You know… When you look around this scene (design industry) certain people stand out! We are talking about the guys & girls doing their thing, and doing it well. Each have there own special properties, from the design dinosaurs that have been established for eons, guys who produce good work and produce it fast (prolific), those that do great things with new software and IT new media developments, and then there are those new talents that you gotta watch out for…you know? The ones that hit the scene with a huge thud and blow everybody away. They take advantage of you not looking and then sneak up on you!

We caught up with Emil the skate kid come super hot designer and he was kind enough to answer our nosy questions.

FMCS: Hey Emil nice to meet you how’s life today?

EMIL: It is good, summer is coming up. Been with my family alot lately. Been surfing alot also… I am not complaining.

FMCS: As already mentioned above, we understand you are a native Dane! So how come you moved to sunny Barcelona? What do you most love about this amazing city and how good is your Spanish? We guess your Catalonian should be coming along well too!

EMIL: My girlfriend is from Valencia (Spain), and when she had to do her specialty in medicine, I moved from Denmark and we decided to go to Barcelona.

What I love the most is having the ocean on one side and mountains on the other. The food is also pretty tasty. My Spanish is good, and my Catalan is not especially good, but you can easily get around with Spanish around here.

FMCS: We love the work your doing for the skateboard scene. From Instant Winner and the LAB board graphics, to the Roots and Street Machine stuff. What feelings underlie your seemingly special interest in this industry?

EMIL: Nostalgia! I got a skateboard at a pretty young age (a little orange plastic board) that I used to play with in my grandparents living room. Throughout my early teenage years I got obsessed with skateboarding, and I spent alot of years studying magazines, movies and skating.

I guess that what really hooked me on skateboarding was the creativity. Seeing people ripping with style, the colors, the music, the visual marks and how skaters customized their equipment blew my mind.

FMCS: Are you of the opinion that there are many more opportunities in visual expression for a designer working with skate products, and if so… why do you think this is the case?

EMIL: Most design serves a direct purpose. For example, designing labels for pill-boxes require a precise and conventional design that speaks a medical “language”. Usually in Design and artwork for skateboards, the only purpose is to express a creative thought or idea. You can use whatever graphic “language” you want to use. It is not a question of life or death as with FX. Medicine. And that gives some freedom.

FMCS: Do you think there will ever be a super tough surface developed for the undersides of skateboards that will preserve the artworks/designs? Whatever happened to rails? Or you’re cool with the fact that the designs wear off in time from good use?

EMIL: Nowadays people change boards much more frequently. I don’t know if it’s because kids have more money or because modern tricks require more ‘pop’. These days the ‘pop’ of the decks almost wears off before the graphic disappears. And if you are really unlucky you can ’snap’ multiple boards a month. The good ol’ days of drawing up your skate graphic after a good skate session, with a marker, is long gone.

This could easily end up being a long and boring political discussion, because this is not just a phenomenon in skateboarding. It’s one of consequences of extreme wealth and the unscrupulous free market of the western civilization.

To answer your question. No, I’m not cool with it.

FMCS: We notice also quite a few web interfaces in your past work…how do you like working with designing interfaces? Web means more rules & restrictions etc… Also is this something you wanna do more of in the future?

EMIL: I love the freedom of working with skateboarding. But at the same time I enjoy all the other disciplines within graphic design and art. I especially enjoy working on projects that involve designing stuff for all of the mediums. But I have grown a bit tired of web-design in particular.

I worked for around 5 years doing mostly web design at an agency, so I kinda feel like I have had enough. But once in a while I enjoy pushing pixels.

FMCS: Tough question: What are you thoughts the use of branding and logos for internet services, some school of thoughts say they are irrelevant? Some say they are a definite inclusion. Take Myspace, Google, Ebay etc… Not particularly great logos but the services are so popular. Where does the balance lie?

EMIL: Yep, that was a though one. I think that in these cases ‘good’ does not necessarily equal ‘pretty’. Also these services are not something we reflect our personalities in, like we do, when we buy jeans or a car for instance.

FMCS: The KIRK lamps (see above) designs and the graphics you did for that exhibition with Michael Genovese etc… (See below) are as dope as fuck! Really you should explore the interior design arena! Did you have fun doing those pieces?

EMIL: Thank you. Yeah, it is good fun making stuff that can actually be used. Actually I’m having a project coming up for Furni. They make sweet little things and I can’t wait to get it out.

FMCS: You have mentioned previously that had been one of your dreams to design work that featured on skateboard decks, now that dream is firmly accomplished, what are your dreams for the near future of your working design career?

EMIL: Lately I have been doing a lot of I.D. projects. And that is definitely something I’d like to explore a bit more. Also, I hope I can spice up some parts of a stalled and really ugly world of surfing. It would be cool to see something else than trash and flowers for a change.

FMCS: Well Emil it was very nice to meet you… Any shout outs before we depart?

EMIL: Thank you very much for the interview. Also, a lot of thank-you’s go out to everybody that has helped me along the way. Especially all the people around me that must be pretty fed up by now with my endless ramblings about typography and other geeky things.

EMIL KOZAK’S SITE
EMIL’S BLOG
EMIL’S SHOP

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