JF Dialogues #05 is our first instalment that features a designer working purely in the digital realm. Not being bound by the laws of physics, or the logistics of materials, Ezequiel Pini, founder of CGI design studio Six N. Five, is able to create surrealist yet nostalgically familiar worlds of emotion and vibrancy from his Barcelona-based loft. We asked him a few questions about the intricacies of his process, and the origins of his design philosophy.
1. How has your work evolved in the past year?
Although we have worked to improve our aesthetics, we’ve also been giving a lot more attention to the conceptual fields, as opposed to being focused purely on the aesthetics themselves.
2. What would you like to achieve?
We would like to keep developing our own style. We are a multidisciplinary studio offering a wide array of services, from a simple image, to a conceptual job, a huge video campaign, or even the development of furniture. I think all of these fields are well connected by our own recognizable style of design, and we aim to develop this even more solidly.
3. What’s the most rewarding element of your process?
I really love the experimentation. We try to explore new ways of shading and texturing in order to generate new results. So when a project comes and we are already involved in the design process, we spend at least one day experimenting and testing materials in an unexpected way. Mainly being open for accidents occurring; things that we wouldn’t plan. This always happens when we have enough time to design.
4. What books have influenced you?
I enjoyed the Steve Jobs biography by W. Isaacson. Architecture in the Desert and Living Utopia also recently came as good inspiration for some projects we have been developing.
5. What’s been your most rewarding project?
I would say our most rewarding project was Samsung: Perfect Reality. It incorporates our way of thinking, our way of design, interiors, landscapes and also the style of animation we love; simple but effective.
6. Where do your ideas come from?
They come from real life - our everyday. Something I’ve seen on the street walking with my kids, a common human desire, or after visiting someplace that, in my mind, needed something else to be perfect… the advantage of working in 3D is, we can say, let's create it!
7. When people experience your work, what emotion(s) do you want them to feel?
I would say pleasure, wellness, and to want to be there. We like to generate comfortable emotions to the viewer.
8. What does your studio/workspace look like?
Our studio is a loft where on the top floor we have our machines and workspace. Upstairs is where we spend most of the time during the day. On the ground floor, we have the kitchen, a big living room, and also a terrace full of plants. This is where we take our time between renders, during lunch, or to play some game. After a few months of hard work, let me confess, I prefer to spend more time there.
