Creative Meet Up: go out more and create colorful stuff
The Dutch edition of Creative Meet Up was packed with cool speakers and inspirational workshops. You could get lost in your own VR painting and kick some sign painting asses while learning to paint straight lines as that is the basic skill for sign painters. But the main goal of the event was connecting with the creative community. Some top of the bill creatives rocked the stage. Creative agencies ‘Patswerk’ and ‘Vruchtvlees’ told their own stories and this turned out to be of great inspiration for the audience and hopefully for you as well as we captured them in this post.
Vruchtvlees: making mix tapes and design clothing
Vruchtvlees (Dutch for ‘pulp’), is a design agency from The Hague, co-founded by Rindor Golverdingen, almost 10 years ago. Together with his buddies from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, Michael and Roman, he decided to prevent them from leaving school as average ‘designers’ and end up searching for random jobs without a clear goal. They agreed that the education they completed successfully, lacked in giving insights in how to become entrepreneurs. So, the guys started their own clothing brand, organized parties and designed album covers for their own mix tapes they created for DJs.
Soon the guys found out that they were spending too much time on the design details of their clothing, packaging, mailings, etcetera. The profitability level was low and they needed to take more and more graphic design jobs on the side to keep their heads above the water. That was the point where they decided to put all efforts in their first love: designing. They changed their focus towards art direction and design strategies for their customers and finally grew to the size they are in now: a ten-people strong team that forms an agency for digital identity and design.
Visiting museums and looking around
Rindor told the visitors of Creative Meet Up Amsterdam to go out and explore more, visit museums and attend more meet ups like a Creative Meetup to listen to other designers. According to the art director, this is the best way to gather inspiration for the next design or project. It is also key that you never use the tools you work with as a starting point. If you do that, you get trapped inside the tool. Your creative project should be the starting point which is leading throughout the process. Design outside the lines, borders and any box you come across.
Patswerk: colorful craziness
Patswerk is a graphics design & illustration agency from The Hague. Founded in 2008 by longtime friends Ramon Avelino, Rogier Mulder and Lex van Tol, Patswerk produces bold graphics with attention to detail. Their work is playful and often colorful. The guys like to incorporate fun, clean lines and the occasional moustache in their designs. Basically, Ramon, Rogier and Lex create stuff that makes them happy. Luckily, they found out that is exactly the thing that makes their customers happy.
The inspiration for the happy and crisp vector illustration is found by observing your surroundings more often. The guys often look at other illustrators, graffiti artists and designers on social media to get inspired. When they see something cool, they use this as a source of inspiration to create new work with their own, recognizable signature. A few examples of those designers are Hedof, Loulou&Tummie, Markus Magnusson and Buck Design.
Stay true to yourself
When Patswerk started as a professional agency, they wanted to offer complete concepts, branding strategies and considered themselves as a design agency. But the guys could not find any satisfaction that way and customers kept asking for their ‘original’ illustrations. They once and for all chose for happiness and stayed true to their roots. That was the turning point for Patswerk as they realized that success was happening because their joy reflected in their work. The most valuable lesson from Patswerk is to stay true to yourself and always believe in your work.
Behance
Behance is a very important platform for Patswerk to receive feedback from other designers, to showcase their work and to search for inspiration. They love to share work, even in early stages of the process. One of the examples is the process the team went through during the Adobe Creative Jam earlier in 2016.
Local agencies the biggest source of inspiration during the Creative Meet Up
As you have read above, the highlights of the Creative Meet Up in Amsterdam were all about local agencies and creative inspiration from various Dutchies. We can give you a little taste of the event itself, since popular Dutch YouTube channel HoeGaatDat was present during the Creative Meet Up. The guys from HoeGaatDat interviewed our very own Michael Chaize. Take a look at this cool interview: