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Spraygraphic Interview with Deroy Peraza
By Spraygraphic | January 18, 2008
Spraygraphic Interview with Deroy Peraza
SG: Please tell us about yourself?
DP: I am a 29 year-old Cuban-American graphic designer. I founded Hyperakt, a boutique design studio based in Brooklyn in 2001. I am a principal and creative director at Hyperakt. I am addicted to traveling. I spend a lot of time thinking about urban planning and wondering how anybody could have thought suburbia was a good idea. I obsessively collect stuff. I probably have ADHD. I love soccer. I am generally in a pretty good mood, unless I’m not. I don’t mind doing the dishes.
SG: Where do you currently live and work?
DP: I currently live and work in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, NY.
SG: What mediums do you work with?
DP: Macs. The pencil and pen also get used whenever possible.
SG: Describe your working process when creating a new work.
DP: There’s two answers to that. The creative process and the pragmatic process. The trick is getting the two to get along.
On the creative side, there are always some vague ideas floating around in my head that are waiting to get matched with the right project. They are usually inspired by something I saw, read or heard somewhere, and tend to be unfinished fragments that don’t really mean anything until they are activated by a concept. But all of that is bullshit without answering some very basic, practical questions first:
1. What does it need to do?
2. Who needs to get it?
3. Why?
Whether the work is personal or commercial, print or interactive, 2d or 3d, the same questions apply. I need to be able to define what I’m trying to do concisely in one statement before creating anything. Otherwise, I feel lost. Like most things in my life, the process of creating any work is one of structured chaos.
SG: What kind of things do you do when you get blocked or find it hard to create something?
DP: Ask for help. One of the great things of working in a collaborative environment, with people I like and respect, is that I can ask them for help. Everybody gets stuck sometimes. Whether your brain forgot to power up that day or whether you’ve been working on something for so long that you’ve been blinded to reality, there’s nothing like a little perspective from your peers for a reality check. At Hyperakt, we don’t really have the luxury of letting a project sit around waiting for brilliant ideas, so we tag team on them when we get stuck. We’ll just trade projects and hit reset. Its a practice that is not easy to learn. It requires putting the ego aside, and trusting your baby to someone else. Both are hard. Other than that, there’s the usual. I dig for inspiration in our library or on the web. I go for a walk. I try to travel as much as possible. I’m also very competitive, so nothing fires me up more than seeing good work from the competition.
SG: Where are you currently finding your inspiration?
DP: This year’s travels (Argentina, Mexico, Colombia). Radiohead’s “In Rainbows” is brilliant. I went to see Massimo Vignelli speak recently. Design royalty. Showcase sites like TheFWA.com, and QBN.com. The AIGA Annual is always great. Del.icio.us and FFFFound.com are great cataloguing tools for people who like to obsessively collect links and keep them in some sort of cohesive order. Architecture. I easily consume more literature about architecture than just about anything else. I love it. My radar is always on behind the scenes. Its just automatic pilot. Whether I’m walking down the street, lost in a new city or bouncing around blogs, I’m always scanning for interesting artifacts.
SG: Can you please tell us a little about Hyperkat Design Group? How did it start and what is your daily involvement with the organization?
DP: Hyperakt is the branding and interactive design studio I founded in 2001. Our clients include ad agencies, non-profit organizations, and independent businesses. Hyperakt was started, as many design studios are, in a small corner of an apartment. I actually registered the name on September 7th, 2001, which was not great timing. I was 23. I had just graduated from Parsons School of Design. I had been freelancing since May, trying to figure out how to be a “graphic designer”. I majored in Illustration, so I only had one typography class and one flash class under my belt, along with experience acquired through an internship. I was really just learning stuff on the fly, and I was getting more and more into into it the more I worked. I was taking on any project I could get my hands on. After about a year I was bored of working alone at home, and I wasn’t getting much sleep. Besides learning how to become a designer, I was learning how to run a business. I had never really thought seriously about keeping books, invoices, contracts and all that fun stuff. After many sales pitch sessions, I convinced Julia Vakser, who I had known since day one at Parsons, to join me. Julia, another illustration major, had been working at a really dry, corporate design firm, and was ready to try something new. We’ve been partners ever since, stumbling each step of the way and trying to learn as quickly as possible. In February of 2003 we moved into our current studio space on Smith Street, which we shared until last summer with another design group. There are now five of us. The other Hyperaktivists include a studio manager, a designer, and a design intern, and we hope to hire a few more people in 2008 as we continue growing.
Julia and I are both involved creatively in almost every project Hyperakt touches. We are very hands on creative directors. We are also both involved in the strategic operations of the studio and in planning Hyperakt’s future. We still have a lot to learn and a lot to do. If you’re curious to see a visual chronicle of how we’ve grown as a studio, we recently posted an archive of every Hyperakt website ever on our blog.
SG: Can you please tell us about your involvement with the non-profit organization ART4NOW.
DP: Art4Now is an organization that I co-founded with 2 friends. We figured a designer, a teacher and a marketing/pr organizer could bring a lot to the table for a good cause. The project was born in my apartment in the end of 2003. The teacher, Jenna Shapiro, (who coincidentally happens to be my girlfriend) worked at a public school in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Her kids had virtually no exposure to the arts due to the sorry state of the city’s education system. We thought it would be huge for these kids to get to actually get a chance to be exposed to the arts. The three of us then basically recruited every friend we could to pull out every contact they had and see what we could do. We raised $20,000 in 6 months. The result was a month long, all-expenses paid summer program, which included visual arts, dance, spoken word, and music, for 30 middle school students from under-resourced neighborhoods in Brooklyn. This was the summer of 2004. It was awesome! Jenna developed all the curriculum and led the staff, I designed all of the communication materials for the organization and maintained its website, Wilson Alexander Aguilar, the third co-founder, handled operations and fund-raising. There were teaching artists in each field, we got art supplies and instruments donated, we took the kids on field trips to the Met and MoMA. They had a fantastic Grand Finale performance. I think the kids got a lot out of it, and we learned a great deal as well. Lesson number 1, running a non-profit arts organization is a full time job. Sadly, our personal careers and lives did not allow us to continue the program in the same format. Instead, we are in the process of turning Art4Now into a scholarship granting organization.
SG: Where has your work been seen?
DP: Hyperakt’s work has gotten several nods from the design community in the last few months. You will find us on American Design Awards, WebsiteDesignAwards, New Web Pick, Cool homepages, and Styleboost. One of our projects was the Adobe Site of the Day on November 9th.
SG: Where will it be seen next?
DP: Our work will be featured in several design books over the next few months. Most are from IndexBook and MaoMao Publications, both based in Spain. We will also have a logo included in LogoLounge 4. Hopefully, this is just the tip of the iceberg.
SG: What is your dream art assignment?
DP: Designing a mixed use building and managing the build out process. I want to be an architect when I grow up.
SG: What is your favorite color?
DP: Well, it depends on the context, but generally, I lean towards very saturated bright colors. Orange is my fave though. The more fluorescent, the better.
SG: Who is your favorite artist? And Why?
DP: Any artist who figures out how to constantly create truly innovative work while simultaneously reaching a mass audience. They have the power to raise the standards of the masses. I can’t think of anything more powerful than that. The Beatles are a good example. Apple. Picasso.
I also have a soft spot for Rem Koolhaas, who singlehandedly made me understand how profoundly architecture affects society. His collaboration with Bruce Mau “Small, Medium, Large and XL” also taught me that there is infinitely more creativity involved in solving problems than in making things look pretty.
SG: What book/magazine are you reading this week?
DP: We have studio subscriptions to Metropolis, Wired, Wallpaper, Comm Arts, Frame, I.D, IdN, and The Architect’s Newspaper. I try to stay as up-to-date as possible, but alas, it is impossible to read them all.
SG: Ever do a self portrait? Where is it now?
DP: Yeah, too many. Most of them are from high school and are excruciatingly hyper-realistic. Part of a self discovery phase I suppose. Several of them are hanging in my parent’s house. I am an only child, I admit it.
SG: Where is your favorite place to hang out?
DP: Hyperakt (especially in the summer when we can BBQ in the backyard). I tend to hang around the cafes and bars on Smith and Court Streets in Carroll Gardens, but I do make my occasional field trips to the city. I love Death + Company. in the East Village, although that’s probably because one of the bartenders happens to be one of my best friends. I also love hanging out in bookstores devouring design and architecture books.
SG: Any final words of advice?
DP: Love what you do. Be curious. Be productive. Surround yourself by people who you like and who have something to teach you. Never give up.
Topics: Artist Interviews, International-Art, New York Art Scene |
January 24th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Thank you for this interview! Deroy’s description of the artistic process–how he matches half-formed ideas to the current needs of a project–reminded me very much of how I work, in my (totally unrelated) field. A great description of the creative process by an obviously up-and-coming young artist!
January 24th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
It was one of my favorite interviews for sure…
February 2nd, 2008 at 6:07 pm
NACISTES CON EL ¿POR QUÉ? EN LA BOCA, HASTA LOS 5 AÑOS QUE TUVE LA DICHA DE TENERTE CERCA SIEMPRE TENÍAS ESA PALABRA EN LA BOCA, POR MÁS QUE UNO TE EXPLICARA NUNCA QUEDABAS SATISFECHO SIEMPRE QUERÍAS SABER MÁS POR QUÉ Y HOY EN DÍA ME COMPLACE TANTO, DESPUÉS DE HABER LEÍDO LA ENTREVISTA, SABER QUE TODAVÍA ERES UN NIÑO DEL POR QUÉ. QUIZÁS CUANDO CREZCAS SERÁS UN BUEN ARQUITECTO CON TODOS TUS POR QUÉ. GRACIAS POR VIVIR Y SER UNA PERSONA TAN LINDA
February 7th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
[...] Read the rest of Deroy’s interview here! [...]