We’re launching a new column called BiŽići, in which we will present the people working at the agency. We begin with Vesna Đurašin who today works as our Production Manager and has been at the agency the longest.
Vesna, how long have you been at the agency?
I started here on 1 December 1998 for a one-month trial period. I’ve been here ever since.
What jobs have you held in that period?
In the beginning, I was an administrative assistant without a position. Until my furniture arrived, I went through the mountain of stuff that the BiŽići moved from the previous address several months prior to my arrival. I sorted everything in a way that made sense to me, and that marked the beginning of today’s archive. That task gave me fantastic insight into B&Ž. My first business card stated that my position was “woman for everything”, and two years later I was promoted to the position of IT manager. In the meantime, I have become an expert in moving the office around the Zavrtnica business centre under impossible deadlines. On the first business card with the address Zavrtnica 17, it said that I was mother of two and step-mother of twenty. Every new person joining our team received directions from Bruketa and/or Žinić, to see or complain to Vesna for absolutely everything. In 2005, it became impossible to handle all those calls, so they hired Chris and promoted me to production manager…. I guess. I’ve lost track a little over the years.
a diploma Vesna’s team Logical Position made for her saying: Logical Position awards the Golden Supplier to the Production Department led by Vesna Đurašin in the category of products whose samples outgrow the printing run
How did the office look at the time you joined the team?
Like creative chaos.
At one point of our sudden expansion, it looked to me as though someone had placed the cornerstone of the agency a little off kilt, and that only with God’s providence was it possible for 30 people at three locations in the business centre to function as a perfectly lubricated incredible machine.
Several indelible images have remained with me from “the time that I started here”. Like the colour distortion on the monitors due to the Faraday cage we were trapped in, and didn’t even know it. Sending material for preparation on an external disc. An internet connection and e-mail on only one computer. Cooling off by sitting on the wood floor in the days before the installation of air conditioning. Davor bringing in fantastic large pieces of garbage furniture that he collected on his way into work. The nervous glances we shared while watching Ivanišević win Wimbledon. The disbelief while watching the 9/11 reports.
Now my initial impression is the same, creative chaos in which only those well acquainted with us can see the firm backbone of an agency.
What exactly does it mean to be Production Manager in the agency Bruketa&Žinić OM?
To have the answers to question people don’t know how to ask. To reconcile big ideas with small budgets. To have patience for colleagues, clients and suppliers. To not be ashamed to ask stupid questions to the people who I know have the answers.
After all these years, it is hardest to keep your pride and the feeling of satisfaction when yet another impossible project is successfully seen through to the end.
Which project was the most fun?
The most fun project was the Adris pavilion at the Weekend Media Festival in 2010. It started off catastrophically, with minimum funds and deadlines and maximum expectations and a playful Bruketa. What make it so fun was that after a long time, I finally put my hands to work and let my brain relax. In the end, I was as happy as a child in a fun park, as it all turned out, just as we had imagined it.
There must have been a project that you initially thought was impossible to produce, but still made it happen?
I think it’s realistic to say that we have those kinds of projects at least once a year. There are two projects that each took a year of my life. One was the 2007 Adris New Year’s card and the second was the bag handles for Cvjetni centre. Those projects turned out well thanks only to our agency angel.
Which B&Ž events stand out in your memory?
There are a bunch of wonderful and sad events. Every person who ever worked at the agency left me something, and every person who left took something away. That all has made me who I am today. But there is one period (not event) from our agency life that has left a life-long trace on me.
When one of our colleagues was diagnosed with leukaemia, we all came together and worked so hard to support and held her, and the fact that I work with such people made me so proud. When she died, it reflected on all of us. I think that was a period when all of us in the agency were breathing as one. These events cut so deep, that in all these years, they have served as a sort of anchor for me. When I find myself wondering what I’m still doing here, the answer is in that feeling of unity, that still remains in the air in some corners of the agency.
You studied architecture. How did you end up in advertising waters, and decide to stay?
When I was an architecture student, I ran the club in the Zagreb Society of Architects. The society president recommended me to her boyfriend, who ran a small design studio and needed an administrative assistant. After a few years, the studio changed its business, but a designer who had worked there move to B&Ž, and she recommended me to Davor and Nikola. At my interview, Davor told me that they didn’t need a secretary, they needed a mother. That fit perfectly with me, since I had just been freshly married. Six months later, I told them I was pregnant.
I’m still at the agency because I haven’t been fired, and because the work still presents a challenge for me. It has never become routine, and the tasks that hit my desk still surprise me.
Your creative production solutions are not tied only to the agency. Many people talk about your challenging private projects that you do for your kids and friends.
I have always loved working with my hands, cutting, sewing, gluing, screwing… I loved both home economics and technical education, and the fact that my dad wanted a son and got me says enough. The only thing I have never loved doing is embroidery, to my grandmother’s dismay.
I love masks and making costumes, and baking cookies has proven to be good therapy for me. After a bad day at the office, I occasionally treat my frustrations with baking, as very little time is needed from the initial idea to the final product. It helps when I feel that I need to complete one thing successfully before the day is over.
I most enjoy “applied knowledge”, like the best application of a roll of baking paper, forming a tray of strudel into the format “2 per head”, covering damage on the refrigerator with magnets, covering up holes on the aluminium tube of the Adris annual report with silver eye shadow, improvising UV light cellophane, creating a three-part pirate ship from cardboard and laminate flooring guiderails, connected with Velcro, making disposable costumes using staples…
As an experienced production manager, can you give young designers a piece of advice?
If they don’t send you, ask to go to the printers to check the prints. The first time the responsibility is massive, because you have no idea what you’re doing, but that’s why it opens up a whole new world that is much deeper than your monitor.
You are the only one of the agency to have a white armchair next to your desk? Why is that?
That was a bonus for a job well done at the Adris pavilion (it was also a part of that pavilion) that I took at my own responsibility. The armchair is an indicator of how willing I am to listen. When it’s empty – sit down, relax and talk. When it’s overloaded with stuff and samples – say what you have while standing, because I don’t have the time J It’s proven to be a great place where people feel comfortable and they have the feeling that I am listening carefully, while I’ve noticed that they seen to hear me better from that position.
