Anime

From Stockholm With Style: An Asa Ekstrom Interview

By AnimeEv 1 year, 5 months ago

Asa Ekstrom Interview

Asa Ekstrom is the artist behind Ikea’s new manga-inspired line. Hailing from Sweden, Asa’s long-standing interest in Japanese pop culture, anime, and comic books led her to inject some Eastern flair into her design and artwork, invigorating her smooth clean lines with a streamlined austerity that lends itself to home decor as much as it does to print design. She was kind enough to take a few moments out of her day and speak about her work with us via email.

For those of you who have not seen her designs yet, please view this article.

Where are you from originally?

Stockholm, Sweden.

How old are you?

26.

Describe your background. Are you in school? Working? What do you do during the day? Are you working in design full-time?

My art degree is a rather unusual one; I went to a Comic art school for 3 years so that’s mostly what I do, comics. I have my own manga series – graphic novels – in Sweden but I also do a lot of illustrating and occasionally some design jobs such as for Ikea. I love when I get offered design jobs cause they are so much fun, however it’s not that often.

How did you get into Japanese pop art?

I grew up with manga and anime and fell in love with everything about the style and the stories immediately. I went to Japan first time when I was 19 and have been back 5 times, studying Japanese and practicing in a comic studio in Tokyo among other things. I also have a huge weakness for Japanese character design. They are amazing at it.

Do you actively follow manga or anime? What are some of your favorites?

Hm, since I started working as a comic artist/illustrator not as much… there just doesn’t seem to be much time and also I’m careful to get my work inspired, but not too influenced by what I’m into at the time. But I do have my favorites. As manga goes “Nana” by Ai Yazawa, she’s commercial but has a truly unique flair to her work, and anime wise number one has always been “ Shojou kakumei Utena” (Revolutionary girl Utena). It’s surreal, feminist and all in all brilliant.

Tell us how you came to be a designer for Ikea. What did the process involve?

Ikea wanted to create a fabric inspired by manga and Japanese pop art, and since they wanted to combine it with a Scandinavian perspective they contacted me. I was Swedish and all and had worked in the field for some years. But Ikea is such a huge company their designs has work on a very broad scale, so they decided on the final versions in the end and I’d like to call the fabrics half their design, half mine. My job was to come up with as many ideas as possible for a week, then they chose the once they liked and adjusted them into patterns.

(A self-portrait, she says!)

What were your goals while you designed your fabrics and works for the line?

I’d just come back from 9 months in Japan, so I wanted mix all these different elements for their culture both modern and old – manga and origami for example- and combine it with typical elements from Scandinavian design, such as making it more graphic and minimalist, whilst still preserving some humour in it. Something like that. It was quite intense but lots of fun.

Were there any problems or hurdles that you came across while designing for Ikea?

One was that it all had to be very secret, and as I was working in a studio I got a bit paranoid about it all and started hiding all my sketches and do remember sitting under a blanked inking at some point, just to be on the safe side. Also the guidelines for ikea are strict for understandable reasons, nothing provocative or offensive. Not saying that was what I was after, but had I done something completely independent I would probably have been a bit more edgy. But being restricted a bit at least in this case was not a problem as much as a challenge, I think it’s a lot more impressive to do good design that does not use the rely on terms such as “provocative” or “for a small market” if that makes any sense.

How do you approach designing something?

Both design and illustration jobs are the same for me; get lot’s of inspiration, let it sink in for a day or so and then get to work utilizing all the expressions you’ve absorbed. It’s a cliché but it’s true, inspiration is not something that comes to you, it’s something you have to actively seek and grab for yourself.

When you think of “the perfect design” or “the perfect piece of art”, what comes to mind?

I don’t think there is anything such as the perfect design/art, I think it’s in the eye of the beholder and that would be different for different people. But even so what is perfect for me changes a lot too depending on mood and time, so will have to settle with that very diplomatic reply.

Do you feel that your art is more European in nature, or that it transcends geography because of the foreign design influences?

I definitely think so. It’s very clear to me working with manga that a lot of European and manga artists try to get their work to look as authentically Japanese as can be (myself included), some even go as far as to draw comics read from right to left. But you can never really get it “the same” or “as good” since it’s not your culture and you have not been living with it in the same way. Instead we should acknowledge that we have a mix of a lot of different styles and use it to our advantage. But I do think that with globalization today just as (the) population gets more and more mixed so will art, and that both transcends geography and gives artists a lot more tools to use in their work. It’s a good thing.

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