We, as the Designer Interviews ("DI") had the distinct pleasure and opportunity to interview award-winning, most creative and innovative Moataz Mohamed ("MM").
Moataz is a creative professional with comprehensive creative, art and design direction experience. He has worked for international and local brands and agencies and has a successful track record of team leadership and management. Throughout his career, Moataz’s work was published in several areas in the Middle East, including - but not limited to - Egypt, Dubai, Saudi Arabia.
Moataz Mohamed Designs
We are pleased to share with you original and innovative design work by Moataz Mohamed.
Designer Interview of Moataz Mohamed:
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?
MM : I’m an enterprising professional with comprehensive design direction and experience for global and national brands in a variety of international markets. I have a successful track record leading and coordinating teams that have delivered outstanding results in media markets for direct, interactive and integrated marketing campaigns. I’m a proactive, creative professional with strong interpersonal and managerial skills.
DI: Can you tell us more about your company / design studio?
MM : Throughout my twelve years career I have participated with teams in media markets for on-line and off-line campaigns and projects in which I have led and coordinated with clients and agencies in Egypt and the Middle East in design and production, on-line campaigns, logo creation, and corporate identity creation.
DI: What is "design" for you?
MM : Design is one thing that existed before humans did. I believe that from the arrangements of billions of stars in billions of galaxies to the living cell organisms, everything has been designed. Human life has been designed; the Earth has been designed. Science has been designed. Atoms are designed in certain ways which we call types of matter. Everything that you see, or you miss to see. The space between your eyes and the screen you’re reading this at, where you think you see nothing; has been designed. The point of all this is to simplify the things that you cannot observe and is really where good design lies.
DI: What kinds of works do you like designing most?
MM : Branding, Manipulation, Visuals, 360 campaigns, Radio, digital.
DI: What is your most favorite design, could you please tell more about it?
MM : Was for travel agency, The idea was to choose one of the most popular musical instruments known in Egypt (Egyptian Tambour) and connect it to one of the most famous stadiums in Russia (Luzhniki Stadium, Moscow) in a creative way to encourage people start booking tickets through Aquarius Travel Group to go to Russia in the upcoming World Cup 2018.
DI: What was the first thing you designed for a company?
MM : Logo and full brandi identity.
DI: What is your favorite material / platform / technology?
MM : Images, fonts, color retouching, 360 campaigns, adobe family.
DI: When do you feel the most creative?
MM : When I found an idea could be presented and designed based on truth and has a strong background of informations.
DI: Which aspects of a design do you focus more during designing?
MM : creativity, simplicity, typo, themes.
DI: What kind of emotions do you feel when you design?
MM : Passion, peaceful, thoughts.
DI: What kind of emotions do you feel when your designs are realized?
MM : Satisfaction, proudness.
DI: What makes a design successful?
MM : The idea and the simplicity of the execution.
DI: When judging a design as good or bad, which aspects do you consider first?
MM : The Idea behind the design, and the colors, then the execution.
DI: From your point of view, what are the responsibilities of a designer for society and environment?
MM : Design is about improving the life of the end user. The decisions we make in the early stages of the design process will affect the way people interact with the world around them, so responsibility for making ethical decisions as this stage is paramount.
DI: How do you think the "design field" is evolving? What is the future of design?
MM : Design field is evolving day by day, and the future design now is the theme of our generation (Social Media) it's fast and can be delivered on any device at any time like the oxygen in the air.
DI: When was your last exhibition and where was it? And when do you want to hold your next exhibition?
MM : I did not do any exhibitions before, but If I have the chance to do one, I would like to make it in Italy.
DI: Where does the design inspiration for your works come from? How do you feed your creativity? What are your sources of inspirations?
MM : From my background that I learned in the college, and through the years that I spend working on variety of global and local brands and clients, researches is always my source of inspirations and keeping updated with all the new designs all around the world.
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?
MM : I have my own style working on ATL and BTL campaigns, searching and thinking all the time for the greatest ideas and concepts, I love hard work on something big with team that have a variety of skills like illustration, 3D molding, motion graphics.. my approach is to keep always my designs elegant, neat, smart, unique.
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?
MM : I live in Egypt,Yes the cultural heritage of my country affects my designs on the local campaigns that related to tourism fro exampleThere is no cons I think because our culture full of a great history thousands of years ago.
DI: How do you work with companies?
MM : Full time, Part time, Freelancing.It depend on the offer but preferably full time with International agencies.
DI: What are your suggestions to companies for working with a designer? How can companies select a good designer?
MM : Studies, Skills, Experience, behavior.
DI: Can you talk a little about your design process?
MM : I do my own researches, Brief recap and brainstorming, Bring new ideas, Filtering the ideas, execution, presentation.
DI: What are 5 of your favorite design items at home?
MM : 1- My small implant vase2- My wall watch3- PARAVENT 4 PANEL INDIAN HAND CARVED WOODEN4- TV.5- Nespresso machine.
DI: Can you describe a day in your life?
MM : Wake up, drinking my coffee, preparing my kids with my wife to go to school, go to work with passion and happiness to create some new designs and think of new campaign ideas, then back home, spend the rest of the day with my family.
DI: Could you please share some pearls of wisdom for young designers? What are your suggestions to young, up and coming designers?
MM : Learn and learn and learnbe patienttake variety of courses as much as you cansee what you good at, and go for it
DI: From your perspective, what would you say are some positives and negatives of being a designer?
MM : You can become very valuable to a company when they know how you work and you understand what they mean.But a downside is that graphic designers are undervalued, and a lot of people think they know how to do your job. You’ll receive a lot of unsolicited advice, and will probably have to end up making many things you dislike.The programs that are used are very expensive, difficult to learn, and have different default shortcuts between them. Ctrl-Z, yes? Well, on Illustrator, but move to Photoshop and that’s Ctrl-Shift-Z.Finding a decent computer sucks, and if you make the mistake of buying a laptop for portable graphic design and it has fewer than 512mb of VRAM, you won’t be able to use all of the features.You might find yourself in a community of people who believes Mac is the best computer for graphic design, but then complaining over 128gbs of space and having their temporary files deleted because there isn’t enough space for them.Or you might have some people who swear by Windows, and mock all those who think of using Apple.There’s the stress of forgetting certain things, trying to keep things legal, not finding the right image or just not being happy with the work you are doing, plus people who expect you to be able to draw perfectly and code like a genius.Being a graphic designer has a lot more positive than negatives, but if you love it, then it is all worth it.
DI: What is your "golden rule" in design?
MM : Creativity and simplicity.
DI: What skills are most important for a designer?
MM : Creativity. You probably don't need us to spell it out for you, but let's drill this home: Creativity is one of, if not the most important skill for graphic designers. ...Communication. ...Typography. ...Adobe's creative apps. ...Interactive media. ...Coding. ...Branding. ...Delivering presentations.
DI: Which tools do you use during design? What is inside your toolbox? Such as software, application, hardware, books, sources of inspiration etc.?
MM : Adobe photoshopAdobe illustratorColor retoucjing programs.Mobile apps.Logo design and branding books.
DI: Designing can sometimes be a really time consuming task, how do you manage your time?
MM : I can arrange my time by organizing my deadline one by one and take the fair time to make the right flow for each project.
DI: How long does it take to design an object from beginning to end?
MM : It depend on the object,For example if we are talking about a logo, from 2 to 4 days.
DI: What is the most frequently asked question to you, as a designer?
MM : How do you see my design before doing it.
DI: What was your most important job experience?
MM : Studio Manager / Art Director
DI: Who are some of your clients?
MM : - Mercedes- Toyota- Honda- Samsung- LG- Alians- Nestle- Pirelle- Fuddreckers
DI: What type of design work do you enjoy the most and why?
MM : - Manipulation,Because it feels me like I can present a lot of elements in one beautiful nice visual shot.
DI: What are your future plans? What is next for you?
MM : - Expanding my career- Win more Awards- Learning all what is new.
DI: Do you work as a team, or do you develop your designs yourself?
MM : I do both, working with a team and some time by my self.
DI: Do you have any works-in-progress being designed that you would like to talk about?
MM : My Last Campaign for (Morris Garages) MG6 - Car 2018Lunching Campaign 2018 - Saudi ArabiaHeadline: A Car that fits all the occasionshttps://www.behance.net/gallery/76439379/MG-6-Lunching-Campaign
DI: How can people contact you?
MM : Email: moataz.creative@gmail.com, Cell phone: +020100 127 3660https://www.behance.net/MoatazCreative
DI: Any other things you would like to cover that have not been covered in these questions?
MM : Thank you