BWD Marketing Podcast – Alexia Cost

Interviewer: Welcome back to the BWD Marketing Podcast. Today I’ve got with me Lexy, one of our superstar designers. Lexy, how are you doing?

Lexy: I’m good, [inaudible 00:00:23], thank you. And you?

Interviewer: I’m fantastic. So, Lexy, could you just give us a brief rundown of where you’re from, where did you study, that kind of thing?

Lexy: I am from Joburg, born and raised here, I went to Wits University in my first two years I did a fine art degree there for four years, I did an honors. Within that, my main subjects were of course fine arts, I did other things like design and drawing classes, dabbled a little bit in animation, some web design classes as well, very rudimentary. And a lot of exhibition, exhibition stuff. Yeah, very different sort of world.

Interviewer: So, throughout your studies you’ve just mentioned quite a few classes that you’ve taken. In terms of what you do specifically at BWD, what does a normal day entail?

Lexy: So at BWD I’m labeled as a designer, which basically means I do web design, I do logos, corporate identities, can even stretch into things like campaign pictures. My day could even start with clients coming in for training. There’s so many different things.

Interviewer: So, Lexy, tell us what are some of the activities you enjoy doing at the office and in your spare time.

Lexy: So, at work, although we’re predominantly web-based, I really enjoying doing mainly the logo designs and corporate identities. I don’t mind training clients, it can get a little bit energy draining sometimes but it’s nice to be able to pass on your knowledge to other people. And we also do some blog writing at BWD and I really enjoy that part of my days as well.

At home I try…I do a lot of reading, I really do love it, which filters into a little bit of writing as well. I love doing some drawing when I have some spare time as well, I love illustrating. Yeah, so those are the main things I suppose. Also I think at home another thing of course from studying is I don’t get a lot of time to do art anymore but where I can, I do sort of that, try and do a little bit here and there.

Interviewer: Double-deck…

Lexy: Yeah.

Interviewer: So, Lexy, what are some of the challenges that you face in your career thus far?

Lexy: I think the biggest challenge has been because I went to art school and not design school. So a lot of the time my first instinct is to jump straight into the physicality of the work and even try it out in different mediums. As a designer, I don’t get the opportunity or the time to do a lot of that. So I’ve had to adapt very quickly and learn to work more efficiently. When you’re in art school, you have projects that span over months and when you’re a professional artist, those months turn into years on just a single concept. When you’re a designer, those time frames shrink into a couple of hours, a couple of days. So that I think has been a learning curve for me.

Interviewer: So, Lexy, I know every creative has their own kind of perspective that they bring to each project and their own unique style. What do you think is one of your defining characteristics as a creative?

Lexy: I think from the onset, it’s my ability to approach projects purely conceptually from the start. This is just coming from my training at Wits, they’re very different in comparison to say Cape Town where you’ve got very traditional modes of art happening. In Joburg and at Wits, it’s very much about the ideas and the concept more so than about the end product. And so I think that would be my defining factor is just learning to think about the project before jumping into it, I suppose.

Interviewer: Now, I know every creative has their own design resources and that kind of thing. What are some of the things that you do personally to grow you as a creative and in your own personal capacity?

Lexy: So a lot of this happens mainly at home in your spare time, purely because during work it’s…you know, you learn from that as well and projects that you do but your spare time I think is where you capitalize on your growth. And things I do during that time would be just trying to draw whenever I can. I do a lot of reading, sort of get into bed at night and I’ve got my laptop in front of me, going through some PDF or other…

On top of that, it’s just your software and tutorials as well, trying to keep up to date with the latest that’s going on. I mean, with technology these days everything is always updating. So I try to keep on top of that as much as I can.

Interviewer: So building that technical skill?

Lexy: Yeah.

Interviewer: So in the near future, where do you see Lexy?

Lexy: So I’ve in the last couple of years become very interested in branding and I’d like to very much pursue that a little bit further and that would include just building on stuff like logos, brand identity, corporate identity. I really love print work, I know everyone’s very into digital but I think there’s still something to be said for the traditional quality that is in print. There’s so much you can do with it. I think people also enjoy seeing things physically, still. So there’s that. And then I think my other main thing would be just trying to bridge the gap between what is art and what is design. I feel like too often it’s looked as a separate thing and I hope in a lot of my work that I can start to bridge the two concepts together as I continue to work.

Interviewer: Well, Lexy, I thank you for your time, I think we’ve learned quite a lot.

Lexy: Thank you.

Interviewer: Join us next time for the BWD Marketing Podcast.