Cre­ative poly­math and paper magi­cian Lob­u­lo on the art of mak­ing mistakes

In The OFFF Dis­patch we’ve part­nered with Adobe to report back from OFFF Barcelona, one of the world’s largest show­cas­es of cre­ativ­i­ty, art and dig­i­tal design. Here, ani­ma­tors Aman­da Schrem­beck and Lin­da McNeil share their best cre­ative advice.

There’s no eas­i­ly defin­able cat­e­go­ry in which to place Lob­u­lo. His pri­ma­ry medi­um is paper but that’s where the sim­plic­i­ty ends. Look­ing at his entranc­ing ani­mat­ed and still-life cre­ations, you’re nev­er quite sure where the ana­logue hand­made ends and the dig­i­tal trick­ery begins.

In truth, Lob­u­lo is a cre­ative poly­math – a crafts­man, ani­ma­tor, direc­tor and speak­er – whose mag­i­cal work effort­less­ly blends paper and pix­els. A self-described ​“stub­born artist,” he refus­es to take the easy route, either, when it comes to approach­ing com­mer­cial, edi­to­r­i­al, and per­son­al work.

Lob­u­lo deliv­ered an Adobe Live ses­sion, shar­ing his skills and encour­ag­ing oth­ers to fol­low their own path, at OFFF Barcelona, which brought togeth­er lead­ing pro­fes­sion­als in the cre­ative and design indus­tries for three days of mas­ter­class­es, talks, and work­shops from 5 – 7 May.

Adobe, OFFF’s main part­ner, curat­ed a space for free-rang­ing dis­cus­sions through the Adobe Cre­ativ­i­ty Hub, where cre­atives from all cor­ners of the globe could hear talks from the best design­ers in the busi­ness and pick up new skills with Adobe’s lat­est indus­try-lead­ing tools built to enhance cre­ativ­i­ty across a range of fields.

Here, Lob­u­lo reveals why, when it comes to cre­ativ­i­ty, some­times you have to be pre­pared to get things wrong in order to pro­duce your best work.

How would you best describe what you do?

I’m some­thing in between a graph­ic design­er, mod­el mak­er and a real­ly stub­born artist. I’ve nev­er been a fan of putting a tag on who I am, so I always say I just cut stuff and glue it all together.

What’s the most inter­est­ing thing about OFFF to you? Why is it an essen­tial vis­it for creatives?

OFFF is very unique in the way it gath­ers cre­ative peo­ple from around the world in one place for a few days. It gives an amaz­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty to meet peo­ple you may have worked with remote­ly or those you just know vir­tu­al­ly. This year, you could feel an espe­cial­ly pow­er­ful vibe after not being able to see friends and peo­ple you admire for almost three years. It’s hard to explain. There are design fes­ti­vals and then there’s OFFF.

Tell us about what you did at OFFF Fes­ti­val and the thoughts, ideas and insights you want­ed to share in your Adobe Masterclass?

I’ve been known to be very hon­est about what I do and how the cre­ative indus­try works. I try to be as direct as I can with the audi­ence and stu­dents who come to get inspired. I want them to under­stand that ​‘suc­cess’ can be not what it seems to be. We all strug­gle and get frus­trat­ed when we have bad expe­ri­ences with clients or are not mak­ing it to what we imag­ine is the best lev­el. In the end, it’s just work. Can it also be our pas­sion? Yes, but you need the fridge full to feed that passion.

When did you realise you want­ed to be a creative?

When some­one asks me when I start­ed to be cre­ative, I always say I nev­er start­ed because I nev­er stopped. When we’re kids we love to play, explore, paint, try dif­fer­ent things… And then once we get to those hor­ri­ble teenage years, some of us stop doing those things as they’re not cool any­more. Some of us keep going and become a bit nerdy. So here I am! I just want to keep play­ing and explor­ing and hope­ful­ly nev­er get too bored.

How did you decide to work with paper?

I’ve always been very inter­est­ed in work­ing with my hands. My dad was a builder and my biggest inspi­ra­tion. He and I always had this inter­nal roman­tic fight about who could make it bet­ter. Paper was just there. A mate­r­i­al that is easy to get, not too expen­sive and with infi­nite pos­si­bil­i­ties. It was a bit like love at first sight, prob­a­bly because bricks were a bit expen­sive and messy to work with in my bedroom!

Could you share any lessons or inspi­ra­tions that were piv­otal in the evo­lu­tion of your style?

Don’t stop mak­ing mis­takes. They lead you to try dif­fer­ent paths. A big quote from the film Lit­tle Miss Sun­shine goes, ​“Do what you want and fuck the rest.” That’s the best advice.

What would you describe as your first big break?

I did a ter­ri­ble but cute first illus­tra­tion using some left­over papers I had in my room and put it on Face­book. Sur­pris­ing­ly, peo­ple loved it and it went viral. I start­ed get­ting com­mis­sions after that. I nev­er thought about being a craft artist but here I am now. That was an amaz­ing coin­ci­dence which changed my life.

When there are so many tal­ent­ed cre­ators out there, how do you stay unique and stand out from the crowd?

Not pay­ing too much atten­tion to the trends and keep doing what I like. This is bet­ter to keep me moti­vat­ed, even if oth­er peo­ple don’t like it.

What advice do you have for young cre­atives who are work­ing hard to try and get noticed?

‘Likes’ don’t mean good work. There are amaz­ing artists out there who don’t even have social media. Peo­ple believe that the more ​‘likes’ some­thing gets, the bet­ter it is, but that’s not true. Find your own style and push it hard until you get reward­ed. If you real­ly want it, it will come, but you have to work your ass off.

What are the biggest lessons you’ve learned from deal­ing with client work?

Invest time on the sketch­es and plan­ning. Good organ­i­sa­tion is key. It will help avoid sur­pris­es or hav­ing to work until 6am. If you’re not organ­ised, drink­ing lots of cof­fee and order­ing piz­za late at night can be good some­times too!

Tell us more about work­ing with paper. What do you love about this medi­um and work­ing with your hands?

It’s very calm­ing. Com­ing from a graph­ic design back­ground, paper has this feel­ing that you can do almost every­thing you want to, you can print on it, wrap it, fold it, burn it, cut it…. It’s very versatile.

How does your hand­made work come togeth­er with dig­i­tal tools, such as Adobe Cre­ative Cloud?

We have to evolve in the end. I most­ly work with video or dig­i­tal, not so much print late­ly, unfor­tu­nate­ly. That means my work will end up being in a dig­i­tal cam­paign, so you will see it on your phone or com­put­er. As much as I like to keep every­thing hand­made, tools are tools. It doesn’t mat­ter if you’re doing it by hand or in 3D, what peo­ple are going to see is the final image. I use lots of soft­ware to cre­ate my videos and images but always try to keep the hand­made essence in the work.

When did you start using Adobe prod­ucts, and what impact did they have on your work? How have Adobe projects aid­ed you in your cre­ative evolution?

I start­ed using Adobe when I was… prob­a­bly 14? A long time ago! I stud­ied graph­ic design, so Illus­tra­tor and Pho­to­shop taught me a very spe­cif­ic way of work­ing. I can’t imag­ine doing what I do with­out hav­ing that design back­ground and work­ing with Adobe for so long.

How do Adobe prod­ucts help you stay ahead of the competition?

Soft­ware and tech­nol­o­gy are very help­ful for a faster work­flow, for cre­at­ing pre­sen­ta­tions for clients, pro­duc­ing pitch­es or sketch­es. But some­times it’s good to take a step back and enjoy the slow­er path.

What does the future look like for you?

As I said, I just want to keep play­ing, mak­ing good work and try­ing new mate­ri­als. These bad years of lock­down helped me learn lots of dif­fer­ent tech­niques that I’m cur­rent­ly putting to good use in a new ani­ma­tion project. Hope­ful­ly it will come out soon!

Fol­low along for more sto­ries from The OFFF Dis­patch and learn more about OFFF Barcelona at offf.barcelona

Watch Adobe Live on-demand, which took place at OFFF from 5 – 7 May, and check out what’s new in Adobe Cre­ative Cloud.