“I love brands. I grew up being fascinated with fashion brands and sports brands and Apple. These brands made me feel things. They made me feel differently than I felt, which was at times insecure or anxious or lonely. I think brands helped me feel confident.”

I meet with Alex Center ahead of his talk at Offf festival in Barcelona in May. He’s buzzing about the festival, about everyone coming together to talk about design and brands, and his enthusiasm is infectious.

For Center, the excitement he gets from working in design is this ability for his work to reach people, to have an impact on their everyday lives. “It’s about making connections with people. It’s about making people want to hold it in their hand or want to wear it on their chest, or want to be a part of it,” he says.

“And, you know, big brands and small brands – it’s somewhat the same. I mean, I think the difference is when you have a big brand, that connection is often made so you’re trying to evolve it, change it or just continue to build on top of it. Versus if you’re building a brand from scratch at the very beginning, you’re inventing all of it, and you get to sort of birth it and create it from nothing. The biggest challenge is to create something that doesn’t exist and having a blank page and then having something in someone’s hand or seeing someone online posting and sharing – I just think it’s the coolest thing in the world.”