Transcribed with Otter.ai
Guest Alex Trochut
Unknown Speaker 0:00
Awesome.
Unknown Speaker 0:02
Hey. Hey everyone. Welcome to unique ways with Thomas Girard and audio podcast, we’ve got a very special guest today. He is a Grammy nominated creative based in New York City with a diverse range of clients, including Nike, Adidas, Puma, The Rolling Stones. Katy Perry, vampire, weekend, arcade, fire Esquire, UK BBC, Coca Cola, British Airways, Pepsi The Guardian, The New York Times, Time and many others. Please join me in welcoming Alex choute, welcome Alex.
Unknown Speaker 0:35
Thank you, Thomas, very happy to be here. You ready for 20 questions? Yeah, I am okay. Question one, tell me a little bit more about yourself. What do you do?
Unknown Speaker 0:47
Well, I think, like, basically how I define myself is basically a creative but I’m kind of like a digital creator.
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Mostly, I think if there’s no electricity, I’m sort of useless. I use
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paper and pen sometimes, but I need to, sort of like, organize my ideas
Unknown Speaker 1:09
with a computer, mainly, and and the outputs normally are typography. But not only so my speciality is not really typography. Will be I would say like I work with a written medium. That means that
Unknown Speaker 1:28
I work mainly in lettering,
Unknown Speaker 1:32
meaning that, yeah, normally I just work with a custom amount of letters that I get if I need to write a logo, I would just work with those letters and and that kind of like is different from calligraphy typography and lettering like calligraphies, writing
Unknown Speaker 1:50
letters as you know, as a continuous flow, like one shot one take, and it’s heavily based On your manual skills, which I don’t have. I understand how it’s made, but I haven’t practiced ever that much. And then you have typography, which is for kind of like organizing a system and designing every character as it’s way more kind of technical it’s like most like engineering
Unknown Speaker 2:22
shapes in order to make them all create a system that needs to be working. Every character needs to work with all the other characters. And then lettering is basically kind of like a custom job, something like you would say, like typography would be something sort of like a net Porter where, like,
Unknown Speaker 2:45
everybody can come by and combine it in, in however, clothing styles and and what I do is more kind of like, okay, this is designed for one client, and it’s basically, it’s like a tailor suit that It’s measured just for that client, for that brand,
Unknown Speaker 3:04
that’s great. I was listening to some of your previous interviews, and was really fascinated with your
Unknown Speaker 3:12
I guess lettering, or typography work in, in 3d in in a, in a, kind of the spatial typography.
Unknown Speaker 3:21
Yeah. Okay, so number two, what’s a key piece of knowledge that makes you different?
Unknown Speaker 3:28
Yeah, that’s a good question. I’m kind of like a believer that a lot of what we know is based on the desires that we have to absorb those things in a certain way and and those desires are sort of like breeding in you, and we don’t choose them. They’re kind of like there in a certain way. I believe that
Unknown Speaker 3:51
beyond software, beyond hardware, we also inherited that software that we are kind of like discovering through life. So I think it’s hard for me to observe and understand clearly how I do things sometimes, or how the knowledge sort of like It’s articulated,
Unknown Speaker 4:11
because it’s not really a knowledge to me. It’s more kind of like most of the time
Unknown Speaker 4:16
I try to get lost and it’s in there’s moments of sort of like, when I’m a little bit I have no idea how I got there, creatively speaking, and there, in that place, of like, I I will be kind of like clueless about telling you how I got here. But once I’m there is where, where you sort of like, find things that are creatively exciting.
Unknown Speaker 4:42
So
Unknown Speaker 4:44
I don’t know, I guess, like, yeah, that’s what. I think it’s kind of like, very interesting about the subconsciousness and how we are, kind of like, programmed to do certain things without knowing what these things how.
Unknown Speaker 5:00
What, what is pulling the these, these threads sort of speak, right?
Unknown Speaker 5:05
But yeah, like when it comes to creativity, and yeah, knowledge is, it’s kind of like a big word for me. It’s the power is more in the unknown and how you
Unknown Speaker 5:17
kind of like get excited about the things you want to understand or you don’t know. And the the unknown is very, very powerful, like they say, like Knowledge is power. But I think the unknown is sometimes way more powerful because it’s a drive towards surprises and and countering maybe something that, if you knew very well what’s going to happen. It just becomes very boring, and I’m very bad about repeating something.
Unknown Speaker 5:48
I would probably be doing it better if I did it constantly. And it will keep improving, but at the same time it will decline so much the motivation towards the process of it. So there’s kind of like a sweet spot between having control over something and then
Unknown Speaker 6:08
enjoying the experience of discovering also while you’re making it, if that makes sense,
Unknown Speaker 6:15
it does. You’ve also got that kind of genetic knowledge as well, right?
Unknown Speaker 6:22
Yeah, I guess you we can say that because, yeah, my my grandfather, he was, he was a son of a printer. So my great grandfather was a French printer in the army, and he was sort of like printing
Unknown Speaker 6:43
all sorts of fake news that were saying that the that the war, the First World War, was going great for friends and well, he was seeing a lot of death, so he, he decided to quit and Like it was an act of bravery to me, because apparently when you quit the First World War,
Unknown Speaker 7:07
if they got you, it’s automatically it was a death sentence. But he decided to do that because his brother died and he didn’t see much of a point on that war. So he migrated to Spain without knowing Spanish, having money or or much, but he knew how to print so that the technology in in Spain, in Spain wasn’t as developed as in France. So he was a tough man, my great grandfather, he arrived Spain, and he sort of like had to figure it out everything. But he built a company in Barcelona that become one of the most successful in town. And
Unknown Speaker 7:49
around 1920 is when he had his son, my grandfather. And I imagine this kid, my grandfather, just being surrounded by all these leather press machines, and being in a company that I would say that my great grandfather was not necessarily an crazy, creative person, but I think he was like a good, hard man, like, you know how to deal with a business and have that
Unknown Speaker 8:18
more kind of, Like, cold heart that would like, drive the business forward very efficiently. But then his son was like this sort of like, very creative
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person that
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by the time that he was 20, he released this incredible modular system called Super beloved, which basically it was just one set of typography that you would buy.
Unknown Speaker 8:45
Imagine they would be like, kind of like now. Nowadays we buy phones digitally, but yeah, back in the days, you buy a set of letter press that was basically
Unknown Speaker 8:58
every size had to be a different set of lead pieces. What he created is just one single set that was just like one size. It was universal, but it was 250 pieces. Looks like this massive puzzle that you could arrange in different ways. So you would be able to construct letters for headlines, logos, alphabets and also illustration and the possibilities were kind of like limitless, like it was kind of like an infinite, sort of like Lego, sort of like typographical puzzle and, and, yeah, that was, That was my grandfather.
Unknown Speaker 9:40
But, yeah, long story short, basically, my grandfather, when he was 20, he kind of like just, I imagine him, like
Unknown Speaker 9:49
enjoying so much the design part of his business. But being a designer back in the days meant that you were also a printer. And he.
Unknown Speaker 10:00
Had to inherit this sort of, like, take charge of this company, but had, like, 150
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workers and and he probably was not doing a lot of design at some point, because he just had to be a businessman. So, yeah, he he didn’t, he didn’t become a great businessman. And also there was this, like, I’m moving forward now towards, like, at the end of his life, where, towards the 60s, offset printing was this new technology that came in and and basically he had to establish a new change for the company, but he couldn’t adapt to the that change of technology. So basically,
Unknown Speaker 10:40
the end of his life was was a little bit bitter,
Unknown Speaker 10:44
but I’m explaining all this because this is what, where the genetics come in. Because his son, my father, witness all these sort of decline on and what make our family bankrupt, basically because my grandfather had to sell most of what his father
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had gotten in the company, and my father had to start from scratch and and my grandfather died just like six months before I was born.
Unknown Speaker 11:16
So by the time all these, you know, many years happened on, like I’m 12, and I told my dad that I wanted to do graphic design, not because I knew much about my grandfather, but because I wanted to just, you know, follow what I was seeing that I thought it was cool. It was a skateboard graphics and album covers and video games and all that stuff. It’s like, how do you do this. Now, these are graphic designers. My uncle told me, and I was like, I want to do that. And my dad was like, Well, you probably, you know, just a kid, but then I was really serious about it. And by the time I was, like, 1617,
Unknown Speaker 11:54
my dad, I think, was really struggling with this, because he really tried to disencourage me from that idea. It’s like, no, no, you’re nuts. Like, this is the worst idea. Like that basically ruined my dad, you know, like, physically, was very hard for him, and I think this is a terrible decision.
Unknown Speaker 12:14
But then I think that was also good for me, because I I sort of like push myself
Unknown Speaker 12:22
to prove that I really wanted to do that and, and I had to prove it to my to my family and also to myself. And he gave me the chance. My dad was like, okay, I can do it. But then he really saw that was really passionate and and that I really enjoyed it, and, and then it was more when I was in school that my teachers were telling me, like, well, but are you related to John trachute? And I was saying, yeah, it was my grandfather. And the teachers were like, Okay, hit like, no pressure that, yeah, you have your your grandfather was kind of like
Unknown Speaker 13:00
a very important figure for Spanish design. And so, yeah, I, I thought it was kind of like a lot of pressure at the time, in a way that I, I didn’t enjoy it to to be recognized as, you know, the the young, sort of like
Unknown Speaker 13:18
relative to a person that had such a praise.
Unknown Speaker 13:22
But then, you know, like, I think I would just attracted two letters
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the same way as he did and, and I think it’s pretty fascinating, because, yeah, like,
Unknown Speaker 13:36
I don’t know, you sort of
Unknown Speaker 13:39
maybe inherit the physical traits like you maybe have, you know, you’re built in a certain way, so you can run faster, or you could do certain things because you’re physically prepared that way. And those that side of the genes I I really get, but then to something so specific as letters that the genetics could travel even to have, you know, devotion for something so artificial as letters. It’s kind of fascinating to me. Yeah, sorry, that was a very long answer. I love it. I love it. Thank you. Number three, you kind of answered this, but the question is, why this of all things? Why do you do what you do?
Unknown Speaker 14:23
Yeah, again, I think it’s maybe one of those mysteries that I think we kind of like our job is to figure it out what we are supposed to do,
Unknown Speaker 14:35
but we don’t really know. We know we love things, but we don’t know why,
Unknown Speaker 14:42
but yeah, that’s, that’s, I guess the answer that one will be shorter,
Unknown Speaker 14:48
great. Four is, what does your future look like?
Unknown Speaker 14:52
To be honest, I never been so clueless. I feel like right now, and I don’t know also.
Unknown Speaker 15:00
How,
Unknown Speaker 15:01
how you feel? Like, personally, there’s one question, but then the idea of future itself is, it’s another one, right? Like, we have, like, I think it’s, it’s related too, because, of course, there’s so many things are going to be affecting us that
Unknown Speaker 15:17
that we didn’t foresee or anticipate, of course, a couple of decades ago, or just one few years ago when it comes to climate change and, of course, all the instability in the world, but, but when it comes to the technological challenges, this is kind of like the third one of the threats that I feel like they’re kind of like
Unknown Speaker 15:38
polluting my, my my cloud in my, my side of the future in a certain ways, because,
Unknown Speaker 15:48
yeah, like, I feel like design itself. It’s something that, for me, it’s very much based on craft and and these days, for example, I feel like I’m a bit overwhelmed by by how fast technology moves. So I think for me, it’s kind of like a moment of accepting that it’s it’s a war that I will never win having control of of the tools. So the tools are always changing so much that you can try to move with it, but at some point it will be very hard to maintain the control that that you had, maybe at some point, especially when the tools are getting more and more complex every day, right?
Unknown Speaker 16:33
Because before I had like, kind of like the feeling that
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the tools were simpler so I could go very deep on them, similar to how maybe back in the day, an artist could be very good with brushes and a canvas. The technology itself wasn’t complicated what, what made it unique was the hand and how you control that, that very basic tool, and how you manage to personalize something. These days, I feel like the challenge is how you combine those skills that are maybe more talent that you might develop or you’re born with. But then there’s all these other technical side that is fascinating, because the machines are allowing us to have this incredible amount of possibilities, but at the same time, it’s so hard to absorb them all the time. So there’s a kind of like, there’s an anxiety attached to this excitement
Unknown Speaker 17:33
for me. And yeah, it is.
Unknown Speaker 17:36
It’s kind of like I don’t
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know what’s going to happen in the in the next years, especially with the AI coming in so hard, so fast,
Unknown Speaker 17:47
because I don’t know if it’s going to become like
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an intersection in creativity, where there’s going to be creatives that are going to be fully invested in, in an AI way of working, And then there’s going to be the other set of creatives that going to be kind of like working on,
Unknown Speaker 18:07
on more the traditional way of doing things, and and some things will be better in one way, and something will be better in another way, I guess, or this is what I hope the most, is like everything will integrate into, kind of like still giving creatives the control
Unknown Speaker 18:26
that will allow them to create styles. Because with AI, what I feel it’s very hard to form and style when the machine does 99% of the things for you, you just have an idea. But to me, you know, like creativity, it’s a mix of craft and thinking. And if I had to choose, I would choose craft, because I feel like thinking or conceptualizing is kind of like a consequence of the process of creation, but of just discovering something as you make, but when it comes to
Unknown Speaker 19:03
AI is almost like
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climaxing before taking any clothes off. So it’s kind of like a very weird way of like, I don’t find it fun or exciting that much, if I’m honest, but it’s the future. So yeah, I’m I’m trying to be more open about it, but there’s a certain part of me that it’s a little bit kind of like, yeah,
Unknown Speaker 19:30
I guess, insecure about it,
Unknown Speaker 19:33
but I hope that yeah, it will Yeah. It will integrate in a way that will give us control, not just kind of like, give a shortcut, just how I feel like it’s a shortcut that sometimes is the long path has always been better for me. You know, like to do same with food. No, if you cook things fast, yeah, you can eat them, and it’s convenient, but I prefer the slow.
Unknown Speaker 20:00
Cook.
Unknown Speaker 20:01
So, yeah, I don’t know future is it’s I never thought future was going to be so uncertain. It’s
Unknown Speaker 20:09
an interesting question, right? Because design in the future is something that I guess a lot of us are thinking about, but typography, or lettering in the future is a little bit different, and especially if, like typography can be transferred through genetics, then what does that mean for a future generation? Who, who has the genes of typography? What? What will they be creating? I guess, um, number five, yeah,
Unknown Speaker 20:34
no, yeah, you’re right. I think the good thing about typography is like it because it’s a human invention. It’s always kind of like adapting to its time in different ways. And we’re always modifying text and going back and forth, but, but, yeah, I wonder if the future, at some point, will
Unknown Speaker 20:55
will invent some sort of like telepathy so we don’t need to read things anymore. So then I guess typography will be finally obsolete. But for now, I think, and also gonna say that so far, what I’ve seen with AI, it hasn’t been very impressive for me in the AI
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area
Unknown Speaker 21:16
of typography area. Sorry, but I’m sure it could be done. At the moment it’s done. I think it could be incredible and horrifying too, because then, yeah, like many people lose their jobs, but, but maybe it will be so incredible to have a different typeface for everything you know, because you could actually do it.
Unknown Speaker 21:39
But, yeah, we’re very, very far away from that, thankfully. I think
Unknown Speaker 21:44
great. So you’re in New York, but you studied at Ellie Sava in Barcelona. So number five is, let’s talk about location. How does the notion of place play into what you do?
Unknown Speaker 21:57
Yeah, I think location is it can do so much for you
Unknown Speaker 22:02
in one hand, I think, like it’s, it’s a lot based on with what company are you surrounded with that could really I think for me, when I came to New York, I had some of the most lovely years sharing Studio with some of the creatives I met here,
Unknown Speaker 22:22
Laura lejo, Isaac, Bertrand, Freddie, arenas, they I love those years with them. There was such a nice energy of that studio where
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everybody was really kind of like having that very genuine
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interest and willing to help each other.
Unknown Speaker 22:45
Yeah, and that was, like, very defining for me, that that sort of energy. But then it’s true that sometimes location could give you that excitement that you lose when you’re into that routine, that it’s always sort of like Groundhog Day can really happen very fast. Years go by and creativity, kind of like, that’s an enemy for creativity. So
Unknown Speaker 23:08
after the pandemic i and during the pandemic too, I, I was traveling more because remote work was sort of, like more accepted and and that sort of like discovered me that, yeah, the best conditions for good work are far from
Unknown Speaker 23:25
Monday to Friday in office or studio. So I, I really think that there’s a certain thing that that energy that happens when you’re in a different place and and that can give you, I don’t know, you become a little bit more efficient with your with your way of working. I don’t know how it is. If it’s because you are in an interesting place, and you
Unknown Speaker 23:51
you are allowing yourself to be outside more, and you get maybe, uh, inspiration from other things and and you also want to be more efficient with your time. You’re not going to be hopefully, glued to your social media or Twitter
Unknown Speaker 24:08
while you’re sitting on on a beautiful place. So you’re probably just going to reduce a lot of the procrastination. So there’s maybe those elements too, but, but yeah, I find it like very, very healthy to Yeah, to just go away and it doesn’t, doesn’t matter the amount of work you can have. Because I also felt like it was harder for me to be stressed in a new environment, like my level of frustration was growing higher. If I’m in the same space, I see that there’s more intensity of work happening and some, sometimes that could be like a negative, sort of like, energy coming in you. But then if you are somewhere else and you’re meeting new situations and people, you put that kind of like on Bay, and it’s kind of like you compared.
Unknown Speaker 25:00
Lies better,
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that feeling and you kind of like, just focus on, on what needs to be done. So, yeah, I’m a huge advocate of, like, traveling more for creative work.
Unknown Speaker 25:13
Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 25:15
what do you think about that? Do you travel a lot too? Right? I do, yeah, yeah, just picking up travel again in 2023 I’m
Unknown Speaker 25:24
scared and and excited at the same time. I think kind of a lot of us are probably feeling that way
Unknown Speaker 25:31
nice. Where are you planning to go?
Unknown Speaker 25:34
So I’m not sure about Krakow, but I’m invited there. And then it looks like I’ll be in Paris, and in March, I’ll be in Lisbon. So, Oh, nice. Yeah, everybody’s going to Portugal these days. Seems like the new, new paradise, yeah, yeah, that’s great. Um, number six is, if you had to start from the beginning, what advice would you give your former younger self?
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Um, I guess I’ll
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if I could talk to myself, I would try to
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tell him to be less afraid to share and to kind of like be less precious about maybe your own creations.
Unknown Speaker 26:18
I feel like where I come from in Barcelona.
Unknown Speaker 26:23
Yeah, like also the design community.
Unknown Speaker 26:27
It’s a different community, at least for me, how it was when I was growing up, versus the community of today, especially with 3d community. And I think the difference sometimes it’s maybe because the design community,
Unknown Speaker 26:46
the value was more maybe having possessing some assets back in the day, like if somebody had, like, you know, a very special fund that they never wanted to share, because that was sort of like, exclusive to certain people, but it was all circulated funny in love, like, those funds were not something that they designed or or that we paid for, but there was a little bit of status related to who had those assets. And then, of course, your ideas, right? But
Unknown Speaker 27:20
people, I think there was a little bit of, and I was part of the same culture in terms like, you wanted to protect a lot your your knowledge in a certain way, because that could you maybe felt like it could be taken away if you share it. And
Unknown Speaker 27:37
and I think today, what is kind of like, refreshing for me is to see how much of sharing there is in the community, especially with 3d I think that also happens because 3d itself, like if you wouldn’t have the sharing aspect of it, if there wasn’t tutorials in YouTube, or people giving their Time and giving it to the community,
Unknown Speaker 28:01
individually speaking, will be so hard to
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progress, it will be very slow.
Unknown Speaker 28:08
So yeah, I think that for me, it’s been kind of like very clear in the last years, and I’m way less scared to kind of like, give things that maybe are I protected them, something like I wanted to to avoid me, maybe being copied, or like
Unknown Speaker 28:26
things like that, and yeah, and also things take time. I would say to to my younger self, that you get where you’re supposed to be with time, you know, like, just don’t, you know, don’t fight it,
Unknown Speaker 28:40
or try to make too many strategies think happen when, when they’re supposed to happen, in the end, if they’re supposed to happen. So, yeah, that’s easier said than done, I guess. But yeah, yeah, yeah, often around the podcast, we talk about the collaborative nature of design these days, versus, like when I went to school, it was, you know, really protecting your own work and being the one who knew and how that’s changed.
Unknown Speaker 29:07
Number seven, what’s a day in your life like?
Unknown Speaker 29:11
So, yeah, day in my life normally starts with some major size
Unknown Speaker 29:16
I like to do either, like, some functional training
Unknown Speaker 29:22
with some classes at the gym or or some yoga. I started to do yoga because I’m realizing that my back starts to hurt and I haven’t ever stretched. So that’s that’s about time when I’m 41 so I I’m finally doing it, and my body is thanking me for that. So I do that in the mornings and and then, basically, I I work from, yeah, from 10 till till six, normally, or something like that. And my energy doesn’t allow me to go it. It can work longer, but it doesn’t.
Unknown Speaker 30:00
Get better, yeah, kind of like it’s at this point. It’s kind of like there’s an amount of energy I can give to work, and that’s pretty much it. And, and I have my routine and, and I don’t like to take lunch breaks. I I eat in front of the computer. So it’s kind of like I try to facilitate as much as I can that focus on a on a solid sort of like amount of hours. Of course, you get interrupted all the time, but
Unknown Speaker 30:29
if I put, like a Spanish lunch in between, that would be even worse for me. So I don’t do that, and then, yeah, just come home and maybe I I meet with some friends, or
Unknown Speaker 30:44
we’re starting to cook with my partner, which is also been a new addition to my routine, or play some music. I got into modular synthesizers with with the pandemic. It was kind of like it was the second epidemic behavior that we had a good one. In that case, we just just start playing with friends, with this, with these machines and and it’s fascinating to learn without knowing much about music, because you basically program these machines to to create the music for you. So you so you don’t play an instrument, but you sort of like set up the rules. So this, this thing, kind of like, does it for you, and, and, yeah, those are kind of like the things I might do during a day, and, and, yeah, and then in the weekend, try to not work, go to an exhibition,
Unknown Speaker 31:40
stay with friends, drink some wine. That’s it
Unknown Speaker 31:46
great. Um, number eight is lifelong learning is a popular topic these days. How do you stay up to date,
Unknown Speaker 31:53
right? Um,
Unknown Speaker 31:56
I don’t know if, like, there’s so much of lifelong learnings anymore, I feel like there’s lifelong questioning. Because I I don’t feel like we are in a solid ground anymore to kind of like find a truth that could be this thing through life, I find like things are constantly recalibrating and being re redefined. So I think it’s very hard to I think about my my parents, for example, and and, and certain things, and how, also they are adjusting to to so many changes and, and. So, yeah, it’s hard for me to Yeah, like, I’m also like, I’m kind of like against anything that is solid,
Unknown Speaker 32:43
in terms of like values, I think everything is related to relative to something else and and there’s, there’s a lot to to be said, but yeah, I’m trying to
Unknown Speaker 32:58
to stay as open as possible, I Guess. Yeah, that wasn’t that was kind of like a vague answer, but yeah, it comes with a good heart, yeah. So a unique answer, just about halfway here. Number nine, what tools do you use? Are you a digital nomad?
Unknown Speaker 33:13
Yeah, my tools are pretty much digital, and I work a lot with I used to work from since I started with basically vector and pixel, like Photoshop and Illustrator or freehand. And then around 2015 I started to work more with cinema for D and then that is sort of like
Unknown Speaker 33:34
ramification into, like dozens of different softwares that are kind of, like connected to, to the ly backbone of of everything and, and, yeah, I’m trying to do as much as I can traveling, like, spend like, six months here in in Brooklyn, and the rest, it’s sort of open.
Unknown Speaker 33:59
And, yeah, that’s a little bit the lifestyle that I’m trying to maintain for now. But,
Unknown Speaker 34:06
yeah, when I travel, the setup changes. Last, last time I traveled to Southeast Asia, I traveled with the workstation, and I put it in one of those Pelican bags, and I travel to, yeah, to Thailand and and,
Unknown Speaker 34:23
and Australia with that, and then back to Spain and and, yeah, that that kind of like solves quite few things for me to be able to work with the machine that I usually work in the studio. But now the technology is really changing again for the better, and you can, you can get some pretty good remote access to your computer that almost has no lack at all. So I think next time, maybe I try not to, not to travel with the big computer, which wasn’t
Unknown Speaker 34:58
great. Number 10 is how.
Unknown Speaker 35:00
Do you deal with work life balance?
Unknown Speaker 35:04
Yeah, like I’m, I’m pretty much a workaholic, I would say. And also, because I don’t have kids and my partner is also a workaholic, too,
Unknown Speaker 35:16
I think we are both sort of, like,
Unknown Speaker 35:20
quite accepting of
Unknown Speaker 35:24
the quantity. Maybe it’s not so much our goal for for certain things, if, like, if we have work, we have that priority. And it’s kind of like it’s what also makes me happy, like when I’m even when I’m traveling, or
Unknown Speaker 35:40
like I’m in a in a holiday mode, sort of thing. So many times it’s just like, I like to just keep working on something that maybe it’s personal. It’s kind of like the time that I would reserve something. It’s like the dessert, like, Okay, now it’s just like, Oh, now enjoy this while you are maybe on holiday. And I can, I can enjoy that process a lot. And I think that completes a lot my my happiness, like when I my ideal free time
Unknown Speaker 36:12
is kind of like working a little bit, enjoying company of friends and at the end of the day. But yeah, having that sense of productivity. It’s kind of like part of my, yeah, I guess my desires or addictions. But yeah, it’s so established that I cannot really take it away.
Unknown Speaker 36:32
Great. Um number 11, if you weren’t doing what you do now, what would you be doing?
Unknown Speaker 36:38
We would probably just be doing personal art projects,
Unknown Speaker 36:43
if I didn’t have to work, if I if I had
Unknown Speaker 36:48
all the money, but, but then I would kind of like try to find a way to give time in a way that could have a positive impact towards something.
Unknown Speaker 37:00
So I think it will be a combination of personal fulfillment and then kind of like giving some sort of like service that, with my individual capacity, could be helpful. So I will have to figure that out. But yeah,
Unknown Speaker 37:18
it’s, I haven’t thought about it, because it’s very far from from my reality. But
Unknown Speaker 37:25
I think that would be the dream. Yeah, 12 is what would you not like to do in terms of career?
Unknown Speaker 37:34
Well, yeah, I guess anything, I was a very bad student when I was a kid and and I think that’s why, also
Unknown Speaker 37:44
my dad probably was like, oh, like, now you’re going to be a starving artist
Unknown Speaker 37:51
and,
Unknown Speaker 37:53
and he really wanted me to work for his company. And my dad just, you know, out of
Unknown Speaker 38:02
he had to, you know, he, when he was 22 he was like, I need to
Unknown Speaker 38:08
make some money. And he, he started the security company. But that was not something that he did out of
Unknown Speaker 38:19
any sort of, like, Will or or
Unknown Speaker 38:23
appetite for that. There was not appeal for him to that. It was just like, Okay, this business is an obligation, and, and, and that was what was presented to me, is like, you’re going to be working on this company. And, wow, I was really, really horrified by that idea. Maybe that why I apply myself so hard in design.
Unknown Speaker 38:45
So, yeah, I think it’s, there’s, yeah, I think that would make me very, very happy if I had to look at work as obligation. And of course, it’s,
Unknown Speaker 38:56
it’s never 100%
Unknown Speaker 38:58
one thing or the other. Like, in that sense, I I feel like it’s such a love and hate relationship with our work,
Unknown Speaker 39:07
because we’re doing that all the time. It’s not, you know, because you do what you want. It’s like, oh, you’re, you’re
Unknown Speaker 39:14
enjoying yourself all the time. That’s that’s not how it is. You lose actually, when you have, I guess a nine to five work, you could maybe have
Unknown Speaker 39:26
something that you fully understand as pleasure, and when it becomes work, it’s not pleasure 100% anymore, right? But, but yeah, I think that would, oh, answering your question, yeah, I, I would hate to to be working on, on a bank or or something like that, for me, would be, yeah, pretty devastating.
Unknown Speaker 39:49
- What’s your favorite word, quote or sentence?
Unknown Speaker 39:53
Um,
Unknown Speaker 39:55
I love this sentence from Bruce Lee, and not because I like.
Unknown Speaker 40:00
Like martial arts or or anything like that. But he said, Don’t think, feel and,
Unknown Speaker 40:09
and that itself is just like a little detail that puts together so many things for me, because I’m like, I was saying, like, I’m not really a thinker. I’m more like a crafter and, and the magic stuff doesn’t happen thinking it’s something that that appears while you are,
Unknown Speaker 40:29
yeah, in that drift
Unknown Speaker 40:31
and, and you let the voice that you don’t control take control. You know, like and, and those things are what like. Really, I feel like it’s, it’s such a it’s a flow with the state of of that. I guess we can call it inspiration and and it comes when your mind, it’s in a certain way, you know, but, yeah, don’t think. Feel by Bruce Lee. I think that that’s, that’s really good.
Unknown Speaker 40:58
I have another one, actually, too, that it’s the definition of creativity by Carl Jung. I don’t know
Unknown Speaker 41:08
if like the definition of creativity, but like the quote says, like, the creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect, by the play, instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves
Unknown Speaker 41:28
and, and that, to me, is also explains a lot of what, what creativity is. It’s just this game, and you don’t control it. It’s just like, it’s, it’s meant to be play and fun and, and it’s yeah, it’s not, it’s nothing rational or intellectual. And, and, yeah, I think it’s also
Unknown Speaker 41:51
very, very interesting not to see that
Unknown Speaker 41:55
when the desires that you have are speaking out loud. No, you’re just witnessing them. You’re just witnessing your deep mind making decisions from the consciousness and and you might think you’re responsible for but what you are many times you just watching yourself do something that you’re not really sure why you do it.
Unknown Speaker 42:16
Do you have a least favorite word, quarter sentence?
Unknown Speaker 42:20
Yeah, I think I am not a big fan of the less is more thing. I because, I mean, let’s be clear, like, which, by the way, is probably like, so many times is true. You know, like, less is more.
Unknown Speaker 42:35
Many times. I don’t disagree with that,
Unknown Speaker 42:39
and I apply that to myself many times too. But sometimes I think what it really like, I hate about that sentence is when I think it’s used as a moto, when it’s actually a, in fact, like, some sort of, like, the the result of lack of technical skills, you know, and or, and then it’s like, oh, this is more. I was like, Yeah, but like, you’re maybe not exploring more options sometimes that I feel like, I think it needs to be something
Unknown Speaker 43:13
at some point in the process, kind of like subtractive, I guess, like, there’s a moment to take out, but not because you couldn’t put in, right? So, like, I think, yeah, it’s a funny sentence. Less is more for me, and and I, I never liked it too much.
Unknown Speaker 43:30
I like your description of that. Number 15 is, if you had to pick one word to describe yourself, what would you choose?
Unknown Speaker 43:38
I think I’m sort of like a chameleon like
Unknown Speaker 43:42
person that kind of like, yeah, merges with, with, with whatever is surrounded by and, and I think yeah, like,
Unknown Speaker 43:52
I I steal a lot from what is around me and, and Always filters it in, in in its own way, but definitely, like a sponge that takes certain things and and makes them his own way. I believe, yeah, a lot about that. And like I was reading quest, loves book, creative quest. And like he he questions his own creativity, because he says that his way of creation is basically some sort of process of embodying other people’s
Unknown Speaker 44:31
work. And he kind of like, even sometimes like words like the person that he’s admiring, in order to become that person and, and then, sort of like, remixes all these personalities in his own way, and, and I think it’s kind of like very true for for many creatives, that that’s that’s a lot what we do know that we just like, we’re constantly remixing
Unknown Speaker 44:59
final stretch number.
Unknown Speaker 45:00
16 what keeps you up at night?
Unknown Speaker 45:04
I don’t know, but I don’t sleep as well as I used to. And yeah,
Unknown Speaker 45:10
but
Unknown Speaker 45:12
yeah, I wouldn’t say, like, there’s, there’s things that I have reasons to keep me up at night, but yeah, I’m not sleeping as well. That’s, that’s for sure. I should maybe, if you have some advice, I would take it.
Unknown Speaker 45:26
And yeah, I have my own trouble sleeping. Number 17, what’s the dream you’re chasing?
Unknown Speaker 45:35
I would love to do big sculptures, typographical sculptures. And I would love to, I’ve been working a lot with the idea of paradoxes, in finding a way to create these ambi grams, where
Unknown Speaker 45:50
you could look and you can see one word in one angle, and then becomes another word from Another angle.
Unknown Speaker 45:57
And it’s I’m trying to find
Unknown Speaker 46:02
the right tone for these sculptures, to make them
Unknown Speaker 46:07
the less cliche possible and more poetic. So I’m kind of like dealing a little bit with with what, what it’s been done, and how maybe
Unknown Speaker 46:19
I could add, maybe something that would spark, not so much the obvious, but create this sort of like debate in a conversation. If it was a sculpture, I hope that
Unknown Speaker 46:31
it will make people discuss ideas and see it like in a
Unknown Speaker 46:37
in so many different ways, no about topics that could be relatable, but at the same time not, not conclusive, because that I feel like it’s when we do design all the time we are trying to be communicating
Unknown Speaker 46:53
towards the collective acceptance, to the maximum efficiency, like everybody needs to get the same Message, hopefully, right and and this should be the opposite. I hope that this would be something that people would internalize in a way that would be very different from one to the other, and create this sort of like
Unknown Speaker 47:15
strong connection, but very divisive. So I’m, I hope I can, I can do something like that one day,
Unknown Speaker 47:23
but we’ll see
Unknown Speaker 47:25
what inspires you,
Unknown Speaker 47:29
mostly art and nature, I think, and and some forms of fashion too. And I think it’s, it’s hard for me to judge, because I don’t know anything about fashion, really, but,
Unknown Speaker 47:43
but sometimes it’s a very interesting intersection of of culture and art that happens there anything is like
Unknown Speaker 47:53
I was yesterday, actually, at the Virgin Abloh exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum And and that was very clear to me, how, how he was
Unknown Speaker 48:05
recycling his own memories and his his childhood and his upbringing in a very artistic way, but for these
Unknown Speaker 48:15
brands in a way that was so surprising and fresh and And it was a great format for art too, because it was fashion, but at the same time, yeah, it, I could see how that had these.
Unknown Speaker 48:31
Yeah, very, very strong intersection between between these, these two, two currents of culture and art.
Unknown Speaker 48:41
Last couple here, any advice you’d like to share?
Unknown Speaker 48:46
Well, I would say like, don’t let automatic automatization to dominate your decisions. I think somewhere social media and all that stuff could be very i It could trap you very fast. And yeah, try to stay in contact with your own compass. It’s easy to fall into these invisible currents of technology and just be, yeah, kind of lost in it. I feel like that many times. And it’s, I,
Unknown Speaker 49:21
I think it’s, it’s important that we kind of like force ourselves to be against
Unknown Speaker 49:28
the trend of changing our neuroplasticity. This technology is sort of like making us all
Unknown Speaker 49:37
very dispersed and and focus. And, yeah, it’s, it’s definitely we need to. It’s another kind of edge size. It’s not physical. You need to do this other sort of, like
Unknown Speaker 49:50
mental exercise to step out of this sort of, like,
Unknown Speaker 49:55
yeah, modification of the brain that we are feeding constantly. So.
Unknown Speaker 50:00
So, yeah, I would, I would think, like
Unknown Speaker 50:03
it’s an advisor I should give to myself recently, because I’m a victim of it and and I think what everybody says is meditation seems to be the best way to to combat that. And I did it for a while, actually, to do some meditation. But,
Unknown Speaker 50:22
yeah, I think,
Unknown Speaker 50:24
yeah, it needs to be something like more, more present in everybody’s life,
Unknown Speaker 50:30
sort of, I think
Unknown Speaker 50:33
good and, you know, for 20 so there are a lot of interviews out there with you. There are people copying your work, but let’s hear from you. How should our listeners? How do you want our listeners to follow you? How do you want us to see our work or respond to it?
Unknown Speaker 50:50
Yeah, yeah. Basically, I think Instagram is
Unknown Speaker 50:55
what I don’t post too much on Instagram, but this is probably where I am more active and and, yeah, I’m always, like, happy to
Unknown Speaker 51:06
to be in contact with with someone. If somebody writes me an email, I’m I’m always trying to Yeah, like, at least even answer and yeah. So feel free to to send me an email that’s always better than than the DMS.
Unknown Speaker 51:24
Yeah, Twitter too, by the way, yeah, Twitter, I’m trying to be better at Twitter, yeah, but my Twitter handle is Alex trout, and Instagram is throat,
Unknown Speaker 51:36
okay, Alex, thank you so much for being on you know your generosity really shows through in your answers to these questions. I really appreciate the long answers, and I’m sure that our audience does too. Thank you so much for being a guest. Oh, thank you so much, Thomas. It’s been a pleasure, and thanks for having me. Thanks.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai