Steve, for What Design Can Do! you will visit Amsterdam. Are you a regular visitor? What do you think of our younger generation of Dutch designers in comparison to our well known ‘older’ generation? Do you see a resemblance to your colleagues in New York City?

This will actually be my first time in Amsterdam! I’m very excited to visit, since I’ve been a long-time admirer of Dutch design (from afar). Mevis & Van Deursen, Experimental Jetset, and the student work coming out of Werkplaats Typografie were early influences when I was a younger designer just starting out. The extremely analytical design of Joost Grootens has also been a notable inspiration.

As for the younger Dutch generation, I’m probably not the most aware of what’s new. (Although I did order a copy of your Dutch Design Talent 14!) However when I look at contemporary Dutch designers and compare them to my colleagues in New York, probably the most similar characteristic isn’t stylistic — it’s a shared sense of openness. Dutch design feels very tolerant of individual perspectives. Because of the high diversity of people in New York, a similar spirit exists. In New York, you can generally feel free to be yourself, and I think that shows in the design world.

Your work has shifted from working in motion graphics design in hip hop post­production for some of the most interesting artists out there (The Roots, Common, Busta Rhymes, and GZA) towards branding and digital design at Google Creative Lab. Describe how this development came about and how has technology influenced you personally along this road over the years?

Early on, I developed the belief that you should use technology for design, but that you shouldn’t design for technology itself. Of course the medium you work in will influence what you design, but If you let the medium dictate your design thinking too much, it’s very easy to get stuck in one specialty or one way of working. You become an After Effects designer, a book designer, an app designer, etc. If one of those formats then goes out of fashion, it can be hard to move on to something else.

I have tried to stay focused on articulating what’s right for the content at hand, regardless of medium, and I think that is what has carried me through a few diverse career changes. I never sought out to be a designer for the music industry or for a big tech company, but I suppose my focus on design over technology has allowed me to do both. Or at least I like to think that. Maybe it was just random luck and having the right connections!

As a person who has seen certain changes first hand – having worked in the music end of the creative industry and further operating more on a corporate level; what is your opinion on the significant changes one can observe in modern pop culture, with a lot of paradigms having shifted because of the digitalization. Has the value of design changed within these new preconditions?

Wow, interesting question. I might not fully understand what you’re getting at, but my mind goes first to music streaming. The music industry was famously disrupted by the arrival of MP3 files, but now we can freely listen to music by paying a subscription fee to different web services. You now see pop culture icons like Taylor Swift and Jay-Z claim that artists aren’t paid enough for their work through streaming music. By taking a stand outside the system, are these artists protecting the value of music, or just self-serving? That is the debate.

I don’t think this climate necessarily changes the value of design, but it does change it’s form. The design of album artwork plays a huge part in the experience of physical media like CDs and vinyl, but digital music has reduced that experience to tiny, flat squares. How can design stay close to music in a streaming world? Through the experience of the streaming service itself? Through interactive videos and albums? What about virtual reality? There are many things being tried now in pop culture that didn’t exist before. And as artists find new ways to self-publish and go autonomous, the role of design can hopefully become even more interesting.

Steve Rura is een van de vele vooraanstaande sprekers op What Design Can Do! in Amsterdam dat plaatsvindt op 21 en 22 Mei. Koop je tickets online hier!