Vahid Mirzaei

LEGENDARY INTERVIEW

Design Legends ("DL") had the distinct honour to interview legendary designer Vahid Mirzaei ("VM") for their original perspective and innovative approach to design as well as their creative lifestyle, we are very pleased to share our interview with our distinguished readers.

DL: Could you please tell us a bit about your design background and education?

VM : I began my journey in the visual arts not with the intent to serve commercial ends, but to pursue storytelling through visual form. While my academic training provided the technical foundation, my growth came through deep engagement with culture, philosophy, and social issues. Over the past decade, I have navigated poster design, book and music cover art, and packaging—but always with the lens of an artist, not a commercial designer. My work is about creating experiences that are exhibited, contemplated, and felt.

DL: What motivates you to design in general, why did you become a designer?

VM : Design became my vessel because it allowed me to translate humanitarian concerns, cultural heritage, and existential questions into something visual and accessible. What drives me isn’t the aesthetics of design, but the urgency of expression. I’ve created works to address violence against women, raise awareness on schizophrenia, and commemorate cultural legends—because design, to me, is activism in disguise.

DL: Did you choose to become a designer, or you were forced to become one?

VM : I chose to become an artist, and design was the closest available language to express my vision. It was never about tools or trends—it was about voice. I saw in design the potential to exhibit thought, to exhibit resistance, and to exhibit memory.

DL: What do you design, what type of designs do you wish to design more of?

VM : I design visual narratives—posters that serve as meditative surfaces, book covers that elevate literature, and campaigns that spark social consciousness. From Live Life for HIV to visual projects on mental health, my work invites engagement rather than instruction. I wish to create more exhibitions that question our shared realities and celebrate endangered beauty—whether it’s an animal, a language, or a forgotten poet.

DL: What should young designers do to become a design legend like you?

VM : Dare to care. Don’t chase fame—chase relevance. Let your work be haunted by meaning. Find the moral, political, or emotional urgency that keeps you up at night—and turn that into a visual statement worth exhibiting.

DL: What distinguishes between a good designer and a great designer?

VM : Good designers serve needs. Great designers challenge perceptions. Greatness lies in using form not just to solve problems, but to raise questions—and that’s what I try to do in every piece.

DL: What makes a good design a really good design, how do you evaluate good design?

VM : When design transcends its medium—when a book cover becomes a commentary, or a poster becomes a protest—it’s no longer good; it’s necessary. I evaluate design based on its lasting emotional and ethical imprint.

DL: What is the value of good design? Why should everyone invest in good design?

VM : Good design carries cultural responsibility. It can advocate for the marginalized, preserve endangered memories, and celebrate forgotten wisdom. Investing in good design is not just aesthetic—it's ethical.

DL: What would you design and who would you design for if you had the time?

VM : I would design for endangered languages and dying traditions—perhaps an immersive exhibition that maps their decline through visual poetry. I would give them a final monument in the gallery of human consciousness.

DL: What is the dream project you haven’t yet had time to realize?

VM : A large-scale, interactive archive of humanitarian crises visualized through minimalist design—something that can travel across borders and invite people into a dialogue with global sorrow and hope.

DL: What is your secret recipe of success in design, what is your secret ingredient?

VM : Empathy. Not sympathy, but active empathy—living inside the concerns of others, the forgotten, the endangered, the misunderstood. That, combined with relentless visual discipline, is my approach.

DL: Who are some other design masters and legends you get inspired from?

VM : I resonate with artists who transcend function—Fukuda’s symbolism, Tanaka’s cultural fusion, and even thinkers like Siah Armajani, who treated design as public poetry. Their works remind me that clarity and mystery can coexist.

DL: What are your favorite designs by other designers, why do you like them?

VM : Designs that destabilize comfort and provoke contemplation. I admire works that don’t merely inform but disturb—because design must sometimes act as a social accelerant.

DL: What is your greatest design, which aspects of that design makes you think it is great?

VM : Perhaps my posters that have no direct client, like those in the Extinction Exhibition. They exist solely to question and commemorate. They aren’t transactional—they’re testimonial. Their greatness lies in their capacity to remain silent yet loud.

DL: How could people improve themselves to be better designers, what did you do?

VM : Engage with literature, history, and ethics. I didn’t grow by following trends—I grew by understanding culture, studying human rights, and reading Khayyam. Design is surface; art is depth. Choose the latter.

DL: If you hadn’t become a designer, what would you have done?

VM : Possibly a documentarian or a cultural anthropologist. Because even then, I would have been collecting the unspoken and turning it into something visible.

DL: How do you define design, what is design for you?

VM : Design is an altar. What you place on it—whether it’s political pain or poetic wonder—is your offering to the viewer. It is not a career for me. It is my visual activism.

DL: Who helped you to reach these heights, who was your biggest supporter?

VM : Every unseen story that demanded justice. Every poet, every activist, every anonymous viewer who paused before my work—that silent recognition fuels me more than any accolade.

DL: What helped you to become a great designer?

VM : Stubborn integrity. I never designed for applause—I designed for expression. My persistence in merging ethics with aesthetics, art with advocacy, is what shaped me.

DL: What were the obstacles you faced before becoming a design master?

VM : Overcoming expectations—to stay within the boundaries of decorative design, to cater to commerce over conscience. Refusing that framework and carving my own path was my greatest obstacle and victory.

DL: How do you think designers should present their work?

VM : Not in portfolios, but in spaces where people feel. Museums, streets, festivals, protests, poetry books—wherever the work can breathe as art.

DL: What’s your next design project, what should we expect from you in future?

VM : A new series that blends AI with Persian mysticism—imagining forgotten prophets in digital form. The goal is to reconcile tradition with future memory.

DL: What’s your ultimate goal as a designer?

VM : To dissolve the title of "designer" and become a mirror of time. To leave behind not a legacy of awards, but a trail of exhibited questions that others continue asking long after I’m gone.