Interview With Visual Identity Designer Alen Pavlovic of Type08

By Web Design | 8 comments | Interviews | Tags: Alen Pavlovic, Brand Design Interview, Identity Designer, Interview With Alen Pavlovic, Interview With Type08, Type 08, Type08, Visual Identity Building, Visual Identity Designer, Visual Identity Interview

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Today I have interviewed a visual identity designer called Alen Pavlovic, known as type08.com. Alen is a visual identity designer who has his own business in Croatia, but targets a global market. He is widely featured on logopond, and has built up an amazing portfolio of his work over at type08.com.

First off, whats the typical day in the life of Alen Pavlovic?

It’s a bit ‘nasty’ lately because I work almost 16 hours a day. I wake up around 9AM, start my ‘machines’ and start to tangle with the projects. I work whole day til around 4AM next day, with just a couple of short breaks in. I have clients from all over the World and those different times zones simply force you to be reachable almost 24/7. I won’t tell what I do during breaks!

How did you get into this field? Did you study anything?

My father is a product designer. I fell in love with the design probably since I could spell that word. After my education I got Project Manager degree, I studied Project Management on Civil Engineering section of Zagreb University, Croatia.

Why did you choose to go into visual identity building?

I love logo design. As simple as it looks, I think it is probably the hardest area of the all graphic design spectrum. When I started my company Artra 11 years ago (1998) that deals with much more areas like interiors or marketing, few of the initial projects were exactly from the field of visual identity development. I had a vision of working outside my country’s borders so I decided to offer that services to the much bigger ‘global’ market.

Do all your clients contact you through your website, or do you do offline promotion?

All my international clients contact me over few of my online portfolios. Sometimes they ask me to provide some additional material but 100% of the collaboration is done over the Internet. That’s really amazing!

What sort of applications / tools do you use to create your work?

Head and hands! Well, usual stuff, nothing really special. I love vector software like Corel Draw and Adobe Illustrator, those are the most important ones when it comes to logo design. I’m not a computer geek, the person that people call to fix their computers (although I did help a few times), I really see those things just as tools for finishing the project.

Whats the most challenging part of visual identity building?

The most important part of the whole process is the start! That includes a lot of brainstorming, ideas and concept development. I find that part to be the most challenging one and this is the project phase that I give my best at. Only a great start will lead you to even better finish!

Are there any places you get design inspiration from?

Everywhere! I love nature and I do a lot of outdoor sports. I look. I listen. Few days ago my girl’s dad was talking about a funny crowd of elephants he saw on TV and I just had an moment of inspiration for a really crazy logo. Inspiration is everywhere around us. When it comes to Internet, there’s more and more websites and blogs about graphic design and logos, all of those are really easy to find. I also write an weekly column on one of those, CreativityDen.

How did you come up with the name Type08?

That’s my ‘street name’ I got in 1993. I started to listen to hip hop music in 1989, and few years after that this became my alias. The story is really long and probably boring, but there’s a lot of hidden meanings in that name so I decided to present myself using it. Many people think that it has something to do with 2008, but it’s really 15 years older then that.

How do you go about promoting your online portfolio?

I love minimalism as you can see in my work. And that style applies to all my projects, including web design and my personal portfolio. Projects should talk for themselves, no need to make the site itself more hyped then your work is. So when people visit my folios directly or over some other sites I’m featured on, they recognize that it’s all about the ‘work, work, work’ there!

Do you look up to anyone in your field of work?

There’s a lot of great graphic designers in the World at the moment.

Do you have a favorite piece of work you have created since you started visual identity building?

As for other designers as well, I find it really hard to extract something out that would be ‘my best work ever’. I think that I still didn’t reach that point, and I probably won’t in a next few years. Which is really good and makes me work harder. My fellow designers on Logo Pond think that ‘Shoprest‘ is my best logo so far…

What web design blogs do you read online? Do you have a favorite?

Bookmarked and favorites: Logo Pond, Logo Designer Blog, Re Band, Identity Works, Logo Faves, Logo Moose, Stationery Style, Creativity Den, Graphic Exchange, Logo From Dreams, Design Your Way, Kreative Gaarden, Abduzzedo, Smashing Magazine, Behance Network, Inc Spring, Lovely Package, Packaging World, Step Inside Design, Creattica, Designboom, Logo Lounge and many many many more.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years time?

I have a lot of plans with my company. I’ll try to accomplish all of that since I still have enough energy for it. Most of designers are remembered by their best or most important project, and I’m still waiting for that client. I would love to write my own book about design and I’ll do my best to do it in that timeframe. Thank you for this opportunity, I wish your design blog all the best!