What would I alter: Eddie Opara, Pentagram
British designer, writer, and critic Eddie Opara joined Pentagram New York in 2010 after running his own New York studio, The Map Office, for five years. In the ten years he was at Pentagram, he has worked on publications, exhibits, installations, branding and packaging, UI, and beyond with clients from Prada, Samsung and Lululemon to NYU and the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum.
More recently, Opara and his team at Pentagram have been working on the draft for the new monograph Two American Projects by photographer and activist Dawoud Bey, in which two separate photo series have been merged to highlight both juxtapositions in Bey's work while also adding to the notion of collective memory examine.
In addition to his role at Pentagram, Opara has previously taught at leading arts education institutions and is currently a senior critic at Yale University. In 2013, he also authored the book Color Works, which presented a number of best practices for applying color to a range of design settings.
Here he talks to us about his experiences with Lockdown, why designers have to step out of their world, whether agencies should push back working with unethical clients and why equality is not a "project".
Work-life balance in lockdown At first, my wife and I were extremely concerned. We have two boys – one is in kindergarten and the other is in 3rd grade so he's nine years old. [We didn't have] childcare at the time – we have a nanny but due to the lockdown, the quarantine aspects were imperative – so balancing the day was a chore.
It was very, very complicated. We both work, so planning the day was very difficult. My wife is a clinical scientist who works with many people around the world. So her days were very tight – her days are still very tight. When it came to my work, I didn't plan it at first as I just wanted to see how work and life fit together and then I started planning certain elements and trying to get a regime. Then, at certain times, little one, he would come by and interrupt a meeting, or the tall one who is nine years old would interrupt a meeting because they needed something.
There were a few laughs or people saying, “Oh, it's so beautiful!” But it makes me feel like I don't take care of her as well as I should – I don't really focus on her, me focus on my own career instead of teaching my own sons which is really, really annoying and very annoying.