Marta Cerda Alimbau is that type of designer whose work is appreciated not only by the expert eye but also by the uninitiated people who simply stumble upon her work. You’ll find yourself scrolling through her pieces of work, trying to understand hidden messages and genius ideas. The talented designer combines personal fonts, complex shapes, and vivid colors in a way that lets you recognize her work from afar. This is why we believe that Marta Cerda Alimbau deserves a place in our Designer of The Week Series. Without further ado, we invite you to get to know Marta better by reading our interview with her.

WebDesignLeger: Tell us about you (a short bio).
I am an Amsterdam based independent artist, type designer, illustrator and art director. At the end of 2008, after working in agencies and studios between Barcelona, Düsseldorf, and Munich, I won the ADC Young Guns and decided to found my own studio. Since then, I work for arts, culture and advertising clients abroad, and my main body of work is focussed on the boundaries between typography and illustration. I also lecture about design at creative conferences and universities internationally.

WebDesignLeger: How would you describe yourself in 3 words?
Marta Cerda Alimbau: Expressive, awkward, persistent.

WebDesignLeger: When did you discover your passion for design?
Marta Cerda Alimbau: Well, this is something that came little by little, at least in my case. Since I was a kid that I could isolate myself by drawing. Hours went by so quickly and it allowed me to express things I couldn’t say. Now it’s different, but the final effect on me is kind of similar.

WebDesignLeger: Where does your inspiration come from?
Marta Cerda Alimbau: Depending on when my inspirations are organic and change with time. But I usually look backward at the history of design for inspiration.

WebDesignLeger: What do you think are the most important 3 skills for a designer?
Marta Cerda Alimbau: I think it’s more about the attitude than the skills. The skills, you can learn them with patience. The attitude is something deeper, and harder to change. So for me, the three more important attitudes are being curious, hard worker and perseverant. All these mixed with a good eye for the type and art direction. the

WebDesignLeger: How do you stay updated with what is new in the design world?
Marta Cerda Alimbau: Instagram is now for me the best source to know what’s going on right now.

WebDesignLeger: Who are your favorite 3 designers?
Marta Cerda Alimbau: Herb Lubalin, Takenobu Igarashi, and Roger Excoffon.

WebDesignLeger: What kind of people do you love to work with? 
Marta Cerda Alimbau: I love to work with great art directors and to team up with them, it’s the best way to learn and move forward. They give good references but also give room to develop yourself, and have a good knowledge of the direction their client needs to take.

WebDesignLeger: How do you handle stress and pressure?
Marta Cerda Alimbau: I start working really early in the morning, around 6 am. There’s silence and I can focus a lot. And I can look at my day with no rush. Also, I don’t accept new projects if I am not sure I will be able to give them my 100%.

Marta has worked with many influential brands, fact that made her name notorious among the important contemporaneous designers. If you’d like to contact her or to check more of her amazing work, make sure you follow Marta on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Youtube, and Behance.

Make sure you stay updated with our DOTW series and latest posts by visiting our blog daily.

Today we have the pleasure to introduce you to our favorite designer of this week, Miloš Milovanović. The Serbian graphic designer and illustrator is currently living in a small town called Trstenik.
He affirms that he is “obsessed with vintage and black and white projects.” His work is characterized by single color drawings in the style of the woodcut or an etching. You can stay updated with his work on Instagram , Dribbble, Pinterest, and Behance and why not, drop him an email for inquiries.
With no further ado, let’s get to know the talented designer better in the interview below.

When did you discover your passion for design?
I didn’t start taking art seriously until sometime in High school. After I finished primary school, I couldn’t find myself in anything else, so I decided to go with the arts. In 2005 I enrolled in high school, department of Graphic design.
So going through the classes and getting close to the design world, design started growing up with me, while my passion started when I was starting at University. Besides studying, I needed to work. At the time,
I had a huge interest in logo design and illustration, so I wanted to work on the things I was interested in. In 2010 left University and started freelancing.

Where does your inspiration come from?
I’m very interested in 50’s Vintage/retro design. So everything that is designed in the 20th century is heavily influenced by me.
Beside this, I get inspired by listening to a good music and collecting and observing old world illustrations.

What were your biggest accomplishment and biggest failure in graphic-design?
I would say persistence is the biggest accomplishment for me.
Failure… Honestly, can’t think of any. I just like everything I do, projects, clients and my workplace.

How would you describe the world of graphic design in your country?
We have a lot of talented designers here, but unfortunately, Graphic design in Serbia is not much respected, from local clients.
Buyers can not value design work much here, so many designers and colleagues I know from here, work internationally.
But I hope this will be changed in the near future and design will bloom and be more respected in Balkan region.

What is your favorite piece of work and why? How did you create it?
Most of my work in some way reflect essence, culture and the personality of each client.
So I’d say Khan The Conqueror is one of my favorites. It was work for myself and a good technique practice.

What do you think are the most important 3 skills for a designer?
Three most important skills: Drawing, knowing the Software and to be decent in Communication.

How do you stay updated with what is new in the design world?
I have a daily routine to check on what’s going on Dribbble and Behance but and digging through the Pinterest.

Have you worked with any major brands?
Villiger Söhne Holding, Old Elk Bourbon (Dry Town).
Old Elk Bourbon (with master distiller Greg Metze) is pretty young on the market (2-4 years), but they are on the right track to becoming world known brand.

In the last couple of years, I had a wish to work for Spirit and Tobacco industries, so thanks to these projects, I hope I will get more opportunities to work with it in the near future.

Who are your favorite 3 designers?
Saul Bass, Louise Fili, and Simon Frouws design.

What kind of people do you love to work with?What kind of people don’t you love to work with?
I like to work with the people who share the passion for their businesses.

Dealing with the slothful (I-need-it-asap) people and the ones who rather use you as a tool rather than a designer. An insidious drain of time and efforts.
Thankfully I’ve learned to smoke these people out before working with them.

How do you handle stress and pressure?
I think I got used to it a bit. If it’s good stress, I manage to do some creative work.
If it’s negative and then I can’t really handle, I try to deal with the situation, or stay away from the computer and let it overnight.

Advice: Do the kind of work you want to get, love your job and appreciate your talent.

Below, we have selected some of the designer’s pieces of work. Make sure you let us know what you think in the comment section.

Bared Footwear Emblem

Napoleon Emblem

TB&TB Box Packaging Detail

 Crown

DCH Close up

Dope Coffee House Co

Outdoors Illustration

Khan the Conqueror

Hipster Lumberjack

Map Australia 

Mesa Baja Packaging Graphics

OE Crest

Off Trail Outfitters Emblem

Outer Shores Expeditions

Postamark

Signature Graphic

Signature Graphic

Label

Stamp Close up

Stolthed

TB Drawing Process

 Light Tank 

Villiger

Stay tuned for more inspiring work of great designers all over the world.

Today we are talking about typography, lettering, and branding and I am very excited to have George Cibu sharing his experience in these fields with us.

George is a freelance designer who specializes in typography, lettering, and branding. He is 22 years old and comes from Cluj-Napoca, the heart of Transylvania.

The talented designer has begun sketching at the early age of 18 and everything that followed after came as a nice surprise.

“I started doing graphic design about 4 years ago, doing all sorts of things to practice my skills. Sometime later I got to know some people on Instagram who did typography and lettering and I was very impressed. I found out that lettering is a great way to express your creativity.”

George describes himself as creative, ambitious, and motivated and rightly he does. Through hard work and dedication, he has become an illustrious designer who enjoys the fruit of his work.

But in order to know more about him, we invite you to read an interview where he talks about his sources of inspiration, his most important projects, hobbies, and his overall experience as a designer.
Also, if you’d like to stay updated with the designer’s work, make sure you follow him on Behance, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

So without further ado, here’s the interview section with our favorite designer this week. <3

WebDesignLedger: Where does your inspiration come from?
George: Instagram & Pinterest and books.

WebDesignLedger: What is your favorite piece of work and why? How did you create it?
George: Hmm, I don’t have a favorite piece, to be honest, I always think that the next piece that I am going to make will be my favorite.

WebDesignLedger: What do you think are the most important 3 skills for a designer?
George: The most important 3 skills for a designer are CREATIVITY, SOFTWARE (knowledge/skills) and COMMUNICATION.

WebDesignLedger: How do you stay updated with what is new in the design world?
George: In order to stay updated I usually browse design galleries and read and collect books & magazines.

WebDesignLedger: Have you worked with any major brands?
George: My clients are usually photographers but I’ve done some work for brands like Lookslikefilm, The Visuals Collective, Folk travel, Hope Outfitters, and also I did some branding work for a coffee shop, Genus Coffee and some lettering for Panemar, a bakery from Cluj-Napoca.

WebDesignLedger: Who are your favorite 3 designers?
George: My favorite artists are Jon Contino, Joshua Noom, and Zachary Smith.

WebDesignLedger: What is something new that you learned as a designer in your past experience (jobs & internships)?
George: I think the most important thing I’ve learned is how to be more productive and also I’ve learned some new tricks in Adobe Illustrator and InDesign.
Other things I’ve learned is to remain friendly and respectful to everyone I work with. It is extremely easy to get frustrated or become overly-confident and obnoxious, but that will bring you down real fast. Modesty and respect are vital characteristics of any good designer.

WebDesignLedger: What kind of people do you love to work with? What kind of people don’t you love to work with?
George: Every client is important to me and I value each of them.

WebDesignLedger: Do you have enough free time for your family, friends and for your hobbies?
George: I always make time for my biggest hobby that I have, which is playing guitar

WebDesignLedger: Do you remember about your first project? Tell us more about it.
George: My first project was to create a poster for an event and I also did a lettering for this project. It’s a great feeling when someone appreciates your work and they also pay for it. I think that was the moment that I’ve decided to be a graphic designer.

WebDesignLedger: What do you think the future of graphic-design holds?
George: Since technology changes so fast, it’s hard to say what the future of graphic design holds, but I’ve thought it would be fun having a lot of tools and resources that would help designers to be more creative and more productive in a shorter time.

Below you can take a look at some of George’s stunning designs. Make sure you share your impressions with us in the comment section.

LOGO

LETTERING

Wild

The Mountains

Travel

Love is the answer

Adventure

Beautiful Places

Faith Can Move the Mountains

Escape

Hope and Strength

Ready For Adventure

Adventure Awaits

Rich in Memories

Alive

Magic

Show Me How To Love

Best Things in Life