ABOUT

P▲V E L is the eponymous brand of Moscow-born designer and music producer Pavel Gitnik.

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WHEN I WAS in 4th grade, we had sculpture class at school. This was back when we were living in Ramat-Gan (a suburb of Tel-Aviv in Israel). All the other kids sculpted with their hands, meticulously shaping the clay into whatever cool shape they wanted -- a face, a house, a ladle. But I thought it would be fun to let chance participate.

I would throw a hunk of clay repeatedly against the floor -- each time it would add one more angle, smoothing out the surface until all of them were flat and I would end up with this odd shape that's neither straight nor crooked.

I'd make two eyes by rolling spheres with my palms and pupils by poking them with a pencil.

Affixing them to the shape, I'd make a little tail. Then I'd let it dry and paint in vibrant colors. I had a whole row of these little creatures, all different but all from the same family.

I didn't realize that this was my introduction to what I later found out was "aleatory" art -- letting the roll of the dice decide (or half-decide) what the finished product would look like. This was also an early interest in character design or creation, and the combination of strict systematizing with strict randomness. The bodies were geometric -- but the characters were cute, approachable, and looked great lined up all together.

This would then show up again and again in my music (searching for samples, not knowing what I would find), in tees (allowing found visuals to dictate parts of designs), and in other endeavors.

I would specifically avoid training myself on illustration so that when I doodled, I would be surprised at what came out -- I stayed "bad" at drawing so that I couldn't control the outcome. This was fun for me.

And resulted in really interesting work.

Of course, I had a strict aesthetic, tastes, and emotional attunement. I knew what I wanted to say but didn't rely on my internal ability to say it. Instead, I relied on my ability to feel, see, listen.

This led to my fascination with curation, and especially its value as a fundamental skill for today's modern world, economy, and overall wellbeing.

My curiosity was immensely piqued when what ppl call "AI" arrived on the scene. I don't love the term, but I loved all the new instruments I could play with, to make music, to make new art, to transform my doodles into 3D claymation (!) characters with texture -- again, without "knowing how to" draw or digitally design.

I found a magic in "collaborating" with the universe, using tools people called "amateur", and breaking "intellectual" conventions.

And looking around at our visual language today, I found myself wanting -- our culture is largely mired with goopiness, sinking into odd and unhelpful cynisim, and the art you see on social media largely reflects this back.

I wanted something positive, cool, aware but not superficial or caught in wishful thinking.

As I tried to build a business, I found that self-motivation and seeing the world properly was not as easy as you would think -- even with all these fancy tools we have, even with the ability to connect to billions of people from your own laptop.

The art I make today is a search for that accurate "ontology" -- what is -- what really is, without veneer -- what's possible and how.

I remember taking psychology classes at summer school, and even once in 5th grade (when they bussed us to the university for a couple of weeks), then econ classes at a local community college in Cupertino -- trying to learn what we know about ourselves, how we function, how we make decisions.

As an adult, I learned marketing, digital ads, using my skills with math and writing to create economic value, help people make a living, help products get into the right hands, and into use.

This is a continuation and amalgamation of all those disciplines, an applied philosophy practice -- a way to inspire myself and others using what I think I've learned about the world.

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Brand Philosophy

1. Don't pull your punches

2. Learn from your mistakes

3. Forgive immediately

4. Give it your A-game 

5. Keep moving

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Values

Self-Development

Experimentation

Responsibility

Conversation

Momentum

Discovery

Identity

Joy

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Watch self-development content curated by Pavel and order some physical triggers to keep you moving forward.

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“We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life. All that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.” // Albert Einstein

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▼ CONTACT ▼

@pavelgitnikco 
contact@pavelgitnik.com