Aqil Raharjo and the workplace nap

Aqil Raharjo's winning project
Aqil Raharjo - Polar Bears

Aqil Raharjo's winning project
Aqil Raharjo's winning project

The instructions for Schnap, the hammock Aqil Raharjo designed to fit under a work desk, begin: “Either you are a procrastinator, an ambitious human being or generally a hectic person, thank you for taking care of yourself.” This straightforward charm, together with a simple yet effective design solution garnered worldwide attention for Raharjo in 2016, when Schnap was featured on Mashable, Design Taxi, the Daily Dot and other popular online media outlets.  

Raharjo, who’s now in his fourth year of the Graphic Design program at OCAD U, created Schnap for a class assignment. Several of his other notable graphic design projects have also been featured on Behance. In 2016 he won the Cineplex Digital Media Award for Information Design from RGD Student Awards for his Save Polar Bears! poster. He’s the recipient of the Jan van Kampen Scholarship from OCAD U, and landed a graphic and UX design co-op placement for Summer 2017 at IBM Canada, and won the 2017 Adobe Creative Jam Competition People’s Choice Award. He’s also currently working as a graphic designer at The Young Astronauts. 

Aqil Raharjo - Polar Bears
Aqil Raharjo - Polar Bears

Raharjo was offered opportunities to study design at LASALLE College of the Arts in Singapore, and Binus International in Jakarta, but chose to learn and launch his exciting career at OCAD U. “Making something useful and aesthetically pleasing has always been my passion,” he says. “OCAD U has been my university dream since junior high, because who would not want to live abroad, let alone in Canada and study something one is passionate about?” 

Raharjo’s work is fueled by his interests in pop culture, sustainability, the environment, health and human rights issues. “I believe that design can change the way we perceive something,” he says. “It’s just a matter of delivering the intention to the audience effectively.” 

He’s motivated by the desire to blend playful, colourful form with function: “Every time I start a new project, I always ask myself how to make it useful. When someone sees my work, I want him or her to think, ‘how did I not come up with that idea?’ or ‘how did I live without this?’”  

Raharjo says studying at OCAD U has opened up design possibilities for him, and taught him new ways to tackle problems. For his thesis project, he made a children’s toy and storybook whose unique play experience is designed to build the “socially conscious generations of the future.” (He says, “Don’t ever underestimate a graphic designer!”) Upon graduation he hopes to travel the world, collaborate with creative people across the industry and contribute to popular culture.  

Find out more: www.qilart.com  

 

Template: 
Inline Image Template