German Freelance Graphic Designer, Lucas Grassmay, is the creator of an incredible range of jaw-dropping typographic posters, sold through Culture Prints (@cultureprints.co). After completing an apprenticeship as a ship mechanic, the now-designer made a U turn to follow his true passion; art, design, illustration and all things creative. Fascinated by his stunning poster designs, we got in touch to learn more about Lucas’ concepts, journey and creative processes.
‘When I first started what I would now call my ‘design diary’ on Instagram, I never would have thought it was going to result in over 70K followers’, the designer tells us, ‘I was creating these ‘posters’ for the fun of it, and also to dig deeper into all the features of the design software and, most of all, to create something for myself, on a daily basis’. The posters are really beautiful — often featuring minimal heavy sans type intertwined with sharp images from the natural world; all brought together in deep, saturated, almost cinematic colour palettes, chiming with the designers admiration for aesthetics of the ’70’s and ’80’s.
‘When suddenly people started to ask for prints, at first, I was excited, of course, even though I had not envisioned them as items for sale’, the designer continues. ‘Initially, I printed and sent all orders myself, until I realized that this on-demand-service got too time consuming. I then decided to stop selling prints completely and started to give away prints for free occasionally’.
Lucas tells is that he needed a short break from Instagram following this period, in order to recenter a more productive use of the platform in his practice, explaining ‘as you may have noticed, for a while I stopped uploading my work on Instagram (for digital detox) and to refocus my mind to what Instagram was for me initially: a playground. One or two weeks into my ‘comeback’, people started asking for prints again. Luckily, by then Culture Prints had reached out to me. I liked their business model and CSR-approach because their strategy is to reduce CO2 emissions by printing and shipping from a location nearest possible to where the ‘clients’ live’.
Now, Lucas’ posters can be found for sale on Culture Prints. However, the designer adds, ‘The posters I assembled for Culture Prints strictly speaking aren’t a series. Some relate to one another, like the MINIMA series or the VISUAL EXPLORATION series. But all of them reflect my thirst for creation, and as such, they can sure be conceptualized as a series.’
Thanks for chatting with us, Lucas! To see more of Lucas’ stunning poster designs, check out his Instagram, as well as the Culture Prints online marketplace and Instagram page.
