We, as the Designer Interviews ("DI") had the distinct pleasure and opportunity to interview award-winning, most creative and innovative Kenarköse Creative ("KC").
Kenarköse Creative is an award-winning designer that helps make the World a better place with their original and innovative creations and advanced design works.
Kenarköse Creative Designs
We are pleased to share with you original and innovative design work by Kenarköse Creative.
Kenarköse Creative Design - ODTU Sanat 20 Visual Identity Design
Kenarköse Creative Design - Tualcom Logo and Brand Identity
Designer Interview of Kenarköse Creative:
DI: Could you please tell us more about your art and design background? What made you become an artist/designer? Have you always wanted to be a designer?
KC : Kenarköşe Creative has a slightly different background as a creative agency. It is founded by two architects, who are passionate about design. Now our team consists of three architects and a product designer and we all graduated from the same school. Having similar design educations give us the chance to communicate better in design jobs. Becoming a designer wasn’t a childhood dream for any of us but the urge to create was always there. After digging the past a little, we found out that the founders actually wanted to become architects since they were kids.
DI: Can you tell us more about your company / design studio?
KC : Kenarköşe is a multidisciplinary creative studio that aims to find inclusive and effective design solutions in different scales. Works of Kenarköşe synthesize strategic thinking with the creative vision in different fields such as graphics and identity, architecture and interior design, exhibition, digital media, websites, and product design.
DI: What is "design" for you?
KC : Design is many things but if we have to choose one, design is the visualization of the combination of different emotions you feel at the same time, mostly positive ones.
DI: What kinds of works do you like designing most?
KC : We like to work on projects where we can design brand identity and space identity together.
DI: What is your most favorite design, could you please tell more about it?
KC : It is hard to choose but our favorites so far are the two projects we submitted to A Design Award: Tualcom Logo and Brand Identity and ODTÜ Sanat 20. Both were very challenging projects and we are very proud of the final products.
DI: What was the first thing you designed for a company?
KC : We built a visual identity for ODTÜ Sanat 16, an annually held art and culture festival by the university that all of us graduated from, Middle East Technical University. The festival is centered around an exhibition under the established theme of the year and is supported by various cultural events like concerts, theatres that last about a month.
DI: Which aspects of a design do you focus more during designing?
KC : Building a strong foundation is very important to achieve a good design. In order to achieve that we focus on defining the context of the project: for which company we are designing, what is the field, who is the target, what is the problem our client is facing. This context shapes our design and makes it unique.
DI: What kind of emotions do you feel when you design?
KC : There is always excitement while creating something new. But also, tension, cause each person in the office is so critical. This is an important step in our design process because we criticize the designs very intensely before doing a presentation to the client.
DI: What kind of emotions do you feel when your designs are realized?
KC : Excited and emotional! Especially directly seeing the final products like prints or interior it gives us so much joy.
DI: When judging a design as good or bad, which aspects do you consider first?
KC : Whether it gives the right message to its users/audience.
DI: How do you think the "design field" is evolving? What is the future of design?
KC : Thanks to technological innovations, we can access to a wide range of design work. Also, designers can exchange ideas through online platforms. This makes the design field interactive and international. In addition to that, the rising technologies such as VR and AI expands our horizon in the ways we can’t even imagine before. Shortly, it is accelerating so fast and we need to speed up to catch it.
DI: How would you describe your design style? What made you explore more this style and what are the main characteristics of your style? What's your approach to design?
KC : We don’t like limiting ourselves with a significant style. Our approach in our projects is to use a minimum number of elements to describe the most. This approach helps us achieve a timeless design piece.
DI: Where do you live? Do you feel the cultural heritage of your country affects your designs? What are the pros and cons during designing as a result of living in your country?
KC : Kenarköşe is located in Ankara, Turkey. We feel the formal soul of the Capital has adverse side effects on us as a creative agency. As designers, we need to free our minds to achieve our most creative version. Unfortunately, the city doesn’t seek for the “most creative”. That’s why we always have to push our limits to achieve the most. The cultural heritage of Turkey is very layered with lots of civilizations lived in this land. Even though we don’t do traditional designs, it affects the way we think and see things.
DI: What are your suggestions to companies for working with a designer? How can companies select a good designer?
KC : Companies have to express themselves and their needs clearly to designers, this is the most important step. Additionally, they have to accept the fact that to achieve a good and practical design company/client has to be willing to work with the designer in terms of expressing their critics clearly instead of simply saying “no”.
DI: Could you please share some pearls of wisdom for young designers? What are your suggestions to young, up and coming designers?
KC : We are still young and in the process of improving ourselves. But one thing we learned is improving sales and marketing skills are as important as your design skills. If you can’t convince the client about the quality and uniqueness of your design, shortly if you can’t sell your design, it can’t achieve its final goal.
DI: What skills are most important for a designer?
KC : Communication, persuasiveness, being a good observer and a researcher.
DI: Designing can sometimes be a really time consuming task, how do you manage your time?
KC : Deadlines are essential for the time management of a designer. It makes you think faster and more effectively. There is always a better idea, so knowing when to stop is important. We divide our time into pieces. Understanding the client and developing a context is the first part. Research and developing the idea is the second part. And combining these two into a design is the last part. Doing this planning, we try to create ourselves some “me times” to not to get lost in time.
DI: What is the most frequently asked question to you, as a designer?
KC : A classic: Can we make the logo bigger? :)
DI: What was your most important job experience?
KC : The most important project we did is the design works of the last four ODTÜsanat festivals. It is the art festival of the school we graduated from, Middle East Technical University and it is an important arts and culture activity for Ankara.
DI: What are your future plans? What is next for you?
KC : The next step is getting a role in international projects.
DI: Do you work as a team, or do you develop your designs yourself?
KC : We design individually but develop it as a team. The ideas of everyone in the design team is very important to shape the design. So the final product belongs to the team.
DI: Do you have any works-in-progress being designed that you would like to talk about?
KC : Actually we have a very exciting product design project going on right now but we are not allowed to talk iabout its details yet.
DI: How can people contact you?
KC : Via email to info@kenarkose.com