Continuing on with our video interviews feature, we spoke with illustrator and exhibiting artist HelloVon at his London studio. HelloVon has worked with some big name clients and agencies including one of his design idols, Non-Format.

To help make your commute to work less boring, we’ve released this interview …]]>

Continuing on with our video interviews feature, we spoke with illustrator and exhibiting artist HelloVon at his London studio. HelloVon has worked with some big name clients and agencies including one of his design idols, Non-Format.

To help make your commute to work less boring, we’ve released this interview along with all the previous ones as a podcast which you can now find via the iTunes Music Store by searching FormFiftyFive or via direct link to the RSS feed. We’ll also be releasing all future interviews both through the usual FFF site on Vimeo as well as through the podcast. So subscribe now and always be the first to watch the interview on your iPod or iPhone.

Finally as a thank you to all of our loyal readers and to mark the launch of the Von Shop, we’re giving you a chance to win one of stunningly detailed All is full of Love prints by answering this the following question.

HelloVon mentions he took a split degree at university, but what two disciplines did Von’s degree involve?

Email your answer to win[at]formfiftyfive.com by Friday 20th November 2009 and we’ll pick the correct answer at random and announce the winner on Friday. Best of luck and enjoy the interview.

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Here’s a list of the questions we asked HelloVon, submitted by you guys, our readers.

Q1. What is your normal workflow or process like? What tools, techniques, and mindsets do you find absolutely essential?

Q2. I’d love to know (despite the epic outcome) do you ever get bored with the process?

Q3. What does it take from you — to earn as an pro artist/illustrator? a lot of time mainly.

Q4. I learned to draw myself and have a great love for the pencil. From time to time I think about going through some formal training, like a illustration/graphic design course. What’s your advice — will it enrich my style or just waste my time and money?

Q5. You have cut a style and fashion all of your own, but how do you stop that from going stale with the viewer and yourself?

Q6. Is there any client or another creative you would like to work with and why?

Q7. I would ask who von looks to for inspiration and what is his favourite thing to draw?

Q8. “What i like to know is what your relation is towards nature. Is it more a stylistic choice like you\’re drawings are stylistic or is there a deeper interest? The animals are always placed as stand alone with a lot of white surrounding them like you want to make a point… or maybe not. That’s something i canot really figure out. Nontheless i think you are a very good artist. I really like your work. The new work ’Semblance’ looks amazing as well.”

Q9. How do you feel the recent recession and client budget cuts have affected you, if at all?

Q10. What are your personal design goals and aspirations for the future?

We caught up with Fred Deakin, Creative Director of Airside, at his Home in London to chat about their work, their progress and of course Lemon Jelly. We hope you find it as entertaining as it we did shooting the interview. It’s worth watching all the …]]>

We caught up with Fred Deakin, Creative Director of Airside, at his Home in London to chat about their work, their progress and of course Lemon Jelly. We hope you find it as entertaining as it we did shooting the interview. It’s worth watching all the way to the end especially for the last question and for a preview of what’s next!

Thanks to all of you who sent us your questions and a huge thanks to FFF’s Gil Cocker for helping us put the final interview together!

We shortened the questions for the video, below are the full questions we asked Fred.

1. Can you give us a brief introduction to yourself and what you do at Airside.

2. Hi Fred just finished reading your book which I loved I was particularly interested in the ‘group brain’ idea as a way of working, I was just wondering if this was applied to every airside job or do you apply it as and when budgets are there?

3. How do strike a good balance between work and play – obviously Lemon Jelly is a big passion of yours, outside of work and how do you find the chance to pursue this with the time it deserves without it hindering your work at Airside?

4. How important do you think interning for both graduates and agencies is? Ethics and social responsibility seem to be at the core of Airside, do you think interns should be expected to work for free in what is already an extremely competitive market exacerbated by the current economic climate?

5. How do you find new work, especially in these ‘difficult’ times? Do clients mostly approach you based on previous experience or do you seek out opportunities to work with people/companies that interest you? Virgin Trains for example or Yakult?

6. How do you measure success?

7. How do you not lose interest and flit from project to project?

8. Would you say that Airside has a distinctive style, and if so is that something you aim to achieve?

9. The Airside Shop has loads of design lovelies, do the agencies’ designers produce the creative themselves, and If so is studio time allocated or is it more extra-curricular? Also, how important is the Shop as a creative outlet for the agency? Secondly, are you surprised more agencies don’t have shops of their own shops? Finally, what happens with the shops profits?

10.You’ll no doubt be sick of answering these questions, but… where did the names ‘Airside’ and ‘Lemon Jelly’ come from?

11. Is there anyone in Design or Music that you think is currently doing innovative work that inspires you?

12. As part of Lemon Jelly you’ve worked with William Shatner, other than him who have been the influences on your career?

13. What’s happening next for Lemon Jelly? Are you planning any new projects?

14. What are top 3 favorite album covers?

Today’s your last chance to send/tweet/comment your questions for Fred Deakin at Airside. Read more about Airside and the interview on the original post.

I’m delighted to announce that we will be interviewing Fred Deakin next week in our second video interview. Fred is co-founder and creative director at the British multi-disciplinary agency Airside and one half of Mercury and Brit nominated dance act Lemon Jelly.

This is your chance to …]]>

I’m delighted to announce that we will be interviewing Fred Deakin next week in our second video interview. Fred is co-founder and creative director at the British multi-disciplinary agency Airside and one half of Mercury and Brit nominated dance act Lemon Jelly.

This is your chance to email & tweet us your questions for Fred, as well as writing them in the comments below. We will collect all the best questions on Monday 20th July 2009.

In the first of our video interviews we had a chance to chat with Alex Trochut in his Barcelona studio. We asked him questions that you – our dear readers – sent us a few weeks ago. I think this interview will set the mood for the ones to follow, a …]]>

In the first of our video interviews we had a chance to chat with Alex Trochut in his Barcelona studio. We asked him questions that you – our dear readers – sent us a few weeks ago.

I think this interview will set the mood for the ones to follow, a unique look into the thinking and surroundings of some of the most inspiring individuals featured on FFF.

We need to pay Dylan Mulvaney a huge amount of respect for accepting the challenging job of editing the footage and creating a visual style for the interview!

And of course we need to thanks all our readers that sent in their questions. The interview wouldn’t have been as interesting without your contribution. Below is a list of the questions answered in the interview.

Hope you like the interview!

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University:
Rob — Hi Alex, ?I’d like to know where you studied, what you studied and the extent to which you think this affected the work you produce today.?Thank-you,?Rob

Client Interaction & Workflow:
Mayra Monobe — Because your work is so detailed and it takes so long to finish a piece, do you usually show the work to your client in stages? If so, how do you make them understand what the final piece will really look like? And, do you allow them to make changes in the process?

Tools of Production:
Jeff — First off, you do amazing work and are an inspiration to all of us.?What is your typical workflow? Do you normally start with pencil sketches or go straight to the computer/tablet?

Tony — Many have spoken out about the constraints that designers find themselves under creatively, due to the limiting tools that the computer provides. Do you ever feel constrained by the tools available by the computer?

Job Description:
Raymond — As a typographer what’s your favorite letter, and why?

Family History & Pressure:
Raymond — Coming from such a family tree of design, with branches like Joan Trochut & Esteban Trochut Bachmann did you feel any pressure when entering the field? How much were they an influence?

Style:
Dan Lane — Do you feel it’s important to establish a distinct style in order to achieve recognition in design?

Joakim — Hi Alex, I recently went to a lecture by Greg Burne from Big Active. Greg handle all their illustrators. He talked quite a lot about some of their illustrators struggled with re-inventing themselves, when their style/approach wasn’t the flavor of the month anymore. For example Jasper Goodall,who was the pioneer of the black/white traced vector style. Then suddenly all these extremley talented kids popping up and doing work in his style. Then he had to go on and develop his style – which I think he has done now with the latest work for Muse etc. Do you think it’s dangerous to have such a distinctive style like you have, or that your style will go out of “fashion”/popularity? And a follow up question: How do you do to keep evolving yourself and style?

Illustrated Typography:
Luke O’Neil — Do you think the current trend in illustrated type will last and if not how do you see your work progressing in the future?

Mark — You are renowned for your elaborate style. I’d like to know what is the most reduced commercial design/illustration you have created recently. And do you feel it is as successful as your more detailed works. Is minimalism a style/ethos that you would like to pursue in the future.?Mark.

“Good” Design:
John — Stefan Sagmeister seems to be thinking a lot about “good” design and how it can be used to benefit the world. A lecture I saw recently on TED.com has Philippe Starck expressing his own woe about the ephemeral nature (fatuous?) of his work in a world with so many pressing issues – do you have any similar feelings about the relation between your chosen career and it’s relevance to the troubles of today’s world?

Inspiration:
Laura — I just wondered what your main inspirations are? Does some of your work derive from childhood or dreams? It seems to have that kind of quality. Also does living in a great city like Barcelona help?

Emerging Talent:
Dan — Which, if any, new talent emerging at the moment has you thinking ‘this right here is a true original style of illustration’?

Tonight is your last chance to send us your questions for Alex Trochut. We’ve had a great response this far! I’m sure Alex will be pleased. You can still send us more! Check out the questions from the original post for inspiration, before we send the over …]]>

Tonight is your last chance to send us your questions for Alex Trochut. We’ve had a great response this far! I’m sure Alex will be pleased. You can still send us more! Check out the questions from the original post for inspiration, before we send the over to the man himself tomorrow.

Massive thank you to all the people that have already contributed!

June is swiftly approaching so we’re getting everything ready for the launch of the new site, including our first video interview. To get things started we’ve invited 5 inspiring designer and illustrators to answer your questions. First up is Barcelona’s most prolific illustrator Alex Trochut, who must hold …]]>

June is swiftly approaching so we’re getting everything ready for the launch of the new site, including our first video interview. To get things started we’ve invited 5 inspiring designer and illustrators to answer your questions. First up is Barcelona’s most prolific illustrator Alex Trochut, who must hold the record for features on this site by now.

We’d like to invite you all to ask Alex a question either by email (hello[at]formfiftyfive.com), by leaving a comment or a tweet (@formfiftyfive).

We’ll collect all questions until the 19th May ‘09.