The mornings

the mornings

Sunday, December 18, 11

I am a visual designer.I’ve been in the profession since I was 19 and moved on to have my own company.In 2006 this just wasn’t working for me anymore.I woke up one morning and realized I wasn’t looking forward to my day ahead.I was going to be a manager of design rather than a designer.

There were 2 issues traveling me:1. My business model just wasn’t working!I was trying to grow my business but that meant more managerial and less creative work.And I was sure after 20 years in this profession that I wasn’t a good manager.But I was still a passionate designer.

1Sunday, December 18, 11

There were 2 issues traveling me:1. My business model just wasn’t working!I was trying to grow my business but that meant more managerial and less creative work.And I was sure after 20 years in this profession that I wasn’t a good manager.But I was still a passionate designer.

2. My market was deep in a crisis! And it was going worse.I wasn’t a prophet. I couldn’t predict the mess we are in today. But it was obvious that the Greek market was rapidly declining. Or maybe... I just wasn’t the right person for that market.

2Sunday, December 18, 11

2. My market was deep in a crisis! And it was going worse.I wasn’t a prophet. I couldn’t predict the mess we are in today. But it was obvious that the Greek market was rapidly declining. Or maybe... I just wasn’t the right person for that market.

In my attempt to solve these issues, I looked to the history of Greece:We have a beautiful but small piece of land. Fertile but poor.

And so we've always built ships.Ships that have created commercial roads for us.So that is exactly what I had to do.

I've tried to physically leave Greece before but i'm probably too in love with the sun.But what about a virtual ship? One that explores other worlds, other marketsAnd what about another business model?

In early 2006 something happened that helped to jump start my faith in this virtual ship.It was a Saturday night and as I arrived home I checked my Flickr account. I couldn't believe my eyes.

This mosaic portrait of Steve Jobs had been viewed 45 000 times. In less than 3 hours. And it was a Saturday night. The time of the week with less traffic on the internet.What happened?

Well it was Kevin, a 15 year old boy from Guam.He was a friend of mine on Flickr and enthusiastic Mac user.

Kevin posted the link on Digg.com.Digg was incredibly popular then and Kevin was a top user. The image hit the frontpage and led thousands of hits to my Flickr page.But that wasn't all.

From Digg the image passed on to hundreds of blogs and websites. My beloved Gestalten publishing companies featured it...

as well as the Unofficial Apple Weblog or Cult of Mac and many more.

Soon the Spanish newspaper ABC asked me to use this image.

So Bingo! This was the definition of a success story for me.Analyzing what happened, I realized that this story held many of Steve Jobs' values:

1Be aPerfectionist

1. BE A PERFECTIONIST!

I was messing around with mosaics and synthetic images my whole life.

In contrast to Steve Jobs, I was in love with complexity.

I was amazed with the zoom in and out in nature

...science...

...and art

I wanted to create great mosaics.

I studied hard.

I worked hard.

I was sharing my experiences with the design community by writing articles and tutorials & speaking to conferences.

Some could say I had reached a higher level as a designer but I had no intention on stopping.

2AllowAssistance

2. ALLOW ASSISTANCE:

My portrait made use of a brand that was much bigger than mine. Steve Jobs in 2005 and 2006 wasn't as trendy as in 2011

but he had passionate fans that belonged to a minority. These people took me on their shoulders and carried me through the virtual spaces.

So you could kind of say that I could borrowed some fans from the Apple community.

3. BE SINCERE:

3BeSincere

3. BE SINCERE:

I never used Steve Jobs' image in order to monetize on his glory. The guy was a personal hero for me & I honored what he contributed to the world.

Since the early nineties, I was a Mac user and a passionate reader of computer history. I was especially interested in the computer underground.

I knew the story & I could tell it without saying the words.But people could understand it through my images.

4Developa Platform

4. DEVELOP A PLATFORM:

I have finally found my market and my business platform. The rise of social media brought new horizons for my virtual ship to reach a global market

It wasn't my personal website where people viewed my portfolio

It was Flickr, Digg, Blogger... People go there for millions of reasons other than to see my work.But since I was there, they could find me.

And I believe that if you share valuable content, people are going to engage with it.

2006 didn’t allow me to completely abandon my greek design businessbut I decided that I would dedicate a large portion of my free time to my R&D studies

Every evening, every weekend, every holiday had to be investedon NON commercial, experimental, developmental work.

It was some niche market I was trying to tap into. But on a worldwide scale this niche market would be good enough for me.

I also decided that my subjects would only be about positive people and positive ideas. I was tired of the misery of our times.People complaining about bad politicians, bad institutions, bad entrepreneurs.

I would rather dedicate my days to good athletes, like Kobe Bryant...

...passionate entrepreneurs...like Mark Zuckerberg

...inspiring pioneers...like Sir Clive Sinclair.

...great thinkers...like Mr. Space Invader Tomohiro Nishikado

Then I had to seriously invest in social media.I read, studied, made connections, tried to understanding the logic.

I also followed the advise of a good internet friend Franz Patzig:Make all your work available under the Creative Commons license and in high resolution.Don’t lose your time with thieves or copycats.They don't appreciate what you are doing and they don't want to pay for it anyway.

Help the good people to share and use your work. They are your market.Help them enjoy your work. Allow them to test if they can use it commercially.Then they are going to contact you and if they find value in your work they are going to pay you.

And so they did. At the end of 2007, Fortune magazine wanted a mosaic portrait of Steve Jobs.I thought some friend was pulling my leg, but no. It was for real.

This portrait help boost my carrier. It has been republished immediately in Italy.

in Germany

in Japan...

Till today it’s published in probably more than 1000 different media around the world.

After that it was the advertising campaign of Bradesco Bank in Brazil,

and then the awarded campaign for IKEA in Sweden

and then the NASCAR campaign for Toyota in the U.S.

...and then Barack Obama who I was supporting since the very start of the campaign became president.

The Obama work helped me make it to many prominent publications and design circles, broadening my audience.

The illustrations I created have been published in media all over the world

This time Obama fans took me on their shoulders.

What I learned once more is that people appreciate nice stories. It's not good enough to show off of techniques and skills.You have to have something to say and be able to pronounce it loudly and wholeheartedly.

And if you want to find things to say you have to go deep into the stories of real people.You have to rediscover the roots. And you just have to find the right time to share these stories.

There are always opportunities.And so I schedule not for the next week, month or quarter but for the years ahead.

In January 2008 I started working on a series of designs that could be usedduring the upcoming South Africa 2010 World Cup.

It was the same concept - the same values - all over again:1. Good and hard work2. Assistance from a fan base.

3. Sincerity4. A business model.

In 2009 I shut down my office.I left all my Greek clients to my till then partner and decided that I would focus seriously on my virtual ship.

The summer of 2010 I enjoyed the publicity of my African studies during the World Cup. The model was really working.

I had a established a target when I started experimenting with sports graphics.I was dreaming of getting the attention of Nike.I created so many images that they could see, like and order.

You can understand my happiness when they sent me this email.

I created my first design for them in 2010.

One year after the South African 2010 it was the Germany 2011

and the US national team was wearing my sports graphics.

During this time I also worked on the Gatorade World campaign.

They liked the ethnic studies and they thought that this culture would help themcommunicate effectively with the South American market.

We experimented with the african heritage and combined this with the Latin-American heroes of sports.

One morning about two months ago I woke up too early.I had fallen asleep very late and I had my MacBook next to my bed.

5October

One morning about two months ago I woke up too early.I had fallen asleep very late and I had my MacBook next to my bed.

There were so many emails coming in that night and the typical beep woke me up at 3 am.I saw the emails and I said NO. He's dead!

My hero, the person I was following for so many years,who helped me so much by guiding me - was dead.

But there was no time for mourning because I had mails from hundreds of media.

Before i knew it I was talking to CNN

...to the Huffington post...

...to La Repubblica, the Telegraph...all about Steve.

Even the Greek media had discovered me...

I learned something that day. Publicity may be good for your profession, but it comes at a price.The day you lose someone precious may be the day people congratulate you.

Some people might believe that this is a great achievement and that I should be happy because of the clients in my portfolio and all the media buzz

I ensure you that I am a satisfied with all that but am not happy.

Success is not the goal. Happiness is the goal.

Happiness for me is to wake up in the morning and be lost in my colors and my pixels.

Happiness is to share my pixels with people that can appreciate them.

Happiness is found in the morning when you look forward to your day ahead.

Today was a nice morning.Because I'm a visual designer and I knew i had the opportunity to meet you and share with you my pixels, my colors and my design story.

Ευχαριστώ.

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