Designer Interviews

Another post in our Designer Interview Series.  Maybe this post will inspire you to change your Vox theme!

Designer: Witold Riedel
Portfolio: WitoldRiedel.com
Themes: Witold Chickadee, Owl, Radio, and Toucan

1. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your design background.
I was born in Poland at the very end of the 60's. My parents and I escaped to Germany in 1981. I lived there for about 15 years or so. In 1996 or so I was invited to come to New York... and here I am. I am writing this on Third Street, near Seventh Avenue, in Brooklyn, New York.

I was one of those children who just kept drawing. I drew on walls, windows, furniture, the floor, things, animals, myself. I later used drawings to communicate with my first friends in Germany. (I did not speak a single word of German when we arrived there.) I illustrated my first book when I was 17. I then hoped to become an illustrator, naturally, and ended up studying Visual Communication at the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Offenbach/Main. Parallel to my studies I began to do animation and graphic design. I did a lot of work for television, some commercials. A rather cool advertising agency in Frankfurt then invited me to do some of that animation and new media and print work for them. Franz Aumueller and friends had created a place called Instant Media Lab, and I was hired as one of the "scientists." It was a very fun place to work for. We did anything from videos for Brian Eno to workshops with people like Terence McKenna and the guys from Tomato. This work eventually brought me to New York, where I became the art director for a little record label on 46th Street. Then the web boom pulled me into working in advertising here in New York.

Oh and I never really stopped drawing. TheMorningNews.org published a series of my drawings from the subway and several series of photographs I have taken of a tiny bear I carry with me most of the time. So some people might know me for the bear pictures.

2. What was the inspiration behind your winning entries?
The drawings used for the entries were taken from a series I had published on my blog in 2003. I called them the 360x360 drawings, as they were all 360x360 pixels in size. I would draw something for the blog every day and then write something of a story inspired by the drawing. Some of the stories really traveled to some special places.I ended up making 120 of the drawings. The entries for the headers have a thing in common: They all open a tiny window into the souls of storytelling creatures. And yes, the radio is a creature too. It obviously is one. Have you ever spent an afternoon with a radio? The original entries are buried in the belly of my chaotic website, so I think I will just republish them on my happy new Vox blog. Vox is so nice.

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3. What is favorite Vox feature?
 I think I like the Collections feature a lot. And I have not even started using it properly yet but I really like it. I have a bit of an "art collection" and a "book collection." I am obviously no Peggy Guggenheim, I can only afford pieces that are big editions or maybe tiny, tiny drawings, photographs. But I collect only pieces I can somehow connect with, so it is nice to not only be able to take care of the physical piece of art, but also to have a bit of an overview of the collection on Vox. I keep this feature open to my friends and family only. I am a shy collector, not a bad museum.

4. What inspires you?
I feel so incredibly lucky to live in New York. The city feels like a gigantic magnet (or sponge?) for people who want to create something very special.  And I am also incredibly lucky to be able to spend some time with some rather brilliant creative people.  Growing up in Poland in the 70's I could have never dreamt of ever ending up in New York, doing what I am doing. Yet I think that when I was a very little child I promised myself to never ever stop being curious. And even though it is a really tough one to keep sometimes, I hope I have not really broken my promise yet.