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The Q&A: Mikel Jaso

By Peggy Roalf   Monday December 1, 2014

Q: What are some of your favorite things about living and working in Barcelona?

A: I was born and grew up in Pamplona, a small city in the north of Spain. When I was 23, after working as a musician, exhibition installer and bookseller, among other things, I felt the call of my vocation and moved to Barcelona to study graphic design. After 17 years, I am still here. I love the warm and sunny weather, the fact that it's a biggish city where you can live as if it were a small one, that you can meet very different kinds of people from all over in the world, and that you have access to almost anything that you could desire in a city.

Q: Do you keep a sketchbook?

A: I've never managed to keep a sketchbook. I usually make my drafts on loose papers that often end up in the trash. I maintain a kind of digital diary in which, ordered by date, I store personal work, experiments and interesting leftovers from the process of commissions.

Q: What is the balance between the art you create on paper versus in the computer?

For my professional work 99% is currently created on computer, although in my personal work I enjoy making things by hand, especially collages and assemblies of objects. I don't draw that much.

Q: What do you like best about your workspace?

A: I have two different workspaces – a little studio at home and a space in a studio shared with other artists. In the first I enjoy the total calm and concentration, and in the second I enjoy the social aspect, learning from the work of others, and sharing ideas and experiences with them. My ideal studio is still to come, but I've learned to adapt to the place where I am. During some of my trips of several months my studio has sometimes ended up being the kitchen table, which is not such a bad place.


Book covers for Penguin USA

Q: What is the most important item in your studio?

A: Tangible: My computer, blank paper, and very importantly, my favourite pen.

Intangible: Light and calm.

Q: What is your favorite part of the creative process?

A: I really enjoy introducing play, chance and experimentation into the process, although it isn't always possible because of the timing and pressure of the assignments. Sometimes these kind of pleasures are reserved above all for personal work. 

Poster and postcard for a fundraising event for Detroit Symphony Orchesta.

Q: What was the strangest or most unusual assignment you’ve taken? What did you learn from the experience?

A: I once made a collection of eyes, eyebrows, mouths and moustaches to characterize the heads of some blank dummies. It isn't such a strange thing, but it was quite unusual for me. What I learned was that one can do many more things than one can imagine. It's easy to think about your work in a narrow way. A good process is often more important than the kind of thing that you are designing.

Left: Dummy for Kaleos Optica. Right: Communication piece for The Center For Urban Pedagogy.

Q: What was your favorite book as a child?

A: Robin Hood by Walt Disney.

Q: What is the best book you’ve recently read?

A: A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle—kind of deep reading.

Q: If you had to choose one medium to work in for an entire year, eliminating all others, what medium would you choose?

A: I would keep on with my computer, but I’d screen print all the work.

Left: One of the 51 illustrations for the book 50 Foods, Penguin Press. Right: Self initiated poster.

Q: What was the last art exhibition you saw and what did you take away from it?

A: The last exhibition that had a big impact on me was a print art fair in New York. I realized once again that the printing medium, and material with which an image is printed, are as important as the image itself, as it is through them that the image takes shape and becomes something material.

Q: What advice would you give a young artist about applying to an art school or college?

A: "Be honest, my friend". Listen to your heart and follow it.

This is what I try to do in my professional and personal life.

Q: If you could be anywhere but where you are now, where would that be?

A: I would build bridges between Barcelona, New York City and Mexico City and try to cross them often.

Q: What would be your last supper?

A: A Spanish omelette cooked by my mother.


Book covers (left) for Penguin Random House Spain; (center & right) self-initiated.

Mikel Jaso is a Spanish graphic artist based in Barcelona, Spain, creating images and designs for books, magazines, newspapers and communication projects. At the same time he works on his own artistic practice making posters that have appeared in both individual and group exhibitions. His clients include The New York Times, Penguin, National Geographic Magazine, Random House, Nautilus, Lonely Planet Magazine, The Herald Tribune, The Guardian, B

loomberg, Público and La Vanguardia among others. His recent work for the book 50 Foods has been selected for American Illustration 33.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mikel.jaso

Instagram: http://instagram.com/mikeljaso

Twitter: @MikelJaso


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