Name and location?
Pascal Tremblay, and I live in Montreal, Canada.
Mac or PC?
PC.
What do you do to relax?
I Llsten to music or play games, I also love to travel.
Which living designer/artist do you most and admire, and why?
David Carson, for inspiring me to take the road I took 8 years ago and for always doing what he wanted to do. Jennifer Sterling, for being such a great designer, she definitely is an inspiration.
What would you consider your ideal project?
I always love to work on CD packagings, as they combine music and art together, and are usually very creative and limitless in possibilities. The ideal project would be for a band that I feel a close affinity to, like Keane for example, where the sounds would guide my work naturally and not feel forced.
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Professionally, being able to make a living with freelance work, and creating opportunities for myself out of nothing. I wasn't sure I'd be able to do it, and working for an agency is not my preference. Freelance isn't for everyone, it can be very stressful. On the personal side, meeting my fiancee online 8 years ago and then going to Malaysia last year to be with her would be on top of the list. It was a very tough road, but we made it, as she now lives with me here!
Tell us about a piece of work, how would you describe it?
http://www.makeshift.ca/art/blur52/
I did this piece in late 2006. As is usually the case with my personal work, it's an introspective piece. As for what it represents, with this kind of project I always prefer to let people decide what the meaning behind the image is. That's something I always aim to do, tell something without it being definite or without room for personal interpretation. For me personally it has a deep meaning, and every element in it is a part of that. Every thing I put into those images, wether it's just a circle, a line, or a letter, has a meaning for me. I like to leave all those things in the air for people to make their own story with it.
Is this piece of work commissioned or experimental?
It's for myself. I don't have as much time for these as I did before, unfortunately. I would like to create a book with just personal work soon, it would be a lot of fun, and something I have wanted to do for years.
Talk us through some of the processes involved in producing the work, and have you used similar techniques before?
I rarely start with a clear idea of what I want to do. My work technique has always been very improvised and without concise planning. I'll put music on and bit by bit I'll build something bigger. I usually complete a piece like this in multiple sessions. I only work on them when I feel inspired, I never do when it's forced. I'll only know when it's done when I look at it and it feels right, I don't exactly know why it does or doesn't, I just use my intuition to know.
On the technical side, I used both digital and print materials to create the piece in Photoshop. Much like my thought process, my technique is very random and driven by the same intuition, I couldn't really list out the steps I used.
I call it the "Create & Adjust" technique, as in both the concept and technical sides of what I do are created piece by piece, at seperate times and places, and I connect all those little dots together by adjusting each one accordingly. It's very modular in the way I approach it, there's no one idea or one way of creating them, it changes constantly, and that is on purpose. I like to create a wide landscape where everything is up to the viewer to decide, and my technical approach helps in that aspect, I believe.
What have you learnt during producing this piece of work?
I wouldn't say I learnt anything specific doing this one, but over time I have learnt to be much more efficient at what I do. I work faster and can develop my concepts better, but as everything else there's always more to learn and improve on. That's a great aspect of graphic design - it's endless in possibilities.
How would you best describe your style?
As I like to do with the pieces I make, I'll leave that interpretation to the person that views my work.