Raissa Pardini

0:00 [Applause]

0:07 okay I'm sure to the everyone else so I'm going to put this down hello I'm Raissa Pardini I'm italian-born london-based designer and I talk a lot about what I like and I don't like but I think this is a little bit more scary than usual so bear with me I've never been too good at preaching about myself and that's why I create design as an express of who I am and probably to rant about something I guess I used to look up to it's nice that the the design feed mecca steal him.

0:39 So I wanna say thanks to the old team behind it and what an incredible lineup for people tonight right moving on I started drawing when I was a kid that was my first self-portrait blonde and it became the perfect formula to give my mom and dad a break from being loud and hyperactive and I would hide myself in drawings and be quiet for hours and this was a whole new word for my family by the way I'm from a working class background and my family doesn't know anything about art to design and is a very unprotected and pretentious family who tried to understand what I was doing for years until they finally attended my first solo exhibition in 2020 and they finally get it ♪

1:41 and now they can also rant about my work somehow so these are 10 of the 16 postures that then the vna acquire for their permanent collection ♪

1:57 they saw this is something culturally important in the music the british movement of music that was happening while I was doing posters and they saw that it was culturally important so they say I was just shocked about the whole thing and very grateful as you can see I work a lot with typography and colors and composition trying to rearrange things that usually we see in real life you know like logos posters typographies all over the streets and try to rearrange in a different style but yeah how did I get to work into music at least you know at first I studied graphic design in milan and I wasn't into the academic student and I traded my time for designing music back then.

2:48 I didn't know the music and design could work together I felt extremely challenged when it came to choose one or the other for a living I moved to berlin for my first studio experience where. I had to try and speak german on the job and after ordering ten thousand books over the phone with a printer instead of a hundred I thought it was time to move to another country where I could actually speak the language and understand the people.

3:19 So it was time for london the place I call home now. But initially london pushed me away from design for a long time I joined the band and went on tour instead I was trying to make I make it with the music obviously a very profitable industry so everyone was very happy about my decision I still remember when we added an extra gig on the italian leg of the tour my family came to visit my my mama finally got all the merch about everything gave a tote to my grandma which she still uses to go to her supermarket trips because she's the real punk rocker anyway I started working in music. And I didn't want to go back to design I only mentioned this because designers who start a career very early and are very successful are extremely lucky and design can come and go at different times of our lives we shouldn't put too much pressure on age and it's something that this industry does a lot so just making a point by the way I then just I then joined music sales and honorable press and got my skill back as a designer I started to do a lot of books some of them are here at the bottom they offer me an internship I accept it it was my third internship and I really wanted to work in music and design for the first time.

4:52 So I really worked hard on the third integer to try to be promoted very quickly I started to feel like a designer again and I was back in the game um but moving on to you know this light at the bottom there are two of the book covers I loved doing the most with them some of the parts that I've done with other bands all around the world so also I mean knowing me I got bored very quickly that always happen I I wanted to move out of london for a bit leave my band I met my partner in glasgow I left everything behind and moved someone someone knows him left everything behind and moved after six months my plan was to go freelancer with a backup plans of going back to uni and study politics but thank god that didn't happen because I think so that was me four and a half years ago the music industry was the only industry at first that would give me projects to do so without them I wouldn't be here.

6:04 I didn't have a solid portfolio I was begging everyone I knew and I finally got some work in moving into the next slide this is some of the work that I've done in music in this few years we got this beautiful billboard for ash in l.a you can't you can't buy this guy in london it's just perfect but some stuff for the reals some other book no record covers and so much. So that what that was what I was doing for the first couple of years.

6:39 And then an opportunity came. And I got asked to do the work for mamma mia which is the worst title for anything ever coming from italy but you know.

6:54 I was like really but um it was for manuscript which they just won a revision. And I the one are bespoke type type has become quickly very important in the music industry because I think we were talking with jacob this earlier having a photo of the band having a photo that is very striking with the type is really what is just perfection in visual for me and for a lot of different artists so we did this mamma mia which was turned into this neon sign for the mtv awards there's some more stuff around and then mtv came and asked me to do these posters for the 2021 best videos of the years so for the first time I actually stepped up from being the indie artist you know oh I'm doing something for justin bieber and it's weird so as you can see I put them this full because they're very different to each other.

8:02 So I always think that. There isn't a compromise to try to see what the artist is all about while you're trying to look after your own art as well there's always something in between that we can find and each style can be different and still looking like yours and still be respectful for the artists that you are in front of almost open up in a conversation so moving up some more recent work that I've done for natalie coyne the book the first retrospective that came out last year sold out in minutes thank god I made sure that I had a copy and then I've got some work to do for we transfer annual report and I wanted to show you that I've been trying to get away from type and trying to have a very different creative aspect of my practice so I started to draw patterns it was quite therapeutic during pandemic everyone had something to do to keep themselves sane so I started to draw patterns and then the opportunity came up.

9:17 And I could do this for with transfer and then going into details about this project which is one of my first favorite projects that I've done last year still going and so this was an idea for the new york times to illustrate a series of words from all over the planet that have unique meaning and describe a very specific situation. There was one that meant something in finnish like being naked on your own drunk at home in your pants so that was like the most challenging thing I had to do but it I didn't really like it.

9:58 So I didn't put it here. So it was a challenge again because as you all know when you work for like publishing editorial there's a lot of illustrations and I really wanted to push the type to be in that very sweet illustrative spot that usually illustrations are be giving I said yes to do it with typography I was very happy then it was a nightmare and then.

10:29 I did it so you know at the end I was very proud but it was a nightmare so just to give you a br context the if if you look at the left side so the the top one means is a native american hoppy word and it means a natural out of balance a way of life that is so crazy that you call new way of living and it was also a film and the type was inspired by the film the middle left means I filled with tears where which are about to fall but have not yet run out of the eyes so I I try to have this typography they have this kind of like roundy design with this little spot in blue that is almost having this tear that are falling and the the last one I'm gonna say this one on the left is the in japanese it means the act of acquiring so many books that they pile up and read on your bedroom so again I use very rectangular fonts and drew rectangular shape to make them look like you've been piling books so yeah.

10:31 I was very proud of this one moving on into the next slide this was my second solo exhibition called my type of revolution the orange and blue is the main design it was launched in december it was launched to bring awareness to a lot of different issues that are close to my heart and the industry from climate change to the lack of diversity in creative industry the exhibition featured shiny rgb printed posters on one side but on the other wall it was covered wall to wall with the process because I was a little bit sick of seeing things that they were always shiny and fine or whenever all of us work the 90 on failing and making mistakes and acknowledge those mistakes to then lead us to different places that we didn't know our creativity could go to so I didn't want to be yet another designer that was just showing the final process I wanted to show what I was doing and I invited universities and I invited students to see this because it's beautiful to be vulnerable and it's amazing to acknowledge there. And I think that it could be quite toxic just to promote that everything is perfect so I think these came after pandemic obviously every one of us had a little bit of wreath angry juggle into our practice try to do our job better and trying to look after the community in a different way compared to what we were doing before it was a time of thinking and a lot of boredom as well but so from these on I started to also give free mentorship programs to students every fridays I started to work four days a week because it was good for my mental health and I'm as productive as I was when I was working seven days a week so good news and yeah.

13:53 I started to do these mentorship programs and I started to know a lot about younger people. And we had a lot of conversation I believed that as much as I was giving them my free times they were giving me back so much. And it's so beautiful to see that the community can be so healthy and push the competition away from what we actually are my last project I'm going to show you.

14:19 This is me with a very non-alcoholic drink but it looks glam my last my last project that I'm going to show you today it's something that I've done one of my most recent project and very close to my heart because for the first time from being a musician and do music.

14:38 And then being a designer do design for the first time I combined the two and I got given an opportunity to go to my first r residency which is something that sometimes most of the time designers don't do in fact I arrive at the our residency with another a international artist and on day two I was already on a deadline we had two months to finish the project I wanted to finish everything in one week so I said okay let's let's just slow down let's just go around the island I was invited to ibiza to promote an aspect of the island to promote internationally we were invited to work on the presence of the island during the winter time so away from tourism and everything and exploring ibiza and taking inspiration from frequencies and magnetism that the island has in the winter time.

15:33 So I started to think about the contrast between summer and winter so you know the summer booming with tourism the winter the island offers unique smells stunning views interesting sounds that live there for thousands of years and always be gonna be present in the island no matter what happen in the summer so for the first time I made my first installation.

15:59 And I spent weeks recording anything I could pick up in ibiza I was literally that kind of person that would go and pick up the sound from any corner of the island people thought that I was crazy but after weeks spending recording any single noise that could come from ibiza I made a seven minutes track which I put in this box which I painted completely in black you were invited to go in and in peach black you would meditate with the music that was coming from the island but then because obviously I work with typography I made six postering series which I repeated in 12 on each wall and they are inspired from the sound that I picked up and with the font inspired by the sound and it was almost like promoting club so it was kind of like tricking people to think come and experience what the the ib further you know.

17:02 But then you get in and you are invited to meditate on the actual presence of the island and live there for thousands of years obviously I got inspired by futurism brucello ambient artists like john cage so yeah I mean this came a long way from when I started but the reason why I put this as a last is because if you have a vision if you're creative I feel like there's a lot of curiosity coming out of your practice every day and there's a lot of clients a lot of requests and the way that we shut down this request and we even think about ourselves too much or the client too much.

17:45 That's neither good we can always find a way like I say in the middle to make the best project for all by putting new inputs and by challenging us to do something new just by saying yes and try and try and try so I'm gonna leave you with the first light okay [Applause]

18:09 I want to say thanks to it's nice that it's been a very great evening I love seeing everyone else's speaking so thank you so much [Applause]