[…] Stay true to what you like and where you come from. Be distinctive. And don’t forget about the money, because there are wolves out there… […]

[…] Creation is a muscle. A top athlete trains every day. A creative person’s way of training is through their curiosity. What makes a good artistic director? General culture. Our job is to follow up on a brief, to connect elements that are not necessarily linked at first glance – to provide a reason, a story, a reference. All of this comes from general knowledge. Just because you’re an artistic director in fashion doesn’t mean you should only be interested in fashion. […]

[…] Today, young students should learn about critical thinking.
They should open new ways of getting commissions, by acting and being active, not by remaining passive.
They should really work on this. Another idea is that they have to act. Don’t wait for the project to come: go look for opportunities. Even fictional ideas can become real if you look at them with an active gaze. This is how I have been working, by looking for opportunities where the ordinary becomes extraordinary. At the office, we observe, we listen, and we ACT. […]

[…] I think that you shouldn’t expect anything from anyone and that—and this is something I was obsessed with—nothing is impossible. I’m very hard on people who say, “I’ve had bad luck in life. I come from a disadvantaged family.” That doesn’t move me at all. If you have a dream that eats you to the point that it wakes you up at night, whoever you are, you will make it. […]

[…] Say no. A lot. Especially in the beginning. In the beginning, you don’t have resources and, most of the time, companies exploit you. So why should you compromise? There will be a time for compromise. […]

[…] The beginning is the moment in which you need to pursue your ideal scenario as much as possible with the means that you have. We come from very simple families (…) We obtained what we wanted without really having a lot of money in our hands. So, it’s not about money, especially at the beginning, because you don’t have money regardless, so don’t compromise. […]

[…] they need to think about what design means today. We really need to work with a much more expansive understanding of the discipline that is not only about designing the product. There are a few companies and thousands of designers, so there’s not space for everybody. You need to find your own way of working. […]

[…] Don’t work for free, say exactly what you’re going to do and what you’re not going to do from the very beginning. […]

[…] I also try to teach (students) to reflect on their own history and how to put their personal identity and experiences into their work to make it even stronger. […]

[…] If it brings you pleasure, you are on the right track. Sometimes you do things because it’s trendy, because you like the artist and you’re inspired, because you think it’s what you have to do to please clients. But that’s not how you create something new, your own style, your own identity, a type of work that is personal. And sometimes, creating your identity means doing something that is directly connected to your story, your culture, your trauma. And sometimes, it has nothing to do with what you see around, so you say to yourself, “No, no one does that. I’m not going to do that. It’s useless.” But if while you’re doing that thing, you say to yourself, “Actually, I like this thing,” then you must keep doing it. […]

[…] It might sound counterintuitive, but my advice would be to avoid perfectionism. You should ask yourself two questions. Is it done enough? And, is it good enough? If the answers are yes you should move on. Perfectionism ultimately limits and inhibits creativity. […]

[…] Doubt is essential to creativity. It’s what keeps you up at night, but also what drives you to question and improve your ideas. If you’re absolutely certain of something, it means you haven’t thought deeply enough. Doubt isn’t the antithesis of confidence. […]

[…] Never give up pursuing a creative path, differentiating yourself, deciding your own strategy, how you communicate, you are your own weapon to fight against competitors. […]

[…] FH
Find partners and do things in teams would be our wisest and most credible advice I guess. […]

[…] Build your own style and stick to it, so no one can copy-cat you. Do that to stand out. […]

[…] “Pick your battles wisely”. It’s imperative, especially when working with other people, not to waste energy. […]

[…] The art of the brief is difficult. A brief both clear and precise is rare. For a designer, deciphering a brief is the challenge. It’s not the client’s job to prepare briefs, except for communications managers. Which brings me to another piece of advice I would give: learn to decipher a brief, ask the client loads of questions, interest yourself in their business, the better to understand them. What does the client want beyond what they are telling you? […]

[…] it’s really important to work really hard and to practice as much as possible. Because by really working, and really being internally motivated, and being truly obsessed by what you do, this is how you set off the best results. It sounds banal and simple, but what I have observed in a lot of young people and people who studied under my mentorship when I was teaching photography courses, is that a lot of people don’t actually do what they want to do. Many people wait, instead of doing things. Many people are scared of themselves and they’re scared of the potentials instead of just setting off things and doing them. […]

[…] DL
If a younger person asks me for advice: “What should I do? Should I start my own company?” I would say: “Do five different jobs first, or three at least”. […]

[…] DL
We look at ourselves, our own patterns (…) On our personal and work life. You can’t separate these. My fears will be projected on my sons as well as our staff, clients. etc. And vice versa. It really helped to start understanding my own dynamics. […]

[…] DL
If you’re young it’s hard to have your own style immediately. I talked to a film director once and he said: “I copied work for seven years before finding my own signature”. I think it would be good for people to not look at all the blogs, not look at Instagram, but rather do work, really try to do it from their own intuition and just make stuff and not be afraid of what anyone in the design community would feel.
Work that you haven’t seen before or that touches something new is always more interesting. It would be better to create your own references. […]

[…] OK
When you’re starting something it’s always useful to have a counterpoint, or something you’re rejecting. I think we definitely started with a strong realisation that we needed to do something differently than what we had experienced. […]

[…] RM
The best advice that we give is just really take your time. I know that we’re in crucial times, and there’s a real urgency, and we can feel it. But still, when you’re young and embarking on a career in design, especially in education, you should definitely take your time. Don’t see productivity just as a way to gauge work. It takes time to understand what’s happening around you, and that’s something you really only learn when you’re older, right? Annoyingly. Run around in circles for years, then… […]

[…] OK
Find a project. I don’t mean a commission. What is it that you want to spend your life working within? I think it’s one of the big questions for design, because you can be a designer on millions of different types of projects, with different messages. What is it, as a designer, that you believe? (…) It’s more about a discipline within which you operate. Because design is a tool at the end of the day. […]

[…] JF
The nature of things is that there’s constant flux and change and to be flexible with that reality is a far more effective way of navigating a career. […]

[…] JE
you have to be willing to tear things down and start again. As hard as that can be, it can be very rewarding. Both personally, as a business and creatively, you have to be willing to tear things down. […]

[…] JF
Just study the career of Aphex Twin and you will learn a lot about the meaning of creativity. […]

[…] JE
Find a business partner or mentor. Someone else you really strongly agree with. Don’t make it about you, cause you limit yourself then. […]

[…] JF
Try and build your studio around the work and not your identity would be a good start.
(…) It’s about your work and not your opinions, I think. (…) And take creative risks. Think you’ll have to take creative risks, otherwise, you’re not going to make an impact. And the other thing that I would say is to choose your business partner very carefully. […]

[…] A
Work for free not for cheap […]

[…] A
Nobody is expecting us once we graduate. There really is a huge gulf between student and professional life. My advice to anyone who wants to work in the creative industry, either as an employee or entrepreneur is to begin some light prospecting before you graduate so you can get an idea of what’s going on. […]

[…] I’ve always resisted and fought being business‑like. Luckily Catherine, my wife, has a very good sense of money in and money out. When I first met her, I was taking taxis and eating in restaurants and I had no money. She was like: “The first thing you stop is eating out and taking taxis. You get the bus and you have a sandwich”. I was like: “Oh, wow”. That’s all you need to know: money in, money out. And the money in has to be more than the money out, I guess. […]

[…] The most important thing is that people should do what they want to do, regardless of money or what their parents or friends say. […]

[…] You’ve just got to do what you want to do. The satisfaction will follow – not necessarily the money, but the satisfaction. You just need a client and it’s quite good to have somebody to work with, because it’s quite lonely otherwise […]

[…] MD
If you do something do it honestly. It’s really a question of sincerity, to feel profoundly what you really dig and be able to identify it. In order to stake a claim for yourself in this crazy modern graphic design world, you have to have a strong personality […]

[…] GH
If you get out of school and go to work for someone, even if it’s going well and you’re happy you will never say to yourself that you’re going to launch a studio. It’s too late. Whereas the opposite is possible: try it out and if you fail you can go work elsewhere, no hard feelings. […]

[…] MD
If you want to be original and get noticed I think you have to psychoanalyse yourself a little. I know what I like because I took the time to think about it. […]

[…] just stay curious and expand your horizon, where you go, what you see, how you navigate. […]

[…] Always make work for yourself even if you have a job. Make sure you don’t just clock and do
work and go home and not make anything. It’s important to always use your time as a designer, it’s a form of your own expression, how you use your work to be personal, whether no one sees it or not. […]

[…] Travel, be curious, and don’t worry if things are good or bad, or right or wrong. Just make it and see what happens. Don’t worry about making mistakes, it’s really easy for designers to get
tensed and caught up, especially early, and think about whether it’s going to be wrong.
Mistakes, that’s how you learn and how you get better. […]

[…] Get good lawyers. Image rights are where it’s at. It seems like an incredibly litigious thing to say, but when you have a good lawyer you can sleep soundly and get going on new projects, lock them down with contracts with everything on the up and up. […]

[…] The advice I would give the 30‑year‑old me might be: “Partner with the right people” […]

[…] Never Assume (…) It’s not just a business philosophy by the way. Never assume things are going to go well. Never presuppose. […]

[…] But, you’re never going to do the whole thing in your whole life, or you’re just a one-man-show. I mean, obviously you can do everything alone but coming from graffiti, I always used to be in a group, or working together with a lot of people, being inspired and learning from the way others work. It’s more fun to be creative in a group of people rather than sitting alone at home and thinking that you’re a genius. […]

[…] Long-term focus really helps you, and it helps you personally. […]

[…] The advice is that you need to study well the company, learn from it, look at its history, the future plans, and most of all really grasp their true mentality, culture, and personality, understand what your own culture might risk, but also what it can gain. […]

[…] Having a sense of humour, not taking things to heavily is also very important. We can make jokes about our work and tell each other it’s shit. (laugh) Humour is essential. […]

[…] following trends and fashion is not bad, there is a reason for it, and it comes and goes. But it’s just you need to be conscious of it and try to create your own answer and reality, that’s what is important. […]

[…] Do what you love, no matter what, even if you don’t pursue a creative career. […]

[…] (LA) Time helps making an idea fuller. Making decisions only based on time is a pity. […]

[…] (LA) When we teach students, we always advise them to be quite straight from the start in what they choose to do. It will get out and thereby it will be stuff you we’ll be asked for. You may be trapped if you want to be part of everything, it gets fussy. […]

[…] (LA) A strategy is not a guarantee of success…
(MS)…Sometimes producing work is the best thing to do! […]

[…] (LA) Don’t bother with what other people think! (…) As time goes by, you have less interest in what other people think and that provides you a feeling of freedom. Unfortunately, to get there you have to get older. (laugh) […]

[…] (MS) Make things. Its not about making a lot but in the end we feel that you should not talk and think and write too much about it – at least in our approach, and of course everybody has their own approach – but that you can only talk about your work when you’ve made it and also get experience as you make it […]

[…] I would have liked to know that what I was being told was true, that is to say that our work was much more valuable than we thought. That’s what people kept telling us, yet our experience appeared to contradict that. […]

[…] Critical distance, introspection, and a talent for self-criticism — these things are essential. […]

[…] Grow and expand your network. If purchasing databases was all you needed, then everyone would be successful. Essentially it all boils down to being a nice, fun and interesting guy to meet, someone who not only doesn’t waste your time but actually brings something to the table. You’ve got to have humanity, that quality that makes meeting you a pleasant experience. […]

[…] When you’re starting out, always assume the client is giving you a vote of confidence. But this can only happen if you exude self-confidence. […]

[…] You’ve got to go whole hog. It’s all or nothing. You’ve got to give yourself entirely over to the project, be as demanding with it as you are in your approach to typography — what I mean is perfection or nothing, no middle ground. You’ve got to have that goal. I don’t mean to be too peremptory by saying “give me excellence or give me death,” but you must in any case aim for excellence and enjoy the process of attempting to attain it. Because otherwise you’re either a dilettante or an amateur. […]

[…] My advice for anybody is just to make things, you have to engage in things. […]

[…] just make stuff, keep making stuff. […]

[…] Remember your work, your ideas have value, and you shouldn’t be giving your shit away. I’m not precious about the ideas, if it’s not good then move on, but I just don’t think you should be giving shit away for other people to do something with it. […]

[…] just make things!
People want to see your opinion, that’s what I care about when I look at people’s work, I want to see their opinion. […]

[…] Get experience. And when you think of your brand, there are so many things on the market it’s a little egocentric to say that yours is going to be successful (…) You shouldn’t be afraid to go for it but you’ve got to be prepared and you’ve got to understand what that means. You have people who believe in you, people you invite to the showroom, journalists, so it’s tough when it doesn’t work out. But you have to believe, you have to give yourself a little time. […]