Jobs: Natasha Klemazova, illustrator and graphic designer

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Today's guest of Lifehacker creates handwritten fonts and various things with them. Welcome to the creative workshop of Natasha Klemazova.

What do you do in your work?

I do lettering and everything that comes from it. Lettering is a design direction when letters and signs turn into independent drawings. Almost all the time I work on commercial orders: I make logos and corporate styles.

I also have an online store with products of my production - WhiteForType, as well as two significant products: the WorkAndDream business organizer and the AppForType application. The application allows you to decorate a photo with my handwritten fonts. In the organizer, you can collect in one place all your plans, finances, to-do lists and current tasks. It is intended for those who have their own small business.

What is your profession?

I studied at the St. Petersburg State University as a graphic designer. Now I work for them, combining with the duties of an accountant, manager, SMM specialist and responsible for production.

After St. Petersburg, I moved to Moscow and started studying at the British Higher School of Art and Design as an illustrator. But I was a little bored there - I dropped out of school and started my project.

I think you don't have to go to college to become a designer. Getting a college degree is good. But this does not guarantee at all that you will be a good designer.

In universities, very little is prepared for real life and for real work with customers. You graduate with absolutely no idea where to look for orders, how much your work costs and how to defend your project in front of a real customer. You have to learn everything yourself, usually from your own mistakes. True, self-education requires a certain level of discipline, which usually does not yet exist immediately after school.

What does your workplace look like?

I work for an iMac 27 ″. I think this is the best buy in the last few years.

The huge monitor is a big plus as I like to have multiple windows open at once. But sometimes the neck goes numb. I often turn on serials on one half of the screen, and open Photoshop on the other.

If your work is related to technology, it is better not to save money.

Now I bought myself another Macbook Pro 15 ″ to work on trips (I often move between St. Petersburg and Moscow).

I also use an Epson scanner and a Wacom tablet. I bought them about six years ago, and they still do not let me down.

My phone is iPhone 6. It has already fallen into the bathroom, several times on the tiles, but is still alive. On the phone, I usually do not arrange anything by colors / themes / folders. I try to keep the apps I use often on one screen.

The most visited by me are Instagram, mail, Sberbank and WhatsApp. This is what I use every day. The test version of AppForType is also on this screen. You have to update it almost every day and look for bugs.

Of the interesting applications I have installed:

• Bookmate - I read books there.
• Pocket - save articles that I usually read later on airplanes when there is nothing to do.
• TheQuestion - I can disappear there and spend hours reading answers to interesting questions, finding a new book or podcast.
• MaskArt - animates part of the photo.
• YouDo is an application where you can give a task (call a courier, transport furniture between cities, fix a crane) and choose an executor. More than once already helped me out.

Is there a place for paper in your work?

Half of the day I work on the computer, half of the day I draw on paper. I use regular office Svetocopy and Gamma mascara. I choose budget materials because I spend a lot of them.

At the same time, I am an adherent of modern technologies and try to translate everything into digital format as much as possible. I'm even thinking of buying an iPad Pro and Apple Pencil so I can draw less on paper.

How do you organize your time?

What I didn't have a good relationship with was the case planners. When there was a need for a diary, I tried to use calendars, different applications, but I could not find a suitable one.

Then I just launched WhiteForType: in addition to meetings, I had to make a lot of lists, keep track of finances, the growth of subscribers in social networks (I receive 90% of orders from Instagram). There was an urgent need to collect all these cases in one place.

It annoyed me that finances should be kept in one application, to-do lists in another, and shopping lists in a third. Applications where you could do everything together turned out to be too complex.

Paper notebooks didn't work either, because diaries usually only have fields for to-do's and a few blank pages.

As a result, I released my own business organizer.

What is your daily routine?

I have no regime as such.

Now I am trying to shift my work to the daytime in order to sleep at night. But when you work for yourself, it's hard not to stay up late into the night.

Life hacking from Natasha Klemazova

Tips for a novice designer

For those who are just starting to work as a designer, I recommend spending as much energy as possible on putting together their portfolio. What is in it will determine which orders will come to you.

At first, look for an opportunity to work on orders that are of interest to you. For the first few months after the start of my project, I myself wrote to customers and offered to draw them something for free, but in a way that I liked.

As a result, I quickly put together a portfolio. Customers started using many of those projects because they liked it too. They began to recommend me to friends with whom I had already worked for money.

Site

The Question. Before entering, you should know that this resource can be lost for a whole day! The site is similar to "[email protected]", only you don't want to run away from it in the first five seconds. The questions are extremely varied: from "How giraffes are transported" to "Why Japan does not produce airplanes." Experts often answer questions.

So, doctors of art history answer questions about art, AnyWayAnyDay answers the question about the longest flight, and why there is a square hole on the lollipop stick, an employee of this company told.

There you can find yourself an exchange program, free online courses, or a great selection of business books.

Podcasts and lectures

• How to make a million podcast. Entrepreneurs talk about how they built their business, sometimes even with numbers. I listened for several days in a row while processing one large order. Very interesting! The podcast will appeal to those who want to start their own business and are interested in the process itself. Most of all I liked the episodes about "Doublebee" and the clothes Oh, my!
• From the lectures, I was very impressed by the performance of Pokras Lampas at the design viewing "Throw the Design".

“Why Not Everyone Has One True Confession” is my favorite TED talk. A very small, but very inspiring entry for those who cannot decide on a life path

What is your life credo?

Listen to your desires, be able to separate them from the desires and expectations of others and work to fulfill these desires.