Interview with Florian Schmitt

Florian. Please describe us, how did you start your career being a designer? And how did you start your studio?
I wanted to be a designer from the age of 8, as weird as that may sound. But I wanted to design cars, so eventually, a mere 13 years later, I started studying product and automotive design. I got bored of it quickly and moved on to do CG and motion graphics, started directing pop promos and commercials and eventually moved from Germany to London and set up Hi-ReS! with my partner Alexandra.

How did you come up with the name for your studio?
Ah well, long story. We just tried to come up with a clever name and we thought writing it "Hi, Res!" would be fun, like the start of a letter.
But then no one got it when we had to spell it over the phone and so on, so we just made it the same as our URL, Hi-ReS.
It stands for Handsome information - Radical entertainment Systems! Haha.

What are your goals?
To produce work I can be proud of.
To be surrounded by people whose company I enjoy.
To be able to continuously enjoy what I do.
To get home before 7 every once in a while.

Tell us a bit about your work process. How do you start your working day and how do you finish it?
Hm, we start at 10 here, I usually start doing stuff around 8 though. How we work in the team really differs from day to day and project to project, but we communicate most of the time via iChat. It's amazing how it's changed the way we work. You just screenshot something you are working on, send it over and get instant feedback. It may seem like detached communication/collaboration, but it's so effective.
Also I feel that sometimes things become way clearer when you write them down, rather than saying them. And you can read them again.
In terms of the work-process, we like everything to be a group process, everyone has equal say in the project, although I will be the one to make decisions in the end.We're not always on agreement on things, but that's part of the process. We finish around 7. Sometimes we finish at 4 in the morning. Weird job we have chosen for ourselves. But you can always make things a little bit better... so you do. And stay up way
past your bedtime.

As we all know you don't work alone. How did you meet your partner?
Well, first of all, there is this misconception about how many people Hi-ReS! are. Some think it's Alexandra and myself, others think we are 30 people.
We are 10 at the moment, it's an absolute dreamteam of creatives. I couldn't be happier and I want to give them credit because everything we do is a group effort, not something just Alexandra and I do. But to answer your question, I met Alexandra at Art School, Hochschule für Gestaltung in Offenbach Germany. She was finishing up her studies and I had just started. e have worked together ever since, which is now 13 years... Wow.

So, you are going to OFFF soon. Maybe you can open your secrets, what about you are going to speak?
Uhm, no. I am not. I went last year. Hold on, when did you send this interview.... I know it took me ages to answer, but could it be ...?
We have cut down the amount of events we go to quite radically. It's hard work to do these speaking engagements, and with a new baby, you have to get your priorities straight. So far we have missed Mexico, Hong Kong, Cape Town and New York gigs, but you can't dance at every wedding (as they say in Germany).

We are going to TOCAME next in June, which everyone tells us is an amazing conference. Nt sure what we will be speaking about, mostly
some new things we have done recently, which no one has seen yet..
We just completed the Brand Identity for the PSP in Europe, which was a huge project.We also do a lot of stuff which is super limited
and/or printed matter, so not many people get to see it.
We like most of all to talk about our process. Why are things the way they are, how did the idea come about, etc. It's the most exciting part of our job.

Flash, print or web? Why?
Well, web for us is Flash, because we couldn't code html if our life depended on it.Print, yes. Doing much much more recently.
Interactive installations, yes. That's something we are very keen on at the moment, looking beyond mouse, browser or screen and using your body to interact with machines. Very exciting.My background being in moving image, I hope to do more film work as well. I miss it.
I think it's important for us to do many different things at the same time. I believe that not knowing about things can lead to the most
interesting results. It's basically all about remaining a bit naive about things, about learning balance by losing it. It's the hardest thing to do, because you cannot unlearn, but you have to pretend you can so you don't become trapped in cliches.

Flash is bad in 99% as Jacob Nielsen said. Do you agree?
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I have no set opinion on it.I mean, Amazon in Flash would be 100% bad, wouldn't it?

Your hobbies?
Hobbies? Hmmm, I don't really have much time for hobbies at the moment. I have a little daughter now, so she's pretty much the focal point of my leisure time now.

Tell us about you personal life please. Do you live alone? Do any sports?
Not sure I want to talk about my personal life, partly because working takes up such a large part of my life anyway.
Anyway, I live with my wife and we have just had a beautiful healthy daughter. I like to run. I like shopping with my wife. I make music for a label in London called Ninjatune. I love to cook and would like to be a chef in my next life.

How do you rest?
I don't. Not really. I am always doing something. I have this idea that I can be really lazy, but I never am. I get very restless after half a day of relaxing.

What do you think about digital design cmmunities like digital abstracts and such?
I think it's great that people are willing to put the energy in to keep something up to date, do interviews, features, etc - essentially becoming a publisher. It's such a vibrant scene and of course it wouldn't have been possible to this extent without the interweb.I have to admit that I don't really check out community sites any more. I think it's part of the unlearning process. I have almost stopped looking at design websites.Very refreshing for a while.

Any last comments, please?
If you always want to hit the target, shoot first.Whatever you hit, call it the target.