SPARK
SI-005, from issue2, 2021.
Source Structures from Everyday Life.
Nejc Prah is a Slovenian graphic designer who finds inspiration in oranges, eggs, laundry, and hardware stores. He now runs his own studio with clients like The New York Times, Zeit, and Frank Ocean.
NP I’m Nejc, and I have my studio here in Ljubljana. I did my undergrad here and later went to Yale for grad school. Then, I moved to New York, where I worked at the magazine, Bloomberg Businessweek. When I left the Big Apple, I decided to start my own studio and moved back to Slovenia. I mean, studio(?), it’s just me, working… a one-man band, really.
UDÖ What motivated the move back? Isn’t New York every designer’s dream?
NP I always knew I’d go back home. Life here is simpler, with a support network and my own place. New York meant a lot of compromise to keep doing what I loved, while here, my time is truly my own—and that’s freedom
UDÖ I remember seeing the illustrations you made for Medium—a tired person with exaggerated eye bags. But now you say you don’t work that much. I’m conflicted.
NP Funny you mention eye bags! I just did a similar illustration for Zeit about someone who’s always tired. These days, I work more regular hours, maybe eight hours with a break. But I used to work nonstop, especially in undergrad and grad school.
UDÖ Looking back, what was your favourite project at Yale?
NP There was this project where we had to make something involving three tiny screens. I had a video of a bear from a past trip, and I recreated it in this project. It ties back to my idea of finding structures in everyday life. I saw this bear doing something strange in a zoo, and I used that exact moment as primary inspiration. That was what I was really interested in at the time—taking something ordinary and reusing it as a creative springboard.
UDÖ You’re able to talk so naturally about ordinary things like an avocado, laundry, or a bear video. I’m especially curious about your posters for Žiga Murko and Pritličje, which you made out of oranges! How did that come about?
NP While I was working at Bloomberg, we had this fancy office space with free food and snacks. They had really good oranges. The thing with oranges is that they’re not always great—sometimes hard to peel, sour, or full of seeds. But when all those factors align, they’re a perfect fruit. And beyond taste, oranges have such a well-rounded design: they’re circular, bright, textured, aromatic, and naturally segmented. That’s what inspired me to use them in a series for Koordinate, which was a project related to experimental music. I collaborated with my friend Klemen for the photography. Even though each photo has its own look, it works visually because the orange itself is so simple and consistent.
UDÖ How is it collaborating with Klemen?
NP We went to undergrad together with Klemen in Slovenia and we always had a very similar mindset in terms of what we like. Even though it’s hard to do a photography and design collaboration, we try to do it as much as we can. A lot of times, it doesn’t really make sense. For me, image making became kind of annoying at some point. Photography is a strong medium, I would say. In a way, it’s stronger than illustrations or graphics. That’s why I’m trying to collaborate a lot.
UDÖ Another project where you blended photography and typography was for Frank Ocean. How did you come up with that concept?
NP Firstly I got contacted for one flyer and then it kind of evolved from that. A couple sketches, you know… Even the bubbly letters just kind of came out of just sketches and iterations. It didn’t just happen. We had to figure out what we all like, what they want. And then this kind of contrast between the bubble letters and this more aggressive outline seemed to be a good fit for what they were going for. I mean, I think it’s hard for me to talk about this project. Sometimes you’re hired as an art director, and sometimes you’re hired by an art director, which means that sometimes you do whatever you want. And sometimes people tell you what they want, and you do it. I think we made one thing that really works. Then we kind of developed it into several other posters and single artworks.
UDÖ What about the Gass Records website which you were the art director? How did you convince them that this unconventional, crazy website is what they need?
NP That’s tricky. You just have to sell it in a way that makes sense. Not just sell it, but also develop the idea in a way that it makes sense. Even if it looks crazy, the idea was that there is this grid, and then each cell of the grid can be modified in the backend. When you get on there, you see all the information that they wanted. The fact that it is visually intense is just because that’s how I made it, but it could easily be remade. I think that’s why it works. If you present it in a way explaining this type of structure, they don’t see it as a crazy website anymore. They see it as just a different way of organizing content.
UDÖ What’s next?
NP I worked on this exhibition with the Klemen and some other friends. We were designing an exhibition for the 100 years of the architecture school in Ljubljana. Actually, I’m quite excited about it because it’s finally a book. I always wanted to make books, but I just kept making posters and stuff. So now it’s finally happening, and I think it came out really well. The book is a little more restrained. It’s nice when you make a book, you don’t have to just fit all the ideas into one format. You have like 200 pages to develop the idea you want step by step. And then after this, I’m making more furniture now. Yeah, there’s a chair that I’m making. And it’s probably gonna be done next week. Trying to make more stuff like like furniture projects, or just like objects, just making…
Follow Nejc Prah here
interview by Utkan Dora Öncül
Spark Interview-005