alex trochut interview

alex trochut interview

the spanish illustrator and graphic designer alex trochut told us more about his work.

DB: please could you tell us about your background?
AT: I studied graphic design in elisava, barcelona. my first jobs were in berlin, at moniteurs and xplicit. then I went back to barcelona where I worked at toormix and vasava. since 2007 I’ve been freelancing and mostly focusing on illustration and lettering. a year ago I switched barcelona for new york.

DB: what’s been the biggest influence on your work?
AT: the people closest to me. the great masters of american graphic design such as herb lubalin, saul bass, milton glaser and paul rand. mediterranean artists like pablo picasso, joan miró and salvador dalí. wizards of geometry like victor vasarely, carlos cruz-diez, or m. c. escher. and pop artists and like roy lichtenstein, andy warhol, jeff koons, KAWS. I also like very much the work of illustrators rick griffin and jim phillips.

varoom magazine cover (front and back)

hyper spectrum for beautiful decay

DB: how would you describe your work to someone who hasn’t seen it before?
AT: my work is expressive. it’s often highly detailed but the overall image is clean. I have a tendency to mix geometric and fluid forms. ambiguity and duality are also recurrent themes in my concepts as are letters, numbers and symbols.

DB: how did you come to develop the complex style of typography demonstrated in a lot of your work?
AT: for me it’s very important to try do same things in terms of images but in different ways or styles, this is sometimes the goal and concept itself. often the most challenging part of the process is to figure out the methodology. I try to get lost, discover happy accidents and break my routines. normally it’s hard to find a client that likes to experiment and take the risks that this process implies, so usually I collect my ‘accidents’ and save them for the right occasion.

kicks like boom for pepsi

estrella damm poster

beercelona bottle for barcelona beer company

DB: how would you describe the evolution in your work?
AT: the most important goal for me when I started to design was to make an impact, through direct, bold images. highlighting an that a good deal of time had been spent creating them. I worked a lot on details to make a very intricate compositions. now I’m looking to achieve a less artificial result, for something more spontaneous in it’s aesthetic but still with a direct, strong impact. if we think of images as flavors, before I was cooking with sweeter ingredients, but now I’m trying to achieve a bitter taste – a flavor that you develop a craving for.

example of a binary print poster

book cover for trochut’s monograph, which features a design invisible during daylight

DB: what has been your most satisfying project to date?
AT: binary prints, which is a self-funded personal project that I launched last year. it is a printing technique that I patented, which allows you to print two completely different images on the same surface – one visible in light the other in the dark. it was the first time that I’ve invested so much time and efforts on a personal project, and it has been very rewarding for me, especially the fact that it forced me to step into a zone where I didn’t feel safe and to look at things from a different point of view; one that was less commercial.

RAW alphabet

rolling stones album artwork

DB: how do you think the vast amount of online resources for illustration have influenced the profession?
AT: I think the amount of images and documentation we are exposed to is affecting the way we think and we navigate throughout our memory, making us face an overwhelming immensity of options, making us less focus and changing the way we concentrate. I cant remember the last time I was able to work for four hours in a row. but all this information and access is allowing us to add more into the creative mix, in that sense I believe it’s a very exciting time.

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DB: is there a certain type of project you would like to work on in the future?
AT: I’m looking forward to doing more personal projects and more art projects.

DB: do you think a graphic designer should be able to draw well?
AT: it’s not necessary, but it definitely does no harm. in the end, a hand is the most reliable tool you can have, it keeps evolving if you train it, it doesn’t need software updates, works without electricity and it can really define the way you express yourself.

creative review magazine cover