www.ximeralabs.com

Graphic Designer | Belgium

Give a description of yourself in a few words
My name is Tom Muller, I’m a Belgian graphic designer. I studied at the Royal Academy for Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium. I graduated in 1998 and started working in interactive design. Took my chances and moved to London 4 years ago to “build a career in design” (whatever that may mean). Since I moved to London I’ve done lots of interesting things so far, and hope to keep it that way.

Your look?
Its not important to me, I just want wear clothes that I feel comfortable in…
I’m more concerned about my work than what label is on my pants.
But I want to buy new shoes…

You’re now 30. Running lots of things, like a folio at Ximeralabs, working for Kleber, doing things for Plan B, Duolog, Hellomuller.
Yeah, I keep myself busy; although ximeraLabs isn’t a folio, helloMuller is. Ximeralabs never was or will be a commercial, or showcase site - it’s my personal playground on the web.


Is this quantity of work due to the job we’re doing or is it just because you love the job that much?
It’s basically because I love the ‘job’ too much. I don’t really consider what I do as a job per se. I mean, I do what I do because I want to do it, not because I have to… and that translates in being constantly on the lookout for new things, starting new projects, etc… I think that’s why I run more than one site, so I can hop around and work on different things.

On the other hand there is a distinction between the commercial work I do and the more experimental, or self-initiated work; but as a general rule I try to approach them as equal.

Will you keep the quantity of work in the future?
I don’t know… I kind of seem to be doing some thing or other during every given time.
Kleber is a constant element, because that’s where I work; but other than that, in most cases it’s me deciding to do something, or people who get in touch with me because they’ve seen some of my work. So, yes - I do hope to keep a constant, healthy workflow.

What do you like the most: creating/building by yourself or command people?
Well, I don’t command people. Kleber consists of 5 people right now, and we’re all pulling at the same end of the rope; so it’s a working with other people, rather than a working for a boss type situation - since the unit is pretty small we all manage our own range of clients and projects; but we’re constantly working together and involved with everything. But to answer the question, I do like both. Its fun working on your own things without anyone involved, but at the same time, 2 can do more than 1.


Do you think your position will change in the future?
I don’t see any real change in the future. I’ve reached a point where I’m quite happy to be at for a while. As a person I’m constantly trying to grow and outdo myself every time I start on a new project; and the same goes for Kleber: constantly pushing forward. I think in that way our position towards the future constantly changes. I know I’ll still be designing in - lets say 2 years time (knocks on wood) - but I don’t know what (yet).

Tell me how you see the future of graphic design, and what your role will be in it.
For one thing, I can see digital distribution of entertainment media (especially music in the foreseeable future) to be one of the things that will change the way how we interact with that. This will obviously have repercussions in the way we will design for music (if CD’s become obsolete, etc). This is one of the challenges that Kleber is looking into, because we have a great deal of expertise in the digital music arena.

In terms of a general prediction of graphic design, I’d say more of the same: ‘trends’ will come and go, new designers will demand their place in the world, etc, I think that’s an extremely tricky question and everyone will have their own view on what could or should happen… we’ll see…
My role? If I can continue doing what I do and evolve than I’ll be a really happy man.

Has your love for visual communication evolved since you begun?
Yes. Well… I have always loved design and everything that comes with it.
I grew up in a design environment, both my parents were interior designers, and my dad was a college professor teaching design, so I design was literally spoon-fed when I grew up.
So I guess it was a really natural decision for me to go down a creative route… I had some detours doing product design and wanting to be a comic book artist, but eventually I accepted the fact that graphic design just felt right, you know? And ever since I’ve been doing it I keep loving it more and more.


Your influences?
Everything and anything I come in contact with: friends, my immediate surroundings, T.V., music, books, film …

Talk about your style, how it came, how it has evolved.
My style… I guess I only though about describing it, or put a label on it when I had to come up with a blurb about myself on the Plan B site… I think the way I design is influenced heavily by the things that I saw and read while I grew up… I was like 4 or 5 and I was looking at Bauhaus and design books from my dad, having no clue of course, but it stays with you.
When I was finally studying graphic design at college, I went through a phase of discovering computers and Photoshop, David Carson, and all that and I was a layer slut. The more the merrier, I wanted to put so much stuff in my designs and images that it would take you 5 minutes just to figure out all the details I put in… I guess its only later that I realized and matured enough to see what’s really important and what’s not; and you know - you learn from your mistakes, you keep what’s good and you go on… I guess my design tends to be very minimal and clean, Modernist with a contemporary swing… but I adapt pretty easy, and I don’t want to become to stuck in ‘one style’ - I think the contrast between hellomuller.com and planbse.com is a good example of that: I feel its part of ‘my style’ but both can stand on their own. Does that make sense?

What about copying what is said to be trendy?
It’s a really tricky thing, especially today when everyone can see everyone’s work at flip of a switch.
I think - well, I know, that EVERY designer at one point in his or her career, and mostly when we start out, will look to other designers work for guidance, inspiration, pick up tricks and techniques. I know I did. It’s natural - you learn from your predecessors. But that shouldn’t be an excuse not to try and find your own creative voice and approach. I think its important to be aware of what’s happening in design at any given point in time, but blatantly copying a style or approach because its seems to work for someone else is not really something that will help you, or the industry in general forward - it waters down originality in general if everyone starts doing the same thing. I think that by doing your own thing you’ll be a lot more powerful and have a lot more impact - and it’s probably a lot more fun too.


When did you felt your career having a boost?
Vir2L was a definite boost in my career. Before I moved to London, I was I had all those ideas and ambitions of what I wanted to do, but didn’t really know where to start.
When I started at Vir2L I saw all these guys do their own thing almost 24/7 and that opened my eyes in a big way of what’s possible and that you basically just have to do it instead of just sitting there and thinking about it.
I think that Vir2L, in a way, gave everyone there a boost, because we were constantly in each others presence, seeing each others stuff, inspiring one another… The fact that everyone there had their own sites and projects and I hadn’t when I got there was also a pretty good reason to get my ass in gear.

How is Tom Muller reacting when he sees a nice and creative work?
go ‘Wow!’, post it on pixelsurgeon, computerlove and threeoh, and I bookmark it.
I’m always excited when I see something that I find interesting.

You’re posting news for Pixelsurgeon or Computerlove. is it an important job for you to bring news to people?
Its fun… it’s a very easy and good way to point people towards something interesting that otherwise wouldn’t be seen at all. To kind of follow up from the previous question, being able to post news on those sites is one way of gently forcing people to ‘check out this cool site I just found’.


What do you think about those news sites?
I check most of them a couple of times during the day… It’s through design portals that I got in touch with what’s out there to begin with, so I think they’re a very important part of what we do. It’s like real news, but only for designers.

Your working material?
My brain, my sketchpad and my computer.

Your computer?
G4 TiBook 40/256/667 and 3 external drives (40GB, 40GB, 80GB).


Crashes sometimes?
Actually it isn’t that bad… I’ve had my laptop for close to 2 years now and I only had one total system crash - but that was my own fault! My old Mac’s used to crash on a regular basis. But I gotta hand it to Apple - OS X is a doozy. MacRules! In my book - it’s the original designers computer and it will always be! There! I said it!


How have you evolved with computers and how does this interaction affect your everyday life?
I got really late into computers… and I once vowed I’d never work on those horrible things!
My first computer experience must have been when I was 19 and studying product design and one of our tasks was to write a DOS prompt, and I was totally turned off by the whole thing. Clunky PC, a black screen and all you had to do was type stuff like C blah blah…
In the end I paid a friend of mine to do it for me, because I couldn’t understand one iota of the thing.
It was only 3 years later when I finally got to work on a Mac and saw what Illustrator and Photoshop were… and I understood how to use it! I gradually shifted from analogue work to the computer, and now it has taken over completely. I still think its important to have some grounding in doing something analogue, and I never start blindly on something on the computer - I always have a ton of sketches to get myself going.
How it has affected me? I know people’s emails instead of their phone numbers.

How important is human contact for you and for this job?
It’s as important as in any other job. That’s one of the reasons that I’m really happy to work at Kleber, it’s a small group of like minded people. It’s not healthy to sit by yourself alone all the time; and it gets really boring after a while.


How did you come to work for the well known infinity series that influenced many designers worldwide?
By working at Vir2L, I guess you call that ‘being at the right place at the right time’.
I think it started by James (Widegren) being contacted by DV to create a series of images for this new collection. When we saw what he was doing, and heard its was an actual commercial job some of us got pretty exited about it and we basically all contacted DV, who were still looking for people, to tell them we were up for it, and it went from there.

Any advice?
Adapt and Improve
Do it because you want to, not because you have to.