You were interested in becoming a writer and journalist. You said you loved Paul Auster and Jorge Luis Borges. You remarked elsewhere, “I design, I write, I educate, I am passionate about what I do.” How did you end up as a designer?
Labels are just labels. I am a design writer, journalist, editor and a graphic designer. But I also do many other things, such as curating and teaching. I give workshops and lectures and form part of several boards and committees in which I play an active role. I do self-initiated work and am interested in social design. The ‘writer, designer, educator, journalist’ are just labels that form part of a bigger whole. They feed off each other. For instance, a designer is an editor by nature. Designing and editing are inextricably linked.
I grew up wanting to be a novelist. Writing a novel is still my dream. In the meantime (until I find proper time), I write about design. It is a great way to practice and exercise my writing skills. It is also a great way to meet other people and get under their skin, understand what drives them and makes them tick. Writing is a moment of silence, it allows me to stop and think in a different way about design and the world that we live in. I get bored easily if I focus only on ‘graphic design’: it feels like I am using just one half of my brain. I studied literature and philosophy before graphic design, which is probably one of the reasons why I approach design from a more critical perspective. I was lucky enough to have teachers like Elie Wiesel. His classes were not ‘normal’ classes. They were life lessons.
I am insatiably curious by nature. For example, if I am designing a poetry or literature collection, or a book cover, I love to speak with the editors about the authors and the stories of the books. This occasionally surprises some clients: they are hiring a graphic designer, not someone who has actually read Paul Auster or Jorge Luis Borges. This is what I love most about graphic design: depending on how you look at it, it can be ‘just graphic design’ or ‘everything’. Communication in its broadest sense is at the heart of our profession. I find that the best designers are often highly talented, passionate, committed, intelligent, hard working and cultured individuals.
To borrow a phrase by John McConnell: ‘By wanting to be intelligent, it usually gets simpler and simpler. The creative process is paring back all the time. If you can’t defend it, get rid of it. That’s what turns me on. How simple can you make it? Usually, “creativity” means showing off to your peer group, and creativity without intelligence is as dumb as it comes.’
Tell us about your studio, Atlas, your collaboration with Pablo Martín, your other colleagues, and the way your studio was founded.
Atlas is the fusion of my former studio, Astrid Stavro Studio, with Grafica, which was founded in 1993 by Pablo Martín and Fernando Gutiérrez. We started the company four years ago when we moved from Barcelona to Palma de Mallorca in the Balearic Islands. As a married “design couple,” Pablo and I shared ideas and exchanged feedback on each other’s work, occasionally collaborating on self-initiated or commissioned side projects, but it was never our intention to work together. For practical reasons, we started to share an office space—a large, beautiful nineteenth century house in the heart of the centric old quarter in Palma. Unknowingly, this marked the beginning of Atlas. I mean, it certainly wasn’t a conscious or planned decision. Initially, there was a clear line between both studios. Sharing a physical space meant that we started collaborating on a wide range of projects. Eventually, we realized that two independent studios working on similar projects under one roof had become confusing for our clients, our designers and ourselves.
Pablo, Rafa (our associate) and I have separate design teams and work on different projects. We share the same accountant, project and studio manager but we all work independently under the Atlas umbrella. At times we occasionally work together on bigger projects.
What is the role of Mallorca Island –with a population of less than one million– in the design projects ordered to your studio? Are all your clients from this island?
We chose the name Atlas to reflect the fact that we work for clients across the globe from a little island in the middle of the Mediterranean—north, south, east and west, from London to Mexico to Patagonia to New York. We travel a lot. Our studio culture reflects our international approach: The main language in the studio is English. We have had designers from the United States, Canada, Japan, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Sweden, France, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Bolivia, Argentina and, of course, Spain work with us. Pablo and I both speak five different languages, so besides English, you will hear us speak Spanish, Italian, French, Catalan and Portuguese in the studio. I often say that working at Atlas in Mallorca is like working in London or New York. It really is a melting pot of different cultures and different ways of seeing, which is enriching for everyone. One of the things that made this possible (working from Mallorca) is surely the fact that both Pablo and I had, individually, highly successful international careers. At the end of the day, all that creative directors really need is a brain — regardless of where they live.
A major part of your profession entails organizing workshops and lectures across the world. Does this distract your attention from design? Does it reduce your earnings in the long run?
Giving lectures, workshops and being jury member in international awards abroad is one of the perks of the job. I found it harder years ago but gradually got used to it. Of course, leaving the studio for several days or even weeks in a row makes it trickier to handle several projects at the same, specially when major deadlines coincide, but I have a great team of designers in the studio. It can be more tiring when I’m in a completely different time zone as I need to check emails late at night. I love long haul flights where I can focus on work with no distracting phone calls.
At the end of the day we do work from Mallorca for clients across the globe, which means that we constantly work in different time zones simultaneously — it sounds more complicated than it is. You get used to it. With the Internet and the new technologies this has become not only possible but also easier.
The distraction that comes with the constant travelling is actually healthy. Leaving the studio is rewarding in many ways. Meeting different people and cultures is inspiring and enriching. I feel immensely lucky and privileged to be able to travel across the globe like I do. The travels influence me, my work and my earning positively: I become a lot richer!
Books, magazines visual identities, packaging, exhibitions, posters, etc. make up the wide range of your works. Which one is your highest priority?
My biggest passion is editorial design. Entire books, magazines, book collections, book covers… I love print. My father was a publisher and a printer so the smell of ink and paper has been a part of my life since I was born. Nothing beats the smell of a book or the sound of the printing presses!
- Before graduation from the Royal College of Art, London you wrote your dissertation on book cover design with the aid of professors such as Irene von Treskow (who was once an art director at Saatchi & Saatchi), Andrezj Klimowski, and John McConnell. How did this project influence your future career path?
Your question fills me with wonderful nostalgia. It’s a funny story. My initial dissertation was actually going to be a short novel. I worked on it steadily for 6 months. It was a surreal story about a hotel, each room inhabited by a different author. One of them, since you mentioned him before, was Borges. My thesis supervisor at the time, Professor David Crowley, suggested that a Professor from Cambridge University come as an external examiner as there was nobody in an Art & Design College that could assess a creative writing thesis properly. After 6 long months I realized that I wasn’t going to finish the novel in time. So I changed the topic of the thesis at the very last minute —one month before the deadline. I worked relentlessly, day and night. I graduated summa cum laude because of the thesis! The thesis ended up shaping my design career — I have become a highly specialized book designer and my first design job was designing book covers.
What is the main theme of the Elephant Magazine, based in London? What is your role in its design and content creation?
Elephant magazine is an art culture magazine based in London. It used to be owned by Frame Publishers in Amsterdam and only recently became an independent magazine. I have known the magazine from the very first issue, at the time designed by my friend Matt Willey (now the Art Director of The New York Times Magazine). Marc Valli, the former Editor in Chief and now Publisher of the magazine, is also the owner of Magma bookshop in London and Art Commissioning Editor at Laurence King. Marc and I have known each other for years. He is one of the first persons that sold my RCA graduating project, The Art of the Grid notepad series, in his Magma bookshop. So when he started Elephant I immediately got in touch and have been a contributing editor since issue 2, interviewing artists and designers for the magazine as well as writing essays on particular topics. I have been the Art Director for the past 3 years and am now also an Editor. As Art Director my role is to be an orchestra director: commissioning photography, illustrations and infographics in addition to designing the entire magazine in a very hands on and rigorous way. My motto is that a magazine not worth keeping is not worth printing. This means that we collectively try to make every issue as good as possible, both in form and content.
Which designer(s) and particular design(s) style are you influenced by? Who is your hero(s)?
I have been hugely influenced by different designers at different stages of my life. I became a graphic designer after falling in love with Interview magazine, at the time art directed by Tibor Kalman. The list of influences is broad, probably as the history of design. I have many design heroes; at the top of the list are Derek Birdsall, Willy Fleckhaus, Josef Müller-Brockmann, Alan Fletcher and Richard Hollis. More contemporary designers include Cornel Windlin, Linda van Deursen & Armand Mevis, Graphic Thought Facility, Peter Saville, Julia Born, John Morgan and more. But my biggest influences have been the literature books I read, everything from Thomas Bernhard to Italo Calvino to Aldous Huxley to Thomas Mann to Raymond Chandler to Haruki Murakami, to name just a few.
The main features of designs by Atlas are balance and harmony between type and image. Does this stem from your attitude towards design?
My attitude towards design is firmly based on “less is more”. One of my favorite design quotes is by Bruno Munari: "Complicating things is easy. Simplifying them, difficult. To complicate one must just add whatever one wants: colors, shapes, actions, characters, decorations… To simplify one must take away, and to take away means knowing what to take away."
We dislike ornamental design: eschewing other embellishments is part of our design ethos. The work we do is idea based, concept driven design with rigorous attention to detail. I rarely think about my style and I don’t think that I actually have one. It is only through others people’s comments that I see some recurring themes. We like to communicate an idea in the most effective, simple and straightforward way. I like to strip an idea down to its essential elements in order to get the point across more effectively. The challenge is precisely to keep it simple. As Alan Fletcher said: “Every job has to have an idea. Otherwise it would be like a novelist trying to write a book about something without really saying anything."
It is easy to slip into or adopt trendy design solutions when ideas are missing. A strong concept anchors a project together. Form follows content. It is ultimately the designer's responsibility to find adequate, appropriate solutions and intelligent problem-solving, delivering what the client needs rather than what they want.
Please tell us about the two color posters of the Barcelona Design Museum.
The posters form part of the new ‘double identity’ that we designed for the Barcelona Design Museum and Design Hub Barcelona, the building that houses the museum and the city's major design associations. Both identities had to be complementary and work beneath a single graphic umbrella. The defining element of the identity is a system based on a simple connecting line inspired by the building's unique geographic location — a square at the junction of three of the city's most important thoroughfares. The line manifests itself graphically and physically through both 2D and 3D applications. We paired this device with a simple and bold typographic approach to make the tricky task of uniting multiple design-led organizations under one system look coherent. The visual simplicity of the line is enhanced by the bold typographic use of the sleek but friendly sans typeface Grafik. Rather than the personality being given by the logo, it's given by the system, making it instantly recognizable. The posters are printed with one ink on colored paper to keep costs at a minimum.
Could you explain the idea behind your book that won the first AWDA, AIAP Women in Design Award?
This photo book is a stark, painful portrait of the crisis situation in Spain and the results of the consequent financial cutbacks on the Spanish population. We worked as editors and designers, coming up with the title, design and concept of the photo book. The book is French folded — opening the book is a painful act. This was reinforced by using Rockstock paper and by printing the Spanish flag on the edges.
What are the Spanish Laus Awards? Why did you agree to curate its 46th exhibition? Why was it focused on ‘connections’?
I was invited to join the ADG Board this year (The Spanish Association of Graphic Designers), who organize the annual Laus Awards. It is a small Board and every member is welcome to propose initiatives.
The Laus Awards have a rich history in celebrating, nurturing and promoting outstanding work in the Spanish design and advertising industries. Having long served as a barometer of Spanish creativity, this year I proposed to open the Laus Awards to international design and advertising professionals.
The impact of Spanish design abroad in the last decade has grown steadily. Several designers, design studios and agencies have thrived in the broader international community, becoming a source of inspiration for national and international students and professionals alike.
Online platforms and social networks have played a major role in broadcasting local design at a global scale. With the click of a mouse, creatives can see what is being done in Barcelona, Tokyo, London, Sydney and New York. We work in a global industry for increasingly globalized clients. The aim of the first International Laus Awards was to reflect this rapidly changing landscape.
The makeover is anchored in the belief that diversity of thought and background are key values for the education of the next generation. To this end, I suggested several alterations, starting with the 2016 Laus & Campaign. The goal of the Laus & Campaign was to raise awareness about the international call for entries. The rest of the board unanimously backed the initiative. I curated and managed the campaign based on a collection of unique posters, designed and kindly donated by a carefully selected roster of 46 leading international designers and creative directors.
Each designer/graphic artist/design agency was invited to visually interpret the word “Connections”. The word (connections) encompasses the premise of the campaign: to create international networks and links between design students and professionals, design institutions and the media.
The full collection of one-off posters was exhibited during the Laus Awards ceremony in Barcelona’s Design Museum and featured in the Laus Awards Annual. They now form part of the permanent collection of the Barcelona Design Museum.
Closing the final list of 46 leading international designers was hard. There were many things to keep in mind: the list had to represent a variety of different countries, different disciplines (design & advertising) and breadth of work. I focused on renowned, established designers — designers that from an educational point of view I considered to be essential references in the design industry. The intention of the campaign was to work like bait — small hook, small fish, big hook, big fish. In a nutshell, I was encouraging and challenging Spanish designers to match their immense talent at an international level and vice versa.
Another key piece of the design overhaul undertaken by the ADG-FAD was the Laus Awards Annual. I edited the Laus Annual with Oscar Germade; the book was designed to look and feel more editorial, including pull-out quotes, case studies, essays and a host of new features played out in different ways. In this sense, the Annual is more than a showcase of winning work, offering real insight into the design and creative industries.
The Laus overhaul included several other initiatives such as a 50% presence of international Jury Members (which I selected); I was also in charge of creating new liasons with international design associations and media partners. In summary: it has been a very challenging, rewarding and exhausting 2016!