Transcripts
1. Introduction: I started doing graffiti when I was 14, so 20 years ago now. My name is Alexis, also known as Trysa. I live in Paris, France. I'm a graphic designer, and I work mostly with typography. I work with a lot of different projects. I've done a lot of [inaudible] Childish Gambino for example, brush typography for Nike. So all my stuff are really diverse, and I tried to bring typography into a lot of different types of projects. Today the class is about how to solve a brief from a client. I want to teach how to understand brief really well because I do believe that the idea behind the topography is more important than the technique. So I will give you some examples of how do I work with the clients, the way I sketch, then the way I pick the right tools, the right style, and then the way I digitize it. So there's a lot of things we're going to cover in this class, and we're going to finish by a nice exercise together. For me, there is one thing important that I want you to leave this class with. It's like keeping your authenticity in your projects. I do believe that there's so many ways that you can succeed to please your clients, please yourself creatively too. I'm really excited that you are taking the class today with me, and I hope that you are going to like everything I'm going to show you.
2. The Power of Authenticity: If you want to be like a strong designer, if you want to have like solid ideas, the idea itself is much more important than the technique because you can use whatever you want, as a photographer you can have the best camera, as a typographer you can have the best tools the best brushes. But then I think that it's much more important to have the right ideas. So your work going to be perfectly adapted to the subject. So because I studied doing graffiti, I didn't have any clients, any feed backs for sure when you pinching on your roles the one tells you do this and do that. So I really explored and really developed my own style without any clients behind me. So I believe that I live in this weird place between graphic design and artists. So it means that I solve brief but I also have my own style. I think it's really important to develop your own style first and from your own style clients will come to you. So if the clients come to you it means that he likes what you doing and if you accept the project it means that your happy to work with him. This relationship is really important for me it's the key. Most of the time they will ask you to do exact same project that you've already done. It happens to me every time. Client come to me saying, "Oh we love what you've done for this project. Can you do the same for us?" I don't want to do this because me once I've done one project, one kind of thing, I want to evolve and I want to dig into new stuff that I've never done. So I know that it's sometime hard to explore with the clients, but I think it's always good to find new ways to solve the brief because you don't want to do always the same thing. You're the creative person, your clients is not supposed to be. Your the person who should bring new things on the table. I explore and I do things I'm like, "I don't know what I'm doing exactly but let's try and let's see if it works according to the brief and the subject." For me there's one thing important that I want you to leave this class with. Is keeping your authenticity in your project even if it's a client's projects so you believe that you should just please the clients and not you. I do believe that you still can and you still can keep your authenticity, your own style depending on the kind brief. Okay. Now let's dig into it and I'm going to show you how to understand the brief and understand the client.
3. Understanding the Brief: There's a lot of different ways for clients who come to ask you to do the job, sometime it can be you've been recommended. Sometime it just kinds who loves your works and it's a long time in dream to work with you. In every case it's always the same. You have to understand the client and you have to sit with him to talk, why does he hire you and not someone else? So since that, I think that's really important to see it and to understand exactly what he wants and when he expect from you. So when you receive a brief coming from a clients, thing that is cool is that to really understand the brief, you dig into it and you try to pick the more important things inside. Like the more important value for example, and then start working from that. When you see something that really inspire you, sometime you have a client showing few values and you believe that these values, could be really interesting to explore with a design. But then the client doesn't want to talk about it, not that much, so it's really important to talk to your client and to have this conversation. So my goal from all these conversation I have with my clients, is to perfectly understand what he expects from me and this conversation already give you some ideas. So they're already has some brief where, I was so inspired that at the end of the brief I was like, "Okay, I think I got it." Sometime you don't, sometime you're like, wow, what a brief? I don't know exactly where I'm going, but then the fact that you have this conversation, the fact that you were able to ask questions in front of your clients is really important. But I do believe that this human relationship is important not only sending a PDF by email. I think it's really important you can really understand and dig into the brief and the client itself. So to give you this first example, I have once been reached by a guy running a football club in San Diego. So the guy comes to see me, he send me an email saying that he likes what I do and he wants to hire me to do the branding design. We starts the conversation of about the football club. What does he expect from me? So he send me a PDF, explain me the background of the club, explain me the mission of the club, and he's explained to me something really important, what's the name of the club and why? Because the club is from San Diego. You know that the initial of San Diego is SD and they have this slang saying 1904 when they talk about San Diego. Why? Because S is the 19th letter of the alphabets and D is the fourth letter of the alphabet so 1904. So they decided to name the club 1904 football club. So it was the starting point of everything, the beginning of the brief. The thing is that which was pretty funny but not for me at the beginning is that, I don't like to play with figures. I don't like to draw figures, numbers is for me really complicated. So first time I was reading the brief I was like, wow, figures. But let's try pick this challenge and try to do something really cool and creative with that. So my first idea was to play with this ambiguity between numbers and letters, because I felt that this was pretty funny to have SD and 1904. In this ambiguity, I've worked the old identity with that. It means that, the S and the D from San Diego is the exact same than the nine and a zero from 1904. So from that, from this idea I've done a lot of different assets. I've done monograms, I've done the lockups and the client really liked it. He liked the fact that, you have this ambiguity between letters and numbers, and after that I decided by myself to show him and to present him new ideas because he wanted few lockups but I was like, "What do you think about doing a nice scrip topography with the 1904 letters?" He was like, "Yeah, let's do it." Well, after when I did that he asked me, "Do you want to come in San Diego and paint murals for us?" So I was like, "Yeah, sure." So with the lettering that I have done, the script lettering that I've done, I've just painted this in a huge billboard in San Diego. So the things that my clients asked me a clear assets he wants, this, that and this, and I am the one just showing him that I can do more. I've even done like a complete typeface, that he didn't ask me to do it but I was like, okay, I think you will need a typeface, because in the back of the jersey you will need to have your own typeface on it. So he didn't ask me to do, but I was like, I think it's good for the project, I think the client needs it. So even sometime the client tell exactly what he needs, but you're the one saying that I think that that's a good idea if we do this more. So when I proposed to my client to have like a complete typeface, he told me right away that he doesn't have any more budget for that. So for sure it's really long process to do a typeface but for this project, I really believe in this project, I really liked everything that we were doing, and I also felt about my own portfolio. I believed that this project would have been much more consistent with a complete typeface, so I did it. So most of the time I never do any typeface for free, but this one was like, the rates of the global project was enough for me to believe that doing a typeface was okay with it. That's why the trust relationship is important. It means that you give a lot to your clients. Then after that, the client was so happy, so excited, it's good to see that your clients really appreciate what you're doing. So I don't say work for free, I will never say that because everything has a value and like a typeface is such a long process. But it was for me at this point of my career, at this moment, I believed that I needed in my portfolio, such a consistent project that's only like a logo and filler caps were not enough. So doing a typeface and put it on the jersey of every player for me was really, really cool, so I did it.
4. Working From References: There is two type of clients. One client who going to give me references of my own work, they hire me so they want my style. The other type of client would be clients who give me completely different references, even things that I'd never done before. To give you an example, I had this really nice project coming to me a year ago, was for the movie Guava Island. So it was the movie for Childish Gambino artist, and I know pretty well the whole team and the art director. He's a good friend of mine. Now is like every time I'm working with him, he's always sending really interesting references. For example, he gave me this poster, and he said that he really liked the typography on this poster. So I started to recreate the letters Guava Island with this exact same style. All the letters of Guava Island are not in the poster, but I was trying to understand how do the designer would have done if you will have done a C thanks to the G, the A thanks to the N. So it really helped me to understand that typography vibe. You can see everything is really rounded all around. So I really tried to be consistence compared to this reference. So this is a reference they gave me, I never heard of this movie, never heard of this poster, and I do believe it's really interesting to do something just different. They also, for example, gave me some fruit labels references like this one, Black River Papaya. That's interesting. It looks like a psychedelic phone poster from the '60 or something. I try something with this typography which was really bold on the bottom, and I try to really understand how the typography works here, and just trying to do the same for you. They also gave me some references like this poster, for example. The typography is really simple here as you can see. The thing that I liked, these old posters have all been hand drawn. So it means that you cannot have this aspect if you're doing directly on the computer. It's always cool to do it and made like this one. This one was part of this reference which was a fruit label reference also, really liked the script font of it. What I like is that it's all about authenticity. They really tried to bring something which looks more authentic. So they also gave me this reference of the Naked Prey poster. I found this type was really interesting, because you can see the letters look like they're dancing. So I think it was pretty interesting to have these floating letters, dancing all around, all adapting to each other letters. So I started to try through few letters like this. I think this Guava, all the letters were really floating and dancing all over. So in this composition what I like is also the letters. There is a lot of contrast between the shape, thick and thin, and I try to recreate that with these letters. So my idea from that poster, from that reference they gave me, is to try to interpret it and keep everything that I like in this poster, in this typography to bring into my reference. So it means there's no curves, it's only angles. There's a lot of contrast in the shape, thick and thin, and letters are dancing, floating. So sometimes when they give me reference, I try to really adapt it to my own style. I try to really interpret it because, for example, this poster that I show you the Naked Prey, it's not that I don't like the type, is that there is things that I will never done that way. I think the thin are way too thin, the balance is not that good, but this is my own interpretation. This is the way I think that the design is really good. It's just me, I would not do it that way. So I always try to bring my own style to the reference. So I like when things are pretty well balanced. I like when there's not so much contrast. So for this reference, I try the interpret it. Sometimes I can be totally neutral like I love the type, I believe the type works so well that why should I completely recreate something from scratch. So there's some reference that I've done, that I've I started with, and that I've done the exact same design.
5. Sketching: The process of sketches is maybe sometime longer than all the rest. It's the moment where you can really dig into every idea. So sometime it happen to me, I have an idea and I believe is the right one and it's going to work. Then, I start to do the sketch. Then, I put it on paper. Then, I'm like, "No, it doesn't work." But I think for me this is the moment where I can really, really dig, really explore, really try a lot of different stuff. So once I've have this conversation with my client, I start to just take a paper, pencil and start a lot of different sketches. Sometimes, I have some things that happen during the conversation that I have in my mind and I already know that I want to try this on paper. So I go straight to this idea that I have during the conversation. Sometimes, I just don't have a clear idea of what I'm going to do but I know a lot of information my client gave me. Sometime, if you do a really quick sketch, you think the idea is good but the sketch is done really quickly. If the client sees it and projects and believe that this is done, you can kill your idea because your idea was good but it's not well done enough. So the client is not able to project. So for me it's always important, when I have an idea that I believe is strong, is good, to do a really clean sketch and then the client will be able to really project and really understand exactly where you're going. So the next example I'm going to show you is a project that I've done for restaurants in Paris. The name is Holybelly. So they came up with me asking me to do the re-branding. I also was a client. So that was easier for me because I knew the space, I knew the vibe. So I started to do some sketches. When I start a project like this, most of the time I always start with the type because it's for me everything is going to start with that. It's the starting point of everything I'm doing, typography. I've started doing this quick sketch that you can see here and then I've worked in a better details like the sketch. So this is my process. Starting with a quick one, then I really come in the details trying to do something really clean, as you can see here. Then, after that, I trace just the line around. So then, when I scan it in Photoshop, I can just put the black color inside the line and then the design is done. I had also this option that I liked also. I thought it was a pretty good option to have this type on this length like this, which looks really more US American diner than just a French regular restaurant. I've done a lot of different sketches. So you can see it starts with the quick ones like this. Then this one is a bit better. After that, I go more in details and finish to a ready clean one like this. Then I have this idea for the symbol which was for me, I just wanted to translate the idea of the Holybelly because I believe that this is a strong name. The name is really cool and it means something. So I started to sketch a few different ideas like this and I really liked this idea of the hands on top of the belly like when you've eat so much, you're like, I've eat so much and you put your hand in your belly. But also the fact that the baseline is good because we care, having a nice hand floating and putting in a belly was like a nice idea too. It's funny because the day where I presented to the clients, they just announces that his wife was pregnant. So I was like, wow, it makes sense. It really make sense. So you have this holy belly. So that's why I've put some lines, some ray all around. It's really holy. But after that, I sent it to him the proposal. He was like,"Yeah, I like it." It doesn't looked like he was really into it, 100 percent. For me, it was the right option. I believe it was the right one just because it makes sense, the name and the design for me looks to work really well together. Something that I didn't felt about is that the client doesn't like it. So if he doesn't like it, you should not force him. Because if he doesn't like it every day will go walking and he will see a design that he does not really proud of, he doesn't really like. So once he told me,"To be honest, I think that it's not my thing. I'm not into it." I understood it and I tried to do something different. He gave me few new references. So once he send me all these references, I understood that he liked funny characters. That's something that is not my style. I never really draw funny characters. But I understood that this is my client, this is what he likes, this is what he wants. So let's try to do something he wants. So I started drawing this pot with the eyes and with the hands. Once I started really doing a quick sketch, he loved it right away. "Okay. I think it's the right thing to do. Let's go in this direction." So even if it was not my own style, I did believe that this was interesting, this was good just because it's exactly what the client like. This is important because this is his business. This is something that I thought was my style; the belly and hand, but if he didn't like it, you can not force your client. So I tried this big pots who is like funny eyes and looks sympathique, really cool and the client was really,really reactive. He really loved it. I understood that sometime you have to put your ego on the side and you have to understand that your client is the one that has to be happy with what you are doing. Once I show him these small characters and he liked it. I was really happy to keep working on this and then after that, we approved a design that I do believe is really good. Why? Because it's good just because it's exactly what the client expect and what does the client like. When you go in the space, you can understand that the client has his own personality and his personality is like he's a funny guy, he's a cool guy. So having something really graphic is not for him, it's not something that he likes. So this kind of character was exactly what he was expecting. Things that he like and now he's really proud of it. Now, we've done a lot of different things with this small character, lots of stickers, business card, everything has been done all round. He painted the character on the door. So I think this is something that is cool when your client is satisfied and your client has exactly what he wants. Once we agree with the client on the design, I realized that I didn't want something perfectly clean, perfectly soft lines. So I've started doing the logo shaking just a bit, having some vibrancy on the lines and always depends on the project but sometime you have adding some texture, adding something like this. You just have to find the right tool to make the logo or the lettering you are working on. Sometime is just finding the right tool, finding the right brush, the right marker, the right pen. This is something that I'm going to talk about in the next lesson.
6. Choosing the Right Tool: So I believe that the tool that you choose is really important for the design that you will do. Every tool that you use has a different texture, has a different shape, and I believe that it's really important to find the right one. So it should be something that you feel confident with, but also something that is perfect for the design you are you are doing here. I think that every tools has a real different personality, and you can have the exact same design, but if you do it with 10 different tools, they are all going to be different, and they all going to show a different personality. So for example, I have some markers that are really square. So it makes something with a lot of angles. I have some ones really rounded, would make something really curvy, and then you also have some brushes where you can play with thin and thick, or you just have a simple pen that can just make a really simple diode that everyone can make. So I believe that the personality of your design will be really driven by your tool that you will choose. So for example, the Childish Gambino team asked me to work on the "This is America" title for the video that they going to release. After that, they asked me to try a lot of different tools. They told me just explore to do a lots of different options so then they can pick the one they want. So I took all my tools and I just wrote "This is America" with a lot of different ways. I took some markers, some brushes, some pen and I try, I just explore. I was really free to do whatever I want. I didn't have a clue what the video going to be. I just saw a weird image of Childish Gambino half-naked and in garage and that's what I saw. So that's why I started to do a lot of different exploration because I don't know that much about the song. So let's see what I'm talking about. I like the shape of the ink here, it makes something like this. So I like it because you have this huge ink thing on top of the paper and it's something like a lot of accidents are happening, you see this big ink thing so you need a lot of time to let it dry but this is the kind of really interesting tool that I love to use. It felt something normally for tags and graffiti. I like the fact that the ink is really spreading in the paper. It starts with a really simple shape, and it become really huge, really fat and I found that for the theme, "This is America" theme, I find it could be nice to have these kind of spreading ink into the paper. Markers. The shape that is doing is pretty interesting. So this is something really that I use for tags and it's really square brush, so it makes something with a lot of angle with these traits, that is I believe pretty interesting too. Then I've used a lot of different brushes, like this one. So it's like a brush when you put some ink inside and you know the feeling that you have is pretty edgy, you can feel the texture, you can feel this is not perfect. I've also used some regular marker like this one, because you have a lot of texture of the brush. This is pretty cool. So yeah, I'm just trying then I see where it's going. I see where's going. This one is thinner and it could be cool for this project too. Why do I have this one? So I like to try, see where it goes because the tools bring you to different kind of vibe, different shape. So sometime I just want to explore the tools and this is Italic type and this one is more straight but I just wanted to explore. So most of the time I let the tool goes and let the tool really directs my work. Also I have this brush, I believe this can be also very interesting. All this kind of brushes like these, markers, this one was more curvy because it's round. I use a lot of different tools and honestly I don't have numbers. I have so many tools that I like to explore a lot and once I believe I have a lot of different options when I'm satisfied, I stop and then I'm like, "Okay, I have to do the one's I want." So for these "This is America" title, after I've done a lot of different exploration like this and I've sent them a lot of different exploration, and they realized that all this thing was big markers, pens with these brushes was maybe too complicated. A regular person would not do that way and would not have all these tools. So we've decided to do something much easier, less complicated. So they say, "Let's try to use a regular sharpie." for example. So I took some really simple ones and I try with these ones, and that's just what we finally agree with. Really simple, everyone can do it, everyone can write it. I've done a lot because I needed to have some accidents. I don't want it to be that perfect, because I spent a lot of time to try to do something always really clean, really cool and tried to improve everything I'm doing, so when they asked me to do something not so good, I mean, something that everyone can do, It can be sometimes pretty tough because I'm used to do something really clean. So I've done a lot to let my hands draw this and then something like a lot of accidents came to at the end. So something not perfect, something that everyone can make, and just something, yeah, effortless.
7. Building a Brand Identity: So I've shown you how do I produce a typography for a brain design project, for just latrine project. What I like to do is always add even more personality in the brain design. So for example, for this Olly Bolly project that I showed you before, I did the whole identity which is really simple like a typography plus a symbol. But what I wanted to do also is to add a bit of my own personality in the project. So what I've done is asking to the boss of the project, should we do murals in your restaurants? I felt that it was a cool place to do it. Because you have this logo which is cool, let's try and bring it to another level and instead of putting a big sticker of the logo, why not paint the mural and add some depth on the logo, add some 3D like I like to do some shade. This in the back of the restaurant could have been really cool because you have this beautiful white wall. So I asked him to the clients that let's do this and he was really excited about it. So it depends on the skills you have and the knowledge you have, things that you love to do. But me, I love to paint murals. I started painting murals 20 years ago. So this is something that I believe is important, to add his own personality in a project. Once the identity is approved, let's try to see what you can do with that. So first, having this mural in the back of the restaurant was cool. Then I asked him, "Oh, what can we do in the entrance?" When you enter inside, because people need to have something pretty sexy to see just before they are waiting on the line to go inside the restaurants. So we had this idea of the mosaic on the ground. We had to find the right person to do it, so I asked a lot of people around me. I think I asked it on Facebook who knows how to make good Mosaic. I found Alexandra and she did the mosaic with the lettering that I've done and it worked so well. That was like a really cool idea to bring from the identity that we've created to have this mural plus the mosaic and, obviously, the menu, the business cards, everything around to have a really solid and consistent identity. Another really important project for me recently has been an identity for food court in France. It's a huge store name, Galeries Lafayette and opened in Chaussee d'ixelles which is what it's supposed to be, the most beautiful avenue in the world. I've done the whole identity or the food court. So it's 10 different stance, so 10 different restaurants. We had the idea to do a big restriction on the back of every stance. So when you walk in the food court, you can directly see who's who, what do they do. So we had this idea. From this idea we're like, okay, I think the logo will not be enough. Let's have some illustration on every billboards behind every stance. So you can really understand who they are, what they do. So for example, the Chinese restaurant will have a dragon all around the typography. Or you have the [inaudible] which is a really famous, an old charcuterie in Paris where I put what we named the [inaudible] instead of the o of Verot which is the biggest specialty that they have. So the idea was to really mix illustration and typography behind every stance so people could directly know what we're talking about who's who. From that, we had this idea to not just prints the illustration, because the idea here is to make something that will last for the next 10, 20, 30 years. So let's try and bring my illustration which is something pretty modern into something different. So that's why we were thinking about let's make it like the mosaic that we've done with Olly Bolly. Let's try and bring the mosaic shape in all the different illustrations. We could have just done 10 different cool illustration. But because the clients wanted to do something really strong, really bold, I've done this project with Olly Bolly and the Mosaic and I felt that that could be great to see my illustration into like a different perspective. So I believe that it's important to bring your personality. It's important too add something always better, to always improve what you're doing. Sometimes I love to collaborate with people like Alexandra because I believe that if I would have done mosaic by myself, it would have never been so good. So I think that's really important to experiment, to collaborate. Just try things that you've never done before, just taking risk. This is something that I try to do in every project I'm working on. I think that it's always good to try to improve your skills, try to improve what you're doing. So collaborating with different people, having different skills is really, really interesting for your own work but for their work too. So I think it's always good to explore, try different tools. Even typography, I guess, can be done with any kind of tools. Even things that you can see in the street you can't just try to take something and just write and see how it goes. Exploring is for me the key, collaborating is also really important. Just taking risk, I think, it's always good to do.
8. Student Exercise: So I showed you the project of Food Court, which was doing the identity of 10 different restaurants. I found it was a really nice project with cool projectors. I was about to translate the identity of the restaurant with a nice lettering and adding an illustration around it, trying to interact the illustration plus a typography. It's a huge challenge. I didn't want to do something really obvious. So that's why sometime you have music cafe which is organic restaurant, when you have like salad and stuff like this. I didn't want to just add a salad over the typography. I wanted to really bring something from the identity of the spot. So the space, which is a real restaurant, I've been there and I've seen the wallpapers with a lot of banana leaves. So I was like, "Okay, let's take the banana leaves that you can see in their restaurant and make it in the illustration." So then people will know the restaurant already. When they just see the illustration, they know what we're talking about. So I think this is a really nice challenge every time, and now it's your turn to try to make interact your typography plus an illustration. So just pick one restaurant, one cafe that you like. Try to find the right thing that makes their own identity and mix it with the typography. So just work on first on the typography that you believe is a really on point according to what they do, who they are, and then try to find one way to illustrate what they're doing and interact the typography plus the illustration. So once you've done this piece of art, just share it to the project gallery. I'm so excited to see what you're going to do guys, and I'm sure it's going to be great.
9. Final Thoughts: Thanks for listening until the end. If you're here, it means that you've take everything. Thank you. As you can see, I've show you a lots. This is my own way of doing things, my knowledge and the way I am doing is not academic like a told you before. I learn everything by myself and I think that's really- I'm pretty proud to be here today talking about it because I never thought when I was doing graffiti, that I will be able to have these kinds of clients and this responsibility behind me. But today, I believe that my authenticity has really helped me to keep like this integrity that I have and to do things that I really love doing. I think it's really important for you to really keep being really authentic. Let your personality drive you, drive what to do. Don't let anyone say, "You should not do this or you should not do that." Because I believe that's what my teachers told me when I was at school. Now today, I can show them that it was really good for me to keep showing that I'm a graffiti artist first because it allowed me to have my own personality. So I think it's really important to believe in what you do and staying really authentic. Keep doing what you like, what you love, who really are and don't listen to people that don't like it and say to go in different direction and just believe in yourself and I think you'll do the job.
10. Explore More Classes on Skillshare: way.
Alexis Taïeb, Designer
