Meet Srdjan Wizemark Kirtic, The Logo Storyteller

Like a lot of you, I saw "Wizemark" on all the logo haunts that logo designers have on the interwebs in early 2009. And that is how I knew him. Then he did something extraordinary in early 2010 that changed my life. He started the 365 Logo Project. He along with Melanie Matthews, who started her own 365 Cartoon project, inspired me to take a plunge and set sail on my own 365 Vector Character project. But you’ve heard that a million times before, so I’ll get back to the man of the hour, Srdjan Kirtic aka Wizemark. It was his 365 Logo Project that made me sit up and notice his work and I was blown away. Creativity is inherent and not something that you learn at school. Srdjan is a fine example of that very fact. 

Srdjan is not just a logo designer. He is a master storyteller. Because that his what his logos do. They speak and they weave a story. His work has an unbelievable amount of depth. Don’t believe me? Go ahead and take a look at some really fine logos he has designed that are showcased on this page. The amount of detail, flow, rythm, character and tone in such a tiny little graphic is very hard to find. I think this quality of infinitism in his artwork is what makes him truly unique. I had the good fortune of snagging a great interview with Srdjan and I am happy to share it with all of you today. Srdjan takes us into his mind and his brilliance, he chats quite frankly about logo design and how it has affected and evolved him.  Please join me in welcoming him to the LBOI blog.

Thanks Srdjan for taking the time out to answer a few very interesting questions for us!

1. Who is Srdjan Kirtic? Tell us something about yourself.

I am a 26 years old, self-taught graphic designer, currently living in Novi Sad, Serbia. A guy who loves everything in the world of logo design. Photography enthusiast, coffee lover, dreamer, a guy who would spend everything on traveling only and a guy who is planning to move and stay for good on some sunny coast.

2. Can you tell us a bit about the designer in you? What have you studied? What do you do? What are your skills?

As I said, I’m self-taught and self-started, so unfortunately I didn’t have the opportunity to actually study design and to go through all those beautiful basics. And that’s something that I’m kind of missing now. I discovered quite late what I really loved and wanted to do for a living. But at that time, I was graduating from some completely design-unrelated schools. So I ended up being someone who had to do something with electricity, as my diploma said. A complete waste. I was involved in psychology as well for some time.

Aside from my freelance business, I work as a contractor with several agencies on branding projects, everything from a logo design, stationery, brochures, etc,  but I enjoy creating identities the most. I’m not so much into print design, type setting, book covers, etc. Even though Illustrator has been my main tool from the get go, I’m familiar with Corel and the rest of the Adobe package as well.

3. Your own brand is called Wizemark. What is the story behind that? How did you develop the logo for it?

I started under the alias Wize Lizard. It was a direct connection with the mentioned sunny coasts where you can see those prehistoric smart looking creatures laying down a whole day doing nothing except enjoying in the sun. I could live like that easily. However, at one point that name seemed not personal enough for me and there were also some other people using it, so I felt that I should change it to something more meaningful and unique. After a lot of brainstorming I ended up with two names. One was Logovski and the other was Wizemark. Logovski sounded in the end perhaps a bit too literal, restrained and Slavic, so to speak, and since my target clientele was more western and since the name needed to be easily understood and pronounced correctly, I decided to go with Wizemark. It is a combination of  two words where the first one describes another, but I also wanted that to sound almost like a name, or the surname, hence the capital W.

As far as the logo design goes, well, I knew that I wanted and needed something extremely simple. Avant Garde typeface was always attractive to me (maybe adidas has to do something with it) and it was almost perfect so there were only few custom tweaks. Regarding the symbol itself, crown was in the mix from the start as I believed it portrayed an appropriate picture and voiced strongly how I felt about what I was doing and what I was trying to create and achieve with every project – strong, smart and distinctive designs that last long.

4. When and how did you start designing logos? What was the first logo you created?

In January 2007 I learnt the difference between raster and vector while on my first unplanned job in some local print house. I can’t say that I was in charge of anything there really, since I was still learning, but I was supposed to be a print assistant. We had a lot of different people coming into the studio ordering all kinds of print jobs and all of them were bringing along their files and designs they were using. I was literally shocked with the terrible logos, brochures, calendars, tees, business cards, etc. That really made me pay more attention to the local newspapers, magazine ads and the printed stuff around me.

An idea about having something designed simply to show that it can be done better, was kind of natural after that. I was anxious about learning Illustrator and Photoshop asap. I quickly discovered that "designed" material for most people was perfect, but of course they had no intention or interest to pay for it because "That logo will not help me sell more machines." Surprisingly for me, people from the print house also didn’t show much of an interest because they said that they weren’t designers. Once I realized that, I started looking around for some graphic design jobs and quickly found some local guy that was running a successful freelance business and was in a need of some young designer that could help him out with some overload of his work. That’s how everything started for me.

5. What do you find the most exciting part of being a logo designer?

A few important things that make me love my job. Every project is for itself. It is unique, it is fun, it is different and it’s a challenge. Well, almost every one. The fitness related projects - I honestly hate them. Second important thing is that I can brainstorm and sketch whenever I want and wherever I may be at that time when the inspiration strikes, and not being necessarily glued to the chair as is the case with web or brochure design for example. And the last, but not least is the process of simplifying things.. getting rid of the extra stuff. The process of capturing the essence and saying a lot with only simple shapes, symbols, lines.. Getting to that point can be quite long, but an extremely exciting process.

6. You do amazing Photographs! Did that start out as a hobby? What has been the most challenging and most fun photo you have ever taken?
  

Thanks. Yes, a hobby. I really love photography, love being outside and love the post production and unique treatment. I find shooting hi-end fashion, weddings and all those commercial sides of the photography  extremely boring, and since I’m doing something else for a living I’m sure I’ll keep it in that “artistic” direction, for myself, so to speak, even though I do some interesting projects from time to time.

The most challenging photo was definitely shooting a snake in its natural environment. I’ve found one near some river and was shooting it around an hour chasing it over some bushes, etc. I didn’t have an appropriate lense, so I really had to come as close as possible to get that one perfect shot. After an hour I was covered in cold sweat, but I got that one shot. I don’t feel very comfortable in their presence, so that was definitely the most challenging photo so far. The most fun photo.. well probably any photo that asks for a crawling in the public places … bugs, patterns, tiny stuff.

7. Tell us a bit about your logo design process from start to finish. The pre-design, design and post-design.

Well, first I require 50% of upfront payment. Once thats done I collect all the info that clients provide via conversation and/or questionnaire. After that, I print all that out, make some coffee, find a nice, sunny spot somewhere out, go carefully through all of that info, outline the most important stuff, make some mapping and while finishing the coffee think about some rough directions, ideas and eventual styles. The next thing I do is finding more about the competition, target audience, provided references, links, inspiration stuff, etc aka back to the lab. Once I have all that sorted and printed out and laid down in front of me I’m ready to start sketching and actually brainstorming. I’ve made myself dot grid based sketchbook that I always use. Its not fancy as the one over at Behance, but it works for me. Anyway, once I try out enough of  different ideas and directions I start up Illustrator to test and polish some of them out. When I finally have a design that I can put on a white background and just observe and stare at it for hours, I know I have a golden one that I can show to the client.

Same goes for the rest of the concepts, depends on the total amount that has been purchased. I then work on presentation, and usually send them as a separate huge jpg file including lots of different versions to help the client visualize the possibility of a design (high res, smaller version, b&w, grayscale, inverted, icon on its own, favicon, grids, patterns, some shots of the printed stuff, etc) along with my comments about the each concept explaining my thoughts and ideas, although I’d love to send it to them without the explanation as I think that logo really should speak for itself if it’s good enough. Once they have been reviewed, I get the initial feedback and we agree on the final direction, I switch onto the color exploration and the revisions where and if needed. After the final design has been approved I invoice the client for the second time for the rest of the payment and work on the preparation of the final files. I usually send ai, eps, pdf and a hi-res jpg and png for the main logo, both rgb & cmyk, b&w, grayscale and inverted versions along with the used fonts. And finally after that we either proceed with the stationary set or just simply thank each other (thank you, come again). I’ve always been against the ridiculous idea of asking for referrals, but  I’m thinking to include a testimonial request for this last stage. I guess thats the least the client can do if the project goes well.

  
8. When designing for a client, what do you think is the most important thing to keep in mind?
  
The most important thing is probably that you re sure that you are totally up for the project. Meaning that you are ready to give your maximum and full attention to the everything thats been said and written. You have to learn to listen, ask right questions and actually understand the tissue of the problem that you are hired to solve in a first place.

9. What is your favorite logo of all time, designed by another designer?

There are literally tons of  outstanding logos out there. Its hard to pick only one, but what first comes to mind is probably Paradox. I really like the simplicity of it and the strong and clear message that it sends.

 
10. If you were asked to re-do the London 2012 Olympic logo, what would you change about it and how would you style it better?

For such a serious event and for that budget of 400k  I’d make a team of 5, 10, 20 exceptional, probably younger and not so much famous designers to work on the project. Out of such a strong, creative, young and powerful force,  I’m sure the outcome would be quite different. And most likely the comments across the web won’t be so  “mixed” about it.

11. 5 most unusual places you have found inspiration for your logos?
 

There are actually only 4 that I can think off and being sort of unusual, while the 4th one is more of a state, than a place, but I guess it depends on how you look at it.  A toilet – great and sacred place where the inspiration really strikes quite often, thats why I always bring pen & paper with me. A car – the cheaper, slower and uglier car the less you think of how others are admiring you while you are passing by so you can focus more on the creative thoughts and your projects instead. A plane – even though I don’t fly that often, every time I do, the landscapes or clouds create some unusual shapes that I can make some interesting ideas from.Then parties/festivals – really not sure what’s with that and why crazy ideas are happening there. And a bed in a state of hypnagogic and hypnopompic reveries – falling asleep and waking up moments. I really think that we all could benefit from some sort of the camera that can record or just take snaps of our dreams and the mornins hallucinations.

12. What are your favorite websites to visit daily?
 
Logopond, Dribbble, Behance and Facebook. Sometimes even hourly.

13. If you couldn’t be a designer, what would you be?

Definitely a photographer. Animal Planet and National Geographic are the few concepts I really like a lot and would be thrilled if I could travel around the globe and take shots for them. Although thats not really what I  thought that I would be when I was in the 6th grade. I was filling out some lexicon (yeah, I know, but it was popular back then) and under the desirable profession I said a porn star. That answer got me into some trouble after the lexicon got into the teacher’s hands even though the teacher was a female. After that, my own dad called me a "star" for some period of time which was quite weird.

14. What lies in the near future for you career-wise? Give us a sneak peak at something you are working on at the moment?
 

I really wouldn’t know. But I do feel something interesting and exciting. I do believe in mental attraction so I often imagine how some small design studio located in Bali, Seychelles, Maldives or one of those sweet destinations is inviting me to come over and work with them (Australia is an option as well ). I have been working on my own website for quite some time now and I think I’m almost there. Not being a web designer, kinda slows me down, but I know that I have to do it myself instead of giving it to someone else no matter how good that someone is.

15. What words of wisdom would you share with someone reading this interview?

I’d share two quotations that I felt in love with. First one comes from Redman (yeah) and it goes like "Fuck knockin’, kick the door." And the second one comes from Thomas Paine – "Lead, follow, or get out of the way." This might sound harsh or rude, but if you think more about it, its really not. It is the only way to make something happen and make it done right and as quick as possible. In other words, be honest with yourself about what you do. If you are positive about it, step in and push hard. Be courageous and audacious. Be strong and persistent, learn constantly and upgrade yourself, and you’ll get there. If you’re not so sure, try to find someone to follow and learn along the way. But be careful of who you are following as well, because, if the vision is clear, you shouldn’t waste any time.

Thanks!

And once again, I thank you for shedding some light on your amazing work process. Will keep an eye out for all the interesting stuff you keep coming up with. Good luck!

For more on Srdjan Kirtic, follow these links to his presence on various sites on the internet.
Wizemark
Wizemark on Logopond
Wizemark on Dribbble
Twitter @wizemark
Wizemark on Behance
Srdjan Kirtic on Facebook