Born by Subtraction

Where did you study and what were some of your first jobs?

I’m from Sweden, so I did my first semester at Berghs School of Communication in Stockholm and finished my Bachelor at Billy Blue College of Design in Sydney. My first experience in the design industry was at Interbrand where I did an internship over the summer while studying, my first paid job was a freelance designer at Billy Blue College of Design (Think Education). My first role as a junior designer was at e2 Experiential Environments; this included a lot of corporate design work as well as signage and graphics for spaces.

What did you do while you were studying to prepare you for the design industry?

I took part in lots of activities and industry events, talked to people in the industry, took initiatives both at uni and outside of it. I also held/curated an exhibition called ‘A Love Brief’ together with my previous lecturer, now my business partner.

How did you name your practice and what does the name represent to you?

My business partner bought the domain for our business years before we started. Born By Subtraction stands for ‘removing what is not essential to purpose’, and it is how we operate our business and our design practice.

Talk us through a typical working day include for you right now.

• Get up and exercise straight away. I find this helps clear my mind and elevate my energy levels during the day. Coffee number one. While the coffee is kicking in, I get through admin and emails to plan my day, and try to manage my dogs' first energy burst!

• I usually get the smaller jobs out of the way, before I get on a morning conference call (WIP) with my business partner in Bali. We discuss our joint game-plan for the day, which usually also involves a good amount of shit-/pep-talking.

• Coffee number two to keep me running to lunch, while doing a bit more of design work until I get ‘hangry’.

• More work, take my dogs for a proper walk, and work until I’m not productive anymore.

• To finish the day I wrap it up with some sales or social scheduling.

I work from home most of the time so I start my mornings early as they are my most productive time, which means that I can finish a little earlier: work/life balance!

Our work at the moment ranges from branding, packaging, website UI design, reports and social media content.