If you visit the about page of Valp’s website, Valp Now, you’ll find it opens with the following line: “Valp is Maciej Hajnrich. Graphic Designer, Illustrator and Art Director.”

Valp is a self-taught freelance artist who has been working in the design industry for five years. He has created a style of art that is both unique and amazing.

Valp has the ability to make color explode across an image like fireworks in the night sky. His passionate creativity is evident in every piece of his work. If you’re an aspiring artist whose looking for a role model then look no further…you’ve just discovered Valp!

Hello Valp, thanks so much for sparing some time for this. To begin, how about telling us a little bit about yourself and your design background?

Hi! Thanks for inviting me here; it’s a big pleasure. My name is Maciej Hajnrich. I’m also known as Valp, graphic designer, illustrator and art director working for print and web. I also do code (HTML/css) and logo design from time to time. I have 5 years of experience including 3 years of freelance. I’ve been working in a few agencies in my city (Katowice, Poland) and finally decided to start full-time freelance in June 2007.

You operate a blog about called Valp Now. What is you blog all about?

My blog is all about my work and things related to that. At the beginning I wanted to post more news about things which inspire me but realized there are a lot of websites like that (ffffound, cpluv, etc.) and I should focus on interesting and high quality posts rather than just quantity and daily uploads.

So I’m focused on visitors who are or may be interested in my designs – sparing more information about the design process of particular artwork, sharing some extra comments and writing about minor projects which won’t appear in my showcase.

It’s also a good place for shameless promotion but I’m planning some extra content in the future, like downloadable files or more detailed descriptions for example. So stay tuned or subscribe to rss or newsletter.

How long have you been blogging and what is it that inspired you to get started?

I’ve been blogging for three years and I set up my own blog in July 2008. I’ve found that people like to know more about the design process, recent projects and other activity. I’m still learning about doing it well and hope my readers enjoy my blog the same as I do.

So far this interview has been about your blog, but it seems that your real passion is design art. Tell us a little bit about your passion for design and who has had the greatest influence on your design work.

That’s true, graphic design is the biggest passion in my life and I’m very happy doing it so far. What’s more I’m glad I’ve connected this passion with commercial work which makes me feel so lucky. Doing a hobby and getting paid sounds like dream work and it really is.

I adore people with passion, no matter what they do in their life. And I do the same with designers with vision, with their own opinion about digital art and the whole design industry.

I appreciate hard working and creative thinking and I don’t like craftsman’s work. There wasn’t one person who influenced me the most – I would rather say I have small pieces from all the people I’ve met in my life and all the designs I’ve seen which I’m including into my pieces of art.

What is your favorite piece of digital art? And what is it that you look for in digital art that really excites you?

I’m keen on details and high quality, no doubt. Photo manipulation and matte painting excites me a lot – it gives both extraordinary results and I love it’s high potential. In the other hand I like simplicity and clear ideas even in abstract illustrations. Basically I don’t like putting on too many layers, adding popular effects which are often unnecessary or playing without any idea of what’s next. All these artworks with paint splashes or frozen-paint-in-the-air are brilliant, but too popular.

Finally I’m very excited about “commercial art” which is somehow a substitute for graphic and digital art nowadays.

It’s high quality is perfect in advertisement but agencies want to see that you are a real artist, not just a style-copier and I absolutely enjoy that kind of thinking.

What do you think are the greatest skills that a designer should have?

Patience – definitely it will be a patience. All skills, techniques, software, hardware and so on you can learn if you are patient. The next one is being stubborn – its easier to achieve goals in your life when you really know what you want. Obviously some talent and luck are welcomed as well!

If you could say any one thing to an aspiring design artist, what would it be?

It is pure fun so don’t give up with first fail or underestimated artwork. Do your best, keep your mind open and think positive all the time!

All Artwork presented in this post are samples of design art from Maciej Hajnrich (Valp) and are copyrighted either to him or their respective owners (his clients). These images should not be copied or used without his express permission.