COLIBRI | Branding & Design

ISSUES

Design from A to Z or the city in a form: Αrchitecture, design, deco (January 2010)

Interview of Christos Helmis for “Thessaloniki Confidential” magazine, with the title: Design from A to Z or the city in a form: Αrchitecture, design, deco (January 2010)

What is creativity?

It is a trick by which you are able to live well and help make the life of others more interesting.

[-A trick]

A trick, a stunt, resourcefulness, boldness and some nerve mixed with our culture. Everything around us that is worth something –art, communication, architecture, administration, genetics, technology, even good food… everything requires creativity.And of course design which is almost a synonym to creativity in its most extreme form: paper or screen, a few strong words… and you ‘ve got it.

Which was your most enjoyable project?

I really enjoyed a graphic designer graduates exhibition, in 1993 or 1994, with the theme of “zoo”… being the animal tamer! I remember the joy of “Warning. Work in progress” for the State Theatre or the logo for Logos (speech) centre. It is hard to choose –mostly because I enjoyed lots of my Colibri colleagues’ achievements such as the Spoilt project –sketching it was my only contribution. Also I enjoy the silly talk we do when beginning a project in order to scare it away, not the other way round!

Is there something else you want to do professionally? Something left un-experienced?

I want to work on a big airline company which really wants to re-design its logo. I’m joking… well, not exactly.

I would really like to see the Colibri team evolving with more collaborations outside the Greek borders and claiming positions in the retail shelves!

Is Is there something you can not resist in Thessaloniki?

Only the people I love.

What has your work taught you concerning the human level?

To observe and listen more carefully. To detect what is fake…the barbarity which lies behind somebody else’s fault.

What do you see from your office view?

Great minds, great hands and usually a good mood.

Thessaloniki Confidential - January 2010

Ten (+one) to talk about...

Interview of Christos Helmis for the monthly magazine “Epiloges” of
Makedonia newspaper, in an issue dedicated to Thessaloniki (September 2010)

[The Thessaloniki I love]

The city I love is the place of the people I admire and value greatly. A single person is enough to expiate the city from its ugliness and Thessaloniki has many people like that. Behind the bread counter, between words, inside a lab or studio, in every place that creates good work, where something new comes out as in science, aesthetics, business, education. This is the minority which we should protect from the mass manipulators!

[The Thessaloniki that disappoints me]

Disappointment requires some charm. This charm though is not valuable when it chains you to the past, to something that has been worn out. Luckily in Thessaloniki we do not have to maintain a charm the kind of a metropolis does such as Paris – the city of fashion, cinema and industrial progress, or Prague, a city of museums. That is why I believe we have a future more than a past. We just need to network together, to collaborate and to stop grumbling about all the things we deserve but do not have.

[The Thessaloniki I dream about]

A new city, outspreaded in the sea, with libraries, research centers and parks, build on the surface we claimed from the water, leaving in peace the few remaining green fields. This new city will present fresh design pieces -ephemeral or monumental- which will offer us global publicity and everyday lessons of good taste and creativity. This city must kill its atomic, ancestor-loving, sciolist self. It should leave behind any old superstitions. It needs to think and design a new strategy that will begin from ’12!

Epiloges - September 2010