| Philosophy:
What’s the concept of BD?
The concept is not to be prisoned in a concept. We like contrasts. And we like mutations. We always try to find new ways of design, to change styles and to use different techniques. Our work is full of contradictions: We are chaotic yet minimal and colorful yet sober. We mix and match whatever suits us. We want to keep our fields as open as possible.
What is your main goal?
We want to give our graphic design and our clients or products a remarkable and timeless identity. Whenever possible we try to add some humour: One of the most important things in our work is making people smile. That’s the way we like it. We want to be proud of what we do.
You are a collective of five individuals. To what extent can each one experiment on his own?
While big projects require an input from all of us, each one has his own smaller clients and works on separate projects – albeit under the name of BD. Our group identity is flexible enough to allow each one to pursue his own creative paths without compromising the studio as a whole. During the working progress, we discuss, think, check and give each others ideas. We all have different tastes, but luckily, they’re compatible. This makes the overall output of BD coherent in the end: it’s all BD style.
What is more important for you: commercial or personal work?
The mixture of these two is what keeps us constantly busy. We wouldn’t prefer a life without clients and not just because of the money! Finding a solution between the client’s desires for its product and a product that works is an interesting challenge. The restrictions imposed are welcomed by us: It gives us a playground, a border to play within and cross. But it’s also great to go out with our personal creative work and see it working in the streets – most of our fonts and a lot of our illustrations are done in client-free time.
How do you explain the childlike aspect of your work?
We like to experiment with new software and different styles – and we like to break the rules. We always try to work in a way like kids play with their toys: free as a bee!
What is ’100% Groove’?
A lot of things in our work come straight from the heart: We do a lot of spontaneous brainstorming together just while drinking or listening to music. While working with our instincts, a lot of things just happen and are not planned. if you spend too much time thinking about the right solution, you tend to lose the gut feeling. We place more emphasis on that feeling than on working with the mind. That's what we call ’100% groove’.
What is the ’Holy Moment’?
Sometimes, after having finished a peace of work, we realize that there’s a hidden philosophical message in it we didn’t think of at all during the working progress. This is what we call a ’holy moment’.
What is the "Prophet" Tile in BD Book II standing for?
The beard stands for growing up - and, hopefully, getting wiser.
Where do you get your inspiration from?
If you watch carefully - anything is full of ideas!
How important is pop music for you?
It is the way these people bring their music to the people. They have their special way sending vibrations into the air. We try to find our special way of sending visuals to the world. In other words: Most of our work is closely related to a kind of music we listen to while working.
What kind of relationships do you have with your computers?
Computers are a tool for us to play around and to try to work with. Most of us still got a decent education without computers. But we jumped right into the starting movement of computer based graphics. On computers we were able to create forms and use them fonts. And once turned into a font these formes could be reused as letters for headlines on posters and flyers very easily. So now the computer is one tool of our choice, but not the only one.
Young designers have a look at your fonts, download and
mix them up. How do you deal with that?
No problem! It's normal these days. It's the combination of ideas - the
mix of the dj - that makes the crowd dance! So we don't hesitate
either to combine existing ideas and forms into new solutions that make the
rock roll.
What does travelling mean to you?
Travelling is one of our main inspiration sources for our daily work. When you meet a new place you are forced to get out of your home habits and see the world with different glasses again. We think it is very important to see as much as possible from this planet during the short human life.
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