Speed Date / PETR BABÁK, graphic designer, typographer, educator
Where are you from?
Brno.
Where did you study?
Prague.
Who was your best teacher?
Solpera.
Who were/ are your parents?
A white-collar worker, a manual labourer.
What don’t you enjoy in design?
Boredom.
And on the contrary, what do you?
Creativity.
What do you listen to?
There’s a lot of that in music and it’s very broad in genre. I’m not closing myself off. I’m checking my Spotify playlist: Chopin, Sergei Barracuda, Jonny5, Anohni, Rohony, Georg Friedrich Handel, Bon Iver, Guest User, Connan Mockasin, XXXTENTACION, Sade, Kendrick Lamar, Dollar Prync, David Sylvian, Čavalenky, Dné, Future Islands, Young Thug, Gus Gus, Jay Jay Johanson, Gipsy G, The Smiths, Susan Sundfor, Prince, Zoo Kid, Sevdaliza, etc. From Slovak, Miro from the football and I will be pimping a new sound after the game, which we will discover over the week. Like Saul, Peťo Tázok, Porsche Boy, Taomi, Zayo, Edúv Syn, Wen and a billion more. It’s clicking beautifully in your area. I’d like to see Kosa z Nosa – hear a live performance, but maybe it’s good to keep the good old raw vibe and black and white photos with Boris behind the micro in my head… I don’t understand how the company has noticed the strength, even economic, of the trap market. Sheen for example is more listened to on youtube than Karel Gott and most of society is doing nothing about it. It’s like the Kabat and all the other audio vermin. There’s a lot of nonsense and clichés in trap as well, like white niga thugs, but it’s good to see.
Your favourite film, cartoon, series?
Squid Game series.
Who do you respect as an authority in and out of your field?
Again, there are many, and actually, again, more outside the field. But I watch young levers in gd and I meet them in school too, yeah, and they’re strong and that makes me really happy. And why is that? Because they’re vivid, uncompromising, bold, searching or poetic, maybe even invisible and tender, though I’d like to see more of them edgy. But besides that, I always try to go my own way and not click on the nets so much again, and look to all sides. I ride from within, from the lived. Maybe it’s naive, but I like it that way. There are so many megatrends around and they’re always changing and oscillating
and flickering, you’d go crazy copying them all the time. And then the boredom is great, endless. There’s so much of that around us, too. The trend of boredom. Because it’s easier to fuck up a system than to at least try to invent something, always nice, as if from scratch.
What thing did you last buy?
AirTag.
Do you buy professional literature? What was the latest book?
Yes, but we often exchange books with graphic designers. Graphic barter. The last one I bought was a book called Not OK by Ondřej Chorý.
Do you vote?
I do.
Who throws the best parties?
Lukáš Kijonka.
Your favourite dome?
I don’t have any. I mean, actually, I do. The dome of Pavilion Z at the Brno EXPO Centre. I had a great New Year’s Eve there in 2000. Celebrating the arrival of the new millennium. Somehow the cooling system didn’t work and instead of fog, chunks of ice fell on us, crouching and helpless dancers. It was a good celebration of all the new things that are now falling on us.
Party dress. Made by…?
Only from the closet!
Your hero from the past?
Pelé.
Best/nicest house?
There are many. I follow architecture closely. We’ve been building for a while and it’s been an ordeal and a waste. But if there’s one, it’s Frank Lloyd Wright’s Waterfall House. Otherwise, also the marshmallow by Šépka, Stupava by Studený and Kopecký, the shelters by Tyrpekel, the concrete factory by Kraus, or how Imro Vaško thinks and writes about architecture. Important. Know that it is not just monstrous and treacherous development.
Do you have any stereotypes when you work? How do they show?
I don’t, but ask my critics.
What’s on your desktop?
Azure.
Best exhibition, work of art?
Renzo Piano’s revitalization of the old harbor and museum in Genoa, which includes a submarine that you climb into and catch a claustro. Best exhibition and authentic environment at the same time. I’m still shitting myself just remembering it. Beautiful! Strong. Instruments, technology, clouds of sheet metal and a tiny man underwater together. Emotion and sweat. The experience. No Cool White Cube.
What do you respect both from the local and foreign design scene? And why?
As I said before. Everything alive, authentic, bold, searching and strong, no matter if in science, art, music. But I don’t mean some kind of furious uselessness and exhibition at any price. I enjoy a clear story within, a building block, an opinion, a path laid out for you to read. The concept. Like the Ankali club in Prague or the Creepy Teepee fest. And why is that? Because there’s too much mediocrity in the world.
Ethics or money?
Ethmon.
Extraordinary book?
Patrick Süskind – Perfume and a million others.
Optimist, pessimist, nihilist?
Basically, I’m pretty much naive and actually idealistic about a lot of things, and it often comes back to haunt me.
Do you have any hobby?
Sports.
Solo or in a collective?
Collectively.
Slovakia as the Promised Land?
No.