The conversation that turned into an interview - translated

• Oliver Sanz - Graphic designer (Rome, London, NY, Barcelona)
• I posted a series of questions and doubts in a Spanish forum of graphic designers called Domestika. I had concerns about the difference of salaries, work conditions and how designers see the industry in Spain nowadays. Oliver saw my post and decided to send me a private message, which led us to have a very informative chat.
• Hi Alex,

  I've seen your thread post and I didn't want to reply you there because this is a very personal answer.
  
  I don't know much about that university you mention (Leeds College of Art), I don't know if it's comparable to the european institute of design in Madrid or the ISABA in Barcelona, but my guess is that it won't open too many doors for you.
  
  About the salary over here... forget about earning more than 25k € a year, and to reach that it needs to be a big company, which they demand a high level of English from you.

  In my experience, I've been in Barcelona for 5 years after working another 5 between London and NY, and I would suggest you to work a lot over there making new clients, creating an interesting portfolio with your best work and start selling yourself. Have an active list of clients and start working with them... spend some more time as a self-employer with someone else over there (I suggest native people) and once you have all that then come back to Spain. I assure you there's nothing better than working in Spain with an European salary (with non-Spanish clients).
• When I left to NY I had an English client. I had to make a yearbook and a magazine every three months and that alone allowed me to afford living costs for a whole year. That's why it's so important to use your contacts to get clients over there. Maybe at this point in time the name of your institution really can help you.

  
  - How did you find that client? It happened working for a company? And how do you make companies notice you?
• I look for new clients constantly and I bill them as a self-employer. Being working for a company and a self-employer in Spain is shit, because taxes are really high, but it's the only way. In England is much cheaper.

  Don't expect companies to be interested in you, YOU have to be the one going after them.

  Anyway, I think you are young and you have time to understand how life and businesses work. I would also recommend that once you learn English you should move on to another language, since everyone takes for granted you speak it.
• - Do you think Catalan is necessary to work in Barcelona? 
• I've been living in Barcelona for 5 years and I can't even make a sentence. But I have to admit that it helps. Many companies, especially with the 2.0, ask for it. For written communication it's really important.
• - In your website it says you've lived in places like Rome, UK, NY. How did you end up in these places? Did you plan it?
• I initially went to England and Italy to learn English. I went over there at the age of 28. I had 6 years of experience as designer, steady job... I was feeling stuck, so I decided to leave everything and fly.
  I worked as a waiter, learning English... in Rome I worked as PR spending my whole day with Australians, English and Americans. I learned English and many other things. I met my girlfriend and we decided to move to her place in NY. I didn't have a job over there so I decided to look for new clients to work and have an income. It was great over there, getting the visa, visiting Canada... I didn't look for a job as a designer, since I had enough in Europe.
• - Being in NY as a designer must have been very inspirational right? And how did you find those clients? Through your work, using a platform or how?
• Well, back then there was a website called Creative Pool and from there I got a couple of yearbooks. I was also working advertising a couple of restaurants in London, which I got by talking and talking to the boss, making some free stuff. I also had clients in Spain. There's a lot of myth with NY, maybe I'm inspired by other places like Scandinavia or even Italy, but yeah, NY has very quick trends and what to say about the American dream... any European can make an empire from there without much problem, including a designer.
• 1.- How do you see the future of the creative industries in Barcelona /Spain? Do you think  the work conditions and salaries have improved or are we stuck like in other industries?

  2.- Who is your greatest inspiration and why?

  3.- Is there any saying or quote that represents you? Or do you have a personal one?

  ¡Gracias!
• 1. Look, I think that if we talk about the creative industries we would be speaking about the average designer, which is precisely what I want to be different from... I think there are possibilities for the good ones in Barcelona for sure. In Spain I don't know what to say, but I think it's probably the same. Companies know what they want, but it's sometimes difficult to get in their cores. But in short, who perseveres succeeds.

  2. I love and I am very happy of not having "a" inspiration. I like studying different referents depending on the approach I want to have. You really can learn loads from everyone. I can be inspired by César Manrique or Calatrava as architects. I normally get inspired by painting and photography, we have a good history of artists in Spain. I could name people that inspire like Manuel Estrada, but I would only look for inspiration if him if the approach I want to make is similar to his style. Travelling and taking notes is another great source of inspiration...

  3. Well, I have many mostly from photographers. But there is someone, a painter that said something that I have always in mind and drives my life. This is from Don Pablo (warmly referring to Pablo Picasso) "Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working".

Under Pressure collective

Josh, Hannah and me, three students of Graphic Design, decided to make a collective together. The first thing to do was to identify what our strengths are. To do this, we are writing them down.



We identified that each one of us is strong in different parts of the creative process. I am good in coming up with ideas, Josh knows how to execute them and Hannah can bring them into the real world in interesting ways.

It is important to identify what is the purpose of this collective. We were discussing what our aimings were with this brief. I remembered about Goat Collective from last year. They were on their 3rd year and gave away their work to new students. I think it was a very succesful way to promote themselves but I don't think the target audience was right, at least for our purposes. We would like to focus on potential employers and people that is eventually going to pay for our work. We think the most appropriate way would be making a publication with our best work. In a job interview, meeting with a client or sending it to specific studios gives a very good impression of belonging and professionality. It can also help this audience to get familiar with our names and work.

We needed a name! One of my ideas was to represent in the name how our skills cover all the stages of a creative process. But then, due to the short time we are having for this studio brief, I thought it would be a good idea to reflect that on the name, that somehow this collective is born in a time of rush. After thinking about different names, our favourite was "Under Pressure" due to the nature of graphic design and this brief. Also, Under Pressure was a hit of Freddy Mercury and David Bowie, which not only was a collaboration, but it was international, something that reflects our collective (two English members and a Spanish one).

The next thing to do is to identify what the presentation is going to be about. We first need to introduce ourselves as a collective and what our individual roles are going to be. We also need to explain how this is going to be beneficial for us and the best way to promote our work. It's been already identified that the target audience are going to be potential employers. This allowed us to identify what needs to be produced as well as how to promote our work.

For the presentation it's important to give a sense of identity with a brand based on colours, logo and a set of fonts, which is what is going to be shown on the presentation.

In the future, apart from the publication/s, a web could expand even further our reach and could serve as a reference point that can be linked with our individual social media profiles and websites, so anyone interested could find us in any possible way.