About nibo
Nibo* was born in a family of architects, his uncle was an architect, his cousins were architects, his mom and dad were architects, so it was inevitable that nibo would become a ...graphic designer!**
It all started at his father’s office where nibo spent time after daily elementary school. There, at about age 7, you could find him playing with his child's toys under his father’s drawing desks. It’s not that he didn’t know what was happening above, it is that he was too small to play in the world above. Then one day, as he was turning 9 years old, he asked his dad if he could play on the desk, where everyone else played.
-This is not for you son, his father discouraged him, we keep all our tools up here, he emphasized, I can’t have you playing around with them as they are very important to our job (little did he know, what was sitting on top of those big desks was why I wanted to climb up there so badly).
-Dad, I won't break anything, I promise!
-No!
-Dad?
-Sorry Nick, no!
-Dad?
-No!
-D...
-No!
-Daaad?!
| -Ok... but please don’t make a mess and don’t break anything, especially those! (and he pointed at what was to become my lifetime affair, the mighty ROTRING PEN!).
Fast forward to two weeks later, when in my final attempt to give my heart to any other means of drawing, I asked my dad to take all the stuff one could draw with and lay it on one of those beautiful white surfaces, the one closest to the far wall, which had become my new spotless observatory. He smiled and told me off.
-Daad...
A few days later I witnessed the most extraordinary sight I had ever seen, brushes, crayons, marker pens, chalks, Indian inks, watercolours, gouaches, oil colours and coloured pencils were waiting to be picked as my -from now on- official toys! I stared and glared but couldn’t find what I was looking for.
There, on the next desk, rested a box of neatly placed black pens with the finest tip of all tips, my object of passion, the Rotring pen was staring at me and I couldn’t stare away!
- Dad, what is that? (I pretended)
-You may choose anything to draw with but that, he cut me cold.
-Yes but...
-No buts, look at those gorgeous marker pens, choose them!
-No! I want to try one of those, the ones you use to make these fine lines (I pointed at a top view of a house he was working on).
-Forget it, that is not for you and that’s final, he stated.
| A month later, not only I had my own Rotring (No 3) pen, I was also enjoying the position of being the official Rotring pen cleaner on the premises and it was quite a job: taking them apart, soaking them, soaping them, cleaning them with surgical precision and putting them back on their corresponding stands, to be used the next day by the -ever so grateful- architects in the office. And that was in my spare time because from then on I had a job, I was the banknotes designer of my own personal Bank (with special attention to the anti-counterfeiting features, the logos and the engraving details, of course)!
All these years later and I still heven't lost my fascination for the fine black line...
|