Paul Nicholson — an extensive interview exclusively for Agony Lab

As a kid, I was always making things: drawing, painting, building Lego sets and model kits. I had that creative itch early on. I didn’t think of it as“design” at the time. It was just fun.

Music has always been important. My first real love was 2-Tone and Ska; this would’ve been around ’79. I was nine and hooked. But it wasn’t just the music, it was the aesthetic. The stark black-and-white visuals, checkerboard patterns, sharp suits, bold logos. I’d sit in class doodling the logos of The Specials, Madness, Stiff Records all over my schoolbooks and army surplus rucksack. (Back then, rucksacks were heavy-duty cotton canvas, perfect for customising with a Biro.) That was the first time I really felt the connection between sound and design. It wasn’t just record sleeves, it was a whole cultural identity. That moment stuck. It’s probably fair to say it set me on the path I’ve been on ever since.

In my teens, the focus shifted a bit. Music led to fashion, and fashion led to DIY. I was into BMX and started customising long-sleeved tees to look like US-import race jerseys. I’d cut stencils of the Haro and GT logos, spray-paint them onto shirts, trying to replicate the look without the price tag. That DIY mindset never left me. Even now, I repaint one of my bikes every year or so, strip it down, rework the graphics, give it a new identity. It’s all part of that same energy: make things your own.

At sixteen, I got my first paid design job, hand-painting T-shirts and jackets for a local shop. The artwork was heavily influenced by WWII aircraft nose art: pin-ups, typography, shark mouths. Those jackets were the early seeds of what I’d go on to do at Prototype 21 and later Terra tag, two fashion labels where the T-shirt was essentially the canvas. I didn’t realise it at the time, but I was already combining illustration, typography, identity, and storytelling - basically design, just outside of any formal structure.

As I moved into my teens, my music taste evolved too. From 2-Tone and Ska I drifted into synth-pop: Depeche Mode, Joy Division, and then into more experimental stuff - Vangelis, Art of Noise, Cabaret Voltaire. That came with its own visual language, more abstract, more conceptual. Album covers weren’t just decoration; they were part of the message. Around this time, I discovered 4AD and the work of Vaughan Oliver, and then The Designers Republic. Vaughan Oliver’s work was otherworldly and textural; not like anything I’d ever seen. And The Designers Republic... well, they just blew my mind. I discovered them through a band from Leeds called Age of Chance. Their work was aggressive, playful, futuristic, political. Straight away, I was a fan.

Music and fashion were always intertwined; one fed into the other. With 2-Tone it was all Fred Perrys, Harringtons, and loafers. Post-punk had its own uniform - white shirts, ties, an anti-punk aesthetic that rejected the ripped-up chaos of the movement before. And then Hip-Hop arrived.I was twelve when I first heard Grandmaster Flash and Afrika Bambaataa. Suddenly, it wasn’t just about the music, it was about art, language, attitude. Breakdancing, body popping, graffiti. That mix of type, colour, the act of rebellion - it was electric. Pretty much straight after skateboarding hit the UK. Not the skinny-board ‘70s version, but the second wave: bigger boards, wider trucks, real tricks. That, too, came with awhole visual culture - DIY punk attitude but with fluorescent colours, baggy T-shirts and vibrant high-top trainers. None of it practical in theYorkshire drizzle, but that didn’t matter. I was in.

And I guess that’s never really changed. I’m still into the same stuff. Still hunting for visual inspiration - from Tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram. Still hoarding references: architecture, signage, pop-culture trash, hazard symbols, aircraft markings. It’s all fuel. I can trace most of what I do now directly back to being that kid in Harrogate, drawing on his backpack, building model cars, listening to experimental music, and experiencing the world through design.

My path was defined by a clear sense of purpose. I moved to London knowing exactly what I wanted: to work in graphics. That was the world I wanted to be part of. I put everything into making that happen. Immersed myself fully. And I genuinely believe that kind of total commitment puts you in the right place at the right time.

When you’re fully absorbed in something, it becomes instinctive. With design, I wasn’t thinking about it in a conscious, calculated way. It was more like respond.

That would be like asking a mother who he favourite child is.

I first heard Analogue Bubblebath on a pirate radio station in London, called Kiss FM, in late summer of ’91, and it left a real impression. Around that time, I started seeing a girl from Cornwall, which is also where Richard is from. When she heard the kind of music I was into, she said, “If you like that, you should meet my friend Richard... Aphex Twin.”

When Richard and I finally met, it turned out we had a lot in common, musically and otherwise. We shared a similar taste in music and a particular sense of humor - what we’d call in the UK “taking the piss.” So we were tight. We would kind of mess around a lot and then get all serious about beats. So it was it worked really well, and especially with the music, because at the time, electronic music, and especially the type that Richard was producing, was very much a small niche. The rave scene and house music were gaining traction with wider audiences, but the ambient and techno being put out by labels like Harthouse, Warp, R&S, and Rising High was still underground. So we bonded over that shared love of music. I’d been into bands like The Art of Noise, Cabaret Voltaire, and Nitzer Ebb from my early teens, and Richard loved Detroit techno and acid house. We connected instantly over that. So, yeah, we had a lot to talk about.

I couldn’t have predicted where we are now 5 years ago and I have no idea where will be in 5 years hence. One thing is forcertain is the pace of change is exponentially gaining speed, so the next 5 years will be more radical than the last.

My fascination with Russian art and design goes all the way back to my early teens. Like many people outside Russia, my first encounter with its visual language came through the revolutionary posters of the Soviet era. I was particularly drawn to Cyrillic lettering which, although I had no comprehension, I found the lettering beautiful.

That initial jolt led me to dig deeper. At first it was other art movements, with Constructivism quickly emerging as a major influence. To this day, I see it as one of the pillars of my own design thinking: clarity, structure, and visual impact.

But the deeper I went, the more I became aware of the Russian aesthetic. That it wasn’t just about posters and typography. It was in everything: monumental architecture, the stripped-down efficiency of industrial design, even the way machinery is engineered.

Aviation, though, became my greatest obsession. The Soviet aircraft industry produced machines that owned the sky. Mikoyan-Gurevich, Sukhoi, Ilyushin, Tupolev: these weren’t just machines, they were part mechanical marvel, part sculptural object. My favourites? The ‘Balalaika’ MiG-21 and the brut elegance of the Tupolev Tu-95 ‘Bear’.

I have been fortunate in so much that over the last 5 to 6 years I have worked with many Russian creatives. The individual with whom this journey took its first step was with Gleb Kostin. I first made contact with Gleb when I saw a bed side table he had made in concrete of the Aphex Twin logo. That cemeted our relationship (pun intended) and we have been collaborators and friends ever since. I was drawn to the way that .Solutions was like a laboratory, blurring the lines between wearable object, sculpture, and social commentary, often with a military utiity and an industrial edge.

Russian creatives I have also worked with include: Agony — Moscow-based creatives whose approach to work is also fluid and diverse. This cross-disciplinary nature of the Russian scene is part of its allure. In music, Tim Aminov blends electronic beats with moody, cinematic textures. In fine art, Nikolay Koshelev — producer of monumental paintings and mixed-media works that merge cosmic imagery with religiousiconography, something at once ancient and futuristic. Steklo.Production — a video-making collective whose work feels like a hybrid of music video, art installation, and cinematicshort, playing with colour, texture, and pacing in a way that’s unmistakably tied to the Russian avant-garde tradition, yetentirely contemporary.

With a deepening relationship with Russian, I would keep an eye on what was going on. I remember the hype aound Vetements when they first broke and the ‘Gopnik’ look. Other brands that have caught my eye include ZDDZ, that has an interesting take on propaganda posters and found typography. And in streetwear, Volchok out of Saint Petersburg with stark Cyrillic slogans.There was a great article written in 2018 that I managed to find again about post-Soviet design and its tone and aesthetic in fashion: https://www.new-east-archive.org/features/show/9685/post-soviet-visions-fashion-aesthetics-gosha-demna-lotta-vetements

What ties these diverse creators, that span decades, together is the same unshakable confidence I first saw in Soviet posters:stripped-back purity and visual intensity. That unapologetic honesty — refusing to be anything but itself. It’s the quality I also find in Brutalist architecture, where “brutal” means raw, not violent. Stripped to its bones, exposed and unfiltered.

And it’s that raw, unfiltered honesty — in a building, a poster, an aircraft, or a garment — that continues to captivate me, shaping my own approach to design and creativity.

For me, the size of company, or marketing budget is not the measure of whether a project is rewarding. If I started ranking projects by how famous the client was or how many people might see the work, I’d be doing a huge disservice to the smaller, independent brands. It would be like saying, “You’re not a global name yet, so fuck you,” which couldn’t be further from how I work. Every project, no matter the scale, is its own entity with its own set of unique challenges, and that’s where I get my energy; from understanding the specifics and figuring out the smartest, most original way through them.

Big-brand projects tend to be more complex. You’ve got more people in the room, more opinions to balance, and usually a brief that’s been through so many hands it’s lost all direction. That makes the problem-solving tougher, but also really satisfying when you find the right solution. With smaller, independent clients, the process is often more direct and personal. You can move faster, experiment more, and sometimes get closer to the core of what the brand is about. Both sides have their rewards, they’re just different flavours of challenge.

The one thing that never changes is my instinct to push forward. Whether I’m working with a huge global brand or a guy banging out techno, I’m looking for a fresh angle: a new way to interpret an artist, a fashion brand, a musician, or a product. I start with a blank slate, try to absorb as much as I can about the project, and then let that lead me somewhere I haven’t been before. That’s where I get my kicks - the unexpected!

In the end, the creative and human reward comes from the same place: that moment when the client sees the work and there’s this flash... “Yes, that’s it!”It doesn’t matter if it’s 20 metre billboards or a sticker a skateboard. That spark is the reason I do what I do, and it never loses that dopamine hit.

Through education and even when starting out, you’re told to look up to and learn from the masters. But I’ve always been more interested in looking sideways than upwards. My focus has never been on who made the work, but on how the pieces fit together, the systems, the underlying architecture, the invisible joins. That probably explains why I avoided the gravitational pull of big-name studios and popular design movements.

In the early ’90s, outfits like The Designers Republic were producing work that was instantly recognisable. Me Company, with their collaborations for Björk, were equally on trend. But they were also rooted in the style codes of the moment. You can’t separate the work from the decade. I wanted something different, something that could exist outside of time rather than forever being stamped “nineties”.

So I learned to define my path as much by what I avoided as by what I embraced. If a typeface started popping up everywhere,I’d not use it. If halftones, grunge textures, or VHS static became the flavour of the month, I’d head the other way. I’ve always found it more productive to swim against the current than drift with it.

That doesn’t mean I work in isolation. I just look beyond design for reference points — nature, architecture, subcultures, fashion, dance. These have their own internal logics, evolving at their own pace. They don’t care about trend cycles, and I think my work benefits from absorbing that kind of self-contained momentum.

In terms of individuals, I’ve always admired people who manage to strip away the mystique around what they do. Brian Eno is the perfect example. He’s got this incredible knack for demystifying creativity: breaking it down into process, into play, into systems. And yet, even when he explains it in the simplest terms, no one else can quite replicate the magic. That kind of transparency, the lack of ego, really appeals to me. Explain it, don’t obscure it.

And then there’s music. I’ve been fortunate over the years to connect with people like Paul and Phil from Orbital, Mike Paradinas ( -Ziq), Skrillex, and more recently Ghostemane - all very different artists, all uncompromising in their own ways.What’s fascinating is how different their creative processes are, yet how similar the level of immersion is. Each of them is fully in their world when they’re creating, not trying to mimic anyone else, not trying to tick boxes. Just doing the thing as truthfully as possible.

In the end, I’m drawn to creators who commit fully to their own perspective. People who say, “This is how I see the world,” and then have the resolve to bring it to life. That’s the bar I’ve always set for myself. Not to join a movement, but to develop a visual language that stands on its own. Recognisable, maybe even a bit shit, but unmistakably mine.

This is a question that goes far beyond the worlds of art and design. If you look at the bigger picture—socially, culturally, and economically—you can see a clear shift underway. The long-standing dominance of Europe and the US is being challenged, not in a destructive sense, but as other parts of the world develop their own confident voices.

For me, that’s an incredibly exciting development. Since my youth, I’ve always found foreign cultures to be a source of inspiration.There’s an excitement in encountering imagery you don’t fully understand: symbols, lettering, or imagery that is indecipherable, almost alien. I remember discovering Japanese anime and Soviet-era posters as a teenager, and how both immediately seeped into my work. The result wasn’t Japanese or Russian design, but it also wasn’t English in style. It was something new, shaped by absorbing, filtering, and reimagining what I saw.

That process of taking in cultural influences from far beyond my own, has been a constant throughout my career. And now, as we see the rise of creative output from Russia, Korea, China, India, Africa, and countless other regions, the global cultural palette is richer than ever. We now see perspectives, aesthetics, and narratives that break away from the narrow lens of Western Europe and North America.

It means we’re entering a time where the definition of “global culture” is truly global. For artists, designers, and audiences alike, that’s a huge gift. It’s more voices, more visions, and more opportunities to be surprised. And honestly, I can’t wait to see where it will go.

If we’re talking about timelessness in design, I think it’s less about chasing a fixed formula and more about cultivating a way of working that stays open, curious, and adaptable. My advice: don’t feel pressured to lock into a ‘style’ too soon. Stay playful. Stay honest. In my experience, style isn’t something you consciously build, it’s something that emerges quietly over time, shaped by your instincts, your obsessions, and the patterns in your thinking.

Truly timeless work doesn’t come from chasing trends or locking into one aesthetic too tightly. It comes from paying attention to what genuinely pulls you in. It’s about allowing yourself to experiment, to contradict yourself, and to let your taste evolve. Longevity comes when you figure out what resonates and translate that into something that’s yours. That way, your design language can shift with time whilst maintaining its core.

Above all, be patient. A lasting voice in design isn’t something you construct; it’s something you uncover. Keep making with intention, curiosity, and openness, and trust that your best work will age well because it was honest when it was made.

Back in the early 1990s, when I was starting out as a designer in London, there was a very different energy. It was pre-digital, pre-vectors, pre–Command-Z. Most ideas started with a pencil and paper, not a screen. At university, I didn’t even see a computer until my third year, and even then it was a shitty Apple Mac Classic. Hardly a technological revolution. My entire design education was built on analogue tools: pencul, paper, scalpel, Tipp-Ex, Letraset, Xerox. It was slow, tactile, and deliberate. You considered every move because changing something meant literally starting over.

That friction shaped the work. Drawing by hand brought a looseness, asymmetry, and unpredictability that vector-based design software naturally tries to iron out. You weren’t thinking in grids and anchor points; you were chasing rhythm, proportion, and the happy accidents that happen. Computers add precision, but they never replaced that instinctive start, the balance between the raw and the refined execution.

The technology of the time shaped ideas as much as it limited them. QuarkXPress, early Photoshop, cheap photocopiers, fax machines, and the rise of affordable print runs gave small studios the tools to publish, experiment, and distribute work without needing big-agency budgets. The cultural climate in Britain was equally influential: post-Thatcher DIY culture, rave flyers, record sleeves, street-level typography. Design was about attitude as much as execution; you didn’t aim to please everyone, you aimed to find your people.

Today, digital tools and social media make things faster, cleaner, and infinitely shareable, but they’ve also made the landscape noisier. In the ’90s, the independent scene thrived on scarcity and subculture. Now, the challenge is to keep your signal strong in a constant bombardment of newness. For me, the spirit remains the same: start loose, follow instinct, refine with purpose, and never design by committee. That’s as true now as it was thirty years ago.

Music has always been a huge influence on my work, not just in sound, but the shapes, forms, and compositions it creates in my mind. My first real obsession was 2-Tone and Ska around ’79. It wasn’t just the music; it was the aesthetic. The stark black-and-white graphics, checkerboard patterns, sharp suits, bold logos. I’d cover my schoolbooks and army-surplus rucksack with hand-drawn band logos. That was the first time I understood how sound and design could be part of the same cultural identity, and it stuck.

As I got older, music naturally led to fashion, DIY, and customisation. BMX culture had me spray-painting stencilled Haro and GT logos on shirts, and I’d repaint my bikes just for the thrill of giving them a new identity. At sixteen, I landed my first paid design job hand-painting jackets, fusing illustration, typography, and storytelling, without realising I was already doing design in a professional sense.

My tastes evolved, 2-Tone gave way to synth-pop, experimental electronics, hip-hop, and skate culture—each with its own visual language. From the textural, ethereal work of Vaughan Oliver to the futuristic, in-your-face graphics of The Designers Republic, I absorbed it all. These weren’t just album covers; they were extensions of the music, shaping how you felt before you even pressed play.

For me, music has always been a creative accelerant. It informs the rhythm and structure of my work, whether that’s the pacing of typography, the layering of elements, or the balance between chaos and control. Certain tracks can unlock a flow state where design decisions feel instinctive, not analytical. Almost like with the beat.

Even now, I still hunt for visual inspiration the same way I hunt for new sounds. Every genre, every scene, every subculture adds another layer to the vocabulary. Music doesn’t just soundtrack my process; it gives it movement, attitude, and a pulse.

As Ai learns more it will better understand what pleases us and these outputs can be genuinely surprising, often discoveries human creatives might not have gotten to alone.

However, there's a problem here. As AI systems become more sophisticated, they become better at predicting what humans want, which could actually reduce their capacity for unpredictability. The more AI learns to please us, the more it might lose that essential element of originality.

The real creative potential lies not in what AI can do for us, but in how we collaborate with it. Even the most advanced AI remains machine-generated output. The human act of interpretation, selection, and creative response is irreplaceable.

Ultimately, who controls these tools matters enormously. AI as a creative collaborator could be transformative, but we must ensure it remains a tool that amplifies human creativity rather than replacing it.

I disagree the premise that ideas and craft are separate entities. Ideas ARE craft! They're the manifestation of pure thought into something tangible. What we're seeing in an AI-saturated market isn't a devaluation of craft, but rather weak ideas masquerading as art. The issue isn't that AI threatens craft, but that it's accelerating the production of shallow concepts. When anyone can generate incredible visuals instantly, media becomes flooded with work that looks slick but lacks conceptual depth.

However, this creates an opportunity: original ideas become more valuable precisely because it cannot replicated. A designer' sunique perspective, their ability to synthesize complex cultural insights, and their capacity for meaningful conceptual development... these remain fundamentally human.

The future of design lies in ideas that are so thoughtfully crafted, so deeply considered, that they cut through the noise. But this requires discerning consumers who can distinguish between AI-generated polish and genuinely innovative thinking. We need to become more intelligent critics of what we encounter and support, demanding work that offers real substance rather than just aesthetic appeal. Consumers need to think!

Ultimately, the designers who thrive will be those whose ideas are so fucking amazing and authentic that no algorithm could have conceived them. Bone up Bitches!

Every leap in technology drags design into new territory, and that’s where it gets interesting. I’ve always believed the best work comes from wrestling with problems that refuse to be solved at first glance. AI won’t change that. It will spit out the easy answers, but easy answers are the enemy of originality. The job of the designer is to push past the obvious.

The future of design won’t belong to those who simply use AI. It will belong to those who challenge it, break it, and then rebuild from the wreckage. The same applies to humanity as a whole. We can’t just coast on convenience. We need to grow sharper, more curious, and far less complacent. It is not about keeping up, it’s about staying ahead. Raise your game, think beyond the easy wins.

With any project, the starting point is instinctive rather than academic. I always begin with a blank slate chasing that moment when some thing clicks. With Agony, conversations with the team helped me work out what they were after. We talked about what excites them, what defines them, and the energy they wanted their studio to project. That dialogue gave me the shape of the project before I’d even put pen to paper.

A good logo should feel like an extension of its owner. With Agony, the aim was to capture something timeless yet adaptable, a mark they could live with, grow with, and make their own. The freedom they gave me was huge. It meant I could experiment, push ideas around, and avoid the easy options.

I’d rather explore what’s being overlooked than chase what’s hot. What sets apart one logo from another is how it reflects the client’s DNA. It’s not just a graphic, it should be an extension of their voice, something they can own and evolve with. That’s the goal with every project, but with Agony Studio, the combination of trust, creative freedom, and shared mindset made the result feel true.

I’ve never really been one for reinventing my wardrobe. It’s still rooted in the same kind of clothes I wore as a teenager. That might sound unadventurous, but I think it’s more about knowing what I like and sticking with it. I’ve always been drawn to military, utility, and streetwear influences; clothing with purpose. The difference now is that I can afford brands that make higher-quality garments without losing those core themes.

I gravitate towards labels like Maharishi, C.P. Company, G-Star, Nigel Cabourn, Real McCoys – all of which have a deep respect for craft, detail, and integrity in their designs. I also appreciate brands that evolve without losing their DNA; authentic to the wearer and not dictated by fleeting trends. Built around a strong foundation, with room for subtle shifts and upgrades.

Looking back, I treated education less like a path and more like getting lost. I wandered between disciplines, sampled everything, and never really cared for boundaries. On my Foundation course, I was technically doing graphics, but I drifted between ideas. My tutor suggested I should do fine art because apparently I lacked the discipline for graphic design.

Ignorig his advice I got onto Kingston’s graphic design course via the illustration pathway. Halfway through, I left illustration and jumped to graphic design. My illustration tutor was horrified and called graphics soulless. However, I thought the otherwise and saw in design purpose, reach, and utility.

I almost moved to Central Saint Martins, but it felt like everyone there knew they were at Central Saint Martins and acted accordingly. I bailed, and never regretted it. By my final year at Kingston, I was deep into clothing design inspired by manga, military gear, and industrial uniforms. It didn’t fit their set projects, and my tutors made sure my grades reflected that. But I didn’t care. I walked away with a body of work that became the DNA for two clothing brands I ran from 1993 to 2012 - Prototype 21 and Terratag.

For me, academic knowledge is a toolbox, not a blueprint. Learn the rules, but don’t worship them. Break them if it gets you somewhere more interesting.

As for teaching, I’d enjoy it, but my measure of success would be a student feeling confident enough to tell me I’m wrong. Or better yet: an idiot.

Working solo, for me, isn’t just a logistical choice, it’s deliberate. I’ve never had the urge to build a big studio or manage a team of juniors. Scaling up for the sake of it has never appealed; I’d rather stay directly involved in the work, keeping it personal, focused, and hands-on.

The projects I take on usually orbit around music, electronic culture, technology, and fashion. Areas where design is part of identity and expression. That connection keeps the work honest because it overlaps with my own interests.

Before NUMBER 3, my path was different. Up until 2015, I was part of a design and garment production company running several T-shirt brands, including Prototype 21 and Terratag. That taught me a lot, not just design, but production, branding, subcultural communication, and hitting deadlines. It was a great education, but eventually, I realised I was managing more than designing. So starting NUMBER 3 was a reset: stripping away the structure to get back to what I love.

Working independently doesn’t mean working in isolation. It just means the responsibility for the ideas, craft, and execution sits with me. There’s a clarity in that. You can’t hide behind a team, and you can’t pass the blame if it doesn’t work. But when it does, fucking great!

I like starting every project from scratch. No formulas, no cut-and-paste style from one client to the next; that’s just branding yourself. Instead, I tune in to the world the project belongs to. When a client sends me a mood board, I’m not after examples of other logos or typography. I want the raw inputs: nature, machines, textures, sci-fi films, obscure art movements… anything that gives me a sense of what excites them. That’s when the direction starts to reveal itself.

I don’t outsource either. Everything, from early sketches to the final file delivery, passes through my hands. Those routine moments matter. Thats the craftsmanship to finishing that make a design complete.

Philosophically, I see work as an immersive, almost meditative process. The independence gives me space to follow an idea to its natural conclusion. Sure, working solo has challenges — no safety net, no instant sounding board — but I’ve learned to trust the process. I do keep a handful of trusted friends and collaborators on call for perspective, but they’re there to sharpen the work, not direct it.

Work, for me, is about autonomy: the freedom to choose projects, say no when it’s not right, and invest in ideas that might not be commercially obvious but feel right.

As for when a project is finished, there’s always that moment where pushing further won’t add anything. The balance feels right, the design stands on its own, and I know that if I looked at it months later, I’d still stand by it. That’s when I let it go.

If I had to give one piece of advice, it would be this: don’t rush to lock yourself into a style. Keep your curiosity alive. Keep the work playful. Keep it honest. In my experience, style isn’t something you hunt down, it’s something that quietly develops in the background, shaped by instinct and the decisions you make over time. It’s the unique process in your thinking, the visual habits you return to without even noticing.

For me, that journey began in childhood. I didn’t know it then, but the things I was drawn to - those early fixations - were already forming the foundations of a visual language. They came from the cultures I was immersed in, intuitively and obsessively. So when the time came to design for those same scenes and artists, it didn’t feel like a leap. It felt like a natural continuation of what I’d already been doing for myself.

The truth is, style doesn’t arrive with a master plan. It takes shape gradually, through making, breaking, testing and responding to what’s around you. Give yourself space to explore. Allow yourself to contradict yesterday’s ideas. Let your taste lead you, but also stay open to moments when your hands create something your taste hasn’t caught up to yet.

Notice what captures your attention, especially details others overlook. Copy the people you admire if you need to, but treat it as a starting point, not the destination. Dig into why their work speaks to you and how that overlaps with your own sensibilities.

And most importantly... be patient. Finding your voice isn’t about building an identity from scratch, but uncovering one. No need to force it. Just keep making with intention and curiosity, and trust that your style will surface in its own time.

For me, art and commerce are not opposites but two sides of the same coin. Whether one is willing to accept the other or not, it is blatant that they coexist. So, it is not a war but a dance. Personal work and more artistic projects keep my instincts sharp and my ideas honest. However , there is a commercial necessity that fuels the engine and maintains the momentum to keep creating. They feed each other in ways: the more I work on my own sensibility the more it creeps into client work, the more it resonates, the more freedom I get to push things further next time. And, so the dance goes on.

I tend to choose projects that I feel are right; that allow my aesthetic. So even when working on more commercial briefs there’s room to leave my mark. I also keep time aside for self-initiated work. Those explorations are often where I test ideas out that will later filter into projects.

Of course, there’s always a bit of tension between what I want to make and what’s commercially viable. But I see that friction as a creative challenge rather than a compromise. It forces me to solve problems in ways I wouldn’t if I was left entirely to my own devices. I also don’t subscibe to the artist being superior to the client in so much as there has to be mutual respect and understanding.

In the end, harmony comes from knowing the core things I won’t compromise on, and being flexible with everything else. Whether it’s destined for the gallery wall or the dancefloor, the work has to feel alive to me, otherwise there’s no point. Neither for me nor the client.

I’ve spent time exploring Agony Lab’s website and it’s clear that each design element, interaction, and animation has been considered with intention and restraint. The balance of motion graphics is particularly well done: dynamic enough to be engaging, yet never tipping into being overwhelming or distracting.

GIven the choice of two language versions, the Russian site resonates with me on a purely aesthetic level. For me, as someone who does not speak Russian, Cyrillic lettering has a power to it. Being Russia for the first time has only deepened my appreciation for that script’s unique visual rhythm. The Russian-language version of the Agony site brings that to life beautifully.

In conclusion, I think that Agony Studio’s platform exudes a clear and confident creative vision. My experience navigating the site felt both informative and aesthetically pleasurable. Keep cultivating that Agony mindset: considered, and purpose-driven. Forge forward with the same energy and vision you’ve already demonstrated.