As seen in Demure Mag
Working on the unceded lands of the Kulin Nations, designer/artist/Stardoll enthusiast Selena Repanis takes inspiration from all the cubby holes of childhood most of us pretend to forget. A graphic designer who has worked on projects that span almost every medium and mode – from fine dining menus to rock band footy scarfs – Selena oscillates between a varying range of different projects and teams to make the sort of imagery that harks back to the pubescent days of scrolling Tumblr and playing CD rom computer games. The kind of design that feels subtly familiar yet wholly unique, Selena’s work has appeared on restaurant tables (Hope St Radio), bookshop newsstands (Voiceworks magazine) and zine-shop tote bags (Fiend Bookshop). Working both independently and as part of the team at Amici Studios, Selena’s work is as prolific in Naarm as it is original – the kind of work any creative wishes they were making.
Hey Selena, how are you? Tell me a bit about where you’re speaking to me from. Hi Jules! I’m well, I’m sitting on my towel at the pool after doing some laps of breaststroke (my favourite). I’m on unceded Wurundjeri land.
For readers that aren’t familiar with your work, tell us a little bit about yourself. For a bit about my work: I’m a graphic designer. I work at a not-for-profit half the week, I work with my friends at Amici Studio once a week, and I teach typography to second year design students on the other day. But in general about me: I love being in the garden and watching Gardening Australia. I love going to see my friends’ bands. Design, like many creative formats, is an art that can benefit both from individual focus and collaboration. Is there a particular process you prefer over the other, in terms of solo work and group work, or do you feel like they both have their benefits? I do like working on my own, it can be a really great introspective practice and very meditative. I also work collaboratively a lot of the time, which is rewarding in a different way. It’s so invaluable to learn from those around you. I enjoy learning skills from people (rather than watching video tutorials, for example) so it’s great to have that exchange while working with others. It’s also a cool reminder that there’s 100 ways to do one thing, and everyone has different ways of designing. I’m pretty happy with a mix of both – too much of one and I’d start to miss the other. The work you do as part of Amici studio, alongside friends/designers James Meadowcroft and Liz Luby, all feels interwoven with threads of playful practice and experimentation, working with some very cool emerging brands and creatives. What role does fun and the idea of play have in the selecting of projects Amici takes on? We aim to spend our ‘Amici day’ being playful, as it’s our designated day a week to have a more experimental practice. We’re really lucky to collaborate with some amazing people, and turn their work into graphics and pieces of communication. Something we like to do is pass the file around the table and each work on it, slowly adding and subtracting. It’s a nice process of listening and responding. I always like seeing how Liz and James approach a brief, I especially like when it’s completely different to how I was imagining it to be. I love the surprise.
Do you have a favourite brand or project you’ve worked on?
So many! I really like working on friends’ projects. They’re all so clever and ambitious and awesome. My housemates have a band called Big Farmer and we made a footy scarf for them as a merch piece last winter. It was just so fun… I also loved working with Chelsea Hopper last year on her gallery 99%. She’s so smart and the project was giant, so it was really cool to see her make everything come together and have us work on the graphics. It’s also so great working with Fiend Bookshop, run by the brilliant Odessa Mykytowycz. I designed a tote bag for her a long while ago now, which was lovingly printed by Friendly Printers, and it’s probably one of my favourite things I’ve ever worked on.
You’ve also spent some time working with Australian literary magazine Voiceworks, an iconic publication by young for young people, on the design of their mag. Is there something in particular – a memory or a lesson, maybe – that has stuck with you from your time on the Voiceworks team?
Voiceworks is the best. I am just a giant magazine lover… so it was sensational to be able to have complete creative freedom over a magazine. Felt a bit like a Jenna Rink moment for me. Probably a good takeaway is that when you’re lucky enough to be designing content that you are deeply interested in, the process is infinitely more rewarding. I became a fan of so many new Australian writers and artists, all of whom were under the age of 25. It was pretty incredible.
Your graphic design and even own personal style feel like a reimagination of the early noughties, a time of Microsoft Word word-art and CD-rom computer games for youngsters. What are some places/things/people you gather inspiration from? Thanks Jules! That’s so cool. I spent a lot of time on the home computer PC as a child, playing games and dressing up dolls on Stardoll, reblogging jpegs on Tumblr. My mum teaches textiles to high school students, so she has always been my #1 person to get excited about fun things with. As for graphic designers who I find inspiring; Crystal Zapata and Tracy Ma are two favourites. I take a lot of inspiration from friends who are doing cool things (Stella Vendetta, Rochelle Oh, Rupa Anurendra) and from cooking, gardening, working out, eating yummy things, reading…
The versatility of design as an art form means your work is able to appear across a range of different mediums and materials. Do you have a favourite place you’ve seen your designs, be it a t-shirt, scarf, blog, or anything else? The scarf was genuinely so sick to work on. It was magical having to consider how a vector artwork would be translated into a woven scarf. It’s almost like the artwork becomes pixelated? Fun! I’d like to work on a dinner set so… if anyone wants to do that please hit me up. Thanks so much for speaking to me and us at Demure! Where can we find more of your work? My pleasure! Thanks 😊
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