Creatives Today: What is Your World Like? — Part 1
In the last few months our sense of “normal” has been turned on its head. AIGA Los Angeles reached out to creatives all over the world asking them to share their stories of creative “survival” or, possibly, creative revival in these uncertain times.
What is the role of a designer/creative in the current climate?
What is your world like today?
Studio Abbasi Founder, AGI Member
www.studioabbasi.com
An unprecedented crisis caused by coronavirus has left us with feelings of instability and uncertainty about the future. It left us with many design projects canceled or postponed, but also with an opportunity to look for positive things during these hard times. We are learning new ways of connecting with people — our families and co-workers, which we would’ve never tried, if not for the isolation. We have been forced to slow down, which gave us a chance to rediscover ourselves and reexamine our personal and professional lives. During this crisis, many ideas have been conceived and several projects have been expedited while working from home.
As a member of the Iranian Graphic Designers Society, I joined its Instagram campaign that sends messages, asking everyone to be respectful of the environment, to keep the spirits high, and to improve teamwork and visual literacy, in spite of the isolation.
As the editor-in-chief of an Iranian graphic design magazine Neshan, I’m working on promoting Iranian graphic design, which is largely unknown to the international design community. I am leading a team of writers, researchers, and archivists who work on a book that covers the history of Iranian graphic design from the 1870s until the present. During the isolation, we had twice as many virtual meetings as usual, which became a valuable time saver. We discuss topics like texts, documents, artworks, photos, etc. This 400-page book will be in Farsi and in English and will include over 2500 full-color artworks. Given the current situation, the book is anticipated to be published in 2022.
Design Manager at Procter & Gamble
@cai_minoyeye
I don’t feel too stressed these days as life is mostly back to normal for me now — I work from home one week, go to the office the next. I do commercial design, so it doesn’t affect my work or my designs. I do feel a lot of positive things happening — I feel my country becoming very strong, a lot of good people here making it better and better. My job is also becoming more stable and interesting. My family and friends are healthy. China has overcome the coronavirus. Everything is getting better and there’s hope.
Graphic Designer, Wheels and Waves Founder
www.wheelsandwaves.dk
The world has experienced pandemics in the past, but we are now in a situation none of us have seen before. COVID-19 is a virus we are just beginning to understand. It will take time to learn to live with this disease.
It has been two months since Denmark’s prime minister shut down our country and our borders. In the first few weeks, I followed the news almost minute by minute trying to understand the situation. It was not easy to follow the authorities’ recommendations. When all news media is talking about is the illness — anyone can start feeling unwell. This is when you start to understand what is truly important. Food — important, calling your grandmother — important. Haircut, new clothes — not that critical.
Financially, I’ve been able to make it work. I work from home in my studio and teach my university and design school courses online. It has been a continuous struggle not to be able to interact with my students in a classroom. Usually, teaching energizes me, but online courses have the opposite effect on me. But I have learned new things from being behind the screen, which I plan to include in some of my future lessons as well as in my professional career.
One of those things that I discovered is webinars. To my surprise, webinars became a way of making new networking relationships, new acquaintances, and hopefully new collaborations with people from around the world.
This present crisis has proven once again that relations and friendships are far more important than everything else. For now, we have to nourish them from a distance and we do not know for how long. Stay safe — all of you, my old and my yet unknown new friends — until we can hug again!
Graphic Designer
Worldwide Graphic Designers, Founder
I live in the city of Jakarta. I currently work as a permanent lecturer at Pradita University, teaching visual communication design. I am also the founder of a Worldwide Graphic Designers (WGD) — an online community of poster designers from all over the world. At the same time I’m involved in a variety of graphic design projects.
The COVID19 pandemic does indeed affect everyone in the world. All our work is now done at home. I teach via Google Classroom, Zoom, and Google Meet. Luckily, my income has not declined, because I receive a monthly salary from the university, but everyone in Indonesia is fearful of the COVID19 and what will happen if the pandemic will continue for a long time.
All exhibits in WGD — my online community — will for now be held virtually. The exhibitions will be made to resemble real showrooms, but the events themselves will all take place in cyberspace. WGD also holds weekly meetings using Zoom to help designers from different countries think of alternative ways of earning income in this time of crisis. We believe that these meetings will let us stay connected with fellow artists and offer opportunities in the job market.
As a side job, I’m doing design work for my colleagues from other countries. Recently I was asked to create a promotional design for a 2021 biennale exhibition in Switzerland and a graphic design for a skateboard company from Italy.
Graphic Designer, Curator
www.facebook.com/he.huang.773776
I am a designer from China, and I also run a design company. I first learned of the outbreak on January 20, 2020, when I was on a business trip. I returned home that day, 3 days before the Chinese New Year. In just a few days, in an attempt to combat the epidemic, China has adopted very strict isolation policies in almost every city, and we had to get used to a “stay at home” life, which continued until March. Luckily, China’s epidemic is now under control and we are getting back to work and returning to a normal life. I began going on business trips and visit different cities. There is order in every city I’ve visited. Because of the pandemic we’ve changed the way we work, switching from going to the office to working online, which includes important meetings with customers. It is very effective and risk-free. China is very safe now, and everything has been restored to normal. The only difference is that we wear masks when we go out.
I hope the pandemic will be over soon. I wish all of my friends and their families to stay safe and be in the best of health.
Design Analyst (Paxful), Freelance UI Designer
@dmiv.codesign
Today marks my 11th week of isolation. 5th week was the toughest — I was suffering from a lack of live communication with colleagues, clients and partners. Before I was forced to work from home, alone behind a monitor, I had completely forgotten how great it is to collaborate offline, sharing live energy and charging each other with emotions. Today, over-communication serves as a tool to resist professional burnout during self-isolation.
Speaking about how much the pandemic affected my earnings, I am kind of lucky — two weeks before the lockdown, I joined Paxful (next generation peer-to-peer marketplace for buying and selling bitcoin), where I am now doing Design Analysis. Even during the pandemic, this sector feels very stable — we continue making financial services available for those, who’d never had access to them. Today, we can literally help to save lives. I feel inspired and blessed to be able to work on this mission during a global pandemic.
My freelance projects remained at about the same level — the smallest businesses stopped requesting design, but larger ones order more than before. The reason behind this — they need to communicate the news about COVID-19 to their customers. Of course, I have significantly lowered the prices for my services to support businesses that are struggling. The pandemic has rallied us and I do believe we will come out of it stronger.
Graphic Designer, Curator
www.pidzej.com
I try to see our current situation in a positive light. Usually, I spend a lot of time driving to my school in Krakow. Nowadays, my car is parked and I have plenty of time for everything. Mostly, I enjoy time with my family. I also spend a lot of time in the garden — mowing, planting trees, growing fruits and vegetables, and creating a sandbox for my little daughter.
I should, probably, be doing more design nowadays. I was planning on making a poster about the coronavirus, but social media is full of art on that subject, so I devote myself to other activities. There is plenty of time for creativity — making posters for various competitions and exhibits. I think about design exhibitions or other ways of having a positive social and cultural impact.
As far as employment, I don’t feel that my work has changed that much. It turns out that we can do a lot of things online and I can spend more time at home with family, and not in my car.
I know that a lot of people are hurt by the economic downturn, but “putting the world on hold” is beneficial to our planet. Thinking of topics like global warming, pollution, and others makes me believe our planet needed such a break. I’m looking back at recent years when winters turned into summers with no springs at all. I used to wear summer clothes in March, but this year I am still in my jacket and I wear a hat. I also notice how trees bloom and my garden grows green. So yes, I think this pandemic, so devastating to people, will have quite a positive impact on the environment.
Creative Director, Poster Artist
Creative Factory, Yossilemel.com
I’ve been preoccupied with environmental issues for decades and it has been at the forefront of my mind as a brand expert, designer, and lecturer in Israel and around the world. We as a humanity have not yet recovered from an ecological disaster in Australia that hit us at the beginning of 2020 and now for the last couple of months, I have been following the Coronavirus with increasing concern.
The outbreak of the pandemic that began in China at the end of 2019 was truly alarming and I made a daily commitment to share visual posts with my followers on social networks that cover this subject and its causes.
As an educator and as a person that is involved not only in environmental, but also social and political issues, I have a constant need to try to raise awareness of any violation of human rights, injustice, crimes against society and nature and to emphasize our mutual responsibility for the future of this planet. We now have a unique opportunity to discuss global matters, aiming directly at the “captive audience” worldwide, trying to change their perceptions and attitudes, and help them take responsibility for the entire cycle of life.
As a provider of creative services and as a frequent flyer and a guest lecturer in a lot of international institutions I think we will have to change our old routines and start communicating online more and more as a new way of connecting with clients, students, and the public.
This piece was curated and edited by Olga Severina and Ana Zukova.
