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Fill/Stroke January 2008 Interview January 2008 Fill/Stroke Magazine Fill/Stroke is a magazine designed and published by Mark Dudlik, Adria Robles-Morua and Tanner Woodford, all three based in Phoenix, Arizona. For the first issue, we were interviewed by Adria: 01. When you were a child did you always want to become a designer? The actual concept of being a graphic designer was still far away when we were kids. As young children, we were already interested in putting images and text together: creating small comic books, drawing rockets and robots, writing vampire stories. But, especially in the minds of Erwin and Danny, the idea that there was such a thing as 'graphic design' was simply non-existent. The fact that we grew up without computers might have something to do with it. Nowadays, practically every household has a computer, so children are aware of graphic design from a much younger age. But when we grew up, we had no clue just how these blocks of texts miraculously appeared in books and newspapers. Marieke was slightly more aware of graphic design, since her father (Rob Stolk) was a well-known printer in Amsterdam. As one of the main founders of the anarchist Provo movement, Rob was involved in producing protest posters, and from there, he started his own print shop, which grew out to one of the main cultural print shops in Amsterdam. And Marieke's uncle (Swip Stolk) is actually a well-known graphic designer. But still, even to Marieke, the actual thought of becoming a graphic designer never occurred when she was a young child. 02. What, if anything, from your childhood still affects your approach to design today? It is still the same creativity, the same mentality. It's the same desire to shape your own environment. As child, your environment is still small: drawing tiny comic books in your bedroom, handing them out to your aunts and uncles during birthday parties. In high school, this environment becomes larger, photocopying small punkzines, and drawing shirts for your friends' hardcore and metal bands. After high school, art school becomes your environment. Then you get your first assignments, for example for a local rock venue, and suddenly you see posters that you designed all throughout the city you live in. Then you design a stamp, and the whole country becomes your environment. It's one continuous line. The main principle remains the same: trying to add something to your immediate environment. The only thing that changes is your environment; it becomes bigger. When we are working on the graphic identity of an international art institute we feel the same excitement as when we were children, creating stuff in our bedrooms. 03. Would you elaborate on one project that changed your career? In 2000, we designed the catalog for 'Elysian Fields', a group show curated by the fabulous Purple Institute.The exhibition took place at the Centre Pompidou. Next to the catalog, we also designed the sign system, all kinds of printed matter (invitations, press releases etc.), and a large mural that was part of the exhibition itself. It was a huge deal for us. We worked really hard on it, and were really glad with the results. We were looking forward to the opening, hoping to get a sense of satisfaction from our work. When the opening took place, we had the awkward sensation of feeling completely detached from the exhibition. Our work was featured prominently in the exhibition, people were enthusiastic about it, but we really felt disconnected, as if we weren't really part of what was happening. That's when we realized that our position as graphic designers is very much that of being outsiders. We understood that we would never be able to really feel part of the project as a whole. Many designers believe that designing is about being engaged with the subject, but on that day, we felt something that was quite the opposite. We suddenly realized that, through designing, you are actually removing yourself from the subject; you are creating a psychological distance. Or at least, that is what we experienced that day. It didn't really change our career, but it did change our ideas about being a graphic designer. We became aware that as graphic designers, we would always remain outsiders, and we embraced that. 04. What mistakes have you made that you think others could learn from? We made an awful lot of mistakes in our work, but we cannot really point out specific ones. Besides, maybe everybody should deal with mistakes in their own way. What we experience as a mistake doesn't have to be a mistake for someone else. What we can say is that mistakes are inevitable. Graphic design is always deadline-driven, so even when you are completely exhausted, feeling sick or slightly depressed, or simply without inspiration, there is still this huge pressure to deliver. What makes it worse is that, in graphic design, when you make mistakes, you make them in public. A poster that you weren't really happy with will be hanging in the streets for weeks. A t-shirt that didn't turn out very well will be hanging in the stores for months. Some images will be floating around on internet forever. Some designers are okay with that, and see all those little mistakes and quirks as a quality in itself. But we are neurotic perfectionists, so when we make a mistake, it really feels like one. The only advice we can give is to keep on keeping on. Every new project is an opportunity to correct your last project. Every individual project will contain mistakes, but hopefully, when you see all the projects together, as one body of work, all those mistakes cross each other out. In that regard, a really good motto is Samuel Beckett's "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better." 05. Describe a project/person that humbles you. To be honest, we really don't like the notion of being humbled. To be inspired is the opposite of being humbled. When we are talking to people whose work we really admire, like Wim Crouwel, or Linda van Deursen (of Mevis & Van Deursen), these persons never make us feel small and humble; they are doing the opposite. Their words energize us, give us the feeling we can do anything that we want.
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