Sitting Down with Janik Baumgartner

Here at Culture Milk we’re lucky to know, and work with very talented graphic designers. We thought it would be a good thing for our readers to get to know them as well. I asked Janik Baumgartner if he would be willing to hang out for a few minutes and answer some of our questions. He graciously accepted.

Culture Milk – Hey Janik! Can you tell us where you’re from and what you do currently?

Janik Baumgartner – Hey, thanks a lot for having me! I’m a 19-year-old graphic designer from Germany. I’m still going to school and will (hopefully) be finishing my ‘Abitur’ and thus graduating in the next couple of months.

For a few years now, I’ve been designing icons and other graphics for myself, the (MacThemes) community and my clients. When I’m done with school, I’d like to continue freelancing for a bit while looking for other options, since I haven’t made up my mind about my future yet and quite enjoy many aspects about being a freelancer, even though you end up spending more time dealing with client-relations, writing invoices and marketing yourself in order to get new clients than with doing actual design work.

CM – Sounds great except for having to deal with invoices. I know how that can be. How many years have you been designing? Did you have formal training, or are you self-taught?

JB – I started using Photoshop about four years ago, shortly after I bought my first Mac, a low-spec Mac mini. Even though I had been ‘modding’ my desktop on Windows before, using a Mac made me become more interested in the design of the OS, apps, and later basically everything in life. After releasing a TextEdit icon replacement I initially made for a friend on MacThemes, I was surprised about the amount of feedback I received and was very happy to see that other people actually enjoyed my work. A short while and some other icon releases later, I received an email from a young developer, asking me to create the application icon for his upcoming media-sorting app. I had never thought about making money with these icons before and, needless to say, was excited about my first project with a client. That’s how I it all started.

At least 90% of my knowledge is self-taught. I have never been a fan of most online-tutorials, because more often than not, they don’t really explain the steps but rather tell you what to do – this way you don’t learn what exactly you’re doing and where else I can use what you just ‘learned’. In the beginning, most of the time I really just experimented with Photoshop’s features and tried to recreate some of my favorite icons until I actually knew what I was doing. The biggest and most important step was figuring out the Pen tool and Masks. You can’t really work without these two features.

CM – What are some of your other interests outside of design?

JB – With school and my freelance work, I usually don’t have too much free time. But when I do, I enjoy watching good movies and TV shows, reading books on my iPad, or just listening to music and relaxing. Occasionally, I will start up the PS3 and play some FIFA ‘12, but that’s about the only game I play on any device. Once a week I play football (soccer), which is also the best thing to watch on television.

CM – Is there anything you’re currently working on that you’d like to share?

JB – I have been meaning to change my website design for quite a while now, but can’t come up with a design I love more than my current one. I have a few designs I like, but all of them are lacking something special. There are also a couple of side-projects I’m working on with a friend, but nothing that’s worth mentioning in their current state.

CM – What are your thoughts on communities like Dribbble and Forrst? Some people complain that there isn’t enough or there’s too much criticism. Where do you stand? What do or don’t you like?

JB – In my opinion, communities like these are great. They make it easy for anyone to display their work in a free and easy way to anybody they want. For clients, they’re ideal to find exactly the designer they’re looking for, since they can search for a specific style or character.

The aspect about the criticism is difficult. Some people use Dribbble just to show their finished work and therefore don’t want any (negative) criticism, which, at least to me, is not the point of these communities. When you post something there, people will tell you what they think – be it positive or negative. Of course, you can just ignore the feedback you disagree with, but people could get offended and might stop giving their opinion. Because of the structure of Dribbble, it might be hard to hear feedback if you don’t have many followers, which is something they’re constantly improving with new categories and sorting options. Overall, I think you get a fair amount of constructive criticism on Dribbble, which is something I value a lot and think is one of the main goals of their community.

CM – Most designers I know got inspiration from someone. Not necessarily design style, but someone who really got you interested in the field. Was there anyone like that for you?

JB – There hasn’t been anyone specifically. When I started designing, I wasn’t following the community too much and barely knew anybody. If I had to name three of my favorite designers who I’ve been looking up to since I started doing icon design and who constantly inspire me (even with their older work), I would pick Philipp Antoni, Manuel Sanches and Olivier Charavel. All three of them make gorgeous small and high resolution icons in their own style, which is what I’m trying to do as well.

CM – Janik, thanks so much for taking a few minutes to sit down with us!

Make sure and check out Janik’s work. You can visit his site, or see some of his work on Dribbble. You can also follow him on Twitter.

About Nate Boateng

Nate is a devoted husband, dad, and part-time media student. Nate's fanatical about technology, good design, UI/UX, good coffee, music, and film. He dabbles in photography, video editing, and the like. You can find him on Twitter at the handle @nateboateng.
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