Yesterday I was one of the partipants at (and the photographer for) the Channel 4 Inspiration Session on Design and Multimedia organised by Ten4 Magazine and 4Talent
I had the pleasure of meeting some great designers and visionaries and that was just the audience! The speakers on the day were:
Shane Walter from Onedotzero
Steffen Sauerteig, Svend Smital from Eboy
Bob Sanderson of Sanderson Bob, ex-Designer’s Republic
The day was broken up into presentations by the speakers, a Q&A session, a break for lunch and then an afternoon of small group conversations with each of them in turn.
One of the big themes that I’m picking up on is the idea of sharing your ideas without getting worried about other people ’stealing’ them. Shane, Bob and the Eboy guys were all in agreement that sharing an idea can mean that you might not be able to do something yourself but you can see an idea of yours made real if you give that idea away. I guess I’m still a little edgy about this – intellectual property seems to be an area where a lot of people can make mistakes. I’ll keep thinking about this…
Other than that, it was great to hear how Eboy have built a successful business doing something that they love - making pixel art, and making it pay. Their work can often take between two months and a year to produce, but it’s clear from their positive outlook on life that they’re happy to keep on producing and not having to ‘pitch’ their ideas to anyone else. I was impressed.
Their process is really interesting too. Their most famous images are made up of hundreds of small pixellated components that are arranged into isometric cityscapes. What they do is to ‘find cool things’ (cars, robots, toys) and create pixellated versions and add them into a huge digital library. Then when they’e collaborating on a piece (there are three in the team) they each add in or produce new components as the finished result grows and emerges.
Hearing from Shane on his life experiences before Onedotzero was fantastic and also a little too close to home for me. He started off doing DTP, then went into photography, theatre, software, video and when the whole ‘interactive’ thing happened he started his own not-for-profit company, and most recently a new commercial arm onedotzero industries.
I felt that there were a lot of similarities there and it was definitely food for thought. Perhaps that ’something big’ I’ve always had in the back of my mind might come to fruition if I pull together some of the various strands I’m working on at the moment under a single coherent banner/node/brand.
He had some great nuggets of advice, best explained with this slide of his presentation:
Bob’s much newer venture - to go independent as a design studio was good to hear about, as well as his influences and how he gets his ideas. Many of his designs stem from simple sketches and remixing and reusing components of designs he has worked on over some time. An example was his typeface which you can see on his tshirt in the photo above.
Later on, I hooked up with Eboy to take a few more shots and I spent a very pleasant evening showing them around some of Birmingham and introducing them to the joys of a well-prepared Balti. They must be two of the most positive and relaxed people I’ve ever met. (Thanks for dinner guys!)
All in all, a very positive experience… looking forward to more like this in the future.
technorati tags:onedotzero, eboy, inspiration, 4talent, ten4, photo, portrait
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