I think she’s a mind within a mind within a mind; there is just so much depth. Besides creatively heading up a humanitarian effort in Uganda, she also manages her own design firm specializing in all things visual. Her love of travel and social justice inspired her to break free of the norm and focus on what matters to her most. Oh, and she’s also wickedly funny and a force to be reckoned with in the kitchen.
My Favourite Person this week is Nicolay Bastos.
Who are you and what do you do?
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My name is Nicolay Bastos and I am the owner and principal of Headstrong Design. I design things.
Interiors, graphics, logos, murals. I make art. I take photos. That is my love, my passion and my life work, all under the Headstrong Design umbrella. I’m also the Creative Director of Caleb’s Hope, a registered non-profit organization dedicated to improving the quality of life for vulnerable women and children affected by war, poverty, and HIV/AIDS.
My home office is the only office job I’ve ever had and I’ve been working there since 2009. To pay the bills I serve tables at Vij’s Rangoli. I have been in the service industry since I was 14 and I’m sort of addicted to it. Rangoli is the best job ever. I come in, make some money, eat some curry and go home. The Vij’s are great bosses and I love and respect their ethos and their business sense. I feel very blessed to work for business owners I respect at a job that is full of great people, pays well and is stress free. These days that is an anomaly.
Leaving Omonia
How did you start?
I’ve been a designer all my life. It is in my blood. I created seating arrangements with focal points in my Lego houses. At age six I began rearranging whatever furniture I could move. I’ve always drawn and made art. I only realized it was a viable career option after a failed attempt at a degree in Economics and Philosophy, from which I ran screaming. Academia and the pursuit of institutional membership was clearly the wrong direction for me, but it took years of living independently and figuring myself out to arrive at that conclusion. Ultimately, I chose to study Interior Design at BCIT. I worked and supported myself while I paid for my school, so it took a while to acquire that skill set and paper. Upon graduating I exercised that skill set rigidly and inorganically, doing a few interior consultations and drawing packages. I quickly fell out of love with straight up interior design. I didn’t want to show people how to arrange their furniture; this felt boring, empty and repetitive. After a transformative spring last year, spent between Berlin, London and Greece, I came back to Vancouver with some serious quarter life crisis questions for myself. I wondered why I still didn’t feel like a designer. I certainly wasn’t living up to my image of myself. I wasn’t being Headstrong. I was beginning to doubt my path and was down on myself for still serving tables. I interviewed for a few interior design industry jobs. They were jobs that essentially had me doing what I already did, but for somebody else and for $15/hr with no benefits. I realized that these hourly wages for a junior designer were not a personal insult, but an industry standard and that was an epiphany for me. Why would I turn down serving tables at Rangoli for something like that? Why should I feel immature for keeping a job I enjoy that affords me a lifestyle I could never dream of on $15/hr? I made a solid commitment to be true to my wildest dreams and began to focus on branding myself as an independent designer, allowing my flexible serving job to keep me out of the ‘starving’ of artist categories. From there I just started acting and forcing myself to produce anything and everything, make graphics, paint murals, take photos, design furniture, regardless of a pay cheque. And through the miracle of social networking, namely Facebook, people started catching on that this is what I do and projects have been popping up consistently since then.
Detail of bedroom design and abstract mural
What inspires you?
Travel and nature. I love the symmetry, texture and colour of plants and trees, the ripple of the ocean’s surface in a breeze. Everything about new cities inspires me, the architecture, the people, and the food. I wouldn’t be doing what I do if I hadn’t traveled.
Who did you worship in high school?
David Duchovny.
What are your favourite budget friendly activities?
Long evenings of cooking, drinking and conversing with friends. Long walks, snapping photos. Swimming in the ocean. Working at home.
What do you feel what you do is important?
I’ve liberated my passion and skill set from the need to make money doing it. It is wholly my own. I don’t accept work I hate out of desperation. I only do what I love and I have yet to run out of work doing that. I hear a lot of people say “I want to be the best me I can be” and as corny as that is, I feel that that is what I’m doing with my work and that is important. I encourage all of my friends to do the same with their talents and passions. I feel very grateful to be alive and working at this moment in time. Social media is very exciting. For the first time ever suppliers can source their demanders with almost total accuracy. Never before has learning and/or outsourcing tasks we haven’t time to learn been easier. This gives us more time to focus precisely on what it is we can offer the world that no one else can. And you are guaranteed, with more than 6 billion people in this world, that there is a market for what you offer. No matter how strange or fringy what you love to do may seem, someone wants in on that and you can find them. That is revolutionary. I strongly and loudly promote that. We as individuals can stop looking to established institutions and career moulds, to stop climbing ladders and seeking praise from hierarchical organizations that reek of stagnation and feed on young, cheap and impressionable labour to maintain their standing. We can reach out to other individuals on our own terms, past the stale status quo and produce rich, mutually beneficial working relationships that are deeply fulfilling for both parties. That is so vital, so important and it is happening right now all around us. There are better and more humane options to labour now. We can all be our own boss in some way: the ultimate worker’s revolution. Doing what I do is at the centre of this, my outlook on life.
An early model of a classroom design for Caleb's Hope
What’s next?
My work with Caleb’s Hope occupies the majority of my free time. I became involved with Caleb’s Hope in August 2010 through Architecture for Humanity. A group of designers were brought together to design homes and a school/community centre for the citizens of Attiak in Northern Uganda, where the majority of CH’s activities are currently concentrated. I oversaw the school and community centre design, which was only in its fledgling stages at the time. Twenty one homes were built in December 2010 and I was so impressed with the swift, decisive action taken by such a small organization. I’m just beside myself with joy to be welcomed onto the board. So the second phase of Project Build is currently being dreamt by myself and my project partner, architect Katja Klenk. We’re in the planning phases of the school and community centre design. And that is just the tip of the iceberg with Caleb’s Hope. There will be books of campaign photography, a website and branding makeover and merchandise design. It is extensive and exciting work.
For Headstrong Design, who knows what’s next? That’s the fun of it. I recently designed a recipe booklet and did some portrait photography for the UBC Farm event Joy of Feeding. That came out of the blue and was a wonderful experience. I’ve also been doing photography for Lions Gate Fisheries, images intended for their upcoming website makeover and advertising. I expect more projects like that will emerge.
