Week 12

THINGS

This is my first trial for the book. It's a compilation of the knives that has more story of 1 family with just a little description below it.

It looked super duper lame so I tried to make it into infographic like pages based on the things I've learned in TNT.

This one I am more proud of because it displays the lifestyle better and you can see the difference between these 2 and it's more interesting and still formal way of representing what I wanted to.

This is my next idea which involved editing the knives that looked more "different" and take out that special thing they had like the first one its old the other one it's funky and the last one is classy.

However I did not know what really to do with it, I could only think of making it interactive like letting the audience write their thoughts about each knives or something but it did not portray that knives reflect the lifestyle of people directly like the first idea.

This is my 3rd idea which is more funky and fun. It's the same concept as above just executed in a more funny way with doodles.

It is more interesting but again it did not convey my message well.

So the first idea with the infographic was chosen but after tutorial with my lecturer she told me to try another media other than book because the other projects we will be doing in part 2 will be books mostly so I thought of web design that I could ty to use Adobe XD.

1000 Words About Someone

My 1000 words about someone... took me a long time to find a designer that I liked to reply to my emails or messages. A few replied just to deny also 😢.

Then I found Dawid Planeta, whose work were really interesting and he replied me. And I consider myself lucky that I got to interview him because I enjoyed the interview a lot. I really liked his views on things and he replied to me in detail and a lot of the things he told me during the interview were things that I thing would really help me become a better designer.

Here are some of his works

More of his work 👉 https://instagram.com/minipeopleinthejungle?igshid=1enc6gslgxpdf

He is from Poland which time difference is really huge from Malaysia, we did the interview through Gmail and it ended after a week. Here is the interview:

The interview

Ok so to begin can you tell me a little bit about yourself as a small introduction?

My name is Dawid Planeta. I was born in Cracow – one of the Europe's most beautiful cities, leading centre of Polish academic, cultural and artistic life. I grew up surrounded by art, thanks to my parents who are both artists, and in close connection with nature, spending every holiday in a cabin in the woods with my family. Years later I realized how important that time was for development of my sensivity and observation skills. To this day, nature is still my my greatest teacher and a way to find answers to the questions I have no answer to. AFter finishing high school I studied industrial design at Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow where I learned that working for someone, having to follow his rules is not something that works for me. It was a great challenge for my creativity to find new ways of doing things and staying within the rules and requirements at the same time. But I knew I had to find my own way. While I was studying at university, I also worked as a teacher at a drawing and art course. Teaching others and sharing my knowledge was one of the most rewarding experience of my life, and also challenging – since nobody showed me how to do it I had to figure it out by myself – find my own way, just the way I liked it.

Can you explain more on why you did not like working for someone?

Do you think it had to do with the background that you have and your love for nature, because nature and art are very liberating and free and working for someone really is the total opposite.

To be an artist you have to tune to the rhythm of nature which is quite far from the rhythm of life of someone who has a regular job. Art is about relationship with the subconscious, and to really develop this relationship there can be no one else but you and your subconscious. It needs time. You can't control it or try to make it work 9 to 5. The place where inspiration comes from is something very much alive and sometimes it challenges you – it tells you to start something new but doesn't tell you what it is, you have to look for it. Sometimes for quite a long time. Which again is not easy when you are caught up in all sorts of obligations and responsibilities from elsewhere.

It's a very special connection that requires respect and care.

I see,

On your Instagram you said you turn depression into art. How did you start in that direction? Is it something that you’ve been through yourself?

Yes, I did. This project started spontaneously during my period of depression back in 2017. Depression is basically defense mechanism that activates when you do something that hurts you for a long period of time. It's sending you a message that you are hurting yourself and takes your energy to stop you from doing it. I didn't know about it then. All I knew is that my happiness is gone and I don't find joy in anything anymore.

Then something happened – I created the first image and realised that it gave me a gentle feeling of excitement. I was afraid it would be gone too, so I continued and created more images. I didn't plan for it to be a series. I didn't plan to share it with anyone. It was my own, personal journey. But once it helped me to get through this difficult time, I decided to share it.

I really like the way you described depression. You have a very distinct style in your work. It does relate to depression in a very beautiful way I think.

Can you tell me more about how you developed that style of yours, was it something you already wanted to do or something that you had to build from time to time with trial and errors?

I never create with a clear vision in mind. What I'm more clear about is the emotion I want the picture to evoke. I didn't have any plans for this series. I just created one picture and decided to experiment some more with this technique. This is the best way – to learn as you go. It keeps you fascinated, it keeps you going. The first picture from the series also evolved from things I created earlier – it was inspired by a series of collages made in a traditional way, using paper and scissors. I tried to optimize the process to have more freedom and be able to create multiple versions from the same set of elements, so I switched to digital. Art is an ongoing process. It's difficult to see it because people always see only a part of this process. Or to be more exact – they only see the effects of that part of the process.

How important do you think it is for an artist to have a distinct style? Do you think that having a personal style is what makes an artist stand out more?

For me it's the same question as "How important do you think is to be yourself and not pretend to be someone else?"

Being an artist is not about creating a style but rather finding it. Or finding yourself.

If you create the way you like, not the way you want, not the way you think you should, everything you make resembles you in some way.

Sometimes you will find that your "real" style is quite far away from what you expected so many people just don't accept it, they keep trying to find something they already found but they weren't happy about it. It's a story of our lives basically.

I also wrote a short text recently that is pretty much about the same topic, but from slightly different perspective:

Everything you do is a statement.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s art or any other activity of your every day life.

In art you can see it more clearly because you are looking for it.

But when you will start to look for it in other things as well, you will see – everything you do is a statement.

Not „should be”, but „is”.

This small difference changes a lot – many artists think that art „should be” or „needs to be” a statement. When I was in art school, everybody tried to make a statement with their art.

To come up with a clever story or an interesting topic to give their art a meaning.

Trying to make your art „better” by connecting it to something relevant.

But I think the meaning is not something you can make.

It’s something you have to find.

The meaning is always there, and if you try to replace it with an artificial idea you will probably miss it.

You won’t even try to look for it.

Everything you create communicates something – it brings you a piece of information about yourself, about what’s happening deep inside of your mind. Or maybe even deeper than the mind, in the collective unconsciousness.

But to express itself through your actions, the meaning has to come through the mind, which is the most difficult part. The mind is full of obstacles that try to change the unknown shape and mold it into something „safe”, something that looks familiar. The true meaning gets lost.

The text you wrote is very inspiring, I really like it.

Your work “Deep Forest” and “The Miracle”, you explained them well on an Instagram post, they are very packed with small details and have very deep meanings, can you tell me more about your process? How do you come up with

those ideas and where do you draw your inspirations from?

The secret is not to try to "come up with ideas".

I just do what feels right, I follow my intuition. Most of my inspirations are unconscious, but if I would try to point some directions I would say mythology, psychology, spirituality, music, shamanism, communication with subconscious, poetry. I'm not very inspired with other visual artists, at least not in this series.

The process of creating art is very much connected with the way I define art – my definition is "creating a space for a spirit to emerge". And that's how I work. I create a space and wait for the spirit to come and take over the process. It's not as easy as it may sound, because the spirit is more like a wild animal, and you never know what kind of space will encourage it to come closer.

It takes a lot of patience, but it's definitely worth it.

Its definitely not an easy process. During that process whenever you face "blocks", how do you usually deal with that.

I don't deal with that. Those "blocks" are just information that there are some other areas that you should focus on at the moment. It may be a problem if you see everything as straight lines, but if you see reality more as a map than you understand that some other part of the map needs to develop right now, which will also help you to understand why you seem to be "blocked" on that particular path. So I guess I'm dealing with it by not dealing with it. And what is most important is not to fight with it – this idea of being "blocked" is only in your mind, and fighting against part of yourself is never a good idea.

You have a lot of quotes related to your works, it seems like you are a person who like reading and poetry. Do you think that this is something that influences your work in some ways?

Definitely. When it comes to the quote, it often takes a long time to find the right one. A quote is a hint for your mind pointing in a specific direction. It helps you interpret the work within a certain mental landscape. It helps you to see the work with a certain mindset. It helps you not to get lost in countless possibilities of interpreting the work. I don't want a quote to explain the picture or to repeat what the picture is already saying. I want it to continue the story, helping it to expand. It has to be not too far and not too close to the message of the picture. I want them to complete each other.

It's all connected with my realisation that the language we use, language made out of words is only one of many ways to communicate.

There are so many other ways to describe what words cannot describe – I'm trying to use more than one language to make the message more complete.

Do you think that art and design are great communication tools?

I would say that we have a lot of different communication tools but since we were thought to think of language as the "right one" we are losing ability to use other ones.

Yes, we understand art and music but mostly if it resembles a world constructed with words. That's why we love graphic design but we may feel lost when we look at huge abstract painting.

We want to understand, but understanding is also just one tool we can choose from our toolbox.

Do you think that visual communication can be used as a tool to amplify and recontextualize, underserved and unofficial voices of the community?

The power of visual communication lies in the fact that it can provide a large amount of information that reaches you simultaneously, unlike words that convey information in a linear manner, gradually building the message.

It has a negative side as well, because we can use it to evoke emotions and manipulate, especially nowadays when people don't have the patience to read.

I think we use visual communication too often in areas that require more detailed information that can be most effectively delivered using language.

The best way is to use multiple ways of communication at the same time or using one to promote the other – for example you can turn a poem into a song to reach a larger audience or present the data in a visual way, making it more understandable.

Ok we are done with the interview for my project, it was very insightful and i got a lot of interesting responses from you

But I also need to get your professional opinion on one of my other project, which is related to this interview. In this project I tried to share my advocacy of being circular to protect the environment because I think that design can be used to promote sustainability to the greater audience.

Below is the attached file of my Typographic Poster for that project

Based on your experience what do you think about it in terms of its visual and the message that it conveys?

And what do you also think about my advocacy?

I think graphic design is a great tool for communicating this kind of message, the question is how to engage people after creating an initial "emotional spike".

We really like to act when we feel emotion but emotions don't last long, so the problem is not the message but how to get this message to people.

I like the idea of continents created from leaves, I think it works great but also I came up with some questions that can be helpful in "testing" your idea:

– why use leaves that are detached from plants and not entire plants?

– why many leaves looks like they are dry and only few have this saturated green that makes them look alive?

– why there is no north and south pole?

These are not mistakes of course, just questions to make you think or experiment with other ideas.