Sonya Dyakova / Atelier Dyakova

Here 2012: Sonya Dyakova from It's Nice That on Vimeo.




A couple of weeks ago, when I was in a bit of a sulk because I was stuck on how to approach third year, both in terms of the briefs I should do and how I would manage my time, and how come I still don't know really what I want to do/want to be, I decided to try and find some kind of inspiration online from within the industry, hoping it might give me a bit of a kick up the bottom. Here London was an event organised by Its Nice That, that featured talks from a number of interesting and successful creatives, and this was an event that I had originally intended to attend until I ran out of money. Fortunately they have been so kind as to leave an archive of videos on their website.

The talk I have blogged here was given by Sonya Dyakova, an art director and all round creative genius who runs Atelier Dyakova, a multi-disciplinary studio. The reason I was drawn to watching her video was because the little snippet of information underneath the link on the archive referenced her work with Phaidon, who create books that I fall in love with. Publishing design is something that I really want to focus on this year and so this talk was incredibly useful, as she discusses the concepts behind the art direction of the books, and also the processes involved in creating them. During the presentation, she discusses several books that were created under her art direction, including Ginette Mathiot's I Know How to Cook, a book that I actually have at home, mainly because of how beautiful it is, but also because I really like food. The concepts behind the books are always so well considered and beautifully executed, with a real focus on innovation and playing with the idea of what a publication can be.

At the beginning of her presentation, she also said something that struck a chord with me, and how I was feeling unsure of everything at the time. 'This feeling of not knowing what i'm doing seems to follow me, or maybe i'm following it. And i'm starting to think theres something to it, maybe i'm doing something right'. It was a very reassuring thing to hear someone as successful as her say, because this is the one feeling that has stuck with me since college. I know that I want to be part of the creative industries, but I am still unsure of the specifics. After hearing this, perhaps I should just chase this feeling and see which path I end up on.