The mornings

the mornings

Sunday, December 18, 11

Sunday, December 18, 11

I am a visual designer.

I’ve been in the profession since I was 19 and moved on to have my own company.

In 2006 this just wasn’t working for me anymore.

I woke up one morning and realized I wasn’t looking forward to my day ahead.

I was going to be a manager of design rather than a designer.

Sunday, December 18, 11

There were 2 issues traveling me: 1. My business model just wasn’t working!

I was trying to grow my business but that meant more managerial and less creative work.

And I was sure after 20 years in this profession that I wasn’t a good manager.

But I was still a passionate designer.

1 Sunday, December 18, 11

There were 2 issues traveling me: 1. My business model just wasn’t working!

I was trying to grow my business but that meant more managerial and less creative work.

And I was sure after 20 years in this profession that I wasn’t a good manager.

But I was still a passionate designer.

Sunday, December 18, 11

2. My market was deep in a crisis! And it was going worse.

I wasn’t a prophet. I couldn’t predict the mess we are in today. But it was obvious that the Greek market was rapidly declining.

Or maybe... I just wasn’t the right person for that market.

2 Sunday, December 18, 11

2. My market was deep in a crisis! And it was going worse.

I wasn’t a prophet. I couldn’t predict the mess we are in today. But it was obvious that the Greek market was rapidly declining.

Or maybe... I just wasn’t the right person for that market.

Sunday, December 18, 11

In my attempt to solve these issues, I looked to the history of Greece: We have a beautiful but small piece of land. Fertile but poor.Â

Sunday, December 18, 11

And so we've always built ships.

Ships that have created commercial roads for us.

So that is exactly what I had to do.

Sunday, December 18, 11

I've tried to physically leave Greece before but i'm probably too in love with the sun.

But what about a virtual ship?

One that explores other worlds, other markets And what about another business model?

Sunday, December 18, 11

In early 2006 something happened that helped to jump start my faith in this virtual ship.

It was a Saturday night and as I arrived home I checked my Flickr account. I couldn't believe my eyes.

2006

Sunday, December 18, 11

In early 2006 something happened that helped to jump start my faith in this virtual ship.

It was a Saturday night and as I arrived home I checked my Flickr account. I couldn't believe my eyes.

Sunday, December 18, 11

This mosaic portrait of Steve Jobs had been viewed 45 000 times.

In less than 3 hours. And it was a Saturday night. The time of the week with less traffic on the internet.

What happened?

Sunday, December 18, 11

This mosaic portrait of Steve Jobs had been viewed 45 000 times.

In less than 3 hours. And it was a Saturday night. The time of the week with less traffic on the internet.

What happened?

Sunday, December 18, 11

Well it was Kevin, a 15 year old boy from Guam.

He was a friend of mine on Flickr and enthusiastic Mac user.

Sunday, December 18, 11

Kevin posted the link on Digg.com.

Digg was incredibly popular then and Kevin was a top user.

The image hit the frontpage and led thousands of hits to my Flickr page.

But that wasn't all.

Sunday, December 18, 11

From Digg the image passed on to hundreds of blogs and websites. My beloved Gestalten publishing companies featured it...

Sunday, December 18, 11

as well as the Unofficial Apple Weblog or Cult of Mac and many more.

Sunday, December 18, 11

Soon the Spanish newspaper ABC asked me to use this image.

Sunday, December 18, 11

So Bingo! This was the definition of a success story for me.

Analyzing what happened, I realized that this story held many of Steve Jobs' values:

Be a Perfectionist Sunday, December 18, 11

1. BE A PERFECTIONIST!

1

Sunday, December 18, 11

I was messing around with mosaics and synthetic images my whole life.Â

Sunday, December 18, 11

In contrast to Steve Jobs, I was in love with complexity.

Sunday, December 18, 11

I was amazed with the zoom in and out in nature

Sunday, December 18, 11

I was amazed with the zoom in and out in nature

Sunday, December 18, 11

...science...

Sunday, December 18, 11

...and art

Sunday, December 18, 11

I wanted to create great mosaics.Â

Sunday, December 18, 11

I studied hard.

Sunday, December 18, 11

I worked hard.

Sunday, December 18, 11

I was sharing my experiences with the design community by writing articles and tutorials & speaking to conferences.

Sunday, December 18, 11

Some could say I had reached a higher level as a designer but I had no intention on stopping.

Allow Assistance Sunday, December 18, 11

2. ALLOW ASSISTANCE:

2

Sunday, December 18, 11

My portrait made use of a brand that was much bigger than mine. Steve Jobs in 2005 and 2006 wasn't as trendy as in 2011

Sunday, December 18, 11

but he had passionate fans that belonged to a minority. These people took me on their shoulders and carried me through the virtual spaces.

Sunday, December 18, 11

So you could kind of say that I could borrowed some fans from the Apple community.

Sunday, December 18, 11

3. BE SINCERE:

Be Sincere Sunday, December 18, 11

3. BE SINCERE:

3

Sunday, December 18, 11

I never used Steve Jobs' image in order to monetize on his glory.

The guy was a personal hero for me & I honored what he contributed to the world.

Sunday, December 18, 11

Since the early nineties, I was a Mac user and a passionate reader of computer history. I was especially interested in the computer underground.

Sunday, December 18, 11

I knew the story & I could tell it without saying the words.

But people could understand it through my images.

Develop a Platform Sunday, December 18, 11

4. DEVELOP A PLATFORM:Â

4

Sunday, December 18, 11

I have finally found my market and my business platform. The rise of social media brought new horizons for my virtual ship to reach a global marketÂ

Sunday, December 18, 11

It wasn't my personal website where people viewed my portfolio

Sunday, December 18, 11

It was Flickr, Digg, Blogger...

People go there for millions of reasons other than to see my work.

But since I was there, they could find me.Â

Sunday, December 18, 11

It was Flickr, Digg, Blogger...

People go there for millions of reasons other than to see my work.

But since I was there, they could find me.Â

Sunday, December 18, 11

And I believe that if you share valuable content, people are going to engage with it.

Sunday, December 18, 11

2006 didn’t allow me to completely abandon my greek design business but I decided that I would dedicate a large portion of my free time to my R&D studiesÂ

Sunday, December 18, 11

Every evening, every weekend, every holiday had to be invested on NON commercial, experimental, developmental work.

Sunday, December 18, 11

It was some niche market I was trying to tap into. But on a worldwide scale this niche market would be good enough for me.

Sunday, December 18, 11

I also decided that my subjects would only be about positive people and positive ideas. I was tired of the misery of our times.

People complaining about bad politicians, bad institutions, bad entrepreneurs.Â

Sunday, December 18, 11

I would rather dedicate my days to good athletes, like Kobe Bryant...

Sunday, December 18, 11

...passionate entrepreneurs... like Mark Zuckerberg

Sunday, December 18, 11

...inspiring pioneers... like Sir Clive Sinclair.

Sunday, December 18, 11

...great thinkers... like Mr. Space Invader Tomohiro Nishikado

Sunday, December 18, 11

Then I had to seriously invest in social media.

I read, studied, made connections, tried to understanding the logic.

Sunday, December 18, 11

I also followed the advise of a good internet friend Franz Patzig: Make all your work available under the Creative Commons license and in high resolution.

Don’t lose your time with thieves or copycats.

They don't appreciate what you are doing and they don't want to pay for it anyway.

Sunday, December 18, 11

I also followed the advise of a good internet friend Franz Patzig: Make all your work available under the Creative Commons license and in high resolution.

Don’t lose your time with thieves or copycats.

They don't appreciate what you are doing and they don't want to pay for it anyway.

Sunday, December 18, 11

Help the good people to share and use your work. They are your market.

Help them enjoy your work. Allow them to test if they can use it commercially.

Then they are going to contact you and if they find value in your work they are going to pay you.

Sunday, December 18, 11

And so they did. At the end of 2007, Fortune magazine wanted a mosaic portrait of Steve Jobs.

I thought some friend was pulling my leg, but no. It was for real.

Sunday, December 18, 11

This portrait help boost my carrier. It has been republished immediately in Italy.

Sunday, December 18, 11

in Germany

Sunday, December 18, 11

in Japan...

Sunday, December 18, 11

Till today it’s published in probably more than 1000 different media around the world.

Sunday, December 18, 11

After that it was the advertising campaign of Bradesco Bank in Brazil,

Sunday, December 18, 11

and then the awarded campaign for IKEA in Sweden

Sunday, December 18, 11

and then the NASCAR campaign for Toyota in the U.S.

Sunday, December 18, 11

...and then Barack Obama who I was supporting since the very start of the campaign became president.Â

Sunday, December 18, 11

The Obama work helped me make it to many prominent publications and design circles, broadening my audience.

Sunday, December 18, 11

The illustrations I created have been published in media all over the world

Sunday, December 18, 11

This time Obama fans took me on their shoulders.

Sunday, December 18, 11

What I learned once more is that people appreciate nice stories.

It's not good enough to show off of techniques and skills.

You have to have something to say and be able to pronounce it loudly and wholeheartedly.

Sunday, December 18, 11

And if you want to find things to say you have to go deep into the stories of real people.

You have to rediscover the roots. And you just have to find the right time to share these stories.

Sunday, December 18, 11

There are always opportunities.

And so I schedule not for the next week, month or quarter but for the years ahead.

Sunday, December 18, 11

In January 2008 I started working on a series of designs that could be used during the upcoming South Africa 2010 World Cup.

Sunday, December 18, 11

In January 2008 I started working on a series of designs that could be used during the upcoming South Africa 2010 World Cup.

Sunday, December 18, 11

It was the same concept - the same values - all over again: 1. Good and hard work 2. Assistance from a fan base.

Sunday, December 18, 11

3. Sincerity 4. A business model.

Sunday, December 18, 11

In 2009 I shut down my office.

I left all my Greek clients to my till then partner and decided that I would focus seriously on my virtual ship.

Sunday, December 18, 11

The summer of 2010 I enjoyed the publicity of my African studies during the World Cup. The model was really working.

Sunday, December 18, 11

I had a established a target when I started experimenting with sports graphics.

I was dreaming of getting the attention of Nike.

I created so many images that they could see, like and order.

Sunday, December 18, 11

You can understand my happiness when they sent me this email.Â

Sunday, December 18, 11

I created my first design for them in 2010.Â

Sunday, December 18, 11

One year after the South African 2010 it was the Germany 2011

Sunday, December 18, 11

and the US national team was wearing my sports graphics.

Sunday, December 18, 11

During this time I also worked on the Gatorade World campaign.

Sunday, December 18, 11

They liked the ethnic studies and they thought that this culture would help them communicate effectively with the South American market.

Sunday, December 18, 11

We experimented with the african heritage and combined this with the Latin-American heroes of sports.

Sunday, December 18, 11

One morning about two months ago I woke up too early.

I had fallen asleep very late and I had my MacBook next to my bed.

October

Sunday, December 18, 11

One morning about two months ago I woke up too early.

I had fallen asleep very late and I had my MacBook next to my bed.

5

Sunday, December 18, 11

There were so many emails coming in that night and the typical beep woke me up at 3 am.

I saw the emails and I said NO. He's dead!

Sunday, December 18, 11

My hero, the person I was following for so many years, who helped me so much by guiding me - was dead.

Sunday, December 18, 11

But there was no time for mourning because I had mails from hundreds of media.

Sunday, December 18, 11

Before i knew it I was talking to CNN

Sunday, December 18, 11

...to the Huffington post...

Sunday, December 18, 11

...to La Repubblica, the Telegraph... all about Steve.

Sunday, December 18, 11

Even the Greek media had discovered me...

Sunday, December 18, 11

I learned something that day. Publicity may be good for your profession, but it comes at a price.

The day you lose someone precious may be the day people congratulate you.

Sunday, December 18, 11

Some people might believe that this is a great achievement and that I should be happy because of the clients in my portfolio and all the media buzz

Sunday, December 18, 11

I ensure you that I am a satisfied with all that but am not happy.

Sunday, December 18, 11

Success is not the goal. Happiness is the goal.

Sunday, December 18, 11

Happiness for me is to wake up in the morning and be lost in my colors and my pixels.

Sunday, December 18, 11

Happiness is to share my pixels with people that can appreciate them.

Sunday, December 18, 11

Happiness is found in the morning when you look forward to your day ahead.

Sunday, December 18, 11

Today was a nice morning.

Because I'm a visual designer and I knew i had the opportunity to meet you and share with you my pixels, my colors and my design story.

Ευχαριστώ.

Sunday, December 18, 11