being Laureate na nÓg entail?

NS: Being laureate is, in essence, about being a champion for children’s books, their readers, and their creators. I want children to get really excited about reading and drawing.

As a picture book maker, my focus is visual as well as literary.

I’m on a mission to get the nation doodling by any means necessary – this has included running Monster Doodle workshops via internet video-link, and Ireland’s first radio doodle on RTÉ.

I’ve run Monster Doodle sessions in the Ark, as part of the Leaves Festival in Abbeyleix, and even as far afield as Hamburg, Germany. I hope that everything I do during my two-year term will have an impact – changing how adults and children view books, illustration, creativity and reading.

MW: You curated the exhibition of children’s book illustration, Pictiúr, that’s currently touring. Can you tell us a bit about that?

NS: As Laureate, I’ve curated an exhibition featuring 21 Irish children’s book illustrators, which is currently travelling across Europe. The exhibition will travel to the Bologna Book Fair, as well as the European Parliament in Brussels. Pictiúr will raise the profile of Irish illustrators in both Europe and Ireland and celebrate Irish talent. With doodle pop-ups designed by Irish designer Leo Scarff, we hope to make Pictiúr very engaging for children and families. We’re delighted too to bring the exhibition to Ireland, and in particular to end the year in the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Kilmainham.

“As an illustrator, for almost twenty years, I’ve spent a lot of time working alone in my studio. With both the laureateship and the collaboration with Brown Bag Films and Disney, I’m now working with creative teams, and that’s been very satisfying.”

MW: Henry Hugglemonster premiered on Disney Junior in February, how did that feel?

How involved have you been in the show?

NS: As the creator and executive producer of the show, I’ve been very involved. I first worked with Brown Bag Films in 2008.

With funding from the Irish Film Board, we developed a test animation based on my picture book, I’m a Happy Hugglewug.

From there we pitched the pilot to Disney, who commissioned a full 52 episode series.

Creating the show has been a uniquely collaborative process.

Once the series went into production I worked closely with Brown Bag’s 2D concept artist drawing everything from scratch – even with 3D animation, it all starts in pencil. Working closely with the hugely talented Brown Bag team, we designed Henry’s world, Roarsville, and all of the fun monsters that populate it.

Myself, Norton Virgien (director) and Sascha Paladino (story editor) even share an office so we can be in close contact when we are brainstorming new storylines for episodes.

Each script went through four drafts, then we do a script read-through where team members play characters from the show, at which point further changes and additions are made. Even at the voice recordings, Sascha, Norton and I were on-hand making tweaks to sharpen the humour and strengthen the nuances of the performances. It was great to be so closely involved.

MW: Are you working on a new picture book at the moment?

I always have a notebook on hand for doodling and writing in, and I have a number of ideas that I’m developing. I also have a new studio in Ardgillan Castle, thanks to Fingal Arts Office, which is proving to be an inspirational creative space.

Distinct, arresting and always beautiful, this Copenhagen art and design studio is pushing the limits – in the media it chooses to work with and in the way it’s work shifts perspective and combines colours with fluidity, control and panache.

We’re gushing a bit, aren’t we? Maybe.

But it’s that cool.

Nan Na Hvass and Sofie Hannibal work globally, on interior design, visual identity illustration and more.

-----------------------HVASS & HANNIBAL DESIGNER / ILLUSTRATORS DENMARK -----------------------SATURDAY 11AM -----------------------www.hvasshannibal.dk ------------------------

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How did you meet and what drew you to each other?

Drawing drew us together! We met in high school – Sofie saw Nan Na drawing in class, and asked if she wanted to come to an evening design class.

So that’s kind of how our relationship began.

How do you influence one another?

Nan Na: Sofie influences me by being more efficient and better at wrapping things up, creating a wholesomeness to the work, and bringing projects closer to the end… I might panic and think that something is far from ready, and Sofie will do some tweaks, and then it’s nearly there.

Sofie: Nan Na influences me by paying attention to detail and experimenting with materials and ideas.

And she also asks questions when I think something is done.

How did you become so good at what you do?

We jumped into it, not really knowing very much.

And most of what we were doing in the beginning probably wasn’t particularly well executed or very well thought-through. Practice and experience has lifted the quality of what we do. And gaining insight into more thorough design processes as tools for artistic development.

If you could save only one of your works in a time capsule, which one would it be and why?

Nan Na: I think that it would have to be the quilt we made for If You Could Collaborate, which we made together with Danish artist, Anne Werner. It would also serve as a nice duvet in hard times, so I think it’s a safe choice.

Sofie: I like our wooden pieces from the Losing the Plot show that we did in London a few years ago, especially Topographic Reflection and Study of a Place, which are hanging on a wall in our studio.

They have a very clear idea and are very simple compared to a lot of our other work.

Can you describe your work processes?

Either it’s totally intuitive and goes from mind to paper without even passing anywhere close to verbalisation in the brain (and when we have to talk about these projects it can be very difficult) – or it’s the opposite. We sometimes have a very meticulous process, that includes a long research phase, lots of brainstorming, etc. – the classic design procedure.

It really depends on the project.

What is your best advice for keeping your work fresh and prevent it from stagnating?

For us, it’s all about seeking out new materials and media, and combing these in new ways. Strangely enough (and this surprised us in the beginning), this doesn’t affect our style, which seems to stay recognisable.

What other areas in life inspire you aside from visual art and design?

Nan Na: In the case of working with musicians, which we do a lot, the music itself is a huge source of inspiration. My parents, and the way they’ve led their lives, also inspires me. And in terms of visual things, I find all kinds of patterns and natural phenomena inspiring as well.

Sofie: Nature, landscapes and changing seasons.

I recently went on a trip with my dad to Sicily to take photographs, which was very inspiring.

The colours in the sky, the ground and the trees in different parts of the world are very inspiring.

If Margrethe II, Queen of Denmark, banned you from designing, what would you do instead?

Nan Na: I would be a fine artist. Is that allowed?

Sofie: I think I would be working in the film or music business. I don’t really know with what though, but probably not as a creative! And perhaps being an artist on the side.

How does Copenhagen influence your work?

Sofie: I have lived here all my life, so it’s very difficult to answer that question. Perhaps I would know if I moved somewhere else, but I’ll probably never do that.

Nan Na: I came to Denmark at the age of ten after spending the first years of my life in Swaziland, Africa, and travelling around the world with my parents for a year. So I’ve seen many places and I wonder if this doesn’t influence me more than Copenhagen itself.

If you were to relocate, what country would it be to and how do you think that country would influence your work?

Nan Na: Right now, it would be a remote, obscure place in the tropics, like Tonga or Samoa or something similar. Maybe it wouldn’t be a good influence on my work, because I’m not good at concentrating when the weather is nice. But perhaps I could do a Gaugin and start depicting tropical subjects – and find a spouse a third of my own age (that’s what he did, right?). A couple of years ago I moved to Portland for three months for a change of atmosphere. It was lovely, and I think it’s an important thing to do once in a while.

Sofie: I would move to Berlin, mostly because it’s cheaper than Copenhagen and my best friend lives there. I could get a huge flat and only have one piece of furniture in each room.

Have you ever been to Ireland?

Never!

What do you expect it to be like?

Nan Na: I expect it to be very cosy. I also have false expectations of sunshine, which common sense tells me I should stop having.

Who do you look forward to seeing during OFFSET? Nan Na: I’m looking forward to seeing it all, but if I have to say something now, perhaps Craig and Karl. And also Drive – the technical aspect of their work is really intriguing to me.

Sofie: Sarah Illenberger and Oliviero Toscani, but I’m really looking forward to everything!

Interview by Matthew Bolger and Emelie Lidström (M&E) www.me-me-me.se

If you have been smart enough to have followed The Stone Twins’ progress over the past fourteen or so years, you will know that their work is ambitious, playful and always engaging.

The duo pride themselves on their concept-driven design solutions, boast an enviable set of clients that include ASICS, Volvo and Levis, and have designed elements of the curriculum at the Design Academy in Eindhoven.

Bob Gray (Red & Grey Design) recently caught up with the twins to chat to them about their work, strengths, craft, men and communication.

Bob Gray: It’s been a while. Congrats on the revised edition of Logo R.I.P. How are you?

Stone Twins: Thanks. In general, good. We’re still making a living doing what we love, and getting the opportunities to meet some challenging and inspiring people.

BG: I see your website has been smashed up and is being updated. What have you been up to?

ST: The new site is now online! It was endlessly parked in the ‘to do’ tray, while we were being overwhelmed by client projects and the demands of our girlfriends. Check out the website to see what we’ve been up to…

BG: Your careers have twisted and turned over the years so it will be interesting to see what direction you are currently moving in. How would you describe your recent roles? Art directors? Designers? Curators?

ST: It’s a good question and, coincidently, one of the starting points for the concept behind our new website. To your list, we could add, writers, nappychangers, provocateurs... Sometimes titles are just too limiting and are inadequate filters. In recent years, there has been a tsunami of absurd job titles, and not just in the world of design and advertising.

Last year, we poked fun at this trend by devising an online random Job-Title Generator for the MM&MM project.

BG: It’s nice to see that humour is still a big part of your work. I guess it’s always been a strength of yours.

Are there other inherent Irish strengths or characteristics that have a bearing on how you work?

ST: Yes, undoubtedly. For one, the Irish tradition of storytelling has informed much of our work.

“What do you want to say?” is perhaps the most frequent question to ourselves, our clients, and our students. If you’ve nothing to say, then graphic design is just visual masturbation or eye-candy.

Which is fine, depending on audience or context.

But we prefer to engage and communicate with an audience. To quote one of our design-heroes, Tibor Kalman: “Graphic design is a means, not an end.

A language, not content.” How true.

BG: Tibor is also a huge hero of mine.

A perverse optimist. Fearless.

How do you get past the first layer of predictability?

ST: We’ll usually go for a walk. Take the dog. Make an omelette without an egg. Put iTunes on shuffle.

Check Wikipedia and find out what Steve Staunton is up to.

BG: Apparently Stan now works for the media. I think that means he’s open to offers.

ST: Cheers! :) BG: If it is alright with you guys I would like to talk a little bit about your role as educators in the Design Academy Eindhoven. I remember reading a press release, maybe two years ago, for your department Man & Communication where you talked about “Less bubble, more world”, i.e. less navel gazing and more engagement with the wider society. It sounded like the correct approach, but has it worked? >>

-------------------------------THE STONE TWINS GRAPHIC DESIGN / ART DIRECTORS IRELAND -------------------------------SATURDAY NOON -------------------------------www.stonetwins.com --------------------------------

ST: Yes. Before we explain that, we’d like to place this question in context. Four years ago, we encountered a educational department that was full of introversion and pretension. The students (and teachers) had nothing to say. There was no rebellion, anger or even empathy.

This was down to good economic times and the subsidised world of Dutch Design, which combined to create a vacuous star-designer culture.

An environment where the creator was king – not the content. So, anyway, we introduced a new vision, and a restructuring of the department that included an overhaul of the curriculum.

More dialogue and less monologue.

The change is ongoing, but we’re happy to say that today the content and messaging from our department has real resonance with the outside world. It’s a broad notion of social relevance, and one framed by design.

BG: All sounds positive. Given time, It will be interesting to see the outcomes of your interventions. It is interesting that you talk about how the work has “real resonance with the outside world”. Designers are often described as natural problem solvers, if this is true why don’t they solve any of the big issues facing humanity?

ST: Unfortunately, the creative brain cells of so many designers are lost on wanky canvas bags and limited-edition screenprinted posters. As visual communicators we all have the potential to communicate important issues to the wider world. That is why we are particularly honored to share a stage with Olivier Toscani and JR. Two compelling examples of how creatives can be a catalyst for debate.

You can’t necessarily change the world but at least you can set the agenda, or start a big conversation.

BG: Do you really think this conversation is happening? And if so, are designers invited or involved?

ST: Yes and no. Like anything, it’s up to the individual if they wish to stimulate or engage in this conversation. In the meantime, there are many creatives flagging important world issues. Just look at JR, DesignPolitie or even ad agencies, 72 and Sunny (who created the wonderful UN-HATE campaign).

BG: Yes – OFFSET, the reason this interview is happening. Can’t wait. It will be interesting to see what Toscani has been up to, not to mention all the other talents taking to the stage.

There has always been great designers and design studios, but I feel the industry as a whole is maturing and becoming more confident in itself. In recent years we have also seen many business schools assimilate the design process or ‘design thinking’ into their programs.

How do you think this has affected, or will affect, the role of the designer?

ST: Not much. We don’t think design thinking will affect the role of the designer. Design thinking is just a methodology or a creative resolution approach to problems. It may employ the same word but, in many respects, design-thinking is unrelated to the ‘act’ of designing... However, due to the incorporation of design thinking in business schools, future clients will not be so impressed with the jargon of the creative industry. Clients fluent in design-speak and lateral thinking will quickly blow away any of design’s smokescreens.

We feel more threatened by our mum who photoshops family photos or the ten-year-old Peruvian kid who can film, edit and upload a Gangnam Style parody in the time it takes most design agencies to prepare a SWOT analysis.

BG: It’s amazing to know that these possibilities exist. What are your thoughts on the evolving culture of collaboration and participation in design, and where does the responsibility lie, with the designer as curator or the participant?

ST: Collaboration is good – but, it’s nothing new. Not one of designs trailblazers worked in a vacuum; their creative decisions and solutions were always influenced and framed by a process dictated by a client or patron. Good design, or at least design with real value, has always been a collaborative process.

In terms of responsibility, we are not sure what you mean?

BG: As Ice Cube put it (when talking about Charles and Ray Eames), “They was doing mash ups before mash ups even existed”.

BG: Do you think there is a danger that aesthetics, form, and craft in design will start to be ignored as a result of the evolution of the design industry?

A fair point, well made, but what I want to talk more about is group participation projects. Take for example your Toneel Groep Amsterdam project. You designed a frame, that you and others could populate. What if it all goes wrong, who takes responsibility?

ST: This has already begun. One of the many themes in our book, Logo R.I.P., is about the loss of craft in the world of corporate identity design. In the last few decades, this sector has been fueled by a lot of marketing-driven nonsense. The result is an explosion of bland, generic and poorly-crafted trademarks. Symbols that only express the homogeneity of globalisation and the latest Photoshop trickery. What ever happened to coherent graphic signatures that are rich in concept, craft and stylistic durability?

You for creating the frame? Or the selected participants for the execution of their ideas?

ST: In the case of our posters for Toneel Group Amsterdam, what can really go wrong? At worse, it’s a shit, but authentic, artwork, which has a street presence of a week or two... in the meantime, anything is better than a bland and vulgar advert for a mobile network operator.

BG: There is also the question of ethics. Can, or should, such projets be controlled?

ST: We’re absolutely OK with the lack of control in such projects. Planting a few seeds and seeing how the project will grow is really exciting. We love the chaos, informality and the sense of surprise. If anything, we were disappointed with the lack of shock value in the art. Anything controversial would have garnered even more publicity for the theatre play – which was the whole point of the exercise.

BG: Enough said. Last question – as twins would you agree that chance favours the connected mind?

ST: Absolutely. A twin brother can be a good receptor for the frequently undervalued hunch or partial idea.

If you’re not in a team with people who trust or respect you, then any crumb of an idea will not only be undervalued, but killed. Pity. Ideas need an open environment to stick, to incubate, mutate and flourish. Twins are good for this, but it’s not to be confused with twincest.

BG: Nice. Hard not to imagine that Twincest illustration of yours right now. How long did you have to hold the pose?

Thanks again for agreeing to do this.

Always serious. Always fun.

ST: Cheers Bob. We call it Serious Fun©.

Once again – thanks for everything.

It’ll be nice to meet you all at OFFSET!

-------------------------------JI LEE ART / DESIGN KOREA / BRAZIL / NYC -------------------------------SATURDAY 1PM -------------------------------www.pleaseenjoy.com --------------------------------

Ji Lee was building a career at the world’s most exciting and inspirational creative agencies, including Droga5 and Saatchi & Saatchi, before going in-house at the world’s most exciting and inspirational technology companies. He was a Creative Director at Google’s Creative Lab and now he’s Facebook’s Creative Strategist. He juggles his time between corporate work and his own personal projects, which are also – you guessed it – exciting and inspirational (remember the Bubble Project?). We asked our favourite CEO of Droga5, Andrew Essex, to ask Ji some questions to help us get to know him a bit better before his Main Stage appearance.

+AE: Your work has always had something of a subversive quality. What’s it like working for Facebook?

JL: I joined Facebook about two-years ago.

I remember the first time I came to the Facebook office in Palo Alto. On the entrance door, there were four, big printed letters that said: “HACK”.

This made a big impression on me and I liked it right away. Facebook is the most unique place I have ever worked at. It’s fast, intense, ever-evolving, humbling, exciting, emotional, rewarding, and there’s never a dull moment.

Every day feels epic because things we’re working on have a tremendous impact in the world. It’s great to be able to work with some of the world’s brightest people who are really good at what they do. And in one way or other, people who work at Facebook are bound by the same ‘hack’ mentality. Hacking is to be ingenious, resourceful, and improvisational (and fast). It’s taking something that already exists and reinventing it for your own purpose. Being subversive shares similar qualities. It’s about challenging the conventions and creating new perspectives.

AE: Engineer-led companies have traditionally had an ambivalent relationship with creatives.

How do you navigate that dynamic?

JL: Regardless of different roles, Facebookers are, in essence, entrepreneurs and creative thinkers. Because we are constantly creating new products, platforms and experiences, and because there’s so much for everyone to do, there’s no other way but to think creatively and to be resourceful in order to solve the challenges. At Facebook, there isn’t a clear distinction between ‘creatives’ and ‘non-creatives’. There are different roles – engineering, marketing, design, etc. – but everyone is perceived as a creative thinker.

AE: What was the latest impressive video you watched online?

JL: It’s the last video on my Timeline. It’s the YouTube video Dance Like Nobody’s Watching.

This girl video taped herself dancing to the music she was listening on her headphones, in the middle of a laundromat. She’s having a blast, making all kinds of dance moves while everyone around her is doing their laundry as if nothing is happening. The video has nearly 2.5 million views. It’s awesome that all you need is an idea, enthusiasm and a phone to make something to touch millions of people.

AE: What mediums or platforms are you most excited by?

JL: Facebook, mobile phones, streets.

AE: What’s your favourite movie of all time?“ JL: The Matrix.

AE: What creative stars do you most admire?

JL: Marcel Duchamp, Andy Warhol, Miles Davis, Buster Keaton, Tibor Kalman.

AE: Why? JL: For being subversive, always experimenting and reinventing themselves.

AE: How do you recharge your creative batteries?

JL: Sleeping eight hours, bicycling, stretching, going to the beach. And whenever I can, I try to meditate.

AE: How do you find young talent?

JL: Through talking to friends, my News Feed, teaching at art schools.

AE: What’s your advice to young designers?

JL: There are amazing rewards that come from working on personal projects. But in the end, it’s all about having fun and shipping projects as much as possible. Ideas are nothing.

Doing is everything.

ON MARCH 22ND, GO TO A PARTICIPATING RESTAURANT, ORDER TAP WATER, AND HELP SAVE CHILDREN AROUND THE WORLD.

TAP PROJECT

-------------------------------LOUISE FILI DESIGN USA -------------------------------SATURDAY 3PM -------------------------------www.louisefili.com --------------------------------

A truly important figure in American design, Louise Fili draws deeply on her Italian roots, reimagining graphic identities for brands with precise, elegant and carefully judged typographic work. Fili has been influencing the careers of designers for decades, not only through her work, but also through her lecturing and writing.

Perhaps, no one else knows the strength of this influence better than Jessica Hische, who spent two years working for Fili between 2007 and 2009.

Since then, Hische has gone on to be something of a superstar herself, working on the titles for Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom and being picked for Forbes’ 30 under 30 list. Twice. We were fortunate to host Jessica at OFFSET 2012, and fortunate again that she agreed to share her experience of working with Louise with us. And now, with you...

Vintage inspired typography has had a massive resurgence over the last several years, and Louise Fili played an enormous role in making historically referential type and lettering one of the sexiest sub-sets in the world of graphic design.

An avid collector of ephemera and a self-described Italophile, she’s able to create beautiful, timeless work by paying homage to the past without losing sight of the present. She’s sensitively rebranded major companies, designed enough books to fill a library, and has reigned supreme as the queen bee of restaurant and food packaging design since founding her studio over twenty years ago.

As a former employee of Louise’s, I can also say that aside from being one of the most talented, driven, and business savvy people I’ve ever encountered, she’s also one of the most humble and generous designers out there. She puts as much of herself into teaching her students and mentoring her employees as she does into her client work and self-authored projects.

The two and a half years I spent working for Louise were some of the most important and formative years of my life.

I learned more about how to be a good graphic designer in the time I spent with Louise than I did in my four-years of college – working for her was like getting paid to go to grad school. She talked me through my typographic mistakes, exposed me to amazing beautiful, vintage type samples, and cultivated my love of pastries and proper Italian gelato (a number of her food industry clients used to barter for part payment of Louise’s design services, which of course delighted her staff).

She had a way of making everyone around her feel special and well taken care of, her clients included, which is why she’s had such wonderful, long-standing professional relationships. While our personalities differed (as you may already know, I’m a bit more vocal about my personal life than Louise, or really any other living human), our work relationship was seamless. She never discouraged me from pursuing other interests or freelancing opportunities, as long as I respected that nine to six was her time.

She ran the studio like a well-oiled machine. Even though we were always busy and had a lot on our plates, I don’t think I ever worked later than 6:30pm.

“An avid collector of ephemera and self-described Italophile, she’s able to create beautiful, timeless work by paying homage to the past, without losing sight of the present.”

- Jessica Hische

One of the most important things I learned while under Louise’s tutelage, is the importance of respect and how unbelievably important it is to keep your ego in check and to be a genuine and honest person. Louise has every reason to be egotistical – she’s brilliant, she’s worked for other legendary designers, she’s run a successful studio for many years, and she’s received nearly every award there is in our profession – but she couldn’t be farther from it.

Both she, and her work, are straightforward, honest, and genuine – three things I try to be every day and try to communicate in everything I do. In part, because Louise showed me just how important those qualities are.

Some music is as much defined by its visual language as by the bands and

songs themselves – and nothing screams out the post-punk angst of the Pixies like

Vaughan Oliver’s album covers. As part of Envelope 23 and later v23, Vaughan

helped define the manifesto of the seminal music label, 4AD, producing work

that reflected both the raw energy of a Pixies riff and the dreamy lyricism of

This Mortal Coil. He’s credited as being part of a movement that ripped up the

rules of type and print in the mid 90s and influenced a generation of designers.

Following text by Simon Roche www.smokeandmirrorsstudio.dk

---------------------VAUGHAN OLIVER GRAPHIC DESIGNER UK ---------------------SATURDAY 4PM ---------------------www.vaughanoliver.co.uk ----------------------

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There may be legends of certain early Velvet Underground shows where everyone in the sparse audience went out and formed a band. If there was one, single graphic design creation had a similar effect at the cusp of the burgeoning music/design industry, it would have been Vaughan Oliver’s sleeve for Pixies’ Doolittle. Oliver’s silver and copper monkey Introduced thousands of teenagers, who fell under the ‘good at art in school’ banner, to the ideas and impact of graphic design – the album tracks, graphs and numbers played off the central image, falling off grids and seducing the eyes.

For the owner of this record (and 12” was really still the only format for a designer to think about in 1989) the visuals gave as much to the music contained within, as it took from.

Doolittle was also the mere tip of the iceberg for a 25-plus years of collaboration with 4AD records; a collaboration where a case could be made that Oliver became a member of each band whose work crossed his desk.

Not seeking an auteur’s credit for a piece of design, Oliver talks frequently about collaboration. Initially with Ivo Watts-Russell at 4AD, then with the musicians themselves.

He discussed a mutual fondness for David Lynch movies with Pixies’ Black Francis, and together they found themes for album art that were often not direct visual references from lyrics, but were more tangential. (Incidentally, Oliver would also, much later, collaborate with Lynch.)

Olivers’ images were coupled with a typographic fingerprint that was always recognisable but in which it was very hard to determine any specific influences. It was also difficult to imitate. Believing that “finding the right photographer is like having the job half-done already,” he swallowed pre-existing images as well as open-brief shoots into his work, letting the music be the main source of inspiration for long-time collaborations with Simon Larbalestier (Pixies), Jim Friedman (Lush) and Dominic Davies (His Name Is Alive).

From 1983 to 1988 Oliver worked as 23 Envelope with photographer and filmmaker Nigel Grierson whom he had met at school and then studied design with at Newcastle Polytechnic. Together they developed and defined the fluid yet recognisable visual identity for 4AD, before Grierson’s departure. Switching names to v23, Oliver collaborated with designer Chris Bigg who began as an assistant and eventually became a partner; enriching and building on the 4AD portfolio. Though v23 was dissolved in 2008, Oliver and Bigg have still worked together on various projects.

Discussing why teaching became an antidote to the self-doubt that creeps in to the solitary designer, he also described the moment of bliss that the trade can serve up once in a while.

“One day you rule the world: you’ve put that type in the right place, on the right picture, at the right time, in the right colour, at the right size – fantastic! Those moments! That’s what you live for. The inspiration you get from that feeds you; it breathes life into you. That doesn’t last forever. If you’re a soul-searching creative person, you can go as far down the next day.”

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With the album sleeve now seeming only to exist on its own pre-extinction Galapogos Islands, Vaughan Oliver could be the last great sleeve designer, a vast influence on not just the profession, but on the visual presentation of music and record companies, and also on anyone who ever bought a 4AD record. He holds a huge body of important work, born in a time when, as his partner Nigel Grierson said, “Record sleeves seemed like the greatest thing you could possibly do”.2

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Interview, Computer Arts, October 2009

23 Envelope: ambience and inner space

by Rick Poynor, Eye Magazine no 37, Autumn 2000

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-----------------------BEN FENDER & IMOGEN HAMMOND (DRIVE PRODUCTIONS) DIGITAL PIONEERS UK -----------------------SATURDAY 5PM -----------------------www.driveproductions.co.uk ------------------------

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How do you describe what you do to your parents?

We create shows that people talk about and like to share. At Drive, we are all showmen at heart.

How did you come to set up Drive?

Drive is going into its tenth year, but twenty years ago you would have found us putting on live music events and touring performances in Europe. Initially we set up Drive to fulfil our touring company’s needs and to provide production support as we constantly found that the industry at the time did not understand our innovative art forms.

Drive Productions evolved from this into a full service event production company. In recent years the focus of our attention has been on the integration of technology with the arts and live performances, which has seen us develop much more in the digital event space; hence our work in projection and CG content production.

What was your first experience of projection mapping with Drive, and how did it go?

A few years ago, we were experimenting with mini-mapping, starting to project onto a series of small shapes on a table top using small projectors and folded pieces of paper. We were trying to move away from screens and instead use projectors as the light and video source, and real life structures as the screen surface.

We started to take this new technology to clients and Bombay Sapphire were the first ones brave enough to go with our ground-breaking idea.

The show on Queen’s House was designed for an internal marketing conference but due to its huge success, it was used as the launchpad for their 2011 Project Your Imagination campaign.

Obviously there’s a huge amount of technical knowhow involved in what you do, but creatively-speaking, how do you start a project?

We think of a word that excites us and resonates with both the project and brand and then we build a story around it. Often the narrative is not front-and-centre of what you finally see but it is always in the background guiding the creative and technical process. The word and its story pulls everything together.

Describe to us, in layman’s terms, what’s involved in bringing a big projection mapping job to life – what are the restrictions, how do you get around them?

To bring projection mapping to life you need beautifully crafted content, story-telling and contrast. In layman’s terms, projection mapping is animation filmmaking with gift wrapping – the 3D CG content we create is wrapped around the fabric of the structure. It is bookended by two very important processes: firstly, developing a complete understanding of the building and secondly, creating the right content for that structure.

We worked with you recently on the eircom commercials which was a very steep learning curve for us. How did that job differ from others that you’ve been involved in?

Working on the ground breaking eircom commercial was a fantastic challenge for Drive. The integration of projection and live-action in a 4D projected perspective environment made us think about film making in a completely different way, back to front! The innovative thing about this particular project was that the perspective-rendering of the 3D animation would be projected onto a physical scenic set, which would only be viewable through the motion-control camera system… that’s a mouthful!

We are really happy with the results and where we can take this experience with technology in the future.

Drive is constantly pushing the boundaries of what seems possible within the field but are those boundaries expanding to meet your creative desires?

Yes, the boundaries are definitely expanding. Our creative desires are always being met – watch this space!

The technologies we use are really just a tool to realise our creative imaginations. They are developing all the time.

Does the fact that most of your projects are one-offs, designed to be seen live, add a frisson of excitement… or fear?

Definitely excitement, but we channel this energy to make sure that the pre-production design and planning is scientific. Definitely fear, that’s what we live for. It’s fun!

But it’s how these projects live online beyond the event that really gives them longevity. In this sense they are not a one-off event. Even viewing them on a small screen you get a sense of how impressive the size was in the flesh. Buildings are not supposed to twist and turn before your very eyes. This really captures the audience’s imagination.

What’s next for Drive?

Our full service Motion Graphics Studio is launching in May; there will be plenty more coming from that side of the business. 2013 is packed full of amazing opportunities for Drive across the globe.

We are constantly future gazing to see how things might unfold in the future. For instance, Brazil 2016.

Who else are you looking forward to seeing at OFFSET? I am really looking forward to meeting people who are working at the forefront of creativity and digital design. It is always a pleasure to speak to others who are pushing the boundaries in specific arenas.

To get around any restrictions is all down to budget, making the building a viable projection surface can be expensive, so we only work with buildings that the budget can afford. This is why our production preparation is so rigorous and watertight.

Finally, if you could have one building, anywhere in the world, as your canvas which would you choose?

Ben: Al Bahar Towers in Abu Dhabi. The rotating sunshades would provide the perfect surface for amazing optical illusions.

To date what has been your favourite project and why?

Ben: Too many to mention! We’ve all heard of Nokia and Ralph Lauren as they have been successful on a global and viral level.

Personally I have hugely enjoyed working with the Lotus F1 Team’s latest F1 car and integrating moving head lasers with the latest projection-mapping technology, taking this medium out of context.

Imogen: Taj Mahal – it encapsulates such beauty, especially at dawn. It would be amazing to do a pre-dawn projection. It would be the perfect merger of the traditional with the cutting-edge. It also has many vantage points.

Imogen: I have really enjoyed creating stage shows for major music artists – David Guetta’s performance of Titanium on the Graham Norton Show and Labrinth feat. Emile Sandi on X Factor for instance.

Interview by Gavin O’Sullivan (DDFH&B) www.ddfhb.ie

What is the finished piece? The striking, wheat-pastedon-wall, black and white image? The photograph of the artwork? Or the street itself? We’re not sure, but we suspect that the world’s first, self-proclaimed ‘photograffeur’ thinks that it’s all three. A giant on the street art scene for over two decades, and championed by luminaries such as the Wooster Collective, JR’s work has hung on street corners and galleries the world over. In 2011, he received the TED Prize, which offers him the opportunity to make “a wish to change the world”.

Among his many endeavours, is Inside Out, an international participatory art project that connects people worldwide, allowing them to support a project or an action or to share their experiences using the simple tools: photography, wheat-pasting and, yes, the street.

Following text by Wooster Collective.

----------------JR PHOTOGRAPHER FRANCE ----------------SATURDAY 6PM ----------------www.jr-art.net -----------------

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When we first met JR ten years ago, we knew immediately that there was something special about him. At the time, he was travelling around the world taking portraits of other street artists. But having been a graffiti artist himself, he understood the significance of writing your name on a wall, and the power of reclaiming public space. JR dreamed big, and it was clear that he would never be content with simply photographing other artists.

It was during the 2005 riots outside of Paris, that JR started the 28 Millimeters project that would change the course of his life. It was with this project that his focus shifted to using his camera to give the common person who had been vilified by society a powerful presence on the streets.

By photographing “regular” people and wheat-pasting larger-than-life prints of them on city walls, his subjects gained visibility and Parisians were forced to accept immigrants living in the neighbouring projects of La Forestière (in Clichy-sous-Bois) as a vital part of the French community.

From there, JR embarked on a mission to raise awareness of the urban conflicts that were often overlooked, by showing the commonalities in people regardless of ethnic or socially-marked boundaries. JR’s work highlights the fact that once we look past our differences – whether it be religious, political or racial – at our core we all share essential parts of humanity such as hope, laughter and joy.

In 2006, we invited JR to participate in our 11 Spring project. During this time, we had long conversations with JR about the Face-to-Face project.

His goal was to travel around the world to places where people were ignored. By photographing them and wheat-pasting their eyes and faces back on the buildings and in the squares they gathered, the people were given a voice and feeling of affirmation. Importantly, JR focused on women because they too often are overlooked in society, even though they are the backbone in keeping communities going strong everyday.

When JR won the TED prize in 2010 for his Inside Out project, we called him on his cell phone to congratulate him. He answered in the middle of the night in Singapore. “I did it!” JR yelled into the phone. “I got them to remove all the advertising from the site as the prize.” JR was not focused on winning the prize but on the fact that he had already begun to make change by removing the corporate sponsorship of the prize. For JR, the Inside Out project gave him the ability to completely turn over his work to the people. Instead of him photographing them, people all over the world could photograph themselves and their neighbours and bring awareness to their communities, in a similar way to what JR was already doing.

Through this participatory global art project, JR helped his intended subjects become the creators; by wheat-pasting their own photos on their own streets, they become true agents of change and not just a product of it.

An artist who is willing to not only share his “secrets” but also enable others to do the same work is rare. JR’s passion for people and change is the driving force behind his work and allows him to give everything away.

When he sees people all around the world proclaiming their voice and presence in the streets through large-scale photographs, he knows that he is getting much more back in return.

-----------------------CRAIG & KARL DESIGNER / ILLUSTRATORS AUSTRALIA -----------------------SUNDAY 10AM -----------------------www.craigandkarl.com ------------------------

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I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Craig and Karl for the last 15 years. From the beginning of their careers, they have been inspiring and super-talented creative minds with an incomparable and genuine passion for what they do. I’m proud to have worked with them, and their new direction continues to inspire.

Interview by Steve Alexander from Rinzen.

When we first started Rinzen it was relatively simple to establish a reputation online. With the growth of the online creative community, self-promotion and publicity is a much more complicated scenario. Do you have a strategy for your publicity?

Karl: Nothing too complicated. It’s definitely something we think about – and we do try to engage people through all the various channels that are available to us – but I wouldn’t really go so far as to call it a strategy.

Where do you see the world of design and illustration heading over the next decade?

Karl: I’m no Nostradamus, but broadly I feel as though there was a current of nostalgia running through the first decade of this century, with notions – and the accompanying aesthetics – of heritage and tradition coming to the fore. I think these are valuable concepts that should always be present, but I expect we will see a move towards a more contemporary mode of expression that better suits and defines the time we live in.

How important do you think social media is now to your new company?

Craig: It’s pretty much everything, I feel like our Facebook/Instagram/Twitter is so much more important than our actual site. Social media is a much better way of showing new work to people than a regular portfolio site, and more importantly it delivers the information to people’s streams and phones which is where most down-time is spent. Instagram is the new portfolio site.

Craig, you’ve been in New York for a while now, I know it has been really inspiring and helpful for your career. What is it about New York that inspires you?

Craig: I can talk about the plethora of mega-exhibitions etc. that are so easy to see here, which, of course, fuels a whole other level of inspiration. But ultimately, it’s the drive of the city that is the most helpful. People’s ambitions here are intergalactic and it really does make the most preposterous goals seem achievable.

Karl, you recently moved to London. How are you finding life in your new location? And what inspirations are you finding in your new home?

Karl: I’m loving it, even though sunshine and I sadly aren’t as close as we once were. It’s a similar situation here to what Craig describes and just being in one of the world’s cultural epicentres is inspiring. I also find I approach things in a more expansive way now as there is that sense of opportunity and possibility everywhere.

Do you imagine moving back to Australia?

Craig: In the long-term perhaps, but I don’t plan on going back anytime soon. I do love Australia but I think for the type of niche work we do and the ambitions we have, it’s not a country that can offer the necessary opportunities or sustain them over time.

Karl: I agree. Australia is great and there are many amazing things happening there, but unfortunately it does seem to be just that little bit too far removed for what we want do.

How important is location? Can you see yourselves setting up studio in other locations, or do you imagine a long future where you are?

Karl: I don’t think either of us have any plans to move for the time being, or even in the foreseeable future. Our setup suits us perfectly as it is. Location and environment definitely play a key role though. It determines what goes in and thus almost certainly what comes out.

Back in the early days we loved our vectors and snap to grid. Is there any comparable passion for you both? Or is it simply about making engaging work, whatever it takes?

Karl: I don’t feel like there’s anything quite so specific for us in those terms. We still use vectors to produce the majority of our work but most of all we want to communicate in the language and spirit of the time. I see that more so as a driving force.

During the Rinzen era we were often copied but it never seemed to really bother either of you.

How do you feel about it now? I’ve seen a lot of imitations of the Craig Redman portrait style.

Are you flattered or is it a constant annoyance?

Craig: Mostly we’re pretty unfazed by it, there was a big TV commercial here recently where they essentially recreated our 72DP project (a big mural we did in a parking garage) as the set – we were more amused than anything. Same goes for the portraits, if you can’t tell the difference between a hack’s and the real thing then I’m not doing a very good job ;-) Music was an important part of your creative day, is it still? What music are you listening to?

Craig: Ha, basically the same genre I’ve been listening to forever: My Bloody Valentine, How To Dress Well, Beach House, This Mortal Coil, The Weekend - anything shoe gaze-y and dreary, really. Also been listening to a bit of opera recently, particularly Verdi, ever since we started working with the Bavarian Opera.

Karl: BBC 6 Music is on most days in my studio. Which is more of a democratic decision than anything else, I suspect. I tend to listen to music very sporadically when left to my own devices though. If I need to think conceptually I need to be as quiet as possible. Only when I’m working away will I think to put something on. I go through phases of listening to audio books too. Comedy titles are especially good. No doubt this is a sure sign of my advancing years!

“The project came about through Werner Herzog. I was taking part in his Rogue Film School in LA. He had suggested to the artist, Robyn O’Neil, that she should animate her work. I stepped up and convinced Robyn to let me help her do it.” The result was the 2011 short film, We, the Masses, a stunning and beautiful interpretation of O’Neil’s atmospheric, epic and evocative drawings.

“It’s quite tricky adapting still images into a film,” says Kidney, whose intention from the outset was to try to stay as true to the original works as possible. “Robyn and I talked through every stage of the process together, and had long discussions about snowfall and sound. We even filmed Robyn moving the way she saw her characters move.”

Looking outside of film for inspirations isn’t new to Kidney’s work, frequently switching between mediums, depending on what suits the project. “My first love was animation but I always loved live-action film too and I threw myself into that after working in animation for years. I found that I could bring all my animation sensibilities with me.”

With work for Modestep, Madonna, Caribou, Natalie Findlay and many, many more on his CV, he’s come a long way from his first major critical success, Stars – a lyrical and visually innovative story about relationships, neurological disease, mortality and love that combed several different animation techniques.

“Stars did well, travelled a bit and people still tell me they like it, which is lovely given that it’s eight years old now. Winning awards can open up an opportunity to work with someone new sometimes – but they’re also a great excuse to go out and party.”

Kidney has had an enviably even and measured career progression. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a big break, as such. I just keep moving from project to project with varied degrees of commercial-ness involved in each one.”

It all started out as many Irish careers do, in the pub, with a loose group of animators forming a collective, The Delicious 9.

“We were all studying animation at DLIADT, now the The National Film School. It was kind of a ‘buddies forever’ thing, and we were given the name before we ever thought of working together.”

“After we graduated, I put on an Aphex Twin show and we used clips from our films as visuals and got a pretty good reaction.

Then The Jimmy Cake asked us to animate an idea they had and we came together and made our first music video. We all moved into a house together and began to watch stuff and make stuff together.”

The collective’s output made a significant impact on the Irish music industry, which was going through a rebirth at the time.

Del 9 were on hand to work with a new breed of local bands on creative, low-budget, video spots which were frequently featured on the seminal Irish music TV show, No Disco.

“Most of what we did was pre-YouTube and No Disco was very kind in showing pretty much anything we did. The presenter, Leagues O’Toole, kept calling us the Wu Tang Clan of Irish animation which was pretty funny.”

-------------------------------EOGHAN KIDNEY FILM MAKER IRELAND -------------------------------SUNDAY 1AM -------------------------------www.eoghankidney.tumblr.com --------------------------------

Many of those videos still hold a lot of resonance for Kidney, for instance the Delorentos music clip for S.E.C.R.E.T.: “it was just a simple love story starring my brother and was filmed in the house I shared with the Del 9 guys. It’s a great record of a time for me.”

“We made a lot of music videos, performed visuals at countless live gigs, programmed festivals and curated things, made T-shirts, gave talks, designed album covers and posters, held workshops, made installations and theatre productions.”

“It provided mutual appreciation and support, which I think is important for young artists. It was a valuable experience, just working on our own terms, trying not to worry about money, making stuff which excited us.”

“People started telling us that they saw this or that, and liked it, so it gave us the drive to take it a bit more seriously.”

Music videos are still like a “bad habit” for Kidney.

He’s had notable collaborations with Fight Like Apes, Shit Robot on the DFA label (“Man, I still can’t believe I got work with those guys”), and picked up an Irish Music Video Award for Valerie Francis’ Punches.

“It started with Delicious 9, and has just kept going. When people ask me to do music videos I usually say yes, if I can. They can be a great place to experiment, sometimes. But if you’re making something for a major label and they need to control a certain image or style then it needs to be approached almost like one would any promotional video.”

“The best experiments are done when you can also control the sound, of course, but they never have an audience. So usually my video experiments rest on hard drives awaiting massive HD failures.”

-------------------------------CHRIS SILAS NEAL ILLUSTRATION USA -------------------------------SUNDAY NOON -------------------------------www.redsilas.com --------------------------------

Former OFFSETTER, Steve Simpson, interrogates Chris Silas Neal!

Straight out of Brooklyn, Neal has that coveted reputation of being an illustrator’s illustrator – his muted and restrained work is a deceptively simple combination of print-making, painting and digital finishing, which seems to chime well with the times. Speaking of which, The New York Times praised his “stunning retro-style illustrations”, sticking him on their 2011 Editor’s Choice list. The following year, he picked up an E.B. White Honor Award and he’s just been included in the Paula Scher-curated edition of the prestigious Typography 33. Now, he’s starting to animate his drawings, making work that’s beautiful and tender to the point of awww-inspiring.

Can you give us a little background on where you come from? What you do? And where you are now?

I was born in Texas and grew up in Florida and Colorado. Although I loved to draw as a kid, I spent most of my time playing music, which is what I eventually studied at The University of Colorado in Boulder. I switched majors to advertising and enrolled in a design course during my last semester at CU. The instructor of that course offered me a job as a graphic designer. We worked together for three years and during that time, I learned how to brainstorm, use typography, use colour and use the computer. I moved to New York in 2002 to further my career as a designer but somehow fell into illustration. I’m officially self-taught however my background in design laid the foundation for what I do. I now live and work in Brooklyn making drawings and typography for magazines, books, adverts, posters, animation and packaging.

Process – where and how does an idea take root and at what point do you share it with the client?

My process is pretty much the same for all of my work. I start with doodles and thumbnails. Putting pencil to paper is the best way for me to arrive at ideas and I think the best concepts are ones that are linked to the way you draw – tied to marks on a page. I usually share my thumbnails with the client and from there develop one direction into a tight sketch.

Once approved, I start final art.

Tablet or Mouse?

Tablet! I don’t really draw on the computer too much. However, there are some drawing-like tasks that need to be done when putting together my final art and using a mouse for that purpose is like drawing with a bar of soap.

A tablet pen is much more natural.

Studio – sharing a building with the likes of Sam Weber and Josh Cochran sounds like a lot of fun.

Who’s in the Pencil Factory at the moment and are you doing any group projects?

I share a studio with Sam Weber, Jon Han, Lisa Hanawalt and Roy Rob. They all do amazing things every day, which is really inspiring. We don’t collaborate on work but often discuss our process, client-relationships, theories about image-making and the illustration and design industry.

Sketchbooks – classically neat or all over the shop?

My sketchbook practice is often ‘on-again-off-again’. I use it when I need it. I’m not sure I can classify my sketchbooks as either neat or messy.

Pencil or Marker?

I most often use pencil and coloured pencil in my sketchbooks. I also use paint and cut paper. I tend to do a fair amount of writing in my sketchbooks as well and I suppose they serve as a journal. This year, I started a notebook for the sole purpose of writing about work.

Ever get into graffiti?

No. Definitely not. I would love to be commissioned to do a mural but I’ve never wanted to make work on a public space as an act of defiance. I have other outlets for political discourse and civil disobedience. Perhaps if I felt really strongly about something and thought graffiti would be the best way to get out the message, I would consider it. Graffiti is effective when a community is otherwise silenced or exists under an oppressive government.

I think there’s something dishonest about contemporary graffiti when the goal is to turn the work into profit through products, gallery shows and publicity. But a mural commissioned by a building owner or a city would be

amazing. I love Ben Shahn‘s work and he has a mural at Syracuse University in New York. I also really enjoy the art commissioned by the New York Transit.

Favourite type of brief?

Baggy with plenty of room for manoeuvre or nut-clenchingly tight?

I enjoy both. Sometimes a client has a really clear idea of what they want and as long as they recognise what it is about my art that is effective, it can be really satisfying to answer a tight brief.

Likewise, having endless possibilities can be fun and challenging.

Teaching – you’re a visiting instructor at Pratt, how long have you been doing that and what do you get out of it?

I’ve been teaching for a few years and, besides being inspired by young people and regular practice at speaking publicly, what I most enjoy about teaching is that it forces me to re-evaluate my process and question my reasons for making work.

In short, I have to practise what I preach.

Attempting to put into words what I do for a living helps me understand my career on a deeper level.

Animation – love your short film Blackout. Are you animating these or just designing? More in the pipeline?

Thank you. Animation is a collaborative effort for me. With the Blackout video, I was hired by a production studio called Buck.tv. I worked with an art director, creative director and two animators brainstorming, story boarding and illustrating. What I mostly did was design the look of the piece. Since then, I’ve worked on a handful of other animations in which I worked directly with the client and put together my own team. I made an animation for both Kate Spade and Anthropologie, both of which I wrote a treatment for, designed

the look and feel and hired an animator and musicians to make the final piece. The animators I work with are amazingly talented and bring something unique to the project. My favourite part of animation is working alongside other artists – something I don’t get to do with my other illustration work.

Yes, more in the future!

Ireland – ever been before and will you be carrying a copy of Tracing my Family Roots in your bag?

OFFSET will be my first visit to Ireland and I can’t wait. I supposedly have some Irish roots but I’m a classic American mutt with ancestry in both Europe and Mexico. I’d love to learn more about my connection to the Irish.

-------------------------------GAVIN O’SULLIVAN (DDFH&B) ADVERTISING ART DIRECTOR IRELAND -------------------------------SUNDAY 1PM -------------------------------www.ddfhb.ie --------------------------------

Creative Director of DDFH&B and a copywriter by trade, Gavin ha

for 15 years. He has worked in virtually every conceivable pro

advertising of alcohol, from Vodafone to eircom, Lotto to Lucoz

and proudly claims to have been an avid user of both. He has w

the Institute of Creative Advertising & Design. Expect unique a

as been creating award winning campaigns, at home and abroad

oduct category, from ethical medicines to the slightly less ethical

zade and on campaigns for everything from Amstel to Zantac

won his fair share of shiny baubles and is the current President of

and important perspectives from one of the top Irish ad men.

-------------------------------BEN NEWMAN ILLUSTRATOR UK -------------------------------SUNDAY 3PM -------------------------------www.bennewman.co.uk --------------------------------

Newman builds images from basic shapes and limited palettes – creating solid, arresting work that seems to be both tribal and modern and belying his UK roots. He’s been on the ‘one-to-watch’ list for a while and has just graduated to ‘rising star’. The Tate, Fantagraphics, BBC Radio, ABSOLUT and Nobrow Press are among his many clients.

(Listen, there’s another Ben Newman who makes pictures of monsters doing rude things to girls. This isn’t that Ben Newman.)

Hey Ben! You’re coming back to Dublin for OFFSET – you’ve been here before, right?

I sure have! Last time I was in Dublin was back in 2011. I was working with Bren and Rich from OFFSET (with their agency, THE SMALL PRINT) and a group of amazing creative people on a project for ABSOLUT Vodka. We were painting eight-foot tall fibreglass vodka bottles and we had a blast. Worked hard, partied hard… Sorry, can’t believe I just said that.

It’s true though; we really did. Can’t wait to visit Dublin again. Roll on OFFSET! Since you brought up working on big, 3D projects, lets talk about it – your style of illustration seems to translate really well into 3D pieces. Is it something that you enjoy doing?

Yes, very much so. I wish I had more time and the resources to do more of it.

But there are a couple of projects in the pipeline that should see the light of day later this year.

My visual language is very simple and colourful. It feels like a natural progression for it to become more physical, and the 2D shapes to become 3D blocks.

I generally work in print, so the 3D collaborative projects are a fantastic outlet for me. I take a back seat with the 3D work that I’ve done with Felt Mistress, and let her drive. She knows what she’s doing and I want her to feel as free as possible when she is interpreting my characters or images in felt.

When I work with my father, I’m much more hands-on and that’s what I enjoy most in that partnership.

That’s right – your dad was involved in the Masks exhibition. Any arguments?

Surprisingly, we didn’t argue at all when we worked together. I think there is a mutual respect there. My dad worked as a tool-maker for most of his life, so he always had to follow instructions and measurements to their finest detail. That’s great for me when we’re setting out the initial designs and 3D sketches.

Through our collaboration, I wanted to push my dad to be creative and make his own decisions about how he thinks the designs will work in wood.

Gradually, we have come to a point where both of us bounce the ideas back and forth without being too precious about anything. I think that’s an important factor in collaborative working: let the idea and aesthetic evolve and trust your collaborator… especially if it’s your dad.

Your work seems sort of modern and sort of tribalistic at the same time – not quite what you’d expect from a guy from Bristol. What exactly are you looking to for your influences?

About eight years ago, when I was in Asia for a few months, I spent a lot of my time drawing all the statues and faces that I saw at the temples and at market stalls. I think that that experience has stayed with me and fed heavily into my work and how I think. I love diagrams and simple informative graphics, as well as the print processes that produced them.

I guess there is a retrospective quality to my work but I am aware of trying my best to keep things fresh and modern.

I feel it is important to me that when I design or draw that the work will age well. I like to aim to create pictures that could be enjoyed 20 years ago and 20 years in the future, without feeling that it belonged to any trend. But that is just an opinion and others may feel differently.

You’ve done a lot of work over the past couple of years with Nobrow Press.

Seems like it’s been a pretty rewarding collaboration…

Nobrow have been incredible to me.

Having an outlet for my personal projects is genuinely a dream come true. I still need to pitch my projects, just like everyone else, so I make sure I only take my best ideas with me. I’ve been working on my latest project with them for about two years now. I’m really excited to be presenting some of the inside pages of my new book to all the lovely folk attending OFFSET 2013.

‘New work from Newman,’ we can see the headline already! You worked on a TV trailer for the BBC Radio 4 show, Life and Fate, as a designer, which picked up an award. Was that your first time working in film/TV? I’ve worked as a member of an animation team a couple of times but the BBC Radio 4 job was quite different from those experiences. I worked on the branding for print first, and the animation aspect came unexpectedly from the positive response to the image that I designed. Devilfish and Wonky worked up the ideas for the advert and once the storyboards were finished, they asked me to design and supply the assets. I’m very proud of the work we produced and the award that we won.

Something you’d look at doing again?

I’d love to do more animation work in the future. But ideally I’d like to play a bigger role in the process, creatively. Fingerscrossed I’ll get round to it someday. At the moment I am really happy to be working on book projects and seeing where they take me.

What’s next on the desk?

Finishing my next book which is out October 2013. Its called Professor Astro Cat’s Frontiers of Space and I’ve been working with a Dr Dominic Walliman, who is a Doctor of Physics. It has been a very rewarding experience working with him and I’m excited to hear and see people’s responses when it finally sees the light of day.

You’re locked in an eternal Google search ranking war with another artist, who is also named Ben Newman. His ‘oeuvre’ is rather different though. Has this ever led to confusion with potential clients?

Once or twice. Some people are convinced that there is one Ben Newman, who produces two very stylistically different sets of aesthetics. Our work is so different that I am constantly confused that people think we are the same person.

I think people underestimate how long all this work takes.

I once had a phone call from a man asking me to send him ‘my’ Little Red Riding Hood picture that he’d seen in Bizarre Magazine so that he could have it tattooed over his whole back. I was very confused and after him impatiently calling me back three times and telling me how much he loved it, I went down to the newsagents to see what he was talking about. I picked up the magazine and opened it to find a highly detailed painting of Little Red Riding Hood having her knickers pulled down to her ankles by the, rather muscular, wolf… I didn’t answer the phone after that.

----------------------KATE MOROSS DESIGNER / ILLUSTRATOR UK ----------------------SUNDAY 4PM ----------------------www.studiomoross.com -----------------------

------

----------------

This time five years ago, at the age of 21, Kate Moross was in her final year studying Graphic Design at Camberwell College of Arts in London – and she was already something of an inspiration.

Her portfolio brimmed with personal and college work, and also illustrations created for clients like Vice, Dazed & Confused and Cadbury, not to mention innumerable flyers created for a myriad of London club nights. Oh yeah, and she’d also started her own record label, launched her own range of signature clothing at TopShop, and had been named one of Creative Review’s 2008 Creative Futures.

All before she left college. Wow. Now, five years into professional practice, Moross is busier than ever, designing, illustrating and directing film content for clients including the Guardian, Converse, Adidas, A Bathing Ape and Nokia, to name but a few. Gavin Lucas (Creative Review) caught up with her ahead of her OFFSET talk to find out what’s going on in Kate Moross land at the moment...

Do you work solo or do you have a team of people you work with?

We are a team now! So there is me, Oliver and Guy (who are designers) and Liv is our studio manager and all round life saver.

You’ve always been good at doing loads of different projects all at the same time – from posters/flyers, through to art directing books, etc. What are you currently working on?

Well, today I am doing some illustrations for an app, shooting a new Jessie Ware video (we cast the dancers this morning), doing some illustrations for beverage packaging, designing two event posters, pitching on three music art direction jobs, writing a script for an advert, designing about six different music releases... Let’s just say our office whiteboard is very full at the moment!

And how do you spend your time juggling these tasks from commercial illustration commissions, to writing music video treatments? What does a typical week in Kate Moross land entail?

I’m not really sure, I’m doing all sorts of things all of the time.

Sometimes strategy, sometimes image-making, sometimes client negotiations, sometimes just typesetting. That’s what I like about our studio – we do lots of different things and we share the work. I need that variation to keep me focused.

It has always been the way I have worked.

What will you show/talk about at OFFSET? I’m going to talk about mistakes and show some of my rubbish work, and hopefully break down some barriers and show people that it isn’t as hard as it may seem.

So are you now officially “on the design talk circuit”? Do you talk a lot about your work to audiences at conferences, design festivals, etc.

– and do you talk to students too?

It seems that I am indeed “on the circuit” now! I learned this phrase from Sanky from All of Us a few years ago when I spoke at Semi Permanent in New Zealand. I actually really enjoy public speaking – it’s an important part of my practice. The truth is, I don’t have any friends that do what I do, so speaking at events means I can have design debates, learn from more experienced studios, learn about other practices, and generally meet people of a similar mind-set.

-------------------------------CALEF BROWN ILLUSTRATION CANADA -------------------------------SUNDAY 5PM -------------------------------www.calefbrown.com --------------------------------

-------------------------------CIARÁN ÓGAORA/ZERO-G GRAPHIC DESIGN IRELAND -------------------------------SUNDAY 6PM -------------------------------www.zero-g.ie --------------------------------

If you live in Ireland you know Zero-G. Actually, if you’ve ever even visited Ireland, you’ll know Zero-G – that’s how prevalent their work is on the Irish visual landscape.

Although they’ve created identities for major clients, including Bord Gáis Energy, they’re probably best known for their progressive and exciting interpretations of marks in the cultural and arts spaces, including the Science Gallery and the Abbey Theatre.

Paul McBride from DETAIL. DESIGN STUDIO sat down with Ciarán before his OFFSET2013 closing presentation. www.detail.ie

“Each of our own experiences, values and in-built associations inform how we understand the world and work as visual communicators.”

How’s 2013 treating you so far?

It’s 2013?

When did you first realise you would become a designer?

I have memories of wanting to be some sort of a visual artist when I was four or five and, to an extent, I’m doing what always seemed natural for me to do.

What does ‘design’ mean to you?

It’s a process to engage, learn and create. I like the journey that the word ‘design’ represents.

Hindsight being what it is, what advice would you give your younger self starting out?

Slow down.

Tea or coffee?

Tea. How did your time with Proforma and DesignWorks inform Zero-G? Both in different ways. Proforma informed my understanding of design as a distinct discipline.

DesignWorks informed my understanding of what it takes to run a business in Ireland.

Zero-G started out as a bit of a reaction against my experiences up to that point and I had no intention of growing a studio – I enjoyed being a designer but didn’t relish the complexities and challenges of running a business. I resisted growing in size for the initial years but I’ve resigned myself to the need to establish something with a culture that can grow independent of myself. Zero-G is currently a team of nine, which feels very big to me, but

I am fortunate enough to find myself working with some great people who care passionately about what they do. At the end of the day what’s informed me has been the individual relationships I’ve enjoyed with Proforma and Designworks and just as importantly the type of clients that those studios attracted. Ultimately, it’s the client relationships that inform the quality of work we are permitted to create. To paraphrase Tibor Kalman: “Good clients are smarter than you, bad clients are dumber than you.”

Following the money doesn’t always lead you to a smart client.

How does a typical project play out in your studio?

Our typical projects tend to be brand identity projects and these follow a process of discovery, definition and creation. We try to defer jumping to a solution as much as we can and to take the time to engage at a meaningful level with the client. We see this as a process of assisting the client in looking at themselves differently before possibly changing how they look. Since we often work with organisations that are national or international with many different audiences and influencers, this early engagement is vital to create an environment in which good work can be done. We avoid the approach of creating three solutions and asking the clients to pick one. This is anathema to our way of working though we recognise that many clients are conditioned through prior experiences to expect this approach. As we move through the project we seek to use the engagement with the client to both challenge their assumptions and make them more confident about what they can achieve. At the end of the day, the actual creative expression

Who are your heroes and villains?

My biggest hero, and the biggest influence on my work, was my grandfather Michael de Búrca, a primary school teacher from Tipperary. He taught me about the importance of remaining curious, well-constructed communication, and the need to remain playful, even when tackling something serious.

Peter Saville was a hero before I heard him talk.

Doesn’t make him a villain, just not a hero.

How do you keep things fresh and interesting?

The range of projects and clients that we work with is quite challenging and I am constantly having to learn and adapt. This in itself keeps things interesting and fresh. Also, every year I take stock as to whether I should continue doing what I do. The freedom to know that I can change direction at any time prevents me from getting cynical and keeps me appreciating the opportunities that I have.

is only a means to an end and this is probably reflected in the relatively modest amount of graphic output from the studio.

How important is your Irish identity in terms of your work?

Each of our own experiences, values and inbuilt associations inform how we understand the world and work as visual communicators.

Being Irish, and of a particular generation, has certain characteristics and common experiences that I find specifically useful when working on international projects with other nationalities. With regards to the character of the work itself, I don’t overtly set out out to give work an Irish sensibility but conveying a sense of time or place (be that Rotterdam, Mumbai or Dublin) is something I think is important when trying to create work that feels authentic and resonant.

Favourite piece of design work; yours and someone else’s?

Personal: Noughtie Words. A little self-published book that my Dad worked on with me.

Public: Visual identity for the National Museum of Ireland. Someone else: The Medium is the Massage (1967) – written by Marshall McLuhan and designed by Quentin Fiore.

You travel quite a bit with work. How do you balance work and home life?

I’m not travelling as much as you might think.

Balance? I’m still working on that.

Desert island design: favourite typeface, album cover, book?

Typeface: Univers (Adrian Frutiger) Album cover: Power Corruption & Lies – New Order (Peter Saville) Book: As per question 9 – The Medium is the Massage … but also Ways of Seeing (John Berger, Sven Blomberg, Chris Fox, Michael Dibb, Richard Hollis) You’re a board member of Corn Exchange Theatre Company & National Tourism Development Authority. How do you feel your design practice and strategic thinking inform these roles?

Do you believe designers should have greater representation at board level?

I think that people with design training and experience can bring a different perspective to the ways that a board frames and addresses the particular opportunities or challenges it faces.

There can often be a deficit of vision in many established businesses and organisations. This is manifest in an inability to see beyond the task at hand and in the entrenched processes that have solidified over time. I believe that board members need to be the custodians and champions of an organisation’s vision and values and in so doing guide and support the executive with their mission.

I believe that there are many designers in Ireland who could bring vision and a fresh set of values that would help businesses and organisations develop in new, better and sustainable ways.

As such, if we, as designers, wish to move beyond servicing marketing departments we should seek to move into a position of influence over the entire culture of an organisation. Taking up board positions is one of the ways for us to achieve this.

What do you think are the biggest issues facing Irish design?

Design as a process and a practice is still not properly understood at a government and business level in Ireland, and this is compounded by the fact that many design companies continue to commodify what they do in order to play to this ignorance. This is a short-term strategy on the part of these design companies and it devalues the perceived value of design. Also, while not unique to Ireland, we need to recognise that many of the skills that were previously the preserve of designers have now become everyday (anyone know a typesetter?). Designers today need to be clearer about what it is that they actually offer and the benefit of what they do. This can be a challenge as it requires clearly communicating the intangible value of design, and that requires a leap of faith.

If you didn’t do what you do… what would you do?

Carve stone.

What are you most looking forward to in the future?

Holidays in the West this summer with Mary, Cillian and Emer.

After that? … probably looking forward to when my colleagues in Zero-G tell me that it’s time I moved on to do something else.

THINKING OF UPSKILLING OR RETRAINING IN A SPECIFIC AREA? Are you thinking of making a change in your career? Maybe you’ve been thinking of upskilling or retraining in a specific area? Is it time to broaden your skillset in new media and widen your employment options? The Design, Print & Packaging Skillnet offers subsidised and accredited training for advertising and marketing professionals and we can tailor any programme to suit you or your company’s needs.

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Skillnets is a government funded initiative and as such all courses are subsidised and at highly competitive rates. Get in touch today to find out how we can help your company benefit from our accredited training programmes.

CALL DIANE ON 086 852 0893 OR EMAIL INFO@DPPSKILLNET.IE AND LET US KNOW YOUR TRAINING NEEDS The Design, Print & Packaging Skillnet is funded by member companies and the Training Networks Programme, an initiative of Skillnets Ltd. funded from the National Training Fund through the Department of Education and Skills.

Have you got what it takes to design for The Extraordinaires速.

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