| babyboss | volume
1, edition 2
Indonesian magazine Babyboss is featuring cutting edge trends in illustration,
experimental design and urban art. They kindly invited us prior to
its launch to take part in an interview and excerpts were published
in this issue as part of a 12-page FL@33 profile. Babyboss is a bi-lingual
publication (Indonesian and English).
unedited q&a, 3rd march, 2008
Name: FL@33 (((FL@33 is written in uppercase only
- without spaces before or after ‘@’. FL@33 is pronounced
like ‘flat33’.)))
Real Name/members: Agathe Jacquillat and Tomi Vollauschek
Location: London
Occupation: multi-disciplinary design studio for
visual communication, also founded and run stereohype.com –
graphic art and fashion boutique
Specialised: The studio is working across all media
in the areas Concept Generation, Print, Screenbased Work [Broadcast,
Motion Graphics, Interface Design, Websites], Exhibition Design and
Publishing.
Websites: flat33.com, stereohype.com, bzzzpeek.com
Fav Quote: carpe diem
QUESTIONS
1.Tell me a little bit about yourself and your life, include
your academic background? FL@33 is a multi-lingual and multi-specialised
studio for visual communication based in London. Founders Agathe Jacquillat
[French from Paris; Academy Julian, ESAG] and Tomi Vollauschek [Austrian,
originally from Frankfurt, Germany; FH Darmstadt] met on the Royal
College of Art's [RCA] postgraduate Communication Art and Design course
in 1999 and set up their company in Notting Hill after graduating
in July 2001.
The studio is working across all media in the areas Concept Generation,
Print, Screenbased Work [Broadcast, Motion Graphics, Interface Design,
Websites], Exhibition Design and Publishing. FL@33s’ mission
is to create a professional, vibrant, fresh and artistic body of work
while keeping a balance between commissioned and self-initiated projects
and publications. FL@33s’ work philosophy is based on the 'Power
of 3' theory – the balance of intellect, skill and emotion.
Projects have been featured online and in numerous magazines, newspapers,
books around the world.
Award-winning projects include: Architecture, Art and Design publication
'trans-form, trans-it, trans-port.org'" [edition: 1000, published
in London, July 2001], ‘Pencil Sculpture Illustration Series’
[Creative Review cover 11.2002, Eye and Butterfly Pencil Sculptures],
FL@33s’ amusing sound-collection bzzzpeek.com, AAT - Animated,
Acoustic Typefaces and the animation 'Singing Pasta' or 'Eat and Be
Eaten'. In October 2004 FL@33 launched 'stereohype.com - graphic art
and fashion boutique'. Stereohype.com is an online boutique offering
limited editions and rare products. The stereohype range is focusing
on fresh, innovative and inspirational works and expands regularly.
Products include exclusively commissioned artworks for stereohype.
Stereohype.com is a platform for designers and artists around the
world. Regular competitions give emerging and established artists,
illustrators and designers the chance to promote their talent and
to get their artworks produced and featured. This activity ensures
frequent updates and guarantees that the stereohype range stays appealing
to its critical and demanding customers. Competitions and exhibitions
are announced via our website, mailing list, international magazines
and link portals. The stereohype range includes the growing and popular
button badge collection with its annually added design competition
winners and the frequently added B.I.O. (by invitation only) button
badge series. April 2005 saw the studio move across town to a much
larger space in Central London, Clerkenwell. To mark this new era
a FL@33 monograph was published in May 2005 as part of the highly
collectable 'design&designer' series by french Pyramyd Editions
(bi-lingual: english and french; book collection number 33!) 'Postcard'
is the very first major publication conceived, compiled, written and
designed by Agathe Jacquillat and Tomi Vollauschek at FL@33. The book
features on 224 pages over 800 hand-picked postcards and postcard-related
projects by over 130 artists, illustrators, photographers, designers,
studios and collectives from all around the world, with emerging talents
sitting alongside established artists. The english edition of 'Postcard'
will be released in september 2008 by Laurence King Publishing in
the UK and by Chronicle Books in the USA. At the same time several
foreign language editions will also be released by their international
partner publishers (french, Pyramyd Editions, german, DuMont –
Literatur and Kunstverlag and in spanish by Gustavo Gili).
2.Since when are you interested in design, visual arts, drawing
and illustration etc? A: I was a bit lost after my bac (baccalaureate)
and did something rather unusual – I consulted a french Graphologe
(a specialist in analyzing handwriting). Somehow this Graphologe figured
out after long conversations that I could potentially become really
happy in the field of visual communication and she even suggested
a college in Paris. I always loved drawing but never thought I could
possibly do that for a living. One year later however I started my
studies at this very college (ESAG) and never looked back... *:) T:
Thanks to my Mum I took adult drawing classes at the age of 9 and
loved to get my hands dirty while creating something on paper.
3.Who / what did introduce you to design / visual art / drawing /
illustration / so on? A + T: In both cases our mothers.
4.What's your style and why did you choose to improve it?
FL@33 is working in many different areas of visual communication and
we therefore focus on concepts and individual working methods rather
than one recognizable style. We find it helps to keep our work fresh
when we try to avoid to get associated with one particular style or
technique although some people have said in the past that our work
always has a FL@33 fingerprint.
5.In general, what's your inspiration? See 10.
6.What tools do you usually use for your creative work?
A + T: pencils, fine-liners, markers, roller pens, scalpels and scissors,
rulers – preferably metal ones, scotch tape, digital photo cameras,
digital video cameras, sometimes polaroid cameras and we also used
lots of super 8 in the past, adobe cs3 suites, fontographer, and due
to old habits quark xpress and freehand.
7.Visual arts is a growing industry nowadays... Could you
tell us when and how could you get involved in this industry?
A: We are quite often commissioned to create artistic work or graphic
art – however you want to call it. Good examples are for instance
commissioned exhibits like the motion graphics we created for companies
or exhibitions such as Valencia Bienal/Alsop Architects, GraficEurope
Conference/RotoVision, Sacla or Altran, beside others. Very experimental
works without briefs (other than a starting point such as the medium
itself for instance or a general theme). This probably happens because
we are regularly working on very free, self-initiated projects which
are often made public on flat33.com and/or in books and magazines.
8.Name of clients you've worked with... International
clients are from Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Hong
Kong and the USA and include MTV Networks/VH1 European, Friends of
the Earth, Barbican & Young Vic theatre, Laurence King Publishing,
Creative Review, Computer Arts, Royal Festival Hall, Sacla, BBC, Matelsom,
Alsop Architects/Valencia Biennale 2003, RotoVision/GraficEurope conference
2004, Pyramyd Editions, The Creator Studio/Torraspapel, Ecole Normale
de Musique de Paris, Altran, Arts Affaires, BlackBook magazine and
Groupe Galeries Lafayette, besides others.
9.And the most challenging project you've ever had was...
T: When we were commissioned in 2002 – only eight months or
so after we set up FL@33 – to create three seasonal Brochure
covers and images for posters, brochure dividers and leaflet covers
for the Royal Festival Hall Classical Music campaign 2002/03. Their
Art Director of the in-house design studio saw our self-initiated,
self-published Architecture, Art and Design publication 'trans-form'
magazine. Trans-form is a multi-media celebration with a large scale
magazine, an attached cd-rom 'trans-it' and the website trans-port.org.
Trans-form celebrates the beauty of tower cranes which appear and
disappear in our cities. We treated the tower cranes as pieces
of art, sculptures really. We interviewed crane operators 30 metres
above ground (with our heads in the sky) and created and animated
crawling cityscape insects with tower crane legs. The publication
includes photography, photo-montages, line drawings, typography, animations
and lots of information on how tower cranes work, etc. So all
this was presented by the Royal Festival Hall's Art Director to
their marketing department who needed to be convinced that people who
can make tower cranes look exciting and beautiful could do the same
to promote classical music... We were really excited about this commission.
Not only did a big client approach us for the first time because they saw
another FL@33 project but we could also work in a way we wanted to.
Agathe and I were responsible for taking pictures of bizarre medieval
instruments with real-time explanations by their owner, all kinds
of musicians in action and the design itself - the creation of surreal,
intriguing and inviting imagery. The images were – as already
mentioned above – created in a ping-pong fashion were agathe
would start a composition, i would then add elements and agathe
would finish it after a few back-and-forths - or the other way around.
10.What are some of the things that you do to keep yourself creative?
T: Agathe and I regularly collaborate with book/magazine publishers
and designers around the world if we find a particular subject intriguing.
Self-initiated and/or non-commercial projects have therefore always
played an important role and generally inform our commissioned work.
A + T: Non-work related: we spend as much time as possible with our
kids – they certainly help us put things into perspective and
are a huge inspiration. Holidays and any kind of temporary change
in location are also very welcome. Always great to come home though...
11.Who is your idol inspiration that influences you this long?
A + T: We have an endless list of people who have continuously surprised
or intrigued us one way or another. The word 'idol' is certainly too
strong a word – I don't think we have any – but the word
inspiration works for us. Ray and Charles Eames (the best lounge chair
ever), László Moholy-Nagy (for his Licht-Raum-Modulator),
André Breton, Vaughan Oliver, Gert Dumbar, Monty Python,...
12.Last (book/film/song) you (read/watched/heard)... book:
'Blink – The Power of Thinking without Thinking' by
Malcolm Gladwell, the follow-up from the equally fascinating 'The
Tipping Point'. (reading it for a months now and hope to find time
to finally finish it soon). movie: Control. music:
PJ Harvey 'The Mountain' from her brilliant album'White Chalk' (2007)
13.What are things that you (love/hate) about your country?
A: My German is quite frankly catastrophic - so Berlin for instance
is currently out of the question and Tomi's French is not good enough
yet to even think about moving to Paris. Our common language is English,
London is where we met and set up our studio and we simply love to
live and work in this multi-cultural, vibrant metropolis. We found
plenty of delicatessen shops around town to cover our needs for 'food
from home'. It's very sad of course that we both had to leave so many
old friends and our families behind. They hopefully come quite often
and visit us and we can leave the island quite easily too and reach
mainland europe within a few hours via Eurostar(as train passenger),
Eurotunnel (train by car), plane or theoretically using fairies.
14.If you transform as a colour, what do you want to be and why?
A: I know not really a colour as such but it's white. T: Probably
a very common answer for designers but it has to be black –
absorbing everything bright you know... 8)
15.Imagine your 20-years-to-come life, what do you see?
T: 20 years is of course impossible to predict. 5 years are difficult
enough. Anyway – we will probably continue for some time to
create books with our trusted publisher Laurence King. We are aiming
to expand FL@33 while maintaining a healthy balance of work across
all media. We simply love to be able to satisfy our clients (and our
own) needs to provide them with the full package including visual
identities, books and posters, t-shirts, badges and postcards, installations,
websites and animations, etc. Anything really from custom typefaces
to art directing publications. Since all this is our passion we will
probably still be doing this in many years to come.
16.If you could reincarnate, who or what do you want to be?
T: We are doing just fine as humans, male and female respectively.
17.What will you say if you meet someone who plagiarized your
artwork(s)? A: Not sure whether we have met anybody personally
yet. Unfortunately there would theoretically be quite a few we could
bump into. There would probably be not much to talk about though.
These people know who they are and they do already have to live with
the guilt (if they do indeed have a conscience at all) – nothing
else to add really to this dreadful matter...
18.Three things you hate are... A: Aggression, Stupidity,
Sauerkraut. T: Ignorance, Pessimism, juicy raisins
other FL@33 profiles include
dpi
magazine | 10-page profile | nov 2006
new
graphic | 12-page profile | july 2006
computer
arts 124 | 6-page profile | june 2006
+81
| 6-page profile | may 2006
and
– art and design mag | 10-page profile | march 2005
step
magazine | jan 2005
novum
| 8-page profile | nov 2004
étapes:102
| 4-page article | nov 2003
grafik
110 | 6-page profile | oct 2003
page
| 3-page article | april 2003
creative
review | nov 2002
étapes:79
| dec 2001
for a complete list please visit our press
section
related link
launch
vektorjunkie.com (director/designer)
launch
conceptmagz.com (publisher)
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