Irma Kniivila – 7 Design Questions Interview

Designer – Irma Kniivila
Website – irmakniivila.com
Blog – kniivila.blogspot.com
Twitter – @kniivila

*I’m not a designer, so you can just sorta….replace the word design with illustration.

1. How much time do you dedicate to learning design every day?
I juggle around a full-time job, so it varies. These days I’ve been sacrificing sleep to get in at least 4 hours of drawing and story-writing and website designing and whatever needs to be done. I wish it were more! Also sometimes I end up crashing and passing out for 12 hours and then the total hits zero. Gads.

2. What other designers do you have contact with on a regular basis?
A lot of friends I graduated with, it’s really amazing to see what divergent paths they’ve taken. Hyein Lee, Martha Chan, Shauna Buck, Nimit Malavia, Juan Solon, Greg Dubeau, Ian Herring, Bennett Slater, Britt Wilson, Vicki Nerino. Also the internet has brought me into contact with some amazing young illustrators – Kali Ciesmeier, Sam Bosma, Kyla Vanderklugt, Thomas Scholes. Sorry for the long list, but there’s so many diverse and amazing talents. I’m sure I’m forgetting so many, too.

3. Who are the top 2-3 designers that you respect and why?
This isn’t really a very direct answer, but as of late I’ve been very interested in world-building.

I watch a lot of the Lord of the Rings special features when I feel crummy and need inspiration and comfort. I think what the entire art department did for those films, regardless of how you feel about the films themselves, is absolutely amazing. The amount of thought, depth and attention to detail is just ridiculous.

All of Studio Ghibli’s productions, particularly Whisper of the Heart and Porco Rosso. Kazuo Oga’s background paintings always make me want to be there. The storytelling in those two movies is so wonderfully subtle and carefree. They’re basically how ideal life would be.

The entire legacy of the Zelda games and worlds, I think is amazing. Such an amazing sense of wonder and discovery. The cute little huts don’t hurt either.

4. What’s your favorite website or design you ever made and why?
Probably the Streetcar painting…I like mysterious things and it is mysterious!

5. Have you ever been published in a book or magazine? What books or magazines?
Haha. I’m at this point where I’m producing a lot of personal work, but can’t decide where I fit in the commercial world, whether editorial illustration, concept work, or self-published narrative work. So long story short, nope.

6. What’s your favorite color in hexadecimal? How often do you find yourself leaning towards it with design projects?
I uhhm. Hmm. I usually start digital paintings on a background of approximately #617073. Does that count?

7. What’s your most recent project we can look at?
I’m in the middle of a huge website re-haul, because my site is sadly out of date. Also I’ve been under-the-table working on a series of things and I’m not terribly sure where they’re going. Basically if you look at my blog and see any landscape paintings involving a black cat, they’re all part of a related series that I’ve been working on for the past year or so.