Meet PRINT Designer of the Week Anthony Furia, a graphic designer, illustrator and art director whose eclectic portfolio showcases his meticulous approach to his craft, his flair for concept-driven work, and the variety in his passion projects—which include everything from a series of anti-war posters to a year-long daily lettering project. Furia, who originally hails from Australia, is the owner of the eponymous firm based in Toronto, where the focus is on branding, print and digital design for clients across commerce, arts and culture.
Name: Anthony Furia
Name of Firm: Furia
Location: Toronto, Canada
How would you describe your work?
Describing one’s own style is difficult, but my process is probably best summed up as slow and deliberate. Because of this, I generally take on clients and projects that afford adequate time to be thorough in research and execution. I don’t particularly gravitate toward a single design discipline; I’m interested mostly in concept-driven work where the design needs to express more than the written word is capable of.
Where do you find inspiration?
At unexpected times in unexpected places doing unexpected things, so I try to feed my curiosity and senses as much as possible.
Who are some of your favorite designers or artists?
There are simply too many. With design, I am influenced most by those whose careers have spanned 20, 30, 40+ years as I find their reflections on design to have a much greater impact on my work than aesthetics do. People like Sagmeister, Scher, Kalman, Glaser, Bierut, for example. As for artists, the painting periods of baroque, impressionism, and expressionism interest me most, as well as tactile arts like sculpture and ceramics.
Do you have a favorite among all the projects you’ve worked on?
A personal project of hand-painted war objects that I made into a poster series. Having grown up listening to punk-rock and reading the works of Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut, I had a pretty strong anti-war mindset. As I got older and became more interested in history, the sheer prevalence of human conflict and its somewhat unavoidable nature became something I thought a lot about. The image of a hand-grenade painted as a Rubiks cube came to mind, and I thought it was an interesting expression of war as a seemingly impossible puzzle to solve. The project pretty much grew from there.
Is there a project that stands out to you as having been the biggest challenge of your career so far?
For the duration of 2015, I created a daily lettering and vocabulary booster project for my Instagram. Each design was posted daily with an associated word, its definition, and an example of how to use the word in a sentence. It was challenging to commit time to design and write something unique each day for an entire year. I poured everything I had into it.
What do you hope to accomplish in the future?
Many more years of fulfilling projects and client relationships.
What’s your best advice for designers today?
Making good work for good people is a good place to start.
Have some poster design of your own that you’re particularly proud of?
The HOW International Design Awards has categories for your posters, packaging, identity design and more. What more, a win in the HOW International Design Awards win is more than just another line on your résumé—because the HOW team is committed to spotlighting our Awards winners is even bigger and more meaningful ways. We’re proud of where HOW is heading, and we’d love to bring you with us. That’s why you’re invited to enter the HOW International Design Awards by the final deadline, Sept. 23, 2016.