Rick started his presentation with an anecdote, which already takes us toward a creative journey. When he was eight years old, his mother gave him the football shirt of legendary goalkeeper Kaspar Schmeichel as a present. Alas, the typography was not to Rick’s taste. This event set up his future career.
He graduated in 2006 and started networking through friends and designers that he interviewed. Living in an expensive flat he couldn’t really afford, he initiated a typographic car cards project, called Type Trump, met with Marc Vialli from Magma Books and got published. Rick is all about being creative and pro-active to build a flourishing network, and he seems to do it very well.His connections lead him to work with Paul Belford from This is Real Art, on the branding for the Musicians Union, the D&AD copy book about advertising and published by Taschen, but also Marty Brown from IDEO, where he redesigned the packaging identity of the coffee brand Douwe Egberts.
He went on to set up the creative agency Face 37, where he developed the now very famous Bella font. He’s also recently created Vegas to UK with three school friends.
Rick Banks’ philosophy is about hard work and doing a good job and the power of networking. He encouraged the audience to take advantage of technology to become truly unique designers.
Rick Banks
Text — Héloise Jutteau