If I don’t create, I won’t affect the world around me. Jon Westenberg.
The value of a man resides in what he gives and not in what he is capable of receiving. Albert Einstein.
I believe in karma. If we do something good, we’d get something in return – though it doesn’t necessarily have to be in the same form. If what we did can improve the infrastructure of Indonesia, that’d be great. Maybe one day, even the government will acknowledge the importance of design. Dendy Darman.
When we first started, graphic design wasn’t really needed in our community.
Now, if we look at markets such as Pasar Baru or Mangga Dua, we’d see a lot of t-shirts that have similar designs as ours. We made the designs, and we know the combination of colours, and then all of a sudden we find similar ones. Lots of producers just follow trends, but at least we had an impact.
Once, we printed our book. A lot of the people who bought our books were people who also made t-shirts. So instead of going to stores and do their own research, they could just read our book. In a sense, we made a bible. Not to toot my own horn, but I noticed that a lot of stores used our designs as their references.
Of course it’s bad for our business, even if it means that we have made a contribution. But such things are inevitable.
Dendy Darman.
When I was in grade school, I asked my mom for money so I can go to a PERSAMI [Perkemahan Sabtu-Minggu, a weekend boy scout activity]. My mother didn’t have money so she wanted to go to the bank first, but I insisted that I wanted to leave right away. My older brother then said to me «if you want to be a boy scout for the rest of your life, I will pay for this trip, I’ll even double it, but you must be a boy scout for the rest of your life.» I was in sixth grade, my friends were waiting downstairs, and I was made to think about a life lesson in responsibilities. I went downstairs and told my friends I wasn’t going with them. I went back upstairs and sat watching Doraemon, but I actually wasn’t watching—I was thinking about what my brother said.
When I went to college in Institut Kesenian Jakarta, I had an exhibition and my whole family came to see it. The same older brother asked me if I was sure this is what I wanted to study, and that I would do this for the rest of my life—I replied «yes, this is what I wanted to do.»
Saleh Husein.
Latin usually is very vertical, and Arabic is very horizontal. So to get them to talk to each other, we introduce a little bit of the opposite—but in a way where you’re not defying convention. The Latin has to stay Latin; the Arabic has to stay Arabic. And it’s this understanding that it’s okay to be different that sort of unlocks things—you don’t have to mimic, but you see if they can live together. And this is bigger than design, for me. This is politics, at the end of the day. Most of the Arabic typefaces that I’ve designed, they’ve been companions to existing Latin typefaces, and maintaining the equality between the two is very important to me. Nadine Chahine .
The first time you put the font in the test paragraph, it looks terrible. And then you say, «OK , I need to fix this, and I need to fix that»—and you go back and you fix it. And you do another test, and then you repeat. Sometimes you do this a hundred times, no joke. Nadine Chahine.
I don’t think there’s a point in my life that I’ve ever decided not to take a risk. For better or worse, safety and comfort don’t interest me. To me, risk means feeling and being alive. Obviously, I don’t do stupid things, but I have to risk. James Victore.
Don’t chase money because then you get so caught up in what shit costs and what we don’t realize is that shuts the rest of our lives down. If you’re a graphic designer who wants to make a lot of money and do good work, there’s a good chance that you won’t do either of those things. James Victore.
«Your work is a gift.» When you understand that, then it changes why you do it and who you do it for. You are no longer interested in the reward, the paycheck. Your job is not to make your boss or client happy because you understand that you have an audience beyond that. And I think that goes for anyone doing any job. James Victore.