Interview with Guarav Panchal

Earlier this week I got the chance to interview Gaurav Panchal. He is a Graphic design major. You might just have seen some of his work around campus or even in the mason gross building itself.

Campbell: I see a lot of poster or flyer type work. Is that the type of work you prefer?

Gaurav: you could say that. The reason I do flyers is because of the odd jobs I get from people. People come to me and ask me to do work for them, especially around campus where everything is flyers, flyers, flyers.

Campbell: is that what you originally started out doing?

Gaurav: originally in highschool, like junior, senior year my cousin worked for an entertainment business and was like “ oh you do design?” I said yeah and started off doing party flyers and at the time I thought it was cool. And that really brought me in and made me realize what I could do. And in the beginning I kind of imitated other party flyers because I had the technical skills.

Campbell: do you have any influences that have pushed your work in any direction or style?

Gaurav: initially it was kind of what I saw. In the beginning I was thinking from the photographic aspect. I always wanted to see things from a different angle, but all my photo skills weren’t that great so all my pictures ended up looking the same. With design I had more I had more variables, I could change text, I could change images and overall perception of everything.

Campbell: do you know where you want to go with this, where you want to end up?

Gaurav: I’m also an IT major. Which is the study of informatics and how people relate to technology. And design and technology are so interrelated now, so together. Like everone has a cell phone, everyone looks at design everyday and doesn’t realize it. Its so second nature now. I would like to combine the two fields.

Campbell: what did you have in mind for your thesis?

Guarav: im brainstorming right now on how people interact and use technology. You know those font wingdings? Those weird font symbols in Word? Everyday we react more to symbols than type. So what I want to do is make everyday interactions represented by symbols sort of like what “lol” or “ttyl” did to full phrases.