Posts Tagged ‘designer interviews’
Insightful Interview: Dror Benshetrit
There are not many folks who can pull off being recognized by a solely their first name. Of course there is Prince, Elvis and the likes… but there’s a new name rolling of people’s lips: Dror. Dror Benshetrit to be more specific. The Tel Aviv born, New York based artist has an interdisciplinary approach that encompasses product design, architecture, interior design and art direction. His range spans from the creation of a sunken luxury eco-resort in Abu Dhabi made to look like an undulating green carpet to his folded, felt peacock chair, to re-vamping the New York’s old Soho Gucci store into an artistic Synagogue. No matter what the material, the man is a master at capturing the nature of movement and special relationships.
1. Throughout your career, which project are you most proud of?
My projects feel like my children. Their creations are my life experiences. I love them all. If I were to choose one over the other, it would be in respect to the lessons it taught me. But it is also important to reconcile experiences for you don’t always realize what gives to you and how it may affect the others
2. The design of a recently completed project of yours, the Soho Synagogue, is “outside the box” when compared to traditional Synagogues. What are your thoughts on the importance of design in a place of worship?
I think it is important to reflect on every life experience and even more so the most unique ones. I had never had a chance to reflect on the space and the environment of a spiritual place. I usually get a chance to think and design commercial or residential places. It was a such wonderful experience for me to create a public space that calls out for spiritual and communal#individual connections rather than a commercial space.
3. Did you ever dream of being anything besides an Architect/Designer?
I am an artist rather and it always felt natural to me to express myself by creating. I can hardly see myself doing anything else.
4. Has either of your parents influenced your views on design and architecture?
Yes very much. By knowing nothing about it (LOL) My parents are extremely talented. My dad has a brilliant scientific mind and mom has an incredible sense of decorating and styling but they have never created anything except our home and us. I was always thankful to them for allowing me to practice my passion and not voice any opinion. Their support was reassuring and empowering. I think if they were artists I would have been influenced by them and it would have affected my own creativity and career. I am glad I had a free field in which I have been able play and grow independently.
(Copyright © 2005-2011 Studio Dror, Inc.)
An Insightful Interview With Stefan Sagmeister
Stefan Sagmeister is a veritable jackknife of skills. A renaissance man in his own right, the famed graphic designer and typographer’s design repertoire spans the gamut of branding, graphics, packaging and album covers. The Grammy-nabbing designer is also the author of “Made You Look“ and “Things I have learned in my life so far,” a teacher at the School of Visual Arts in NYC, and of course he runs his design firm, Sagmeister Inc. with work featured in solo shows in Zurich, Vienna, New York, Berlin, Japan, Osaka, Prague, Cologne, and Seoul.
We’re exhausted just thinking about it, which is why it’s no surprise that Sagmeister is currently taking time off for a little R&R in Bali. Knstrct caught up with him during his year-long sabbatical and he was nice enough to share some personal insight – his design heroes, inspirations, all-time favorite font and donning lederhosen, among other things.
Q. What is one essential that you always carry on you?
A. My fathers watch.
Q. The Internet… Has it made design better or worse?
A: Better. The audience is much more interested in design now because almost everybody is a designer themselves, – involved in type-choices and formatting questions etc. This technology driven change has not led to the predicted job losses for designers but to a desire for more sophisticated work from professionals.
Q. The iPad… Do you think print magazines can make a successful transition?
A. No. Right now it looks like consumers are not willing to pay for the kind of digital content most magazine’s have to offer in any meaningful numbers. But I am no expert on that at all.
Q. The art of the album cover… What’s next?
A. I always thought its going to be the cheaply producable, small file size graphic music video, one that looks great on the small screen and can be made by a very small team. I was wrong.
Q. Did you ever wear a lederhosen as a child growing up in Austria?
A. Yes. I even wore leatherhosen to work on my first day at a corporate job in New York. It caused a minor sensation (not in a good way).
Q. How many tubes of Neosporin did you go through after having the details of a talk xacto-ed onto your torso by your intern?
A. One.
Q. What is your favorite part of a sandwich?
A. The cheese.
Q. Did you ever dream of being anything besides a graphic designer?
A. A mountain bike.
Q. Who influences your work?
A. Tibor Kalman was the single most influential person in my designy life and my one and only design hero. 15 years ago, as a student in NYC, I called him every week for half a year and I got to know the M&Co receptionist really well. When he finally agreed to see me it turned out I had a sketch in my portfolio rather similar in concept and execution then an idea M&Co was just working on: He rushed to show me the prototype out of fear I’d say later he stole it out of my portfolio. I was so flattered. When I finally started working there 5 years later I discovered it was, more than anything else, his incredible salesmanship that set his studio apart from all the others. There were probably a number of people around who were as smart as Tibor (and there were certainly a lot who were better at designing), but nobody else could sell these concepts without any changes, get those ideas with almost no alterations out into the hands of the public. Nobody else was as passionate. As a boss he had no qualms about upsetting his clients or his employees (I remember his reaction to a logo I had worked on for weeks and was very proud of: “Stefan, this is TERRIBLE, just terrible, I am so disappointed”). His big heart was shining through nevertheless. He had the guts to risk everything, I witnessed a very large architecture project where he and M&Co had collaborated with a famous architect and had spent a years worth of work: He was willing to walk away on the question of who will present to the client. Tibor had an uncanny knack for giving advice, for dispersing morsels of wisdom, packaged in rough language later known as Tiborisms: “The most difficult thing when running a design company is not to grow” he told me when I opened my own little studio. “Just don’t go and spend the money they pay you or you are going to be the whore of the ad agencies for the rest of your life” was his parting sentence when I moved to Hong Kong to open up a design studio for Leo Burnett. These insights were also the reason why M&Co. got so much press, journalists could just call him and he would supply the entire structure for a story and some fantastic quotes to boot. He was always happy and ready to jump from one field to another, corporate design, products, city planning, music video, documentary movies, children books, magazine editing were all treated under the mantra “you should do everything twice, the first time you don’t know what you’re doing, the second time you do, the third time its boring”. He did good work containing good ideas for good people.
Q. Who is your personal hero?
A. As mentioned, Tibor Kalman, because he had the most guts of any designer I know and understood that spending energy on making sure that a design appears as designed is as important as designing it. Makoto Saito for selling the same photo shoot to different clients. Rick Valincenti for continuously doing ground breaking work. Paula Scher for designing the best project of her career (the type for the New Jersey Performing Art Center), after a 30 year career, last year.
Q. What work are you proudest of?
A. Likely the whole “Things I have learned” series. The individual projects were a pleasure to design and create, lecturing and exhibiting them was a pleasure, I was pleased with how the book came out and even now, 10 years after we started the series, I have a good time talking about it. We also got a lot of positive and steady feedback about it.
Q. Have you seen any of the Twilight saga (be honest here)?
A. No. And I am not quite sure why this question requires particular honesty.
Q. Where did you put your three Grammy awards?
A. Two are on an a book shelf, the third destroyed when my dog sat on it.
Q. What is your guilty pleasure?
A. Including at least one lie when answering interviews.
Q. What does wasted time look like to you?
A. Like a lemon wafer.
Q. What advice would you give up-and-coming graphic designers?
A. Dont take any advice from tried-and-true graphic designers.
Q. What is your all-time favorite font?
A. My own hand writing.
Q. Can you successfully play an ‘Alphorn?’
A. No. But my first design job, when I was 15, was at a magazine called Alphorn.
Q. Ever caught any unsavory shenanigans on the live cam in your office?
A. Only rehearsed ones.
