An exclusive interview with talented designer

Gemma O’Brien

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Hello design Junkies!

We were lucky enough to go to the OFFF Festival in Barcelona this year and meet and interview incredible designers one of them being Gemma O’Brien.

Gemma O'Brien is a highly acclaimed typographer and designer who has gained worldwide recognition for her vibrant graphics, illustrative lettering, and striking murals. She has created designs for major brands such as Apple, Nike, and Google.

Get an inside look into Gemma’s journey of becoming a designer in our exclusive interview!

Gemma! How are you? How’s been being at the OFFF festival?

I’m good! You know what? It’s been great, it’s nice, Barcelona, is sunny, good creative energy, it’s nice to be “back in the world” after, you know? With the pandemic, I used to do six conferences every 6 months, lots of travel and getting a lot of energy from people, and then, lockdown, Australia had very strict rules so it’s nice to be back in the speaking circuit.

Gemma, just like plants need love and water to grow and blossom, what would you say are the elements that keep your art growing and blossoming?

Wow, that’s a very good question, I love that … I think the key elements to keep my art blossoming, it is plants they need nutrients, they need light, and energy and you transform that. For me, energy is the inspiration it can come from other people’s work or can come from nature or from a colour that you see or an experience, it energizes you to want to create.

We’ve been following your work for some time now and we see some recurrent words; love, fear, one of our favourites is the “FEAR LESS” piece, what do you fear or what does it mean for you in this particular piece?

I think that words are a way of preserving what’s important to humans over time, like the word love, it can seem like a cliche or familiar but there’s a reason that it resonates across so many cultures on so many levels, it’ s because it has an embodied experience that’s real you know? I feel if I had to draw one word forever, maybe it would be love because you can imagine it in so many different ways.

And what about fear? What do you fear?

Ok, fear is good, when I used to write these artworks using the word fear I think, I didn’t know what it meant (laughs) and then in the last 4 years I’ve faced it’s meaning in different ways, I think, just the fact of the changing world, getting older, having different experiences, re-imagining my life story, the fear of … that we are here for such a short amount of time, that it isn’t forever, you know? That, can be constraining or freeing.

We would like to ask you about format, is there any particular reason you like to work on such big formats, do you think it has something to do with the opportunities of each project or is it something that you feel is important for your designs to come to life?

I think with flowers, it was something that just naturally evolved, that I worked towards it, and then suddenly I realised that I enjoyed working large scale so I did it more, and then when I did more brands or artists, for me it’s physical, the manual labor that effect I enjoy, I don’t like to be in the computer all the time, I like working with other people, coming together with a team, painting, talking, connecting in that moment of creation, and then I think in the experience of people looking at it.

So, what happens when it is finished? What’s the feeling at the end, when the whole experience ends and it becomes a memory?

I think it is like all things in life. You are working towards this goal and you reach it, and then is a little bit of a LOL afterward because it’s so high energy or you’re working to a deadline and you are interacting … and then it is later when you look back at it when you remember the experience, then it starts to have this new value. That’s what I'm about.

What is it like to sit down and discuss projects with the minds behind brands like NIKE, APPLE, QUANTAS, Coca-Cola Co. Is it scary? The pressure must be something else …

I think that the creative process and the approach are the same, when I was in university and I was working on a project it was as important as when I was working for Coca-Cola, but the stakes are just higher you know you have to rise to a new level of professionalism and show up and I think it’s not that it is scary in the moment but you do feel like that energy to perform well, you are working for the big leagues now … you gotta bring it! (laughs)

Lastly, Gemma, we would like to ask you, if you could share one piece of advice for young designers, artists, typographers, or speakers, what would it be?

Ok, uhm, two things, one: stay alive, and two: make art, alright, because you need number one, staying alive like survival, we are humans, we’ve experienced this worldwide pandemic, wars, stress, threats from all these things it’s scary, once you feel like ok, I got the basics down, I feel safe, I got my little safety art zone, that’s when you make art, and make art anyway, despite anything else. That’s it.

So, is that your safe zone, your art? Is that where you find refuge when things get scary?

Well, I think, you know, it’s an extension of yourself, and it’s a record of time in the same way that you keep a journal if you make art already and you’ve been doing it throughout your life, this is like a record of this different moments, and over that time you build this story in the same way that you build friendships it’s a connection to yourself and your past but also, to like every other artist that has come before that, so it’s like keeping that, keeping it alive.

Thank you so much, Gemma.

If you enjoyed this article, you should check out our article OFFF Fest x DESIGN HUNGER