Interview with Graphic Designer Mathias Nösel

First of all, thank you for letting us have this opportunity to interview you. Can you tell us more about yourself?

Born in 1987 in Tegernsee, grew up in Miesbach – a place with many mountains, woods and cows in Bavaria, Germany. I noticed my love of graphics really late. I started with building simple HTML websites in 2001 but I hated it. Then I had to make some buttons and I installed Fireworks MX. I hated it too… But I realized I could improve my pocket money! So I built some websites during school. I visited a technical school, because I always thought I wanted to become an engineer … But after graduating that school I got to know a new friend, a designer, and after he has seen my websites he said I have to study graphics. And so I did … and I have no regrets! It is the perfect job for me. Until now I’m working at Serviceplan Munich – one of Germany’s most successful ad-agencies.

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Can you tell us about your learning process? How did you get to where you are now as a designer?

Tutorials!!! You have to do tutorials. It is the most efficient way to get know to your creative tools. But that’s not everything. To be good in this job you need an excellent flair of taste. And you get this, for example, by watching what other good creatives do – creative networks, blogs – all the time.

And of course: experience. Its not that easy to learn. Always look at your own work after some time/years. The more you have to laugh about yourself, the more you’ve learned.

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Do you have any creative rituals to help you come up with a concept?

I think there is only one thing I can tell you what’s never wrong:

Everything starts with a blank piece of paper and a pencil.
And a ‘Pencil-Sharpener-Ventilator’ (I will explain that later).
There are a lot of creative techniques you can use.
You can develop them on your own – that takes time.
Or you can read some books about creative techniques to speed that up.
I do that.

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Color, line, shape, texture. Which is most important to you when creating your designs?

I don’t think that I have a straight line, where there is something very important, when I’m working. It always depends on the project. At the end of a project it has to simply look really good and color, line, shape and textures should build one unit.

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Do you have a particular trademark that you keep in your designs?

I like to make dark things with glow and shine, but as well as other things. I have no particular trademark. And I think, I don’t want one. I want to do everything in every creative section with a maximum style of variation.

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How did you come up with the concept for your thesis project, Wildkatz?

I love cats … and of course I grew up with a cat. The first called ‘Stanzi’ died on cancer and the second called ‘Leo’ is still hunting mice in fields.

I noticed that cats get very lazy when they become older. Unfortunately they aren’t as funny as when they were youngsters. So I wanted to create a midpoint against the boredom of older cats and invented the cat food ‘Wildkatz’ – where wild animals with wild genes, like the tiger, get mixed into the cat food. But of course, it’s not literally a tiger! The cat food is prepared with vitamins. Just check this project on my behance site. It is my favorite project (together with the ‘Pencil-Sharpener-Ventilator’ project!

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Can you tell us about your experience in creating for dmma online star 2011?

That was a lot of work! We have planned several motives. An exploding hard disk drive, a flatscreen, a old mac pro and a computer-mouse. But the client wanted just the mouse. We destroyed the other things nevertheless … That was fun!

The shooting took a long time. Never thought that would take so much work. The lighting was very difficult. The design of the poster was very time consuming, too. All the details … We had so many different versions. I was never happy with the design. But after every version it became a little bit better.

Design is a process and this process was arduous.

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Are you working on any new project right now?

The-Pencil-Sharpener-Ventilator! I just finished this project and uploaded it to my profile at behance. You have to see this! Check the film, photographs and the making of! It was a lot of work and I hope you like it! And yes I’m already working on several new projects, of course!

Can you give any word of advice to our readers?

There were already some good advices in the text above. But I have some more:

Never give up and never be satisfied with yourself! That’s very important.

When you think you’re done with your work, sleep one night and watch it again. And make it one step better again. Watch your work from different angles, turn the work upside down. That helps to find new ways doing it better. And of course: always do tutorials. you never stop learning.