Sophie Douala

Any hilarious stories about you as a kid being creative?

When I was young I wanted to become a fashion designer and I remember this phase (around 8-10 years old) when I started to personalise every possible items I owned with graffiti and drawings. One day my mum gave me a beautiful leather bag she had since her early adulthood to play with and I remember grabbing a marker & adding tags of my name all around (that btw I would write “Sofy”…). It's only a few years later, when I stumbled into that bag again that I thought: What a shame! lol

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

When I started my career as an independent designer, I didn’t think of branding my image and simply used my name. But recently, I started to question this topic & felt the desire to explore more deeply my artist persona. Changing my name now, would not really make sense for my activity, but I thought like having an alias would be a fun way to give me new rooms for playground.

So I recently came up with a second name — Songa333. Songa is my third name (Sophie Elise Songa), it comes from Cameroon and was also the name of my grand grand mother in my dad’s side. I feel like secondaries names are quite weird because they usually have meanings for those who pick them but you never really get to appropriate them. So, I felt like reclaiming some of my story and creating links between the past and the future. And then, 3 is my favourite number. I can’t explain why I feel very linked to it since ever I remember. I also keep stumbling into it in many forms. Thus, you probably understand what i feel for triple 3 :)

Last but not least, since I live in Germany, I intended to pronounce the numbers in german: “Songa drei drei drei“ - which adds another layer in the space / time of what it represents to me.

Give us the elevator pitch on what you do.

I am a creative designer and visual artist specialised in art direction & illustration. I tend to say that my work has multi-facets, it started with a graphic design background and later on, an approach more artistic was added. I am passionate about forms, colours and how infinite combinations and structures can be created with simple elements. I explore by means of the graphic language: concepts, sensations, feelings and emotions as artworks and for clients. My work is often described as playful, however, I bring a lot of importance to the meaning of what I am exploring even if its not so obvious in the end piece.

Through my practice, my main intention is to bring openness to my audience. We’re overload by manipulative imagery and messages and I am trying to step back to something that could be experienced gently like a soft vision or a dream.

Where do you think design is heading in the next five years and how will you adapt?

I think you can already feel this new wave where advanced technologies & science are interfering. Projects are more and more complex in terms of resources & production. Using sensors, AI, live 3D mapping, hologram… I feel like we’re getting more and more in an era where we’ll get to experience design in a more immersive way. TeamLab Borderless in Tokyo is a great example of immersive and interactive exploration of design. I didn’t get to experience it personally but it feels like basically entering a new dimension. So, I think the future is in programming! Even if you want to focus in print design, programming offers such a huge playground to present and promote your work.