Thursday, May 7, 2009

Hans Thiessen

Year Graduated: 2009
Occupation: Designer
Website:http://komboh.com/


Hans Thiessen's Partial List of Post-Graduation Plans


1.0 - Keep on keeping on

Although the entity known as "art college" is behind me, the design process will continue with me as an integral part of how I operate in the rest of life. I look forward to researching and thoroughly investigating things I may not have otherwise thought of looking into, defining problems that others have overlooked, creatively solving said problems, and yes, even meticulously detailing typography for as many years as God provides.


2.0 - KOMBOH-ing it up

While at ACAD, I teamed up with a like-minded design student, the one and only Michael Mateyko, to form KOMBOH Creative. We decided that instead of graduating to a barren job market and twiddling our thumbs on our own, we would join together to tackle contract work and promote ourselves to the world at large, while we hunt down the right creative teams to work for. The process has been joyfully fruitful and versed us in the powerful dynamic of collaboration.

To see more of our work, check out - KOMBOH.com


3.0 - Designing type in my "large amounts of spare time"

Drawing words/letters has been an interest of mine for a long time. My first type related experience happened when I was four or five. I remember staring intently at a Cheerios box and imagining what the yellow negative shapes between the big black letters could be. Going through ACAD has informed my typographic interest substantially, but I will always enjoy type with the child-like mystery of years past.

Now that I have some time to spare, I plan on finishing my first typeface; Strict. It started out of the idea that instead of getting frustrated over being encouraged to default to Univers (whatever floats your boat - even though Adrian Frutiger did have the Midas touch) I would design a font that exhibited a similar inflexible adherence to a rigid mindset. It has been an ongoing side project of mine for the past year (last time I checked it was at 418 glyphs), but hopefully I will be able to wrap it up fairly soon.


4.0 - Getting more Vitamin D

The same in design is true in life: a form is not only defined by itself, but also by the space surrounding it. Without the rest of life there is no design. I fully intend on enjoying more time spent with my wife and dog, outside, away from the glare of a computer monitor. I hope that this balance will not only richly inform my creative process, but help shrink my unsightly eye bags that have exponentially grown over the last four years.