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5 Questions With the Creative Director of Burnkit

To celebrate the return of Vancouver Design Week(end), we’ve partnered with V.I.A. to highlight some of the outstanding creative minds currently working in Vancouver.

To celebrate the return of Vancouver Design Week(end), we’ve partnered with V.I.A. to highlight some of the outstanding creative minds currently working in Vancouver.

Dylan Staniul is the creative director of Burnkit, an exciting and innovative design firm located on Powell Street in Vancouver. They like to say they are driven by ideas, inspired by technology and passionate about quality design. Vancouver Design Week is delighted to have them as part of this year's line-up.

1. Design is _______?

DS: Design illuminates the potential of a thing or idea.

2. Why does design matter?

DS: To design is to improve. Go ahead and swap "improving" for "design" and "Why does improving matter?" becomes a rather silly question.

3. What differentiates Vancouver design (from the rest of the world)?

DS: The Vancouver design community is small and geographically isolated, so it inevitably looks outward. And it's young, so it's inclined toward the new. This provides an incubator effect with significant cross-pollination across disciplines — fashion, industrial, decor, architecture, tech. Burnkit takes inspiration from this wider group as much as from our fellow graphic designers.

4. What impact is (Vancouver) design having?

DS: The outside world has a picture of Vancouver in it's mind (it photographs well, doesn't it?). It's beautiful, there are mountains and gleaming towers, it's progressive, it's casual, it's new. It's a superficial identity, but "beautiful, progressive and new" isn't the worst place for a designer to start from. Vancouver design that's made impact furthest afield often takes advantage of these notions.

5. What design impacts are you most proud of / what impact potential are you most excited about?

DS: I'm proud of the successes we've had working with other design businesses that we take inspiration from including, Bocci, Reigning Champ, Herschel and Bing Thom, among others. Burnkit is fortunate that organizations choose us because of our approach to the work, rather than because we have experience within a particular industry. That's how we've had the opportunity to work with an amazing array of companies doing good things in their respective fields including the arts, technology, fashion, film, design, real estate, sciences, resources, law and education.

Vancouver Design Week(end) runs from May 12 – 14. Events include open studios, tastings, behind the scenes tours of the city’s stand out architectural spaces and more. If you’re a local designer, design organization or simply a design-minded thinker, you can get involved by visiting vancouverdesignwk.com.