Summary
Highlights
The 14th GMK Presentations event welcomes attendees to explore design entrepreneurship. This series invites designers to share their experiences through presentations. Today's event features Dilara Şeman Demir and Eda Gündüz, two graphic designers who have successfully established their own brands and developed products.
Dilara Şeman Demir, a 2014 Marmara University graduate with active experience in the design market since 2012, talks about establishing her own brand, Jun Objects, while working at Semester. She aims to create more experimental products that reflect her personal design vision, distinct from her client-focused work.
Dilara co-founded Semester in 2018 with Doğukan Karapınar. The studio focuses on creating strategic and communication-oriented designs for brands, including visuals, animations, and websites. They strive to build a sustainable narrative and character for each brand, expanding beyond just logos to encompass exhibition and editorial design.
Jun Objects was founded in 2021 during the pandemic as a personal creative outlet. Dilara started making rugs using a tufting machine, learning the craft through extensive R&D, and experimenting with materials. She also expanded into unique 'totem' objects, each produced as a single, collectible piece.
Dilara details the design process, starting with digital concepts using geometric forms and vibrant colors. The production involves an extensive R&D phase to find suitable materials, followed by the meticulous weaving and finishing of the rugs. This includes intricate trimming with specialized tools, like a 'pom-pom scissor,' which was surprisingly hard to find.
Jun Objects expanded to custom rugs, allowing client input on colors while maintaining Dilara's design aesthetic. She also created posters and canvases. Her brand philosophy emphasizes timeless design over fleeting trends, slow production, and aiming for a niche audience that appreciates her unique artistic approach. The brand name evolved from Junorugs to Jun Objects, enabling diversification into various disciplines.
After rugs, Jun Objects expanded into scarves ('flare') which introduced her to textile design and allowed for mass production. These scarves, with their versatile designs, became popular. She collaborated with a boutique owner to create a one-size dress, which customers adapted in unique ways. She also introduced 'pare' (shawls) and upcycled fabric scraps into unique tote bags, aligning with her sustainability ethos. More recently, she started making punch-needle wallets and home accessories, and ceramic objects in collaboration with a ceramic artist. The goal is to spread her designs across different surfaces and learn from various disciplines.
Dilara discusses the evolution of the Jun Objects website. Initially a portfolio site, it struggled with manual sales tracking. It then transitioned to a more e-commerce-focused site, which increased sales, but still lacked comprehensive functionality. Eventually, with the help of her Semester colleagues, she developed a professional e-commerce site that incorporated her artistic vision while being highly functional. She also emphasizes creating a unique and thoughtful unboxing experience, often repurposing materials to minimize waste.
Eda Gündüz introduces herself, a Mimar Sinan graphic design graduate from 2013 who started working in 2014. From a young age, she knew she wanted to run her own studio. Her journey involved working at various agencies and studios, learning from each experience, before co-founding Studio These Days. She emphasizes her intrinsic motivation to create and learn, rather than just earning money or escaping bad jobs.
Studio These Days, co-founded with her partner Ozan, is a multidisciplinary studio focusing on design, photography, and production. The name signifies their desire to focus on 'what they want to design these days.' Eda views design as a constant search for meaning within a vast field, prioritizing aesthetics as a tool for value creation. She believes in enhancing the visual world around us, from street signs to complex projects, through thoughtful design.
Eda showcases a range of projects from Studio These Days, including set designs (many of which she creates herself, often repurposing items she buys). She highlights their diverse work across various industries such as textiles and cosmetics, and their approach to combining disparate materials to create visually intriguing compositions. Their work also includes 3D, two-dimensional design, and book design, all contributing to their accumulated knowledge and skills.
Eda introduces 'Merch,' a studio she co-founded with Taner, which designs interactive merchandise for artists, brands, and NGOs. Named as a wordplay on 'merchandise' and 'us,' Merch aims to create products that embody storytelling and unique narratives. They focus on original, ethical, limited, and interactive merchandise. They have completed three artist collaborations, including Hey Douglas, Melike Şahin, and Kalben, each with unique concepts and photo shoots led by Studio These Days.
Eda presents 'Object or Not Object,' a venture stemming from her fascination with collecting and the meaning of objects. The brand challenges perceptions, asking if an object's meaning changes based on perspective. It's a slow-growing project allowing for experimentation with 3D-printed vases and other items. Eda embraces the flexibility of the 'Other Things' category to allow for future expansion, potentially into textiles or other areas, as their creative interests evolve.
Eda discusses 'Wandering Eyes at Home,' a children's book she authored and conceptualized. This project emphasizes that creative exploration isn't limited to design, extending to writing and illustration. The book, co-created with Yaren, explores a home environment through the adventures of three characters. It was strategically designed with future serialization in mind, with potential themes like 'At School' or 'At Museum,' and has been published in Catalan and Spanish.
Eda shares insights on transforming ideas into brands, drawing from common questions she receives. She emphasizes that motivation for building a brand often stems from a desire for continuous growth and learning. Being your own client offers creative freedom but also demands a wide range of responsibilities, from design to logistics. Building a brand requires a clear strategy, manifesto, and aesthetic, along with immense patience and effort.
A crucial aspect for designers is balancing aesthetics with functionality. While designers aspire to create beautiful things, practical considerations like production, packaging, and logistics often dictate design choices. Eda notes that sometimes, truly beautiful designs may not always be the most functional or scalable, leading to a need for compromise and strategic thinking about how a product will be manufactured and shipped. This highlights the operational realities that come with creating a product-based brand. She also stresses the importance of engaging with a community rather than just consumers, as trust and loyalty are built through consistent interaction and authentic connection.
During the Q&A, attendees ask about balancing studio work with personal brands. Dilara affirms her love for studio work but acknowledges her brand's faster growth, while Eda would consider reducing studio work if her brand's financial stability allowed. They discuss market research, noting that while essential, experience often shapes understanding of pricing and target markets. The discussion moves to collaborative team dynamics, with Eda praising teamwork in Merch and Object, while Dilara enjoys her current solo, hands-on approach for Jun.
Further questions address networking and client acquisition. Both speakers emphasize that trust and personal connection drive clients to their studios and brands, built over years of consistent, quality work. They discuss AI's role in design; Dilara uses it mainly for research and text correction, while Eda uses it for production support but insists on human-centric creativity. They advise a student embarking on a new venture to be courageous, patient, and good at communication, acknowledging the financial challenges but stressing belief in one's ideas.