Speed Date / EVA KAŠÁKOVÁ, graphic designer
Where are you from?
Gbely.
Where did you study?
I studied design at the Slovak University of Technology, graphic design at Tomáš Baťa’s University in Zlín and communication design at AFAD.
Your best teacher?
One Ms. Professor of physics at the Faculty of Engineering (STU). We had to attend and, of course, we didn’t know a thing. She taught us to read formulas not as letters, but as sentences (“velocity is distance over time”). And when the year was over with an explanation of a hologram, I thought to myself: How can we stop NOW??
Who are/were your parents?
My mum is a waste management engineer, my dad a forest engineer.
What don’t you enjoy in design?
I don’t like when someone has a decent budget and uses it for some coloured edges, canvas, embossing… The same goes for architecture apparently…
And on the contrary, what do you?
I really enjoy when an identity of a brand / an institution / a company goes beyond mere graphic elements. I mean when what the brand is and wants to represent becomes its modus operandi. Maybe I’m not clear, but since Oliver Klimpel had a talk about Extended Identities within the SELF-2016 festival, I keep thinking about it. It happens when design stops being a flyer or a logo.
What do you listen to?
I keep coming back to rap music.
Your favourite film, cartoon, series?
I like catching up with famous Slovak films (Before Tonight Is Over, Boxer and Death, A Path Across the Danube…).
Who do you respect as an authority in and out of your field?
I’d say anyone who I can talk to and it’s interesting.
Last thing you bought?
A party dress.
Do you buy professional literature? What was the latest book?
Well, yes.Color Library: Research into Reproduction and Color Printing.
Do you vote?
Mostly yes.
Who throws the best parties?
I do. And that’s regretful, because people somehow stopped inviting me to parties.
Your favourite dome?
Ugh, I don’t really understand construction, so I’ve never fallen in love with any.
Party dress. Made by…?
By the way, this is frigging hard. I’ve been sorting this out with my girlfriend since my 14 and I only envy other people.
Your hero from the past?
Krakonoš.
Best/nicest house?
I’m more of a flat person.
Do you have any stereotypes when you work? How do they show?
I am an awful repeater. All the things I do are, in my eyes, the same. Sometimes I fall for some font and then I use it all over. I can’t really work with many colours, so I choose only one or two. I am not very good at drawing, so I work with typography and geometrical shapes a lot etc. I should take up some drawing course, as we’re speaking. Maybe that’s how I could break it.
What’s on your desktop?
A default picture of some national reserve, you know.
Best exhibition, artwork?
Hmm. I’ve recently seen the Klaudia Kosziba’s exhibition “Ash and Sulphur” in the Krokus Gallery, Bratislava. Quite honestly, I was taken aback, because on the one hand, I don’t understand how someone can delve into renaissance art so deeply that they start reproduce the pictures on one’s terms. On the other hand, I found it absolutely self-conscious and really mystical.
What do you respect both from the local and foreign design scene? And why?
I respect everybody who is able to throw away a reasonably good thing only to remake it from scratch before the deadline and do something better. And then I respect people who can work without any greater attention of public and then something happens and we are all astounded by how amazing is what they do. But I will name at least some of them: Radim Pеšek, Tomáš Celizna and Adam Macháček for curating the Brno Biennale 2012-2016, the 032c magazine for their specific dive into culture, fashion, art, music and everything I’m into, or I don’t know yet if I’m into it, Mariša Rišková for her editorials and curatorial texts for catalogues, Živel magazine for their overground against monoculture attitude (No. 39 is bound to be released), Filip Vančo for running his Photoport gallery and publishing house, Jan Filípek and Kristína Bartošová for their specific knack for types, Milk studio and Martin Jenča, because the former applies to them.
Morals or money?
Money spoils the character. But even people of character need money.
Extraordinary book?
Right now, as a reader, I’m into WWII and post-war people’s fates: Eichmann in Jerusalem (Hannah Arendt), The Kindly Ones (Jonathan Littel) and lately two books related to Bratislava: Tu bola kedysi ulica (Leo Kohút) and Vtedy v Bratislave (Žo Langerová)…
Optimist, pessimist, nihilist?
I’m an optimist.
Do you have any hobby?
Cinema.
Solo or in a collective?
Although I work solo, I love to be interrupted.
Slovakia as the Promised Land?
It’s not hard to do something abroad, but try to be big in Slovakia!
PS: I suggest an extra question for the next respondent: What tattoo do you have?
evakasakova.com