Maxim Dosca takes graphic design back to its most foundational aspects

Venice-based graphic designer Maxim Dosca talks us through his "metagrafik" project and the contextual practice of his graphic work

Date
1 July 2021

“Fonts, layouts, shapes and formats are all in front of us, but only a few see it,” says multidisciplinary graphic designer Maxim Dosca. Based out of Italy, Maxim’s graphics come to life with bold colours and densely textured shapes that complement or contradict the fonts surrounding them. Each is an ambitious take on classical traits of graphic poster design, and evoke both feelings of nostalgia and the future. “As a child, I had attended the art school where I was involved in various artistic projects that allowed me to experiment and create,” Maxim tells It’s Nice That. But, Maxim’s discovery of typography later in life led him deep down the rabbit hole of graphics. “I realised that we live in a world surrounded by characters and signs that I hadn't noticed before,” he explains. The world of graphic design enabled Maxim’s creativity to open up to more expansive and ambitious possibilities. Now, he’s amassed a sizeable following on social media with an impressively large portfolio of interesting works which glow in harmony next to one another on his Instagram feed.

“I think it takes time to have a personal visual style, it is a long process of experimentation and mistakes,” Maxim says. “I think I am only at the beginning of my search for my personal style”. Maxim’s new frontier of personal style has been born out of his Metagrafik project, which was a personal challenge of his to create a series of works that are the direct results of failed experiments and errors with his graphic designs. “They can become communicative artefacts,” he tells us. “By using typography and simple forms to create distinctive imagery, these works have elements of play which materialise a sense of original content around my own curiosity to discover new ideas and techniques”. It’s a research project that takes on a grand scope, is ever-evolving and has no clear end in sight.

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Maxim Dosca: Unseen Forms (Copyright © Maxim-Dosca, 2020)

Maxim’s genuine love and passion for graphic design shine through most when he discusses his creative process. “Graphic design is closed in a functional reasoning, compared to art,” he says. “Although graphic design is something creative, it must have precise functions and respect the project's needs in its cultural context.” As such, at the core of each of Maxim’s personal works are various cultural events, music, and real places, all interpreted in a way that is personal unto himself. In doing so, Maxim contextualises his graphic experiments, “because it’s very easy to get lost in your own ideas,” he says. “I don’t like making nonsense works, so even simple aimless posters have a mood, a song, or a place I’ve been to, behind every project”. Maxim’s approach to his personal work has made him highly commissionable, and he’s done a variety of music poster-related work, as well as album covers and concepts, and more. It’s easy to see why: his understanding of shape, colour, typography, and eye-catching detail generates a resounding effect with audiences and consumers. His recent work with singer Kilo Kish is a particular highlight, creating a chromatic-like shape and texture to her new album.

More importantly, Maxim is quick to point out how the Japanese graphic design scene has made an incredible impact on himself and his contemporaries. His Acid Fuji series is a homage and tribute to that movement without encroaching entirely on its territory, or what Maxim calls “an attempt to understand their typography and design style in general”. Certain elements spring to mind for Maxim, and he points out “simplified forms, a minimal colour palette, the generous use of negative space; an effective use of black and red; and unique lettering and elements that draw on the aesthetics of Zen culture.” As Max goes forward, he hopes to devote more of his research to combined graphic techniques. Straying from the digital world’s takeover of graphic design, he moves more towards “manual methods for creating communication languages,” he tells us. “I think graphic design has to interact with the world around us. We have all emerged in new technologies by now, but we cannot separate the physical world from that. Graphic design should be the bridge that connects these two worlds.”

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Maxim Dosca: Thom (Copyright © Maxim Dosca, 2021)

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Maxim Dosca: Mothe EP cover for Kilo Kish (Copyright © Maxim Dosca, 2019)

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Maxim Dosca: Talk (Copyright © Maxim Dosca, 2019)

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Maxim Dosca: Faux Amis (Copyright © Maxim Dosca, 2020)

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Maxim Dosca: UFO (Copyright © Maxim Dosca, 2019)

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Maxim Dosca: Japan (Copyright © Maxim Dosca, 2019)

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Maxim Dosca: Japan (Copyright © Maxim Dosca, 2019)

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Maxim Dosca: Yes (Copyright © Maxim Dosca, 2020)

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Maxim Dosca: Yes (Copyright © Maxim Dosca, 2019)

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Maxim Dosca: SK (Copyright © Maxim Dosca, 2018)

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Maxim Dosca: SK (Copyright © Maxim Dosca, 2018)

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Maxim Dosca: Village Underground (Copyright © Maxim Dosca, 2021)

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Maxim Dosca: Watering A Flower (Copyright © Maxim Dosca, 2021)

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Maxim Dosca: Modern Musik (Copyright © Maxim Dosca, 2018)

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About the Author

Joey Levenson

Joey is a freelance design, arts and culture writer based in London. They were part of the It’s Nice That team as editorial assistant in 2021, after graduating from King’s College, London. Previously, Joey worked as a writer for numerous fashion and art publications, such as HERO Magazine, Dazed, and Candy Transversal.

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