I have a confession to make, I’ve slept in one of Róbert Farkas‘s designs. In fact, I sleep in a tee bearing his Scandinavian Invaders design pretty much every night.
A tee lovers’ wet dream, Rob‘s designs lend themselves to cotton. An autodidactic designer, this graphics super-whizz knows his way around Flash and Dreamweaver. Having worked at the Hungarian branch of Carnation Group as well as at Dogfish Studio, he’s mastered everything from art direction to creating television graphics. Rob is a regular design pro and has been there, done that, and got the t-shirt (literally- he designs tees).
Rob is the kind of guy who knows how to make digital illustration look effortless and his captivating designs really grab the imagination and have a great use of colour to boot.
We spoke to Rob about art, eggs and Transformers:
Can you tell me about your journey so far as an artist?
I come from a family of creative talent, beginning with my grandfather, famous film director Tamas Fejer, who directed 28 films in Hungary between 1937 and 1988. Tamas’ brother, Kasmer Fejer, is also well-known for his invention of fluorescent ink. My mother is a photographer.
I currently work as a broadcast animator and a web designer. I spend my free time working on my personal projects; making artwork spices up my everyday life. I started to design t-shirts about 3 years ago, and I’ve been in the graphic design industry since I was 20 years old. I always wanted to be an illustrator, and I really like to mix digital and traditional arts. My favorite technique is computer manipulated watercolor painting.
A lot of your images focus on wildlife, what inspires you about animals?
Animals are mysterious creatures…Through them I can express many feelings, like loneliness, sadness, or even peace.
If you could shapeshift, what creature would you be?
The best would be to turn into a pigeon. They fly across the whole Earth, and shit on everything!
How do you pick the colours for your pieces?
It always changes…It depends on my mood, or what the picture is about. I like some colours better than others, my favourite mix is blue and red.
You layer images over each other in your work, how do you choose the contents of the contrasting images?
First I always draw, then I start to find something which I could use for the concept. That’s very hard work, sometimes the whole artwork will fizzle out when I can’t find good images.
What are your inspirations?
I don’t really know what inspires me. Sometimes a book, sometimes a good film or an exhibition…Even people can turn my brain on, or I just see something on the street which ignites my creativity.
An egg hatches, what comes out?
Maybe a little Transformer?
Favourite tee?
The Wolf of the City…or Rorschach…or Jaguar Poster….I can’t really choose, I like them all!
You can see more work by Rob on his website, www.astronaut.co.hu.