Albert Salamon: Time Reimagined
CEO at ttmm
by Elizabeth Lavis
|16 Sept 2020
“Design for me is a way of structuring and ordering form, adding proper meaning,
and endowing it with a kind of mystery”.
Albert Salamon’s design inspiration struck when he was young. As a son of Warsaw, Poland, he was fascinated by the fusion of West and East culture and design, as well as time as both a concept and a concrete element.
Salamon enrolled in a drawing course at the tender age of five, and the trajectory of his life as a visionary was set into motion. “I studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw,” he said. “After graduation, I was teaching visual communications and started my own design studio. After 15 years of experience with clients, I started my own TTMM business.”
TTMM’s company ethos lies in reinterpreting time, altering the end-user experience of time, and providing a sophisticated framework for creative re-imaginings of what time means and how it relates to our physical and digital worlds. Their website and Instagram page are full of elegant and simple designs that effortlessly weave color, style, and fonts to form a cohesive and unique design.
“TTMM is a design studio specializing in designing smart interfaces and apps for smartwatches,” Salamon said. “It is currently focused on the Fitbit Versa platform, for which it has designed a collection of 50 clock faces and a range of practical apps.”
TTMM’s Fitbit Versa designs won Salamon and his team Indigo Design Award’s Gold Award in both 2019 and 2020 when they wowed our judges with their creative form and functionality.
Salamon’s genius manifests itself when the creator isn’t pushing it. “I try to work only when I feel that I have something to ‘say,’” Salamon said. “Very often, I would develop sketches of simple ideas I have encountered while reading books. When a design emerges, I save it with a proper new name.” He also doesn’t work well under deadlines. “I don’t like pressure. I choose passion or curiosity. This is the principum of my creation and collaboration. Do things not because I must, but because I love to.”
Although his initial creative process is unhurried, one the idea is sparked, Salamon kicks into complete work mode. He fully vets and processes the concept on paper. He takes his time, sometimes spending a day or more fleshing out an idea. If it passes muster, it moves on to production.
“I remember two such pieces of advice,” Salamon said, in reference to the design world. “The first I heard after I graduated; ‘design which wasn’t produced does not exist.’ Then, in my work, I discovered an extension of that idea; ‘design which didn’t sell does not exist.’” This statement perfectly encapsulates the delicate balance of creative work and business acumen that Salamon and his team straddle so well.
Although he is meticulous with his idea cultivation process, Salamon loves the uncertainty and mystery of his work, culminating in the thrill of releasing it to the public. His designs are true labors of love, borne out of the desire to represent time in creative and impactful ways.
Although Salamon doesn’t follow trends, he does derive concepts for his minimalist style from unlikely sources. “I love sci-fi books, music soundtracks, and movies,” Salamon said. He cites visionaries like Stanislaw Lem, Hans Zimmer, Woody Allen, David Lynch, Ingmar Bergman, and Federico Fellini as inspiration. “Design for me is a way of structuring and ordering form, adding proper meaning, and endowing it with a kind of mystery,” Salamon said.
Salamon’s designs come together with standard tools of the trade. He prefers working with Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, and Sketch, with a robust soundtrack on his Spotify playing in the background.
In the future, Salamon imagines himself as a husband and father, continually working on his vision and making, in his words, plenty of creative mistakes. There is no question that he will be hitting many creative and design milestones as well.
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