Wonderful colour palettes, fun illustrations, and getting experimental with ceramics—Tim Colmant chats with us about how his love for skate brands got him started in this creative field. Read on to hear about how Tim got started and some awesome bit of advice he has for those just getting going!
What are some of your earliest creative memories and what lead you into design?
Speaking of design or creating, I would say that when I was a child, I was heavily drawing and my mother still has a big box of some hidden gems from my childhood. I go check them from time to time. It’s nice to check those things where you where totally free and with out of all the rules that you fix yourself later on. Getting back to this state is a great goal!
When did you fall in love with design and how did you get started?
When I was a teenager, I was into skateboarding. I was really bad at it but, I was really into those skateboard brands. Like the Enjoi panda brand or the Krooked one. That’s was my first introduction to design and just being driven to this imagery. Then I started checking for the artist or graphic designer behind those brands, and the madness started. So at first, graphic design was just something cool. Let’s keep it that way !
Give us the elevator pitch on what you do.
I’m a freelance graphic designer, illustrator and sometimes I do art shows with ceramics or stupid drawings. I have been lucky enough to work for different fields and brands. From Penny skateboard to a local Brussel circus school or clothes brand.
Any passion projects you would like to share?
Ceramics and some more art stuff. I would love to spend more time on those. Especially since my graduating project was ceramics. I really love this aspect of being from a total different background (graphic design) I try to do art or ceramics. Because ceramics is really complicated, long and a precise process. Really the opposite of todays graphic design world, which gives a lot of space of interpretation and errors. Errors are great!
"... there's a lot of space of interpretation and errors. Errors are great!"
What career advice would you give your 16yr old self?
When I was 16 years old I wanted to be a journalist but then I did one year at a communication school and didn’t like it. For any 16 years old people, I would just stay try what you want, you will see really quickly if you like it or not. There is plenty of possibility so don’t be afraid to fail or change.
What advice would you give students starting out?
Be brave and don’t give up, it’s really important at the beginning to work as much as you can, even for free at the beginning but if so, you must have a total control of the creative point. So you do what you really wanna do. Then if it’s good, people are gonna notice and start to ask you to work for them, and for money this time. Sounds stilly but hard work always pays off.
