Emanuel Zahariades is a Greece-born, London based graphic designer turned student. Having acquired a degree in industrial informatics, he started working in the graphics industry after discovering graphic design almost by accident.
Taking part mostly in print projects, he has worked with publishing houses as well as educational and cultural organisations. After four years, he quit his job in order to enrol on a graphic design course at Central Saint Martins.
He has been experimenting with different approaches and outcomes to the university projects, while at the same time, he's been trying to gain work experience by doing freelance jobs as a graphic designer. We spent five minutes talking to him...
What are you currently up to? Are there any exciting projects ongoing?
I have recently finished my freelance job as an assistant art director for a men’s magazine and am currently working on a university project called ‘Critical Prototypes’ about ‘re-imagining a graphic object by reflecting the truth of human behaviour and interaction’.
Who or what inspires you?
Many things inspire me from architecture, Stephen Shore, Modernism and airports to the urban environment, residential areas and Swiss design.
What’s your best project/work to date?
Proposing a re-design for the Washington Post website, as part of the ‘navigating news’ university project.
Anything new going on? Or in the pipeline?
I am getting more and more fascinated by architecture and buildings as structures, by the way people interact with them. I want to work on projects that would allow me to use environmental psychology as a tool and combine it with graphic design, in order to explore ways to enhance that interaction.
When you’re not working, what do you like to do?
Taking photographs of: buildings, streets at night, places I’ve never been before and people taking photos.
Finally, what tips or advice could you give to other creatives, just starting out?
Think twice when someone says ‘think outside the box’, do some good research if you want to do a good homework and when brainstorming write down anything that comes in mind. Ideally, on newsprint sheets. Get lots of newsprint sheets.
