Pavel Fuksa is a Creative Director at the advertising agency JWT Prague and an Commercial Director at Rats Prague, a film production company. He is a visual designer by schooling, and has been illustrating and designing for clients for seven years. The Journal interviewed Mr Fuksa on his latest creative venture, a music video that combines his unique graphic style with his directing skill.

You directed and designed for The Navigators’ music video. Have you ever worked on a project like this before? What was it like to direct the video after designing the matchboxes?

I have never done project like this – this was in my charge from the very beginning till the end. The actual direction wasn’t hard, it was all about the finalized designs, good locations and capable editor (thank you, Petr from asfalt.tv, again.)

How did you get the idea for for the video? Why matchboxes?

I had the idea of matchbox video in my mind for quite a long time. I am a big fan of vintage and retro graphics, especially Eastern European [graphics] (Czechoslovakian, Polish, Hungarian). Matchboxes with its messages had a long tradition in communist Czechoslovakia, they were used mainly for communicating quite dull or weird messages, such as “Don’t stir vegetables while cooking;” “Tetanus kills;” [and] “Fertilize half of the fields this winter.”

How did you make them?

I was interested in designing each matchbox as if it worked on its own but together they’d build a consistent collection of lyrics. The very first idea was an old mad man showing his collection of matchboxes, as if he just has coincidentally found out that the words on them are very similar to the ones in the song.

Mr Fuksa designed a booklet for The Navigators’ record “My Place.” He created matchbox-style graphics for each track on the album.

How long did it take to design all of the matchboxes? What became of them?

The whole design of matchboxes took four days. I was working overnight and my wife was not very happy…I saved some of them form me and my friends, but the majority of them were handed out at the party for the very first run of the music video. They were handed out for free and became a huge hit! I designed the CD cover and the booklet in the same design style.

How do you know The Navigators?

This was my first encounter with the band. I was trying to find a band who sings in English and have a good song full of lyrics which would be suitable for this idea of mine. My friend got me a tip for the Navigators and we found out that we have similar sense of humour and we literally clicked.

What projects are you working on now?

I am working on a second music video for Navigators, writing some ideas for two more music videos for other bands and meanwhile I do freelance designs for companies from [the] US, Netherlands and Czech Republic.

Do you hope to continue with production work, or do you want to do more design work?

I would like to do half and half. I can’t currently decide what I’d like more, whether shooting or designing. I really like to put my twisted sense of humor into everything I do and I don’t mind if it is moving image or the still design.