Interview with the Team of Regji Studios
Eddie and Matt, who met while studying graphic design at Leeds College of Art, constitute the team of regji studios located in Manchester. They are among those young talented graphic desingners who were able to launch their career shortly after graduation and be successful with it. They mostly work on projects — related to culture and music — that focus on typography, illustration and innovation.
Please introduce yourselves a little bit. (e.g. Why did you want to become graphic designers; What education have you done with regard to graphic design? etc.)
Eddie: I originally planned to study at a different university with all my mates from home so I could muck about for three years. Although I stupidly applied for garden design instead of graphic design at Leeds Metropolitan University, it led me to end up going to Leeds College of Art, accidentally studying the most intense degree possible and acquiring a real interest in the subject and a drive to be successful within graphic design.
Matt: I was artistic as a child so my dad hurled me on a crappy computer and made me use Microsoft Paint from an early age and said “best off learning this, son”. I think he saw a better career for me in the future if I could understand designing on computers, ever since then I wanted to be a designer of some sort.
When did you found regji studios? What is the story behind it?
We collaborated a lot throughout university and always joked about setting up a studio at some point. After leaving we went home, got some offers from internships but couldn’t afford to live and work full time for almost nothing and also we missed each other over loads… So we decided to give it a go setting up a studio. Naturally, first order of business was to go out and buy a puppy, then both of us moved away from home, we found a flat in Manchester, spent some time organising our online presence and started finding some work for regji studios.
If I’m not mistaken, the two of you — and a dog — work in the studio. What is the working process like?
We are both very different with our graphic design styles so, initially, we work on a brief individually — tackling a brief from two separate angles — and then bring our ideas together and continue working collaboratively. This practice helps combining both of our styles and approaches to leading to stronger, more functional outcomes that we possibly wouldn’t have come up with by ourselves.
Having seen your website and Behance profile I would say typography plays a very important role in your way of creating. What do letters mean to you?
Letters to us usually mean bills, rent and council tax… Seriously though typography plays a huge part in the work we do, however, we like to mix it up with using illustration and innovative approaches to try to find and use fresher ways of use the type within the design.
What aspect of the designing process do you like the most and why?
Eddie: The final product, seeing what your work that you have designed all onscreen looks like when it is all finished and printed.
Matt: The best part of the design process has to be when you stumble on a great idea for a brief, it seems to give you motivation, and work becomes less of a job and more of an entertainment or pass time that you make money from.
Alan Turing has been just granted a posthumous Royal Pardon by the Queen so that I would like to ask you about that project of yours ‘Code Breaker Exhibition’. How did you approach the topic and develop the project?
We began the project by conducting extensive research into Alan Turing and his work. Choosing to focus on his achievements the designs we created had the intention of highlighting him as an innovator. We feel the best way to pay homage to Turing was — for the outcomes of the brief — to help educate and emphasize the global effects of his work. We are happy he has received a Royal Pardon but surprised it took so long to forgive and acknowledge not just Turing’s importance to modern day technology but also his contribution to the war effort.
You’ve done branding, EP artworks and designed for exhibitions. What are the main differences between designing for commercial and aesthetic purposes?
We really enjoy working aesthetically, our ideal briefs fall within the cultural and music sector, so projects such as branding and promotions for art exhibitions and album artwork; this is because of the creative freedom that comes with it — allowing us to come up with clever, innovative and conceptual design outcomes. Commercial clients don’t tend to go for aesthetic designs and ideas for briefs, they usually have a strict set of guidelines that you have to work within, which can be hard sometimes and quite tedious. Either way we still make sure to come out with nice outcomes for all our briefs.
What are you working on right now?
Over the Christmas period we’ve just been working on designing some prints for sale, a few gig posters and posters for nights out. Something that we are in the process of finishing is a regji limited edition clothing line; this will get us out of the office and get on the screen beds once again! We have got some pretty big briefs lined up though for the New Year which we are excited to get started on.
Originally published at //hypeandhyper.com/en/interju-a-regji-studio-csapataval/.
