Hello everyone,
this is Ryvka.

We’re back with a new episode of the Ryvpod, where we’re going to try to find answers to the question: how do you live a creative life?

Today, I’m with Luca, who’s going to introduce himself.

Good evening everyone. Luca, 26 years old, aspiring art director. That’s it.

Already a little bit!

Yeah, everything in its own time.

Why would you say that you live a creative life?
Tell us about your background.

A creative life in the sense that I’ve known I wanted to do this since I was 10 years old.
I grew up immersed in a creative environment, with my father who is also a creative director.
I’ve always drawn or produced things, while general academic classes didn’t interest me, and that’s really the only place where I felt at home.
And I’ve known for years that this is what I wanted to do.

And when I went to Penninghen, a higher school of graphic art in the 6th arrondissement of Paris,
it was kind of a revelation after all those years of waiting in general education,
and a sudden sense of fulfillment.

At 18, in general education, you wait for that moment for a really long time.
It was long. Very long.

When you come from high school where you don’t have any particular strengths,
where it doesn’t interest you,
but you know exactly what you want to do,
that’s really the key point: if you know what you want to do, time feels incredibly long.

Some friends from school didn’t really know what they wanted to do,
so they had good grades and then went on to good schools.
I didn’t have good grades, but I knew what I wanted to do.
I’d say that was my luck.

Still, to get into Penninghen, you couldn’t have been a bad student.

No — Penninghen is a private school.
You pay to get in, but then you have to stay.
In prep year there are 300 of us, and by second year only about 90 remain.
And there’s a ranking that comes out every trimester, and you know whether you pass or not.
So there’s something kind of military about it.
You could say that.

But did that model work for you?

It worked for me.
I fully understand that it doesn’t work for everyone.

You go straight from film classes, history classes…

And what are the first subjects in the first year?

First year at Penninghen, we do a lot of drawing.
Which worked out well for me, because I already did a lot of it.
A lot of painting, a lot of plaster work or life drawing.
A lot of graphic art, a lot of typography.

You learn the basics.
That’s really the foundation of Penninghen’s prep year:
they give you the basics of the profession.

Then in second and third year, you learn how to master those basics.
And fourth and fifth year — this is more my personal view —
you’re taught how to have ideas, or to develop a creative personality,
which can take three years, or an entire lifetime.

And I think it’s not finished yet — thankfully.
Otherwise there wouldn’t be any goal left.

So you grew up in a creative environment.
Were you already taking classes?

I drew for myself.
But the real realization came more around middle school,
when you’re asked to make your first choices for high school, and so on.

I literally wrote, “I’m going to do graphic design,” to the school counselor —
except I spelled “graphic design” with two Fs.
Which says a lot about my level in French.

There are some pretty big differences when you grow up with the Adobe suite in your hands,
when you have magazines at home,
or when your parents’ friends are photographers or art directors.

Your eye gets trained without you even realizing it.
You hear phrases you don’t understand at the time, but that make sense later on.

So necessarily…

Like what?

Like when you sent me the WeTransfer.
It’s small, stupid things, but those were conversations at home.

Or even when I was doing homework after middle school,
I’d ask my father to give me exercises on Illustrator or things like that,
because it was the only thing that really stimulated me.

Or the classic technology class assignments where you have to lay out presentations,
and I was already doing micro-typography on school projects.

So yes, there was definitely a bit of a gap in prep school.

But I also think the opposite isn’t necessarily a bad thing,
because if you discover everything all at once, starting in prep school,
you have a fresh eye.

Whereas for me, sometimes,
I was kind of stuck, I had internalized a graphic language
and I couldn’t get out of it anymore.

I was playing it safe, relying on those familiar tools,
also to avoid copying my father — who’s very good at what he does.

And also, I imagine, some pressure you put on yourself,
because if you know it’s a job you love,
you feel like you have to succeed at it.

Yes, it’s above all a creative profession.
So you’re delivering a part of yourself.
It’s mental engagement.

In my vision of a creative job, it never really stops.
Because even in the street,
I’ll take a reference photo thinking I’ll use it,
and in the end I never will.

But it’s always there.

Just talking about it with everyone around you becomes everything.
So ideas are going in all directions,
and at some point you have to sort through it all.

It’s pretty energy-consuming when you go to bed at night.

But with the amount of work you have during school,
or even now in professional life,
you actually sleep pretty well in this kind of job.

So how did it go when you started your studies?

I went from being at the bottom of the class in high school
to being among the top students at Penninghen.
So I told myself that this was my path.
Pretty logical reasoning.

I thought, okay, there’s something to dig into here.

Even though I didn’t really know what the job of art director actually meant.
Because even today, I still feel like it doesn’t really mean anything.

Well then, let’s try together.
How would you describe it?

Art director…
For me, being a graphic designer is about execution,
and being an art director is about having ideas.

But most of the art directors or creative directors I know also execute.

For me, there’s no such thing as a “good” art director early on.
There’s no average, either.

You don’t become a good art director before ten years of experience,
or before having strong references, a network, travel.

You need to mature — literally.
Your eye, your listening skills, your sensitivity, your references.
Everything.

It’s the work of a lifetime.

It’s a title you earn, in a way.

There can be very young art directors in fields like film, of course.

But for me, before 30,
you’re generally not very mature yet in your creative work.

Personally, I don’t really know.
It’s a job where everything is subjective.

It depends on who you’re talking to, how,
and even whether you’re having a good day when you talk about it.

Finding work today, especially in France,
isn’t something that’s guaranteed for everyone.
You’re happy when you have it.
And it hasn’t always been the case.

So it’s about encounters at the right moment,
saying the right thing at the right time.
There’s a part of luck and chance in that.

But even in creative work,
when you create something,
there’s always a part of accident or randomness.

For me, that’s pretty coherent.

So tell us about Penninghen now.
How did it go?
What were the major milestones?

I graduated on June 22, 2022 —
finally, a diploma in hand.
I had never had a diploma before that,
because I didn’t get my baccalaureate.
Sorry, Dad — that’s just how it is.

While I was still at Penninghen,
I was recruited by a magazine called Exhibition Magazine.

I started working with them after my summer vacation.

And then I started picking up freelance projects here and there.

On my side, I was also working with friends on independent projects,
and when I had less work to do,
I’d make things for myself.

I didn’t want to lose that need to produce —
yes, to make a living,
but also to produce for myself,
because that’s what stimulates me.

And if you don’t do that — at least for me personally —
you get lost along the way.

If I only do execution, or only client work,
I feel like you lose yourself.

So things evolved naturally.

Then I left Exhibition Magazine
and went to a studio called Arpa Studio,
founded by Barnabé Fillion,
who is the lead perfumer at Aesop.

I stayed there for eight months,
and that was a real laboratory of curiosity.

Barnabé was extremely curious, eager to experiment, and so on.

Which is pretty rare in this profession —
having the time to experiment or propose things.

So it was amazing for learning and trying things out.

That’s also where Penninghen has a bit of a drawback:
you don’t really have time to experiment.

Because the rhythm is so intense,
with deadlines coming from all directions
and constant feedback,
that you tend to favor safety
in order to get a good grade,
to be sure you pass,
rather than trying something risky.

Which is a bit of a shame for a creative school.

Yeah, Arpa was really great.

And then Arpa ended.

And I launched myself as a freelancer.

And since then, everything has been going very well.

Do you feel a kind of disappointment
between the concrete reality of professional work
and the more abstract side of the studies that you enjoyed?

I really enjoyed my studies,
but I think that’s also due to my class.

Because it depends a lot on the people you’re surrounded by.

There were people with very fresh ideas,
very stimulating,
or completely out there —
but that made it interesting.

So it didn’t feel like a loss.

It was more a feeling of:
okay, now it’s my turn to take the reins.

I want to do this,
I want to move in that direction.

Because there’s also a moment where you have to position yourself.

You can’t do everything.

Some people do motion design,
some do pure graphic design,
some draw typefaces,
some are pure layout designers,
and some completely switched paths
and moved on to something else entirely.

Personally,
I focused more on brand identity —
logos, web design, layouts,
and overall on print,
especially with GQ.

That’s something that, for example, at Penninghen,
we focus a lot on editorial work until the third year.

It’s very long to do print work for three years straight.

By the third year, for me, there was this feeling of:
“Okay, we all have the same portfolio,
with the same subjects,
the same outcomes.”

And you always want to differentiate yourself,
even beyond the job itself.

So I wanted to find something that was mine.

And a friend of mine from my class,
Théo Herman,
told me about a piece of software to build websites, and so on.

I never let go of that software after that —
even today.

And today I work with my thesis advisor as a developer.

So there was this thing of,
“At least this way, I’ll have something to do on the side.”

And no one else was really doing it,
because Penninghen, unfortunately, doesn’t do much digital.

It already opened things up for me creatively,
it differentiated me,
and it also allowed me to find work
and have a slightly different discourse.

You mentioned it briefly earlier,
because one of the big questions I ask is
how to separate personal life and professional life.

In my case, personally, it’s impossible,
because it’s been part of my life since I was very young.

Whether when I was a kid,
drawing and getting yelled at for not setting the table on time
because I wanted to finish my drawing,

or in the evening, when I get home
and talk with my girlfriend,
and the conversation lasts three hours.

It’s such a demanding job mentally,
and even when I repeat things,
I see other actions, other ideas, and so on.

And it…
I was going to say it eats you up,
but that would be too negative.

It makes you think all the time.

You’re constantly at the origin of an idea:
opening a book,
scanning a page,
watching a movie —

but when you watch a movie,
you’re looking at how the image is treated,
how the subtitles were done,
the poster,
or you notice typography mistakes in the street.

For me, the other thing is that it reassures me.

It reassures me in the idea that I didn’t choose the wrong path.

Because that’s also a question a lot of young people ask themselves.

In my personal life, when I’m with my father,
obviously we only talk about this.
Everything revolves around it.

So it’s pretty hard to split things in two.

Even in my family —
my father was the first breadwinner in the family
to have a creative job,
so he already paved the way.

But I think that with my father, in the family,
we’re kind of like two UFOs.

They don’t really understand what we do exactly —
what it means,
what mental load is,
deadlines,
the time it takes,
the process.

For people who aren’t creative,
it’s completely abstract.

My social circle is mostly creative,
so it fits naturally.

And I think that when you’re creative,
you naturally gravitate toward creative people.

It would be very difficult not to,
because it would be like never talking about your emotions,
your sadness,
your joys.

What’s bothering you?

Paragraph alignment — I don’t know.

Completely.

My father’s and my favorite game
is sending each other photos of restaurant signs
where the lettering is badly set.

And we’ve been doing that for fifteen years.

When I started design around the age of 14,
I was discovering a whole new world.

And when we really got into it at Penninghen,
it was the confirmation that there is a technique to master.

That’s where you start seeing the difference
between people who understand the codes of good graphic design
and those who kind of rush through everything.

Yes, exactly.

Because there’s not just the fact that —
like a lot of people in Paris, for example —
you grew up surrounded by culture,
access to art,

you also had the technical side.

Especially growing up with an open mindset,
because there are also many families
where creativity isn’t necessarily encouraged.

In my circle, it was more the case.

Growing up in Le Marais —
maybe that’s why.

There’s a sense of openness, I think.

You were saying your father himself maybe didn’t have that when he was young.

No, he did general high school and so on.

And afterward he went to Penninghen.

I don’t know if that’s where it was revealed for him,
since he also went to Penninghen.

And now he teaches there as well.

It’s a cult — I’m warning you.

For me, it’s really a small flame you either have inside you or you don’t.

And if you have it, you have it for a very long time.

And for me, it ignited very early.

I really spent my life drawing,
or doing graffiti at the time.

Already a lot of typography.

When you draw letters your whole childhood,
you learn to understand how a letter is built,
how it’s constructed,
spacing,
kerning,
all of that.

For me, it’s something I’m passionate about,
but I totally understand that it can sound a bit obsessive.

My father really cleared the path for the family.

You used the expression “the small flame.”
I like that, because we’re getting there.

What happens when the flame flickers?

When suddenly you don’t really believe in it anymore,
or things feel difficult?

I personally have a mindset — even psychologically —
of always moving forward.

And I think it’s normal to go through phases
where you have less inspiration.

Absolutely.
And in a way, that’s almost time to recharge.

That’s how I see it.

At school, sometimes there were downs because of grades,
but not because of myself
or my creativity.

You’re just searching.

And by definition, when you search,
you try things and you hit a wall.

And then you move forward again.

There’s no wrong answer.

There are more like bad examples of execution.

Nice teacher quote.

Since it’s all mapped out, he’ll be a professor at Penninghen.
Get ready for 2053 — I don’t know when.

I thought you’d like that one.

But you were talking about moments
when inspiration dips a little.

Do you have techniques to get inspired?

Living.

Just living.

Going out with friends,
going to the movies,
traveling.

That’s the best way to find inspiration.

Or learning how to do nothing.

Which I have a hard time with.

Because even in doing nothing,
you’re still thinking.

If you’re creative,
you constantly have an idea in your head,
and you bring it back,
and then it comes back again later.

And then, as time goes by,
you accumulate more references,
you have more encounters as well.

And it’s not even necessarily visual.

Sometimes I meet people.

If it’s a purely verbal exchange,
the conversation will take me down thought paths
I hadn’t anticipated.

So there’s that.

For me, inspiration comes more from encounters
or from books.

It doesn’t really run out,
but if it ever did,
it would feel like a vacation.

Honestly, that wouldn’t be so bad.

I think my brain has gotten used
to not stopping very much.

That’s also something we’re trained for at Penninghen:
you have so many deadlines,
so many deliverables,
that you never really stop.

And yes, you’re taught technique,
but at some point,
you have to find ideas,
have fun as well.

It’s actually an amazing job
to have fun and express yourself.

If you have nothing,
you have nothing.

Or if I don’t inspire you,
skip me —
someone else will do it better than you,
and you’ll probably be surprised
by how they respond to the question.

We can clearly see that your environment,
especially your social environment,
helps stimulate you a lot,
because you talk about it,
you’re surrounded by people you can talk to.

Do you think your physical environment —
the place where you work,
where you spend time —
also helps sustain your creativity?

Completely.

Because in the office where I work,
there are books everywhere.

There are stimulating people,
everyone has their own story.

When you talk with them,
there’s always something you can take away.

It’s up to you to make the connections in your head.

Like, “Oh, they said that,
and it reminded me of this.”

And sometimes it’s childhood memories too.

Emotions, sensations, colors.

I think any creative person
delivers a part of themselves
in each of their creations.

The colors you use,
the graphic style,
the compositions,
the formats,
the paper —
all of that is already partly written
by where you grew up,
with whom,
and how.

Today we’re flooded with references
on social media
or on any designer’s website.

You can draw inspiration from them —
the idea isn’t to copy —
but there are things you can take.

I personally have lots of magazines
where I scan double-page spreads.

And then I turn them into a website.

No one will ever have the reference,
but I know where it comes from.

And that process works pretty well,
because you take the codes of print
and put them at the service of digital.

You’ve made it your own,
but you haven’t copied it.

That’s it.
And it also allows you to re-value things you liked,
things that mattered to you as you grew up.

Even color codes.

For a long time, I went through a big phase of gray.
Gray, black, white — that’s safety.

But I invite you to look at the work of Johan Hittons,
who’s a designer who worked extensively on color
and has done some incredible things.

And to try things with color, and so on.

And that’s when you enter a world where…

Maybe because I’m doing better.

At some point, you want to —
like I was saying earlier —
your creativity changes.

If you do the same thing for fifty years,
you’re going to go in circles pretty fast.

You stimulate yourself
by changing composition,
typography,
color,
ratio,
medium —
everything.

And then there are friends of mine
who are very stubborn in one single framework,
and they stick to it.

But me,
I need to challenge myself.

I’ll tell myself,
“I really like that style,
but I don’t know how to do it.”

So I say,
“I’ll try.”

I fail.

And then one day, it’ll come.

I don’t close too many doors
when it comes to trying things.

Because otherwise, for me,
you slowly die inside.

Okay, I have a question about that.

Because you’re telling me
that some people don’t change,
and at the same time,
as an art director —
let’s use that term —
it’s a job that’s part of who you are.

It’s really your personality,
your identity,
everything you’ve absorbed your whole life.

But in that case,
you evolve —

so do the things you like evolve
because you let yourself be influenced
by the spirit of the times?

And in that case,
how do you really know what you like?

And then there are clients too,
who need commercial results.

So you have to follow current demands,
I imagine —
in typography, in color, and so on.

The problem is that often,
when I have clients,
I usually propose two or three directions.

One where I’m pretty sure it’s going to work,
because it’s in line with the current trends.

I’ve done my research beforehand,
I can feel it.

But I always do one or two others behind that
where I express myself freely.

And I advise them to choose those,
because that’s how they’ll differentiate themselves
from everyone else.

Because at some point,
our job is to create identities.

And identity means difference.

So if everyone has the same identity,
then too bad for me —
at least I tried,
I had fun.

But the current trend today
is all about badcasts typography —
Helvetica-style,
linear,
tightly set.

And even I love using them.

But after three years,
you’ve pretty much gone around the loop.