Thursday, 17 March 2016

OUGD502 SB1 - Laurence Kubski Answers

Hello, how are you? How has your work been going at the moment?
Hello, I’m doing well at the moment, thank you. I just came back from my five-month residency that I have been completing in in Hong Kong. So at the moment I’m reorganizing my life back in Lausanne.

When did you decide that Graphic Design was for you? Has it been something that you always loved or was it an unexpected avenue to take? Where does your interest come from?
For many years I thought about becoming a journalist, but I realized that I preferred creating images rather than texts and so I swapped to graphic design. In a way, these two professions have similarities: to communicate an existing content, it’s equally important to find a relevant tone of voice than an appropriate graphic language. I also enjoy having clients in different fields, from the Lausanne University Hospital to the Lausanne Museum of Photography or a retail chain – for me it’s like a collection of various small reportages.

Was their any point in your journey to becoming a Graphic Designer in which you encountered problems?
Not really anything I can immediately think of but I do remember being sometimes worried that the projects I worked on as a student were quite far away from a real job of a graphic designer but as I advanced through my education I realised they were mentoring us so that we would be ready for the real world industry and this wasn’t too much of a big step in the end. 

What advice could you give to a designer still learning the trade and trying to get in to the industry?
The first and biggest piece of advice I can give to any young designer trying to get in to the industry is do internships as much as you can and at as many places as you, if possible in small studios and big agencies to see a bit of everything and the difference between all of the places I interned at helped me to understand what the industry is like. Finally be curious, question everything, not only in the field of graphic design but in your day-to-day life around you, without this you will never develop.

How would you describe the process that you go through when completing a brief, from concept generation to final delivery? Do you follow a set routine?
Each project and each client are different and so I struggle to create one set routine that would apply to all projects, I find it better to assume that there is no routine and to take on every brief as you think best while doing it.

Do you like to say that you design within a certain style? Or are you open for almost anything you can try?
I have no preconceived idea about style when I start a job. I try to be as open as possible from the beginning. However I have a background of cultural references linked to my upbringing in Switzerland where modernist graphic design is still very strong and so unconsciously I tend to stray towards this as it is imprinted in me but I also find it satisfying to go against this thought process when necessary.

As I have noticed that the majority of your work includes typographic and editorial style design, and this is a side of design that I truly love, what draws you to this area of design?
I love editorial design because it allows me to tell stories and build up a narrative through the very flexible medium of a magazine. The use of type has always be natural to me, probably it comes from my Swiss culture.

As a designer who would you say has been your biggest inspiration in to getting where you are today? What not graphic design related aspect of life gives you inspiration?
For the graphic design related inspiration my main idol’s are Ludovic Balland, Cornel Windlin, François Rappo simply because I just love their work. For the non graphic design related I’m a big fan of television documentaries – especially about wildlife and the environment around us, this bases a major contributor to what inspires me.

Where do you see yourself in the future? Is there anything you can think of that you would like to achieve in the future?

I hope I’ll be able to publish Domesticate (my Master graduation project: a culture-oriented magazine about man-animal interactions) over several issues and see where it can take me! Thank you!

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