the graphic design school blog

The Graphic Design School loves Veerle, her philo­sophy to open her­self and her pro­cesses to edu­cate and share charmed us. Thanks Veerle, a beau­ti­ful lady!

Wel­come to The Graphic Design School Blog. Please tell us a little bit about your­self. A brief bio.

I’m a graphic/web designer liv­ing in Bel­gium. I went to school in Mariakerke, Gent.

I began my career in 1992 as a freel­ance graphic designer under the name of “Duoh!”.

As a child I always loved draw­ing and con­sidered it a hobby. I always thought it wouldn’t be pos­sible to make this my day job so that’s why I stud­ied tour­ism until I dis­covered that you could actu­ally study graphic design. That may sound crazy now, but if you put it in its con­text and time frame (1987) it wasn’t very well known that you could actu­ally study that. I always thought about it from an artistic point of view and believed there wasn’t a future in it.

Study­ing graphic design changed that, and from that point on my hobby became my pas­sion and income.

You have been voted in the top 50 North x East’s Fifty Most Influ­en­tial ‘Female’ Blog­gers. How do you think you can use this title/influence to fur­ther your cause/career?

It is nice to see your name on a list and it deliv­ers an atten­tion span towards you but in all hon­esty this doesn’t bring food on the table. The biggest cata­lyst towards your career is your work. Your port­fo­lio is what should do the talk­ing as these lists are only short term.

Speak­ing of your blog. How much time do you need to spend daily on the upkeep of your blog… do you ever sleep or play?

I think I spend an hour to two hours when I’m just doing my approved list check­ing and answer­ing all the mails and com­ments. Most of my week­end time goes in to research­ing tutori­als and cre­at­ing them.

Two last ques­tion on the sub­ject of your blog. What was your goal when you star­ted blogging?

I didn’t have any. I’ve star­ted this to learn CSS/HTML and my first blog was a test case after read­ing about pMa­chine in Mac­Ad­dict magazine.

Did you ever expect the suc­cess, or the fant­astic Google page rank of 8?

No I didn’t have any idea that would hap­pen. I didn’t have any expectations.

Learn how to cre­ate your own organic shapes in this tutorial.

We are a blog for begin­ners and graphic design stu­dents. Can you share with us the most enjoy­able moment, sub­ject or les­son that you had while studying?

To be hon­est I have no idea since it is like 20 years ago. The only thing I vaguely remem­ber is a book­bind­ing les­son that we had to craft a book from scratch with head­band, book­mark… and everything.

How did that moment, sub­ject or les­son shape what you do now?

Eye for details.

Describe your style of graphic design in a few words. What kind of advice would you give stu­dents who wish to excel in this style?

Illus­trat­ive with a strong pref­er­ence towards col­ors. The best advice is to be pas­sion­ate about what you do and keep on try­ing after failure.

Learn how to cre­ate the font used in this poster.

Why did your­self and Geert Ley­seele (part­ner and one would assume the ‘brain’ in the self pro­fessed ‘beauty & brain’ duo) decide to open up your own Graphic Design stu­dio as opposed to work­ing for a lar­ger firm, or independently?

We had a few oppor­tun­it­ies over the years to sell our busi­ness and become part of a lar­ger group. We both are not inter­ested in becom­ing a man­ager and dir­ect other people. That would break the cre­at­ive part that we love so much.

Do you use hand drawn tech­niques to help you develop a design. How import­ant is this in your pro­cess as a Graphic designer?

Yes I still use a pen­cil and paper from time to time. It depends on what type of pro­ject I have going on. Most sketch­ing is done for icons and logos and also wire fram­ing for web­sites on occa­sions. It def­in­itely is a bonus if you can draw your thoughts.

Learn how to cre­ate your spir­als in this tutorial.

Do you keep an ideas journal? If so can we have a sneaky peek?

Yeah I do and you can see some on my art sec­tion on my blog and also in the duoh.com blog, “Illus­tra­tion for Espresso Applic­a­tion Startscreen”

Do you have a spe­cial method for brain­storm­ing, i.e mind map­ping etc?

No, not really.

We have noticed on your web­site that you are very open about shar­ing your pro­cess as a designer. Why is it import­ant to you to com­mu­nic­ate this side of your work with your visitors?

Because we believe it show valu­able inform­a­tion towards stu­dents. We don’t believe in not shar­ing what we know.

What are your favor­ite web­sites at the moment?

welovetypography.com

ffffound.com

Who are your 5 all time favor­ite graphic designers?

Scott Hansen

James White

Jacob Souva

Robert Lind­ström

Oksana Griv­ina

What typefaces do you use the most in your designs?

Mostly Sans Serif ones.

What about your job do you find the most rewarding?

To see a cli­ent happy with a design that we created.

A moment to brag… who are the most pres­ti­gi­ous cli­ents that you have worked with?

Netvibes, Google, Lib­rary of Con­gress, Ernst & Young, Coca Cola…

Where do you see your career and your stu­dio in five years?

I am where I want to be mean­ing earn­ing a good liv­ing and lov­ing what I do.

See how Veerle went from illus­tra­tion to vec­tor in this tutorial

What advice would you give to graphic design stu­dents around the world. About shap­ing a great portfolio?

Let your work have the spotlight.

One last ques­tion, that is on everbody’s mind… Billy Elliot feels on fire when he dances… how do you feel when you are designing?

On cloud nine, not in this *real* world.

Cheers,

Veerle

Find more about Veerle

Duoh Web­site

Veerle’s Blog

Veerle’s pho­to­stream on Flickr