Arts
Florian’s a Creative Partner at Group of Humans, and even for a design professional he’s had a pretty extraordinary career. Originally trained to be a car designer, his entry into the creative professions actually started in music: he was signed to the legendary UK dance label Ninja Tune in the late 90s, and that whole scene is what eventually led him to motion graphics and web design. This turned into a creative studio called Hi-RES, that grew to several dozen members in London, Berlin and New York, and ran for nearly 20 years.Florian’s now in a sort of self-imposed “retirement”, but only loosely—he’s still got tons of projects going on, including collaborations with startups exploring new ways of using blockchain, a new music album, a website, a sustainable tech initiative called Sovereign Nature, and of course his work with the Group of Humans. So part of the conversation is around the arc of a creative career, and the challenge of reinvention after constantly doing new things for your whole adult life. We also talk a lot about his studio Hi-RES, and what it is that makes these kinds of loosely defined, passion-driven creative collectives succeed or fail. We talk about London, and what makes it such a great place to do creative work, about the value of constraints, and—once again—about why there are so many digital designers who were trained in physical product design.