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Krišs Salmanis
A thinking artist. A resourceful graphic designer. One of the founders of the agency “Frank & Stein” (the other founder – Ingus Josts). In the beginning, Ingus and Krišs were on their own: they collaborated with the larger agencies as a freelance creative tandem – usually situations in which there was not enough staff because of the large workload. Originally they developed only the concepts for the advertisements, but gradually they connected with old friends and new colleagues and began to further develop these concepts themselves. You may have noticed the slice of bread with a bite taken out in the award winning “Hanzas mainznīca” advertisement. You should also see the eccentric wallpaper designed by the company “Znak”: “Robots don’t feel”.
Ēriks Šulcs
Although he is too young to be called a veteran of Latvian graphic design, he began work in this field in the mid-1990s and is a witness to and also to a large degree an accomplice to that which has happened in the field of graphic culture over the years. Among is many achievements are the label for “Lāčplēša alus”, the “Diena” subscriptions centre and the magazine “Rīgas Laiks” as well as the logos for the Albert Hotel. Ten years ago he began work as an artist in the advertising agency “Metro”, which grew to become “Metro Leo Burnett” and is currently only “Leo Burnett”: he finished work there as creative director. Šulcs is now the founder and creative director of the design agency “BrandBox” and does everything for his agency to create strategic and “clever” design.
Liene Drāzniece
A young and intelligent designer whose account already holds such works as packaging for the chocolate factory “Laima” and product design for the eco cosmetics “Madara”. She enjoys solving complex design challenges, allowing herself to experiment and to not call herself a graphic designer. She is currently collaborating with the advertising agency “Lowe Age” and works freelance, where her responsibility is to develop the design guidelines for some product, to also design the product itself and to take care that the brand maintains a unified image. At times she is her own client.
KRIŠS SALMANIS
Iliana Veinberga: Why have you made this decision – to work in the field of graphic design? How did you arrive in this field?
Krišs Salmanis: I couldn’t call myself a graphic designer, although in my job description I also do this kind of work. Studying in the Visual Communications Department, I was recruited by “DDB”, where I gradually began to familiarise myself with this field.
I. V.: How did you decide to establish your own business?
K. S.: If you have to work at all – and in our climatic conditions, it is difficult to avoid – then it is probably nicer to decide for yourself, what time to start work.
I. V.: What types of graphic work do you like and why?
K. S.: Jobs that are time restricted, which need quick reactions and thought. I lack the patience for marathons such as company style, periodical design and other polished works. But I have been lucky in terms of colleagues – each person has their own skill. Laila Apšeniece, for example, is very good at these lengthy jobs.
I. V.: In Latvia design historically goes hand-in-hand with art education: you have gained an education in art and also continue to work as an artist. Do you feel this inheritance of tradition in your work, a link with this?
K. S.: No. Today we look to the West.
I. V.: Why haven’t you decided which to be – a designer or an artist?
K. S.: Why haven’t I? I have. I am an artist, who earns a living in advertising.
I. V.: Is your design experience useful to your art, and vice versa?
K. S.: Art accepts everything; it is open to a diverse range of impulses and also does not spurn forms of expression borrowed from design or ideas. Design and advertising are always associated with foreigner’s money, this unavoidably creates fear that the investment will be lost, therefore really interesting things can rarely be realised.
I. V.: Information from the Latvian Investment and Development Agency claims that certain sectors are developing, for example, the textile and printing sectors, therefore design, which is associated with these, is also developing more rapidly. Have you felt any improvement in quality in the last few years working in the field of graphic design?
K. S.: In the execution of the work, perhaps. There are even more beautiful products in the competitions, which have been adorned with all sorts of printing tricks. Many look materially delicious, but in terms of their content... there is not much contemporary graphic design or ideas.
I. V.: How do you, as a practising designer, evaluate the field of graphic design in Latvia?
K. S.: It seems to me that things are now moving in the right direction. Graphic designers who have been trained in other countries, who want to work with full commitment and sincerity are working next to artists, who for mercantile reasons are investing half of their energy into applied art, with which they often abuse themselves and the world. Neither one model, nor the other is an automatic guarantee of quality or mediocrity, however in time we will also become specialised and will have to answer your question about deciding between design and art without sophistry. The narrower the field in which you specialise, the more perfect it is possible to develop it. At the moment, while the creative industries are not yet undertaking a planned investigation of the foreign market, focused specialisation has become more difficult: the local market is simply too small for this. One designer has to do everything – from web pages to advertising, periodicals and corporate design. Even if in his heart he is only, for example, a sans serif typographer. From another perspective, our situation is completely absorbing. If artists such as Armands Zelčs or Reinis Pētersons only worked as artists, then in Latvia there would be a greater shortage of good graphic design and qualitative advertising ideas in Latvia.
I. V.: When surveyed about what he thinks of Latvian graphic design, Michel de Boer, director and part-owner of the leading Dutch graphic design studio “Studio Dumbar”, answered that he cannot really evaluate it, because he hasn’t really seen much, but from the information that was available to him he had to conclude that there is practically no graphic design in Latvia. Your comment?
K. S.: Well, they’ve spoiled themselves in the Netherlands.
I. V.: How do local design processes and practices measure up with international standards?
K. S.: This is necessary so that a demand for our design services is created, also outside Latvia. Until we reach this stage, we have to discard shyness and vanity and we have to study. “Masters borrow ideas, geniuses steal them.” Good ideas have to be “stolen”: improved, reworked, we need to push off against them. If we do better, then we will not be accused of plagiarism. If not – then at least we have had proper training. In time perhaps a signature Latvian design style will develop: our own school.
I. V.: What exactly can your business do in aid of this?
K. S.: To not begrudge someone has success at something.
ĒRIKS ŠULCS
Iliana Veinberga: Why did you decide to work in the field of graphic design? How did it all begin?
Ēriks Šulcs: To a large degree I have to acknowledge my parents, or more specifically, my mother Baiba Šulce, who was an artist. In childhood I watched in amazement – how can you draw like that? Mum took me with her to work, to exhibitions, and I started to like it all.
I started studying at the school of applied arts and after that at the Academy of Art. At some point I had imagined that I would be a painter, but the summer pracs made me change my mind (laughs). After the Academy I studied for one year in England, at an art college, where there was a department which specialised in creative advertising. For a long time I couldn’t understand if I was doing the right thing, studying advertising, although now I am fairly well convinced that it was the right choice. In that school the only tools we used were paper and a pencil, and that which was in our heads. This kind of experience really changed my perspective about what I am doing, and why it is necessary. I saw it in another light – now this experience really helps me.
I. V.: In Latvia design has historically been associated with art education. Have you felt any succession of this in your own work, any inheritance of tradition?
Ē. Š.: That’s a good question. The school of applied arts, of course, gave me a direction for thought and understanding, but I don’t think that this could be called a formation of a signature style. To my mind, signature styles in this country are created by looking at foreign magazines, which is a typical thing. A lot is defined by mentality. To a Latvian everything looks totally different to, for example, the Estonians, although Estonians don’t really work that differently – they also look at those same foreign magazines.
When I work, I don’t think that I am creating some kind of design environment. It is possible, I admit, that in undertaking this or some other job, of course I create a part of some kind of collective scene, but I’m not trying to purposely develop some kind of Latvian design line (laughs).
I. V.: Why did you establish your own business?
Ē. Š.: The motivation was simple. I worked in advertising, creating advertisements, and I began to suspect that advertising work is very short lived: an ad is seen for a short time and its visual imagery is not really important, because the most important task it has is communication. And as I am myself a visual, not a textual person, I understood that I have tormented myself enough (laughs), I have to produce that which comes naturally, that which I find interesting and what I am good at.
I. V.: A creative director that also sketches?
Ē. Š.: A creative director in a design agency has a slightly different function than in an advertising agency. In an advertising agency he has to provide the direction for the communication/ideas, the overall picture. In a design agency I have to indicate the design direction – I have to explain what and why to sketch something, I also have to sketch something along the lines of what should be developed, what can be continued, possibly not only by me, but also by others.
I. V.: What kind of graphic works do you like the best?
Ē. Š.: Of course, I am most interested in logo development and style manuals. You have to put so much into the small sign of a logo, and this is an absorbing task – to look for and find and eventually also get something that is very simple, but is ideally appropriate to the “mood” of the company or brand. A second reason is probably more honest (laughs) – in childhood I had to play something with my friends during the summer, and I used to draw board games myself, a variation of monopoly, where all the squares were logos.
I. V.: How would you as a practicing designer describe the local graphic design scene?
Ē. Š.: I don’t understand why we don’t have a specialised graphic design school in Latvia. For quite some time there has been a break in graphic design education. Schools didn’t have an opportunity to get equipment, and the lecturers were those who had spent their whole lives without computers... but I don’t want to say anything bad about them here. Because of the break you can’t talk about development in graphic design, it is sooner the opposite. There are not many graphic designers in Latvia, we have a shortage. At the Academy of Art, and the applied arts schools, there is an opportunity to gain knowledge in graphic design (particularly if it interests you), because we have the technology. But it is not graphic design in the classical interpretation – that is currently not able to be learned here; you have to study abroad. The problem is that graphic design in practice is something specific – it is a craft, a grooming of skills and training, rather than one week of intensive lectures and seminars. Working together with young and talented designers you can sense how much they lack the very basics. If you are a wood sculptor, you have to know what you can carve from a certain type of wood. Also with graphic design there are many technical things that allow or don’t allow you to attain that which you have intended.
I think it is also a shame that the artistic education in design basics has not reached a high level. You have a completely different conversation with Latvians in businesses, marketing directors, and also foreigners – their traditions of visual perception of materials have been gained at school, at home, in the community. However, locals always know better than you, they are the best specialists in all fields. Of course there are exceptions, and then it is a pleasure to work. We have to learn to depend on other specialists, to value their work. We have not yet gotten over this illness.
I. V.: But things will change...
Ē. Š.: Definitely, and they have changed already, if you compare how clients valued the work of designers fifteen years ago. An ideal aim – for a graphic design department at the Academy of Art, where the graduate would be a professional. This could also be a completely separate school, because many things would be included: photography, typography, psychology etc. This would lift the quality of the design that we encounter in the daily public space.
I. V.: A representative of an authoritative Dutch graphic design studio, “Studio Dumbar”, when evaluating Latvian graphic design, concluded that there is little design here, to avoid saying that there is none...
Ē. Š.: There’s no point in commenting, it would be the same as if I picked up a book, flipped through it, and said: I don’t understand any of this, it’s a bad book. There are also enviably good works in Latvia, there are many good designers, which create good things. Perhaps there are not enough of them to be in every place and every organisation.
I. V.: How does Latvian design practice measure up with the standards of the international design environment?
Ē. Š.: In terms of the West this is practically impossible – because of the same school mentioned earlier. We can compare in relation to the East, because we already have precedents: Ukraine, Russia, a group of youths in Kazakhstan. It is possible, because they look at us as if we were the West, while the West views us as the East. If there were businesses that wanted to create a company to be active both in Russia and the West, our specialists would be in good shape to take part – the ability to understand both the western and eastern cultures at the moment is a great bonus.
I. V.: What can your company do to help this situation?
Ē. Š.: Our company should brace ourselves and create something with which we could participate in some international design competition held in the West. Musicians (directors, composers, and soloists), film and theatre performances receive awards: and it is possible, therefore I don’t have any justification why we don’t have any awards. We need to go and try, and then, after we’ve done it, we can talk.
LIENE DRĀZNIECE
Iliana Veinberga: Why have you elected to work in the field of graphic design?
Liene Drāzniece: I remember my first workplace, “Metro Leo Burnett”, where I learned a lot and it seems that I met the right people, for example, Ēriks Šulcs. I am very interested in problems and their solutions therefore I don’t just work as an artist. While studying applied arts I already began my first small works of graphic design. It has always seemed to me that I need to solve a problem, because this is interesting and through this you can also learn. I meet new clients, people from various fields, and they give me a totally different perspective.
I. V.: There is no point asking you about the profile of your company, but what kind of services can a client expect from you as a designer?
L. D.: I like to be involved in the creation of the product concept – at the time when the idea is developed. That is why I can’t call myself just a graphic designer because it is important to me to have an opportunity to also design the smell and taste – if it is some new product, for example, chocolate, then you could think also about how the piece of chocolate looks.
Further, of course, is all the graphic layout, also advertising catalogues, books and exhibition catalogues.
I. V.: Is there some exception in Latvia, where you see a place for yourself?
L. D.: There are people with whom it is very nice to work, because it is always important to have strong people next to you – that is a defining element. You can change one company for another, but I don’t see any significant differences, it is more important for me to work together with people whom I respect. Outside Latvia there is a greater chance to find yourself in situations and with people who improve you.
I. V.: Are you planning to found your own agency or studio?
L. D.: I have returned from studying design direction in Milan, and I have all sorts of ideas. This has been a period of reflection about that which is happening in Latvia, what to do and how to proceed, because it is clear that my approach has to change, I have to study and understand a lot more. A design studio would be a pretty big challenge.
I. V.: Do you have an artistic education?
L. D.: I have graduated from the Visual Communications Department of the Academy of Art. I would interpret this as an ability to communicate.
I. V.: Do you use the knowledge you gained at the Academy?
L. D.: During my studies it seemed more important for me to defend my work to my clients and I missed a lot of lectures. The education system did not motivate me, but the personalities of the lecturers really left an impression. In terms of education I learned more from the Set Design Department of the college of applied arts, because here I was instilled with criteria for quality, which I cannot forget. I struggle with myself to reach the highest level.
I. V.: Latvian design and art education is usually connected. Do you feel the influence of this tradition?
L. D.: Yes, I probably should begin by saying that if you want to be an artist then you yourself have to forge a road into design. I have little contact with art because I am too interested in the purposes for which graphic design is created, who will value it, use it, that it will be successful, for a person to understand what is being said to them. It is very important for a client to find success using my work. Of course I don’t try to please everyone and I don’t agree with all sorts of nonsense, but I am interested for both sides to be satisfied and for the result to be a result of a pleasant collaboration.
I. V.: Your work for “Laima” and “Madara” looks quite Latvian. Do you think about the notion of nationality in design?
L. D.: Partly. I see the appeal of the national being different from the rest of the world, but I also find contemporary things important, for my work to be at a global standard, for it to be valued more widely, rather than just as a national phenomenon.
I. V.: How do you rate the graphic design field in Latvia overall?
L. D.: I must say that the situation is sad, only I don’t know how this has happened: it seems that a number of aspects have become jammed. I don’t really see what can be done for a graphic designer to feel good in Latvia. We are simply wasting ourselves here – there is no real opportunity to develop in Latvia. You have to leave the country to gain inspiration: grab it from the place where it’s all happening, to make variations of it here.
Everything is very dependent on the development of Latvian manufacturing and on what kind of clients could present here. If we don’t try to enter the world market with our products, we will not try to offer the world innovative solutions, we will be afraid to manufacture, and then also the designer will not have anything to do. In my work it sometimes seems that there are no few products for which it would be worth designing something, because if the product is no good, if it isn’t able to compete on a global level then we will stay right here.
I. V.: The co-owner and creative director of “Studio Dumbar”, Michel de Boer has commented about Latvian graphic design, that essentially there is no graphic design in Latvia. What do you have to say to this?
L. D.: We simply don’t have a graphic environment around us: that is why we are proceeding forward with so much difficulty in graphic design. A person sees good products in their childhood, they have the opportunity to choose, to get the most qualitative product. In Latvia there is a whole group of thirsty people who have suddenly spotted that there is some interesting book, publication or place, some cafe – then everyone hungrily goes there. We actually live quite “cleanly” – there are few advertisements, few graphically visual things on the street, we have to be inspired by something else, we have to search for ideas and answers within ourselves; this is actually better, because it is an inexhaustible place where something interesting can be created. But we are also frightened – we want to follow along, do the same as they do abroad, in a way so that everything looks nice. I think we have to think more deeply, we have to produce something totally innovative, strange, and interesting. I think that Latvia should search for this kind of perspective.
I. V.: How does Latvian practice compare with the demands and conditions of the international design environment?
L. D.: We have good designers and specialists in various technical branches, but I still feel as if our hands are tied. It is possible that it is because of finances – you often cannot even afford to print photographs on very qualitative paper in a good, large size; but that, to my mind, should stimulate investigation in to how one can work in a more clever way. Create ideas without wasting resources. Latvia could develop itself creatively if the clients were not so cautious.
I. V.: What can you as a designer do to improve the situation?
L. D.: I always try really hard (laughs). I take the strangest products and redesign them just because I see them and think that they should be a little better looking. Then I take them and get stuck into them (laughs). I also feel a great personal responsibility. I think that a designer is responsible for the world, for the environment; they simply shouldn’t pollute an already polluted world with bad design.