How were you introduced to graphic design?
I think it happened by itself and I cannot recall precisely that moment or period. But I think it was knitted in my growing up with music, advertisements, movies and of course my parents who love the art in general.
Why did you decide to become a designer?
Some people prefer verbal communication and some visual communication. I chose the second one. I always wanted to become fashion designer. I was always cutting and tailoring things and changing the shape from one to another. When I went to art school’s preliminary test, I was told that fashion design section is full and that I need to choose something else. So it began…
What type of education did you have? Where did you study?
I finished secondary School for Applied Arts in Sarajevo. Those were four years of introducing myself with graphic design, typography, graphics, drawing…
I graduated on Art Academy in Cetinje, Montenegro, basically you can see that all these locations are within area of ex Yugoslavia. I Even did my graduation work in Belgrade, in their design school, because I couldn’t manage to get my personal documents from Sarajevo, where the war had started already.
Was there anything interesting about your studies that you’d like to share?
There are a lot of things, I could write a book.. I lived in student dormitory, surrounded with students who were studying to become musicians, actors and artists. It was almost unreal to live in so small town, and study something that requires a lot of information and is also based and relied on modern streams of life. We were getting those information from each other, constantly communicating. We were directed to each other living in art sphere 24 hours a day!
What were your experiences as a young designer just getting started?
It was a period of experimenting. Different magazines, advertisements and their typography had a great influence on me. It wasn’t easy to get them. I was especially amazed with quality of print of those magazines. Those were magazines dealing with alternative culture, music, fashion…
Did you have a hard time getting your first clients? What challenges did you have?
Even in high school and in academy, I had been awarded for some of my visual identities. Lately, some of those works were used by some quite serious clients. Still, work with “real” clients happened after my graduation and after I got the job in one studio in Sarajevo. Managers that worked in that studio took care for finding the clients, and I did not have to look for them, which was quite a relief, and I could invest my energy in design and creative work.
What type of work were you doing when your career started?
I immediately run into serious work, and I had to find my way quickly and to learn to deal with this. Those were mostly posters, catalogs, flyers and logos.
When I did not have obligations in the studio, I imagined my own clients, and experimented totally uncomercial things. i.e., I imagined that I have to work for “Association of fly sympathizers”, and made a visual identity for them.
What was your first studio like?
The first studio that I was working in was equipped very well, with best computers and printers that you could find in our state at that time. My first works I did on Macintosh computer, which was quite rare piece of equipment in our invironment. That was a small studio with 6 employees.
What was your first really successful project? For which client?
If we consider a succesfull project a project that was awarded by people from our branche, then I could say that it was for sure poster for Flatron TV by LG Electronic. That poster won the “the best poster in 2004” award on our national advertising festival.
How has your career progressed? As you expected?
I cannot say that I expected something, I just believed in what I do.
Are there any interesting stories about your work or your clients that you can share?
There are sure meny of them, because Sarajevo is very specific environment and many clients are not visually educated, so you can expect from them almost anything you can imagine. I got used to it.
I guess I could mention one of my mistakes when I started working and that is when I was making a flyer, instead of real text I left the working text “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean ac leo suscipit massa dictum mollis. …”, and it went to the print like that.
There is also another funny situation. We were explaining to the client that when you print something in bigger quantity you get a cheaper price per one piece of printed material. The client somehow could not understand that. After we spent a lot of time explaining, he was looking at us and after thinking a while, he said “Ok, print to the zero!”.
As a designer what challenges do you face today?
I like to work on projects with social subjects, music… Today, I’m more and more interested in design that does not have commercial function, although it’s apsurd for design. I’m interested in contemporary design, street art, toys… |
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Did you grow up in Sarajevo? How has that affected your outlook or your design work?
Yes, I was born and I grew up in Sarajevo, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was then a part of socialistic state, Yugoslavia. Those were different state systems, socialism, communism, Tito, unity, equality. In that community, Sarajevo had a strong alternative art scene, so it was strongly influencing the young generations.
What was Sarajevo like during the war years? Where were you? What experiences did you have?
During the years of war, I was not in Sarajevo. I had a luck to leave Sarajevo and I enrolled the Art Academy in neigbhouring country. Although I was not in Sarajevo, my mother, my closest relatives and one part of my friends, stayed in Sarajevo during the war. Some of them did not manage to survive. I was trying to push away the thoughts about war and Sarajevo by working on faculty and with different obligations. I had a refugee status there, which was also a very hard and strange situation for me.
What is the city like today? How has it been able to bounce back?
Today, after 10 years since my return to Sarajevo and the end of war, the city is being rebuilt, it’s recovering, and it’s opening for all people who want to live in it, which is very important. Only that kind of Sarajevo is the real Sarajevo. Multicultural. That was always a specificum of this city. In the area of 100 square meters you can see Cathedral, Mosque, Orthodox Church and Synagougue.
Is the city a creative environment today? What challenges does the city still face?
The city, and the people living in it, have a huge creative potential, but there is not enough possibility for it’s implementation. The biggest problems are still existential problems.
Is that still influencing your work?
Me and people that want to overcome those conditions, mostly are trying to find their way outside Bosnia and Herzegovina. They usually present themselves by exhibiting abroad. The environment in Bosnia and Herzegovina does not have enough interest and understanding for work of creatives. So you are being forced to find yourself somewhere else.
How did the Sarajevo dingbats project progress? Why did you pursue this idea?
I’ve been collecting Dingbats Fonts for years and I had in plan to do something from my side and benefit Dingbats movement. When I was invited to make an exhibition within Sarajevo Winter Festival with topic “Redesign of city / some other city”, I decided to make Sarajevo Dingbats Font. I photographed structures of city a lot and then stylised them. I made vector files and then turn them into font.
What areas or elements of the city are represented in the dingbats? How did you choose those elements?
Sarajevo has a lot of elements that could be symbols or symbolic. There are many different cultural and religic motives, food, architecture… I did not want to repeat symols that have already been used and comecialised. In my view of the city I have included elements that exist in the city too, but we do not see them as symbols. So I have chosen ordinary, unpopular buildings, trash bin, street lights, and so on.
How was the project received by people in the city?
When the time for the exhibition came, I decided to make a little bit unordinary presentation of dingbat font, so I used the surrounding gallery walls which are made of glass like shop windows, and put on it a precut labels in shape of font. The idea was that an observer standing inside the gallery feels like standing in the city, surrounded with city symbols. That city is Sarajevo, but at the same time it’s also some other city because Sarajevo, in that moment, is being experienced in different way.
An the exhibition, there were badges with same motives, and I saw that a lot of people wore the badges, which was very important to me and gave me a positive feedback.
Where have the dingbats been used (exhibitions, posters, brochures, etc.)?
Besides the exhibition and presentation on glass walls, there were also the badges, posters, labels, postcards, and the invitations for the exhibition were diskettes containg info about exhibition and font, that everybody invited got for free, with note that it’s free for personal use only. I wouldn’t like this project to be comercialised so that motives appear on touristic souveniers without my knowledge or approval.
What external recognition have you received for the project?
At this moment, the exhibition Sarajevo – redesign of city, is presented in gallery Soso, Sapporo, Japan. The work was identified and recognized by many magazines and organizations that promote graphic design, so it got in a certain way a worldwide presentation.
Comment on the design community in Sarajevo today.
Small, but sweet!
What else would you like us to know about you as a person or as a designer?
As a person, I am modest, shy and infantile, but as designer totally opposite :)
What questions did we not ask you that we should have asked you? Can you also answer these?
Maybe it’s better that we continue our communication in visual way, so you can see my works at www.ninadesign.co.ba |
Interview by Amos Klausner, 2007