Jorrit van Rijt is an amazing graphic designer from Utrecht, the Netherlands. His inspirations come to life in the form of typography, posters and digital art – all infused in wonderful colors and form. This interview highlights the story and passion behind his every work. Read on and be inspired by this talented designer!
Hi Jorrit. We’d like to know more about you. Can you tell us a little bit of your background as a graphic designer? How did you get started and what were your influences?
As a child a have always loved to draw. When I wasn’t playing outside, I would grab my pencil and draw for hours, highly concentrated. It was then when I already realized that I wanted to do something creative as a grown-up. I think that’s how it starts with most of the graphic designers. Only when I was young, there weren’t so many influences from digital media as there are now. The first time I got known with programmes like Photoshop and Illustrator was during my first year at the Royal Academy of Art in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands. It was also the first time I ran into Mac computers. When I went to my second year, and chose graphic design as my direction, I got my first Mac. An Imac, the first one. It gave me a lot of freedom and opportunities to create what I wanted. It was Photoshop 5 (!) in which I got my first ‘digital classes’. My Artschool really focused on the personal development as a designer. My most important lesson back then was to see as much creativeness around me as I could and to form my own opinion about what I saw. To become a better designer, you not only have to know what you like, it’s even more important to know what you don’t like and why that is. It takes time to discover who you are as a designer and what you would like to share with the ‘outside world’. It took me a couple of years before I realized that my designs got better because of the absorption of the things around me that were intriguing to me as a person and as a graphic designer. And it was only in my second ‘third year’ (I felt I needed to develop myself more before entering the exam class) when I first realized the importance of typography. So above all: personal development is the key stone to become a better designer in my opinion…
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