Interview: Alex Haigh from Thinkdust

aloa — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 09:02:24 +0000

Thinkdust is an indepented design studio founded by Alex Haigh who worked for great companies like Nike, Sony and made the website for Volkswagen UK. In this interview we'll talk about the coming projects of Alex.

visit Alex on behance and on Thinkdust.com

1. First of all we would like to thank you for taking the time to provide abduzeedo.com with this interview. Please tell us more about your art and design background and what made you become an artist and designer?

Since the age of 8 I used to design different type of trainers on sheets of A4 paper. It became a bit of an obsession with over 430 single A4's containing 6 trainer designs at one point. From then I kind of fell into design through education

2. Your work is pretty unique and full of creativity. Where does your inspiration come from?

Inspiration is a strange tool. It's something that's not physical and you may find in the most unexpected places. I think my inspiration comes from past experiences, and with that every new piece of work I am producing is focused towards developing and becoming stronger. Music has recently started to influence a lot of my work which is currently not live, just concentrating on getting the right message for the brand and using that concentration to produce something unique for them.

3. Could you describe for us your typical 'start to finish' workflow when working on a design?

Well, my workflow is quite varied. Sometimes it's quite difficult to completely focus 100% on a project during the day, due to emails, phone calls, and other communication which is a small distraction in my level of concentration. Usually If I think a piece of work has more to give I will start at 11pm and work through the night, completely undisturbed, focused and inspired. It's not the most practical way of doing things but I am finding the results are far more creative when I go through this pattern

4. What are your tools of the trade, both hardware and software?

Sketchbook, photoshop, freehand and around a dozen sheets of A4's stuck on the wall. These usually have scribbles on, where I'll not any ideas I have thought about throughout a project and then start the process of refining everything.

5. What, for you personally are the pros and cons of being a designer?

For me personally it's all positives. I could mention the fact that sometimes it's not easy working a straight week 20 hours a day and sometimes not getting any sleep at all. However I love what I do, I'm obsessively passionate, focused and determined to develop, become stronger, more creative, and produce better results. For me it's a craft, and with craft comes practice, which is the only way to develop.

6. How does your job as an artist and designer influence your life? Do you feel that you see things around you differently for example?

100% influenced. If I am out and about it's constant analysis of typography, colour, product placement, balance, grids, layout, impact. Sounds pretty lame I suppose, but it's just the way my brain works now. I'm sure most designers find this to be true.

7. What are your coming projects?

I've got some incredible projects on at the moment, with a endless to do list. One of the projects at the moment is a new online digital type foundry, HypeForType. This is a foundry with a difference. I am currently teaming up with some of the most respected designers out there to create a series of extremely unique creations. At the moment everything is currently being set up, however you can go over to the website to sign up for the official launch this year at www.hypefortype.com HypeForType will comprise of an individual catalogue of typefaces, alongside our special designer volumes released every 3 months. Volume one which is confirmed so far will have creations from the likes of Si Scott, Alex Trochut, Jon Burgerman, HelloHikimori, and Luke Lukas. I'm incredibly excited about this project, and it's extremely hard work so I would really appreciate it if any of you guys could help support us and sign up for the official launch over at the website, Hypefortype.com.

Other projects are a bit more secret at the moment. However I will be launching a brand new Thinkdust later this year with over a years worth of brand new work.

8. What are your favourite 5 websites, and why?

Couldn't possibly list them, I have so many. At the moment I am in love with twitter, and the way in which you can find out so much information and connections so easily. This is a revolution to social networking in my opinion. I also check out the FWA regularly which has superb work as always

9. Once again , thank you very much for the interview. As a final word, do you have any tips for upcoming artists and designers?

My advice would be stay hungry, never give up and work on your craft as much as possible. DesignDrivenByBelief™

About the author

Aloa is the moniker of the german/greek graphic designer/filmmaker & musician Alexis Papageorgiou. Im glad to share great artistic work with the readers on Abduzeedo. Contact me on aloa@abduzeedo.com or follow my Twitter and Facebook page

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