CANDY BROPHY

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How did you become designer ?

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I guess as a kid it starts that you're the one that can draw and are drawn to colours and colouring books a bit more than the others. Then it becomes more about seeing how lettering, patterns and colours relate in wall papers, billboards and sign writing.

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I was born at the end of 1980 so digital graphics were only being born so I grew up the same time as the technology, when I was misbehaving in computer class I found Microsoft paint and loved the mess free aspect of digital art, In careers class I found a university course that was “computer mediated art” and as a literal person that description seemed to fit perfectly.

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Like most designers it’s been up and down and never a straight road, self doubt and domestic life got in the way a lot in my 20’s and recovering from the trauma of growing up in a dysfunctional home but by my 30’s particularly late 30’s seems to be the “idgaf, let’s just do this” era, which I am enjoying.

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How would you define your vision of design, your style ?

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Kind of sporty and retro/random or silly and weird, I don’t like to fit specific categories, I seem to have always adored certain things and loathed others, it’s always been extremes which in life alienates people but in design draws them in. I was taught to establish my own concrete style and stick to it and I see many designers like that but I could never commit to an aesthetic and limit myself like that and I also don’t like being told what to do “draw cute flowers and be the famous “flower girl” “ no thanks, I’d rather be unpopular and have freedom.

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I dream of having a logo in an old dusty logo reference book like my hero’s Carolyn Davidson with the Nike Swoosh, Ruth Keddar with the original google wordmark and Margaret Calvert who you need to google lol.

I feel like great design is born from an individual visionary or partnership solving a problem or playing with colour and form rather than boardroom tables of “creative” teams for which most aren’t creative and just playing the “survival of the meanest” game. These agencies and teams lead to cliche mediocre designs that work temporarily but ultimately ruin some of my favourite brands with unnecessary rebrands.

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I guess my style ethos is wanting a design revolution of brave vigilantes taking back the game and bringing back good design. I have a team of people if I need different skills, I can’t spell and find 3D work too time consuming to execute a quick idea, but as a creative agency it’s more of a gang and the members come together if the heist needs them. I feel like re-wind branding rather than re-branding will be significant in the next 3 years because branding was better in its peak 60’s-80’s, but massive agencies will run this and milk huge corporate to basically digitise the 70’s and 80’s branding assets and this will just make the share holders richer, more clients need to use gangs of freelances and small agencies to accomplish this work at a better rate with better outcomes which have the income going 100% to the creative team rather than oxygen thieves.

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For the future, what are your professional projects ?

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I guess like every designer stay hungry for new ideas and keep loving the “imagine it’s” and trying not to let the clients often misguided direction kill your spirit or the laborious task of explaining why things need balance or negative space etc it can be incredibly time consuming which eats into playtime and playtime is where magic happens.

I really want a popular brand, possibly a beverage with my wordmark or logo everywhere! but for no one to know I created it. I imagine Someone eye rolling at me in the street while I juggle kids and groceries whilst unknowingly holding or wearing my masterpiece lol this would be my mental birdflip to the worlds perceptions of women and their abilities to make great things. My main focus is the beverage industry at the moment but life kind of makes the choices for me so I never know what’s coming.

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What do you like the most in your job ?

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Working at home with my boys and starting something that can be my own. I can make almost anything (need an awesome 3D modeller and copy writer sometimes) so if I wake up or am about to go to sleep and I say to myself imagine a Pizza illuminati brand where you can cut ahead in the que with a members debloom and then the next day I can make it and make people laugh along or scorn in horror, it’s that reaction that drives me and keeps me curious.

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