Rik is an artist that takes pride in his unique and abstract work. He fills his work with vibrant imagery to remind himself that the world itself is still joyful. Rik also explains his designing philosophy, and gives advice to designers who are looking to create their own unique styles, which he has done successfully.
1. Welcome to PSDTUTS! Please introduce yourself, give us a brief bio, tell us where you're from, and how you got started in the field.
Hi there guys, thanks a lot for inviting me for such a nice opportunity! I am Rik Oostenbroek, 19 year old graphic designer from the Netherlands. People might know me as Nkeo or SecretShowcase as well.
I grew up in the Media City of the Netherlands and came in touch with design when I was 15 years old. That was the day I met someone, who would be a friend of mine later and he was doing some weird things with this Program called Photoshop. At that time I never heard of it actually and he showed me some stuff people did with that program.Art never interested me actually, but I always had it in me for some reason. Whenever I got out of school, I always ran to the computer to play games.
Whenever I got bored of a game, I launched Microsoft Paint, and made my own CD covers with cheap 2d characters which were inspired by South Park. From the time I saw these amazing abstract designs people did, I fell in love. I wondered if I’d ever get into this field without the help of my friend. From that point on I started doing abstract shapes, without knowing about layers or the rules of designing.
The design became a bit serious for me at the start of 2006. More people liked my work and I tried to experiment a bit, to become a little more diverse. A lot of things have happened since I was accepted as a DepthCore artist. Now I'm sitting here as freelance designer, trying to build up a career, thinking more seriously about concepts and trying to build up a unique style and trying to cross my boundaries.
2. The majority of your work seems to be Abstract Art, what exactly draws you to that field, as opposed to other genres?
Actually I've been working on other fields lately, but good abstract always caught my eye. I guess I started that style because I never knew there were other styles back then. Every abstract piece has a story for me, I guess that's what is so attractive about that style. Whenever you ask a good abstract artist to do a piece built on a theme of your choice; you’ll see a huge difference in the approach every artist has to that theme.
Of course, whenever you ask a designer about a photo manipulation theme, there would be a difference as well, but I guess it would be way closer to each other. Abstract art could be used for eternity and there are so many different ways of abstract art, it's not just a trendy style people do for a few years and forget about later.It's just a style without boundaries in my opinion.
3. Most of your designs are not only abstract but also collages with things like text, shapes, stocks, and other resources clumped together. Since the possibilities are endless with this type of design how do you know exactly when you are done?
Ah yes that's my recent style. I do actually never know for sure when they done. One thing I always check is the balance. I flatten an image and flip it horizontal to see if the sides have the same amount of things in it as the other. I’ve been having a problem lately with seeing when a piece is finished or not, I have so many 90% finished pieces lying around here.
4. When looking at your work I notice that the majority of it is full of bright color and life. So what exactly inspires you to create such vivid designs?
It might sound quite a bit Emo, but most of the time I do that to remind me of the joy life has, since I don’t see that everyday.Just to keep myself in a positive mindset. I just want to keep life joys all day long and I see my own work as a reminder whenever I look to one of my prints in my room.
I Had a Weird Dream Last Night
5. When looking at a design like "Visual Playground" I cant help but wonder what the process was in the development of this design. So please give us some insight on your journey in making this incredibly vivid illustration.Ha-ha this one is quite hard to tell, since it was just a bunch of different inspirations that helped me create this piece. I spent less then three hours on it. This is one of those pieces with a positive thought behind it again by the way. Joakim Olaussen gave me a render to work with, which was quite hard for me since I never really worked with renders, but I made some black shapes over it and it looked like a landscape in my eyes.
From that point on I just went crazy, that's the reason why it's called "Visual Playground". Since I felt that this piece was just some old school freestyle thing for me, I just did what popped up in my mind.Doing circles, lines, a few stocks, textures. Nothing special happened in the progress, no layer masks, no adjustments, everything is just done easily the way you see it.
The fun thing is, I always listen to the same track while doing one design whenever I'm in the zone. My mind set on zero, no thought, totally into your design, thinking you're the best in the world (at that moment), doing everything you want to, no fear, no boundaries, good music, drink, food and with this one song going boom boom! That's the way I did this piece.
I call this one of my pieces that takes me back to the old days, when my designs weren’t popular and serious at all.A concept less journey it was, but a fun journey that I wont forget.
6. Your style is unique and one of a kind. What advice would you give an artist who is trying to find his own unique approach to designing?
Ha-ha it's quite strange for me to hear my style is unique, but thanks a lot man! I'm still looking for a unique approach as well and I guess everyone does. It's not fun to stick with one style for too long in my opinion, you have to learn and move on. That's what I'm doing recently, trying to come up with a new style and try not to repeat everything I did piece by piece, since my old pieces felt a bit to childish to me.Discovering and owning a style is hard, I never did that as well as I wanted to.
I guess it's just about caring about your own design and not comparing yourself to other artists.There will be always better designers around who are better than you in many ways with their designs.Whenever I talk with my heroes in design, they show me illustrations by their hero's and I guess those hero's have heroes as well and so on.Just do whatever you like, do what you like most, do what others do as well but in a different or special way!Don't destroy yourself by comparing yourself with others, set your mind on zero and do what your heart tells you to do.
7. Thanks again for providing PSDTUTS with this opportunity to interview you, any final thoughts? What would you tell other designers that hope to be as good as you one day?
Thank you as well Emil! Don't think to much about what you do, just do whatever you feel like. You shouldn’t care that much about the opinions other people have about your work, there will always be people around you who are going to dislike your work. It's not fun to say but there are always people that are going to be “better†in a way, but you shouldn’t make that your concern. Thanks and I hope this interview isn’t that boring Ha-ha! Feel free to contact me at rik@secretshowcase.com! Rik Oostenbroek.
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User Comments
( ADD YOURS )Christian Mejia November 19th
Good morning all! Looks like I am the first comment and I have to say that Rik’s work is very inspirational and refreshing to see this early in the morning! Thanks for the post.
( )Ben Reid November 19th
All of the above images are stunning! Lovely work!
Nice interview.
( )r4ge November 19th
i love your work! and looks like i’m third to comment!
( )ViniMan November 19th
Nkeo is the man. Loving his pieces since the first time I saw them.
( )nutral November 19th
Very good work and from the Netherlands where i live. I like the abstract art.
( )Josh November 19th
woah, nice. The work looks amazing.
( )Aaron Irizarry November 19th
Amazing work! thanks for the great post.
( )insic November 19th
stunning work. i love it.
( )loswl November 19th
Now those are some amazing abstract Art, cool to hear a artist with such a unique style ;o)
( )sang mantan November 19th
great!!! amazing abstract art work with awesome craftmenship !!!
( )Mabuc November 19th
Wow very inspiring thoughts again, young with superb talent. Great Job
( )Joefrey Mahusay November 19th
Very impressive design. You’re too young and yet you can do stunning design. Keep it up!
( )yusuf1 November 19th
wow, this just made my day!
( )Sathish November 19th
great and this guy is so modest.
( )GeirBNystad November 19th
Wow i am number 14 to comment, but i don´t know what to say!
Good work!?
( )Thijs November 19th
Awesome! what about a tutorial?
( )mike November 19th
I’m sorry but i’m student in art and we can’t name this work as abstract.
( )Because the abstract in art history is the destruction of form and colour or all this creation have a lot of icone which conserve his form.
The composition is atypique of course but it’s not abstract.
I realise we don’t have the same language in art (traditional) and in infographique world.
hiperkarma November 19th
yay nice nice nice
( )Aaron Miller November 19th
Really nice interview, He seems so down to earth, the way designers should be!
( )VertigoSFX November 20th
Wow, this is the kind of thing that really inspires me. I know you mentioned don’t look at other designers and how good they are or whatever but looking at designers that are better than me inspires me to strive harder. If I don’t study other people’s work I feel that I am at a point where I am happy with what I do but when I look at other’s work I get inspired to improve and make better more unique designs.
I’m still learning and it is a really awesome to see someone the same age as me putting out amazing work like this, it makes me want to try even harder to produce unique and professional style artwork.
( )Drew Douglass November 20th
This interview was fantastic. I found the actual interview to be more motivating than the actual art (not that it isnt stunning, it is). This guy has a fantastic, motivating, and positive attitude. Keep it up and thanks very much!
( )Javid K. November 20th
Amazing work, very inspiring!
( )Motivates me to try to do things like that.
Hmmmm we should get these interviewees to do some tuts
Guest November 20th
hey where can I found some tuts on THIS GUY!!!!!
( )protski November 20th
I don’t know if anyone will read this but i would like to have a proper discussion about the subject.
( )Amazing work, no doubt about it. But am I the only one who thinks that while this work is unique..it isn’t? I am not trying to be harsh or criticize his work, I thought it is amazing. I’m working my way to be able to do such things and I really want to be able to do it. But seriously speaking and trying to analyze things, I mean, check out the other interviews. It’s always the same way to do things. 3d renders, abstract shapes diagonally placed, random (I mean, A LOT OF random things) placed (lines, dots, splats, circles, shapes), Illustrator’s blend tool, some stock photo, sometimes outer glow. Oh yes, there are also the ones that use fog to create some texture to get that eye candy effect. What I’ve seen on the few months that I’ve been searching for inspiration is that the greatest freelance designers of this generation end up creating different styles, yes, but always end up creating things that are way to similar. I would like to read someone else opinion
Jonno November 21st
Some nice work here from Rik.
@Protski I agree with you that there is a lot of ’samey’ work out there, and it can be difficult to separate the truly original and innovative from the trend-chasing and derivative.
Interesting (to me, at least) – the first three pieces, while visually different, all have almost the same overall composition. The fifth and sixth pieces also follow the same formula but flipped. Is it down to Rik falling back onto what’s safe and easy because it’s worked before? Or is that where his own signature comes through?
( )Ernest Ojeh November 21st
wow! wicked!
( )Jonno Cohen November 23rd
By the way, well done to Rik for winning the MacBook Pro in the Crestock Photoshop contest! Nice one
( )http://www.crestock.com/blog/photoshop/extreme-makeovers-photoshop-contest-winner-top-36-entries-141.aspx
msonwired November 25th
Love the revolution of the sun design. The saturated darkness is very appealing.
( )Joaninha December 17th
I think I fell in love with every design in this post; they were all spectacular to me. They are kind of along the lines of what I see a lot, but exactly the type of thing that draws me to graphic design and inspires me to want to lock myself in a room with Photoshop for three days, though I’m barely at the basics! Thank you for them, and both the artist and PSDTUTS for the interview!
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