In recent years, Riga residents have been delighted by a series of creative urban communication campaigns co-created by graphic designer and art director Kristiāna Marija Sproģe. She now works together with Dārta Apsīte and Beāte Broka in the design and communication studio Ausme. In the Nice Touch section, Kristiāna talks about a technique that helps her overcome creative blocks and come up with fresh ideas.
«Sometimes when you start a project, you get the white page syndrome — you should be getting to something worthwhile soon, but your mind is blank. In moments like that, I approach the project from the visual side, finding intention through doing. At the beginning of this process, I limit myself to using only one tool (most often digital) to its maximum capacity until I come up with an idea to stick to. The more undiscovered, specific, and uncomfortable the tool, the more likely the result will be surprising.
For example, for a highly visual project, I could use the eraser tool. I draw a couple of rectangles and start making shapes with the digital eraser. The whole thing is a bit clumsy, but over time I notice that the negative space starts to form something new, the rectangle in the foreground starts to reveal the layers behind, my fingertips start to guide my thoughts, and a seed of an idea that I can develop further is captured.
Above all, this exercise allows me to quickly and painlessly move away from visual techniques long ingrained in muscle memory that may have produced reliable results in the past but no longer satisfy the drive for visual authenticity. Last but not least, it has helped to maintain curiosity, playfulness, and the joy of discovery in the design process.»
Kristiāna Marija Sproģe is the design director of the design and communication studio Ausme and co-founder of the artist collective 3/8. For the last two years, Kristiāna worked as an art director for Riga City Council’s urban campaigns. She is passionate about visual research, inventing new ways of working, exploring projects through in-depth research, and finding new visual languages.
Although Ausme was founded recently, the core team of Kristiāna, Dārta Apsīte, and Beāte Broka are experienced professionals whose work has won awards in both local and international advertising and design competitions. Ausme’s creative solutions are based on tradition, history, art, music, and literature, combining the traditional with the contemporary through design and audiovisual techniques, always striving for a deeper meaning.
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