niklas|design

i am what my work is. i will be creative every day.

welcome to niklas design. my name is ian niklas and i am a designer/art director. i am from europe and design is something that has always been around me in one form or another. i left home a long time ago in search of self-growth and enlightenment. i was taking a ride that finally became an endless journey. i realized that i could not change the world, i could only change myself. i would never have known how life could be without taking major risks to fulfill my goals. i was too concentrated on learning the tools of winning a war instead of trying to win battles here and there. evolution might have been the greatest force of change in the universe. life might never have existed if there was no evolution. mankind came out of the stone age to build civilizations that would stand the test of time. design was born out of mankind's desire to organize space. early mankind left traces of their desire to visually communicate ideas and insights in the caves they called home thousands of years ago.

design is the study of infinite space – because space is infinite. space did not emerge from zero and can never become equal to zero. we might never come to know what those forces were that space emerged from. space in itself is unique and design becomes the vessel that will study the relation of objects in terms of their surroundings. design becomes meaningless if it fails to communicate a visual message to an audience. it is for this reason that a designer should always aim to see how he/she would forecast the reaction from their audience as a result of delivering that visual message.

i take design as a personal challenge to visualize space and encounter its limitations, or to create parameters when those are not present. i strive to see in terms of verticals, horizontals, and diagonals – which ultimately attempt to interact and finally create a visual message. design is an evolution of thought or a sequence of ideas which attempt to inform, or educate, an audience. the grid is the greatest innovation in design history and is the first step towards understanding the study of design. by understanding the functions of the grid, a designer finally learns to deviate and violate all sets of rules, to search for new rules, and then define a new reality that challenges and changes the way we think.


i am what my work is. i will be creative every day. welcome to niklas design. my name is ian niklas and i am a designer/art director. i am from europe and design is something that has always been around me in one form or another. i left home a long time ago in search of self-growth and enlightenment. i was taking a ride that finally became an endless journey. i realized that i could not change the world, i could only change myself. i would never have known how life could be without taking major risks to fulfill my goals. i was too concentrated on learning the tools of winning a war instead of trying to win battles here and there. evolution might have been the greatest force of change in the universe. life might never have existed if there was no evolution. mankind came out of the stone age to build civilizations that would stand the test of time. design was born out of mankind's desire to organize space. early mankind left traces of their desire to visually communicate ideas and insights in the caves they called home thousands of years ago. design is the study of infinite space – because space is infinite. space did not emerge from zero and can never become equal to zero. we might never come to know what those forces were that space emerged from. space in itself is unique and design becomes the vessel that will study the relation of objects in terms of their surroundings. design becomes meaningless if it fails to communicate a visual message to an audience. it is for this reason that a designer should always aim to see how he/she would forecast the reaction from their audience as a result of delivering that visual message. i take design as a personal challenge to visualize space and encounter its limitations, or to create parameters when those are not present. i strive to see in terms of verticals, horizontals, and diagonals – which ultimately attempt to interact and finally create a visual message. design is an evolution of thought or a sequence of ideas which attempt to inform, or educate, an audience. the grid is the greatest innovation in design history and is the first step towards understanding the study of design. by understanding the functions of the grid, a designer finally learns to deviate and violate all sets of rules, to search for new rules, and then define a new reality that challenges and changes the way we think.		i have gone to many bad places and have been involved in many bad situations. but, i have always been a thinker. i have always wondered how could i see and sense those things that the human eye could never see. it is like i have trained myself to see without using my eyes – i have looked to see the unseen – through the force of life. i may never know why i think so much, but i love to do it even if i do not have to. i always knew i would be better off if i concentrated on constructing a set of ideas to serve as my fundamentals – fundamentals that attempt to capture the essence of life. i have never considered myself an intellectual or a man that has acquired wisdom. instead, i like to be hard on myself, never praising myself the way some people seem to do, and always concentrating on working hard and trying to be faithful to myself and my goals. design has become, for me, a way to discipline myself and a way to view things that surround me. i do not feel that the world revolves around me and i try to keep both my successes and my losses a very personal matter. i like to always think in terms of what surrounds me and how i can violate a space in order to set new rules that did not exist before. design is not a way of thinking, but instead has become my only religion, because if i know what surrounds me, then i know myself too.