1) What would your typical day be like?

I work at night, so I tend to get up really late, sometime around 11am. I spend the afternoon working and dealing with admin stuff, evenings I’m either out or spending time with my girlfriend, and I get back to work at night, which is when I do my best stuff I think.

I also make music, that normally happens at night too. Fridays are always a bit hectic, I do 2 one-day commissions every Friday, one for the Charlie Brooker column in the guardian, another for Armando in the observer; both have to be done on the same day within a few hours. The rest varies a lot, and depends a lot on work. Sometimes I don’t leave the studio for days, other times I ignore everything and leave the country for a while. Recently it’s been work non-stop, I’m starting to feel the need for a quick holiday.

2) Please tell us about how and why you joined Big Active?

I got to know them through Jasper Goodall back around ‘98 or ‘99 I think. I was commissioned by NIKE to work on an ad campaign, and they helped me out on the admin side, and after that I started working with them regularly. I love big active and owe a lot to them, I wouldn’t really want to be with any other agency at this point.

3) Do you get to collaborate a lot with other Big Active members?

We all work separately most of the time, and most of us tend to be pretty busy with our own work so there isn’t too much time for collaboration, it’s very rare that we all get together as a ‘collective’.

4) Do you feel you get 100% freedom when creating work for clients, or do you have restrictions on what you can and can not do?

It really depends on the client. I love working on the guardian and observer stuff, they generally give me all the freedom I need. I became a bit frustrated with advertising work a while ago because of the lack of creativity, so I kind of pushed my work in a more editorial direction. Although editorial work is a lot harder and not as well paid as ad work, I feel like I ‘m producing far better work this way.

5) Do your surroundings inspire you?

I fucking hate where I am right now, but I’m moving to a much better place next week. I lived in Brighton for a long time, but that place stopped being inspiring a while ago, so last year I moved to north London. I still like North London a lot but my working environment is doing my head in, it just doesn’t feel quite right. London is a really inspiring place in many ways, but it’s also hard work. I’m still searching for the perfect place, I was toying with the idea of moving to California for a while but I think I feel most at home in Europe, I guess I will keep traveling around until I find somewhere to settle.

6) When illustrating, do you sometimes get blocked for ideas? If so, how do you overcome that?

If I ‘m stuck for ideas, I normally put everything down and go ride my bike for a bit, or do something completely unrelated. A lot of the time I have to come up with ideas really fast, within minutes, and when that happens I just research the subject matter as much as I can, I surround myself with images and text, something interesting always turns up. If an idea is wrong or not working, it becomes obvious very quickly.

One of the advantages of working on quick deadlines is that you learn to generate ideas really fast, and you also learn how to turn those ideas into images really fast. having said that I don’t have a flawless fool-proof method every time, sometimes things can surprise you, a perfectly good idea can turn out looking like a piece of shit for no reason whatsoever. I guess that can’t be helped sometimes, and in many ways I ‘m still learning.

7) Is there something that annoys you about illustration? Or design in general?

It’s actually more the lifestyle that gets to me sometimes. You have to be disciplined and it’s very easy to have no structure to your life at all, and you spend a lot of time working alone at any given time. It can be weird getting ready to sleep when everyone else is having breakfast or whatever, it can make you feel a little isolated at times.

People who work 9 to 5 hate it, but they have a solid structure to their days and a regularity which kind of intrigues me, I’ve never really had that. The price you pay for creative freedom is that you have no real structure or security in your life. you don’t ever go to work for 8 hours and leave it behind when you finish, there’s always stuff you’re doing and stuff you’re about to do, it’s non-stop. Weekends lose their meaning completely, I’ll work all day and all night on Friday, but then I’ll have Tuesday to do absolutely nothing at all. It just means you’re never in sync with the rest of the world. Half of me loves that, the other half hates it.

8) If you had to choose one person that has always inspired you, who would that person be and why?

I can’t think of anyone specific, its different people and things at different times.

9) In today’s modern era, do you feel that a lot of people are moving away from the traditional pen and paper way of illustrating and moving to computers instead?

No, I think there are a lot of people working in a lot of different ways; it’s good to exploit technology, that’s what it’s there for.

10) Have you got any other interesting projects in the pipeline for the future?

I’m working on a book with a Hungarian writer, it’s going to take a long time but we’re just getting started on things, should be a good project. I’m also going to be working on more moving image stuff.

11) Do you have plans on releasing a book that showcases your work?

Only if there’s a good enough reason for it.

12) What is favorite design related website that you always visit?

Google, without a doubt.

13) What is the longest amount of time you have spent on a piece of work?

Not sure, maybe 4 days? Something like that.

14) If you had to describe your work in 3 words, what would those words be?

I don’t know, I’m having trouble coming up with anything clever for this. If I ever I get to a point when I can describe my work in 3 words it means it’s time to do something new with it.

15) Finally, what is the Hungarian design scene like?

Hungary is full of really talented people suffocated by the need to survive, so there are a lot of frustrated designers out there. Things are getting better all the time though.

Any final words?

Thanks for listening…