Interview with Angela Spindler

I became a designer as from an early age I had a very keen interest in type and calligraphy. I was very captured by the art of lettering, the forms and the power of type to express. My very first commission was at the age of 16, I lettered certificates for Oxford University and after that was lettering pub menu boards and anything where I could develop this craft. Becoming a designer, a packaging designer was a natural progression and my passion has remained constant. I am motivated by the idea that design can make aspects of the world a better place to experience.

It was something I chose.

I am a packaging designer and have found areas that interest me, so beverage, gourmet food, skincare and kids products.

I think I was very privileged to work with some amazing mentors, so I listened, took criticism, and did things over and over again! That would be my advise.

I think great designers are a fusion of many things, they marry creativity, intellect, skill, technical prowess, intuition with humility.

Really good design has a unshakable idea behind it and is executed in a sharp and compelling manner.

Good design can change the way you think, the way you experience and interact with all the things around you.

I would like to move more in the direction of product design.

I enjoy working with different substrates and so I have a dream project in mind that is product orientated and involves using some of my favourite utilitarian substrates-all going well this may be realized next year.

I don't think I have a secret recipe as such, I work in a very honest and genuinely passionate way and I never settle, so perhaps success lies in in a quest to always push harder, to always do more.

The list is long and they rank among the classics but Mies van der Rohe, for his clarity and simplicity- less is more.

Outside of being a packaging designer, I have a love of chairs and both my studio and home are filled with many- my current favourites are a string of circa 1930's cinema seats from a cinema here in Sydney, sadly I don't know who designed them - I suspect rather that a carpenter craftsman was commissioned. The design is simple, the detail quite lovely and they are enormously comfortable.

If I have reached my greatest it would possibly be some work I did on a coffee brand where a very simple idea took a very regular, predictable format and shattered convention in its solution.

I simply spend a lot of time listening.

I would like to have been an architect.

For me personally design is about making things better in whatever capacity that may be, giving meaning and creating memory.

As I mentioned, I worked with great mentors and my biggest supporter was Knut Hartmann, founder of Hartmann Design in Germany. He was generous with his knowledge, a brilliant typographer and hand lettering artist, a packaging design master and teacher who gave me space, autonomy and freedom to create and resolve.

Never losing my passion.

I have lots of interesting projects on at present but those involving collaborations with industrial designers are what you should expect to see.

To keep on producing for as long ask can!

In many ways, how we engage, exchange and consume.

My collaborations.

Those that remained true to the original idea, so little deviation from the initial concept.

That largely depends on the project.

With research and lots of it.

Design decides the trends.

In touches all facets of it.

Mac based, so Creative suite led.

For a packaging designer all of these things contribute to awakening the senses.

I wish I had done it!!

I work with a number of very talented people around the world who help bring projects to fruition.

The skills need to be crafted, and that takes time.

The awards are a great way of validating that you are contributing to better design and with that perhaps giving us all better experiences.

Favourite colour is charcoal grey, favourite place today is New Caledonia, all time favourite food is sushi, favourite season if I'm in the northern hemisphere is autumn, the southern spring, my favourite brand for as long as I can remember is Converse...

Being asked to move type by 1 point by my creative director, doing nothing and representing my visual and receving a rapturous response of 'you see how much better that is'.

No two projects are the same and I guess I am genuinely lucky that 30 years on, my job excites me as much now as it did then.

A great designer no, a creative person yes.

Depot Creative is a boutique packaging, design and brand consultancy and we help people create, refresh and evolve brands.

I would need to relate that question to my main discipline of packaging design and with that I would say design is about capturing a single idea and expressing it in the most compelling and memorable way possible.

All kinds really, but the areas that excite me most are in beverage, health and beauty and gourmet food.

That is a hard question to answer, as at the moment I have two. My first would be a project I completed last year for a coffee brand-Jacobs Coffee, which took a very simple idea and completely shattered the conventional way of packaging the product. The second would be for Bare Cosmetics, a range of bespoke natural extracts, which articulates the beauty of nature and its life sustaining ability in the form of facial serums.

I was working for an agency in London and I had the task of creating their new company logo, not much to ask of the junior designer, but much to my surprise it was implemented.

I really enjoy working with different substrates, one of my greatest achievements was creating a copper wine label, lots of research and a great team facilitated the outcome.

When I am not trying to be.

I am very detail orientated, so everything really but crafting a beautiful piece of type whether it is the brand mark or a piece of romance text on the side of pack, it is all equally important to the over all design aesthetic.

Emotions are complex when relating them to design, the whole spectrum I would say, but when you can trust your reasons and judgments and feel happy with what you have achieved then that is a good place to be in.

Relief sometimes and even sadness as well when a really great project comes to an end, but then you just start the next one.

In packaging I would say the design is successfull when it is commercially successful. It is no good having a great looking piece of design that totally misses the mark at POP. That is why I enjoy packaging design as there is so much bound up in such a small space and you have to get it right otherwise you get overlooked and over shadowed by the product sitting next to you.

I think some pieces of design are genuinely bad from a typographic, layout, image and understading perspective, we all know what these look like, they are the pieces that make your eyes bleed and make you want to weep. However before I judge a design I think it is good to be able to understand the brief that was given and any constraints that were applied.

Our responsibilities are to deliver well considered ideas in a way that respects our society and our environment. Particularly working in packaging I think we are duty bound to be mindful of the resources we engage to get a product to market.

Design style is clean and uncluttered. I think this style evolved simply from the discipline of packaging design. When you are working in such small spaces and wanting to maximise impact, you are very conscious of the value of space.
My approach to design is very rigorous, I always do lots of visual research, write down key words, develop very clear ideas and set territories for the concepts and so it rolls on.

I now live in Australia but am from the UK and have worked in Europe for a long time. I think I have been influenced by my cultural heritage but also working in Germany gave me new insights in to particular design disciplines, I think I learnt how to be far more rigorous and ultimately accountable for what I was designing.

In a very open way. At the end of the day, you both have the same objective—to deliver the best outcome possible.

I think that when you have that first face to face with a prospective client, that is when you can tell if the relationship is going to gel. Without having that sense of whether it is going to work, what is the point. That would be my recommendation, it is a bit like going on a first date—would you want to see that person again or not!

We have a very simple 4 stage process that all of our projects fit to.

I love chairs. I sit on a Charles Eames, and have two Mies Van Der Rohe tubular chairs. My kettle is the wonderful whistling design by Richard Sapper but I also collect industrial pieces so have machinist boxes, traffic lights and numerous odd pieces that have lovely typography or badges.

It revolves around my family and my studio. I have a wonderful son that I spend as much time as possible with and I have a career that still excites me after all these years.

Do lots of pencil scribbles to clarify your ideas before you speak to your creative director!

Being a designer gives you great personal satisfaction. You have the ability to make change, share ideas, create new things.

Having a single clear idea and bringing that to life in the most compelling way possible.

Listening, understanding and patience.

We are all Mac based so the usual suite of creative applications but my program of choice is illustrator. My most faithful tool is my no. 5 long handled scalpel, it has helped me create thousands of mockups over the years.

As sensibly as possible. We have a time management system program that makes managing projects and particularly time quite easy.

Tricky question, every project has its own individual timeline and that is driven by many factors. Its a question I rarely answer.

How much will it cost...

My first job, I started right at the bottom and learnt lots of skills that have served me well over the years.

Check out the website and see...www.wearedepot.com.au

I really enjoy working in beverage and most recently in natural beauty- products that have a lifestyle edge are a lot of fun.

I will continue to be a packaging designer but I am currently working with some industrial designers to bring out a range of my own products.

That largely depends on the project.

Fortunately we have some very interesting works going through at the moment in the personal care category, so you may seem them entered next year.

Through the website or simply pick up the phone.