We, as the Designer Interviews ("DI") had the distinct pleasure and opportunity to interview award-winning, most creative and innovative Tiago & Tania ("T&T").
Tiago & Tania is an award-winning designer that helps make the World a better place with their original and innovative creations and advanced design works.
Tiago & Tania Designs
We are pleased to share with you original and innovative design work by Tiago & Tania.
Tiago & Tania Design - U15 Photographic Series
Designer Interview of Tiago & Tania:
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?
T&T : My adventure in the world of art starts when I and my partner Tania began the creation of projects oriented to capture and represent remarkable city cultures. We both love the image, the method to create it and communicate with it. One day we decided to create something new for us, giving our travels a purpose. In the beginning, we have had just an intuition of what to do. I remember our first project, M.A.A.T., which is a photographic series of a building that changes its skin color across the day. It was the spark that brought us the fire. After that, we decided to amplify our idea and apply it to a town with a culture pretty marked culture. Chefchaouen gave us that opportunity, and our project The Blue Pearl reached more than 50ME of interactions. After The Blue Pearl publication, we received a lot of contacts and proposals. Our growth advanced more spontaneous.
DI: Can you tell us more about your company / design studio?
T&T : Tiago&Tania is the name of our artistic-duo. We started working with this name to simplify and reference our photographic collections. We are working as a duo since January 2019. Together we achieved various mentions and awards, bringing our series worldwide. Now we work with the art curator Vera Canevazzi, who is providing a more comprehensive service around our art pieces.
DI: What is "design" for you?
T&T : All the visual languages convey something, and our art is part of that process. It is a form of expression to share our ideas, our concepts.
DI: What kinds of works do you like designing most?
T&T : Our large plan consists of collect and shares the beauties of the last cultures that are not globalized. We also love to capture architecture buildings and structures. We created images for products recently. It was a likable experience.
DI: What is your favorite material / platform / technology?
T&T : We love work in raw, without filters and artificial lights. The Raw file gives us considerable control of the digital file during post-production. Our post-production is variable, depending on the concept we want to share. Mostly we use lightroom, which is enough to reach the desired image. Sometimes we combine it with Photoshop or Affinity Photo to achieve a different result.
DI: When do you feel the most creative?
T&T : Inspiration comes in the most strange situations. Sometimes during a meeting, a shower, during the night. There is not a specific moment. We feel it like a connection, that furnishes to you the conviction to start that new project.
DI: Which aspects of a design do you focus more during designing?
T&T : As picky perfectionists, we both love to have a full focus on each step of the project. Since the photographic frame choice to the color correction, ending with the print, we follow every single step with attention to obtaining the desired result. Rather than accepting a compromise, we prefer to postpone the operation until we find the solution that matches our idea. That could be frustrating sometimes because of the timing extension. An episode of that was when we were looking for a printer partner wich could reproduce in the photography prints the same blue of Chefchaouen. We spent a lot of money during months, to find the right one. After a long while, we traveled to Firenze to meet a company suggested by a friend. In the end, we obtained a result that was like we have imagined it, so it worthed.
DI: What kind of emotions do you feel when you design?
T&T : The process of creation can let you feel a lot of emotions. Maybe, the most common for us could are curiosity, satisfaction, surprise, nostalgia, hungry, fear, happiness.
DI: What kind of emotions do you feel when your designs are realized?
T&T : When you conclude a project, you feel relieved, free, and restored to start a new one. We never felt satisfied until now. Many times, after a while, we re-edit a project to update our style according to new visual experiences.
DI: What makes a design successful?
T&T : That's a good question. There are a lot of components that could help your design to achieve success. Before starting a project, we work a lot on our inspiration, having a look at a lot of similar projects, what they have done, and why. Learning from others is crucial. Various times, in the field, we try to imitate images earlier seen. This approach helps us to understand the decisions of other artists and evaluate how to face up with local challenges.
DI: When judging a design as good or bad, which aspects do you consider first?
T&T : In our opinion, it's relevant to consider its originality and the creative process. It is also essential to have a deep background in the field to give the most comprehensive evaluation.
DI: From your point of view, what are the responsibilities of a designer for society and environment?
T&T : One of the designer's tasks today is no longer just to pause and propose ideas, but to put them into practice by integrating them into people's everyday life. In a society that is internalizing the importance of sustainability, the artist has to express its message with a sustainable, positive, and proactive format. It means that he has interiorized the purpose, and he has not a contrast between his philosophy and his actions.
DI: How do you think the "design field" is evolving? What is the future of design?
T&T : The role of the artist, as well as the designer, have a crucial importance today because they have to answer various types of daily needs. The world is in a constant, speedy progression. This path will always require extra effort from creativity to provide new and diverse solutions. We see our role taking on an increasingly defined and targeted importance, where the interaction with multiple disciplines will become usual, by operating in a synergy that offers extraordinary answers, more focused than ever.
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?
T&T : Our approach to art has always been direct and free from trends and opinions. The characteristics of our work lie in the representation of what captures our attention and curiosity. We express a positive reality, where beauty is captured and magnified. Research that aims to show the best part of our society and to represent it with a fresh style, often containing meanings, of sought-after messages aimed at mind-stimulating.
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?
T&T : The cultural background, earned by living in a defined place, has an indirect influence on the artist's way of expression. We live in Milan, a highly evolved metropolis in the world of design. We are lucky to experience its constant growth, evolution. Milan, due to its urban life, helped us to collect highly know-how. We believe, however, that this know-how could become a con. A more structured base, often, could become a filter for unusual situations, by preventing you from living them purely.
DI: Could you please share some pearls of wisdom for young designers? What are your suggestions to young, up and coming designers?
T&T : As young artists, we can recommend to those who have a dream and want to make it happen is to believe in their ideas and never give up. Facing the different tests that life puts before us, resisting without compromising, remain faithful to your ideas to carry them forward.
DI: From your perspective, what would you say are some positives and negatives of being a designer?
T&T : We still remember time ago, the difficult to live with uncertainty and occasional job opportunities, especially in the early periods. As you grow and gain more experience, the first satisfactions start to arrive. For us, the best satisfaction is when your art piece is recognized.
DI: What skills are most important for a designer?
T&T : In our view, the most important thing for an artist is intuition, which is the ability to find the best part of an idea, a project, a subject, and give it the right value.
DI: Which tools do you use during design? What is inside your toolbox? Such as software, application, hardware, books, sources of inspiration etc.?
T&T : To carry out our work, we use different types of photographic equipment, changing the camera body, lenses, and equipment support according to the project. For post-production, we use software like Lightroom, Photoshop, and similar. We are used to spending part of our time on channels connected to the world of art and design, such as Behance, Fubiz, Colossal, and others. Through these sites, we often find incentives and inspirations to keep us creative.
DI: Designing can sometimes be a really time consuming task, how do you manage your time?
T&T : All projects stem from our inspiration without time constraints. Sometimes, if we are not satisfied, we take more time to work on a project until we get the desired result.
DI: How long does it take to design an object from beginning to end?
T&T : Usually, to create a photographic architectural project, we necessitate for about one month. We use that time to investigate the surroundings, execute the photoshoot, and eventually organize a second shot, select the most suitable photographs, and lastly, edit the selection. Differently, our projects dedicated to photographing other cultures take longer. It usually takes about six months to complete a series. Sometimes, instead, a project may take even longer to find the right communication key, which will allow us to interpret and valorize it in a better way.
DI: What is the most frequently asked question to you, as a designer?
T&T : The most recurring asked question is: "What do you do as an artist?". Often, people don't understand the state of the artist. For this reason, many of them need to associate our role to a more substantial function.
DI: What type of design work do you enjoy the most and why?
T&T : We like all those projects which let us live new experiences, increasing our know-how, and fill our curiosity and creativity. It happens, above all, when we face up a new culture or a peculiar subject.
DI: What are your future plans? What is next for you?
T&T : We would like to improve our status as artists because we want to share our message to a larger target. We believe that art can strongly influence people's acts. This fact motivates us, as creatives, to share our statement and continue inventing new and inspiring art pieces.
DI: Do you work as a team, or do you develop your designs yourself?
T&T : Our artistic-duo borns in 2019. We share the vision of the world that, through the mix of our complementary languages, gives life to our art. This mix obtained exceptional results in a pretty short period.
DI: Do you have any works-in-progress being designed that you would like to talk about?
T&T : We have a lot of projects on standby due to the Covid-19 situation. In particular, we are finishing three projects. Matera, which is one of our most recent photoshoots. The White Skeleton, whose subject is a building near the recently awarded U15. Last but not least, Nestle's headquarters on which we are still looking for the fittest approach. Our upcoming plans include several journeys fo photograph pretty awesome subjects. We would like to remember an expected voyage to Marrakech for the creation of the Rosso Marrakech's series. Another planned trip is to Portugal to photograph the location of Costa Nova, a remarkable village, excellent for a photographic cultural project. We have also organized a journey to visit Calpe, aiming to shoot the legendary Muralla Roja and a visit to the Carrara boulders, to produce an abstract series on its peculiar marble. We are collecting numerous spots on our website, where people can submit new and inspiring locations around the world.
DI: How can people contact you?
T&T : It is easy to contact us. You can go through our web site www.tiagoetania.com, on the contacts page, you will find all the information for every need.