Robbin and Waldemar about creative work, urban future and selling their souls

Two creative heads: Robbin Ingvarsson, who is listed as a prototype Swede in the dictonary. And Waldemar Wegelin, the Kazakh Nomad, who started his work as a freelance creative in London. Besides being a creative team that works on advertising briefs they’re very eager about entrepreneurship. That can be everything: from fashion, tech gadgets, to mobile apps all the way up to new ways of helping charities to do their mission. Everything goes as long as they’re passionate for it. Now their suitcases are packed again as they're ready to leave for their next challenge in just a few weeks – the destination is USA. The world has too much to offer and they're not looking to settle quite yet.

Right now you are BACK! Back from what?

RW: We're back in many different ways. We’re back in Europe from Japan where we spent a little less than a year working with Wieden+Kennedy Tokyo. We're also back with another video on our homepage, this has become our own little soap of what were up to at the moment. And finally we're back looking for a new adventure somewhere in the world.

When you first met you both studied in Stockholm: What did you learn about yourselves at Hyper Island?

RW: That's a good question to ask and a very hard one to answer as Hyper Island is a shaping experience that has a different effect on different people. We learned how important it is to leave our comfort zone and do things differently - not just for the sake of different but in order to get new perspectives and create better work. It also greatly improved the way we work and do things, how we analyze situations, tackle problems, how we generate ideas and how we collaborate together and with other people. It's stuff that doesn't show directly in our portfolio but it's something people might notice who work with us. We hope.

What is creativity for you?

RW: For us creativity is about creating, doing and making stuff in ways that haven’t been done before. Often it’s about fusing existing components to create new combinations. And if you want to get the most out of it you need to get as much input as possible and take in everything that surrounds you. Exact for that reason we adore big cities like London and Tokyo, there’s always something new and exciting lurking around the corner that might spark off yet another thought. On the other hand technology changed all that, and any place no matter how big or small can ooze creativity and inspiration with the right people and mindset.

In terms of 2010lab.tv’s topic of the month: What to you think what URBAN FUTURE looks like?

RW: There are endless future scenarios of how urban environments could develop. What is quite obvious though is that technology will one of the strongest driving forces in that. We can imagine everything for a ultra cluttered environment filled with all kind of visual pollution or completely blank canvas city, where the content like signs, information and advertising is added virtually. There’s an interesting vision for cities by London/Tokyo based artist Keiichi Matsuda who created a study of how our urban environments could look like in our future if influenced heavily by virtual reality and media: Video - Augmented City 3D

What about technology?

RW: Ideally technology will be used for something else then delivering brand messages though: it should be about helping people to get in touch with each other easier and more efficiently. Sometimes it’s just odd to see thousands of people in crowded streets just passing by each other day after day without interacting at all. Another thing is that urban future is very hard to plan, we’re always reminded of that when visiting Barbican in London. It feels like a Utopian vision from the 60s that some clever city planners thought through from A-Z but still failed to make it meaningful. It’s an amazing place that’s always feels empty and even a little abandoned, even if it’s not.

Are you still unemployed or do you call it FREE?

RW: Free is a nice way to put it, but it’s a double edge sword. Life’s much easier if you have a full time position, you can focus on creating the best work. If you’re freelancing on different projects you always have to look out for the next one after. That’s not always easy, but once mastered it’s great. Our free phase is coming to an end, we signed a contract with a creative advertising agency in the US and will be joining them once our visa paperwork is finished. Yes, we sold our souls but we expect to kick serious ass over there.

photos: Robbin and Waldemar