Marian Bantjes: Intricate beauty by design | Video on TED.com

Mar­i­an Ban­t­jes: Intri­cate beau­ty by design | Video on TED.com

In this video, Mar­i­an Ban­t­jes explains how she built her career by throw­ing her indi­vid­u­al­i­ty into projects – some­thing few design­ers get the chance to do on a reg­u­lar basis.

Ban­t­jes now con­sid­ers her­self a graph­ic artist rather than a design­er, because her pre­vi­ous graph­ic design work forced her to fol­low strat­e­gy while her present work allows her to fol­low her heart and inter­ests. She does, how­ev­er, feel it is impor­tant for her to work to remain in the pub­lic sphere rather than the pri­vate sphere of fine art. In a per­fect world, all graph­ic design­ers would get to do more cre­ative, inno­v­a­tive work on a reg­u­lar basis, but low bud­gets, tight time­lines and con­trol­ling clients often get in the way. It is always refresh­ing to see an exam­ple of some­one who is able to trans­form their career.

Towards the end of the video, Ban­t­jes dis­cuss­es why her work is mean­ing­ful. Tru­ly inspired visu­al work is essen­tial for inspir­ing the minds of the mass­es. I love the way she phras­es it: inspi­ra­tion is cross-pol­li­nat­ing.