Balázs Rajcsányi, Pál Varsányi
Balázs Rajcsányi born in 1974, Siófok. Pál Varsányi born in 1975, Budapest. Exported as production designers. Currently founder (B. R.) and creative director (P. V.) of Play Dead Studio.
Dear architecture students! Enjoy what you learn, if you don’t, switch! If what you get at university is not enough, then go on study trips, visit trade shows, open days, presentations! Feel free to seek out well-established architecture studios! Apply for internships! Get a taste of real work as soon as possible! Reality is the best teacher. Never forget functionality! Architecture is applied art, your creations will be used by people, perhaps throughout their entire lives. But diversity, courage and innovation should be just as important! Learn systems thinking! Get acquainted with the people and their work involved in the processes and creative stages related to a product. Comprehend what affects what! Inspiration is important! Be open to other arts! Exhibitions, theatre, film – old and new – are essential. See the world with a curious but critical eye! – Balázs Rajcsányi Dear architecture students! If you have the chance, travel as much as possible and explore the world with your eyes wide open! Explain to yourselves why you like or dislike a building or a city. Ask questions! From others as well as yourselves, and try to formulate your internal drives: what are your desires, your goals? Draw a lot, collect your ideas somewhere, they might come in handy someday, even outside the architectural profession! It’s worth looking back years from now to see how you’ve changed and evolved. Attend your classes! Many subjects may seem boring or unnecessary, but it’s hard to make up for lost time later. And perhaps most importantly: the building you design should not be trendy or cool or break all the rules, it should be beautiful! – Pál Varsányi
Manifesto ↓
For me personally, functional knowledge helped a lot when I switched to television set design. Having learned how people use a given building. I was able to translate that to set design from the perspective of actors, audience, director and other crew members alike. I designed better functioning and more cost-effective sets. And recognising the correlations with the path from drawing board to project handover helped me think in terms of systems. What will affect who and what in the creative process. – Balázs Rajcsányi I consider spatial vision a great advantage, and I often try to use it in my work, for example when I’m designing a path for camera movement. Often I have to create vast spaces and big crowds in an animation, and I make good use of my architectural studies in such cases. In fact, in a slightly more abstract form, but designing a complex graphic identity also there has links to architecture: thinking in terms of the larger system and the details it incorporates, designing modular elements, etc. – Pál Varsányi
Career path ↓
Balázs Rajcsányi and Pál Varsányi met in 1993 at the Faculty of Architecture of the Budapest University of Technology. As a first-year student, Balázs was already working on 3D visualisations for an architectural studio, and later he was known for creating renders for graduating students and tutoring his own group on the use of CAD software. According to Pál, “Balázs was already teaching himself computer animation by then. He transferred his knowledge to me along with the 3D Studio software on ten floppy disks. There was no turning back at that point.” In 1997, in their fourth year at university, around the time when commercial TV channels were launched in Hungary, they started operating under the name Dogfish. Back then, those channels had no clue how to use modern technology or even what they wanted to show on their screens, so the young duo had their chance. Their first big commission was for graphics and animation for RTL Klub’s Klip Klub. More and more television companies and other companies began to understand the importance of design. First RTL, then MTVA and TV2 also hired them to work as creative producers on their brand identity. They occasionally did smaller interesting jobs on the side: video clips, exhibition designs, installations, etc. Balázs founded Play Dead Studio in 2008 and Pál joined the studio in 2015, where they design and produce television sets, virtual studios, video wall animations and exhibition installations. Their most important projects include shows for X-Factor, VIVA Comet, RTL News, as well as channel identities for MTVA, RTL and TV2 group. Moreover, they have created exhibitions for Millenáris and the Hungarian Open Air Museum in Szentendre, or the fairy-tale musical Álomutazó (Dream Traveller), for which, in addition to the enormous stage set, they also created a three-hour long led wall animation. Their work includes more than a hundred sets, two hundred and fifty television show designs, thirty-six channel identities and thousands of led wall animations.
Balázs Rajcsányi, Pál Varsányi
Balázs Rajcsányi born in 1974, Siófok. Pál Varsányi born in 1975, Budapest. Exported as production designers. Currently founder (B. R.) and creative director (P. V.) of Play Dead Studio.
Dear architecture students! Enjoy what you learn, if you don’t, switch! If what you get at university is not enough, then go on study trips, visit trade shows, open days, presentations! Feel free to seek out well-established architecture studios! Apply for internships! Get a taste of real work as soon as possible! Reality is the best teacher. Never forget functionality! Architecture is applied art, your creations will be used by people, perhaps throughout their entire lives. But diversity, courage and innovation should be just as important! Learn systems thinking! Get acquainted with the people and their work involved in the processes and creative stages related to a product. Comprehend what affects what! Inspiration is important! Be open to other arts! Exhibitions, theatre, film – old and new – are essential. See the world with a curious but critical eye! – Balázs Rajcsányi Dear architecture students! If you have the chance, travel as much as possible and explore the world with your eyes wide open! Explain to yourselves why you like or dislike a building or a city. Ask questions! From others as well as yourselves, and try to formulate your internal drives: what are your desires, your goals? Draw a lot, collect your ideas somewhere, they might come in handy someday, even outside the architectural profession! It’s worth looking back years from now to see how you’ve changed and evolved. Attend your classes! Many subjects may seem boring or unnecessary, but it’s hard to make up for lost time later. And perhaps most importantly: the building you design should not be trendy or cool or break all the rules, it should be beautiful! – Pál Varsányi
Manifesto ↓
For me personally, functional knowledge helped a lot when I switched to television set design. Having learned how people use a given building. I was able to translate that to set design from the perspective of actors, audience, director and other crew members alike. I designed better functioning and more cost-effective sets. And recognising the correlations with the path from drawing board to project handover helped me think in terms of systems. What will affect who and what in the creative process. – Balázs Rajcsányi I consider spatial vision a great advantage, and I often try to use it in my work, for example when I’m designing a path for camera movement. Often I have to create vast spaces and big crowds in an animation, and I make good use of my architectural studies in such cases. In fact, in a slightly more abstract form, but designing a complex graphic identity also there has links to architecture: thinking in terms of the larger system and the details it incorporates, designing modular elements, etc. – Pál Varsányi
Career path ↓
Balázs Rajcsányi and Pál Varsányi met in 1993 at the Faculty of Architecture of the Budapest University of Technology. As a first-year student, Balázs was already working on 3D visualisations for an architectural studio, and later he was known for creating renders for graduating students and tutoring his own group on the use of CAD software. According to Pál, “Balázs was already teaching himself computer animation by then. He transferred his knowledge to me along with the 3D Studio software on ten floppy disks. There was no turning back at that point.” In 1997, in their fourth year at university, around the time when commercial TV channels were launched in Hungary, they started operating under the name Dogfish. Back then, those channels had no clue how to use modern technology or even what they wanted to show on their screens, so the young duo had their chance. Their first big commission was for graphics and animation for RTL Klub’s Klip Klub. More and more television companies and other companies began to understand the importance of design. First RTL, then MTVA and TV2 also hired them to work as creative producers on their brand identity. They occasionally did smaller interesting jobs on the side: video clips, exhibition designs, installations, etc. Balázs founded Play Dead Studio in 2008 and Pál joined the studio in 2015, where they design and produce television sets, virtual studios, video wall animations and exhibition installations. Their most important projects include shows for X-Factor, VIVA Comet, RTL News, as well as channel identities for MTVA, RTL and TV2 group. Moreover, they have created exhibitions for Millenáris and the Hungarian Open Air Museum in Szentendre, or the fairy-tale musical Álomutazó (Dream Traveller), for which, in addition to the enormous stage set, they also created a three-hour long led wall animation. Their work includes more than a hundred sets, two hundred and fifty television show designs, thirty-six channel identities and thousands of led wall animations.
Balázs Rajcsányi, Pál Varsányi
Balázs Rajcsányi born in 1974, Siófok. Pál Varsányi born in 1975, Budapest. Exported as production designers. Currently founder (B. R.) and creative director (P. V.) of Play Dead Studio.
Dear architecture students! Enjoy what you learn, if you don’t, switch! If what you get at university is not enough, then go on study trips, visit trade shows, open days, presentations! Feel free to seek out well-established architecture studios! Apply for internships! Get a taste of real work as soon as possible! Reality is the best teacher. Never forget functionality! Architecture is applied art, your creations will be used by people, perhaps throughout their entire lives. But diversity, courage and innovation should be just as important! Learn systems thinking! Get acquainted with the people and their work involved in the processes and creative stages related to a product. Comprehend what affects what! Inspiration is important! Be open to other arts! Exhibitions, theatre, film – old and new – are essential. See the world with a curious but critical eye! – Balázs Rajcsányi Dear architecture students! If you have the chance, travel as much as possible and explore the world with your eyes wide open! Explain to yourselves why you like or dislike a building or a city. Ask questions! From others as well as yourselves, and try to formulate your internal drives: what are your desires, your goals? Draw a lot, collect your ideas somewhere, they might come in handy someday, even outside the architectural profession! It’s worth looking back years from now to see how you’ve changed and evolved. Attend your classes! Many subjects may seem boring or unnecessary, but it’s hard to make up for lost time later. And perhaps most importantly: the building you design should not be trendy or cool or break all the rules, it should be beautiful! – Pál Varsányi
Manifesto ↓
For me personally, functional knowledge helped a lot when I switched to television set design. Having learned how people use a given building. I was able to translate that to set design from the perspective of actors, audience, director and other crew members alike. I designed better functioning and more cost-effective sets. And recognising the correlations with the path from drawing board to project handover helped me think in terms of systems. What will affect who and what in the creative process. – Balázs Rajcsányi I consider spatial vision a great advantage, and I often try to use it in my work, for example when I’m designing a path for camera movement. Often I have to create vast spaces and big crowds in an animation, and I make good use of my architectural studies in such cases. In fact, in a slightly more abstract form, but designing a complex graphic identity also there has links to architecture: thinking in terms of the larger system and the details it incorporates, designing modular elements, etc. – Pál Varsányi
Career path ↓
Balázs Rajcsányi and Pál Varsányi met in 1993 at the Faculty of Architecture of the Budapest University of Technology. As a first-year student, Balázs was already working on 3D visualisations for an architectural studio, and later he was known for creating renders for graduating students and tutoring his own group on the use of CAD software. According to Pál, “Balázs was already teaching himself computer animation by then. He transferred his knowledge to me along with the 3D Studio software on ten floppy disks. There was no turning back at that point.” In 1997, in their fourth year at university, around the time when commercial TV channels were launched in Hungary, they started operating under the name Dogfish. Back then, those channels had no clue how to use modern technology or even what they wanted to show on their screens, so the young duo had their chance. Their first big commission was for graphics and animation for RTL Klub’s Klip Klub. More and more television companies and other companies began to understand the importance of design. First RTL, then MTVA and TV2 also hired them to work as creative producers on their brand identity. They occasionally did smaller interesting jobs on the side: video clips, exhibition designs, installations, etc. Balázs founded Play Dead Studio in 2008 and Pál joined the studio in 2015, where they design and produce television sets, virtual studios, video wall animations and exhibition installations. Their most important projects include shows for X-Factor, VIVA Comet, RTL News, as well as channel identities for MTVA, RTL and TV2 group. Moreover, they have created exhibitions for Millenáris and the Hungarian Open Air Museum in Szentendre, or the fairy-tale musical Álomutazó (Dream Traveller), for which, in addition to the enormous stage set, they also created a three-hour long led wall animation. Their work includes more than a hundred sets, two hundred and fifty television show designs, thirty-six channel identities and thousands of led wall animations.
Balázs Rajcsányi, Pál Varsányi
Balázs Rajcsányi born in 1974, Siófok. Pál Varsányi born in 1975, Budapest. Exported as production designers. Currently founder (B. R.) and creative director (P. V.) of Play Dead Studio.
Dear architecture students! Enjoy what you learn, if you don’t, switch! If what you get at university is not enough, then go on study trips, visit trade shows, open days, presentations! Feel free to seek out well-established architecture studios! Apply for internships! Get a taste of real work as soon as possible! Reality is the best teacher. Never forget functionality! Architecture is applied art, your creations will be used by people, perhaps throughout their entire lives. But diversity, courage and innovation should be just as important! Learn systems thinking! Get acquainted with the people and their work involved in the processes and creative stages related to a product. Comprehend what affects what! Inspiration is important! Be open to other arts! Exhibitions, theatre, film – old and new – are essential. See the world with a curious but critical eye! – Balázs Rajcsányi Dear architecture students! If you have the chance, travel as much as possible and explore the world with your eyes wide open! Explain to yourselves why you like or dislike a building or a city. Ask questions! From others as well as yourselves, and try to formulate your internal drives: what are your desires, your goals? Draw a lot, collect your ideas somewhere, they might come in handy someday, even outside the architectural profession! It’s worth looking back years from now to see how you’ve changed and evolved. Attend your classes! Many subjects may seem boring or unnecessary, but it’s hard to make up for lost time later. And perhaps most importantly: the building you design should not be trendy or cool or break all the rules, it should be beautiful! – Pál Varsányi
Manifesto ↓
For me personally, functional knowledge helped a lot when I switched to television set design. Having learned how people use a given building. I was able to translate that to set design from the perspective of actors, audience, director and other crew members alike. I designed better functioning and more cost-effective sets. And recognising the correlations with the path from drawing board to project handover helped me think in terms of systems. What will affect who and what in the creative process. – Balázs Rajcsányi I consider spatial vision a great advantage, and I often try to use it in my work, for example when I’m designing a path for camera movement. Often I have to create vast spaces and big crowds in an animation, and I make good use of my architectural studies in such cases. In fact, in a slightly more abstract form, but designing a complex graphic identity also there has links to architecture: thinking in terms of the larger system and the details it incorporates, designing modular elements, etc. – Pál Varsányi
Career path ↓
Balázs Rajcsányi and Pál Varsányi met in 1993 at the Faculty of Architecture of the Budapest University of Technology. As a first-year student, Balázs was already working on 3D visualisations for an architectural studio, and later he was known for creating renders for graduating students and tutoring his own group on the use of CAD software. According to Pál, “Balázs was already teaching himself computer animation by then. He transferred his knowledge to me along with the 3D Studio software on ten floppy disks. There was no turning back at that point.” In 1997, in their fourth year at university, around the time when commercial TV channels were launched in Hungary, they started operating under the name Dogfish. Back then, those channels had no clue how to use modern technology or even what they wanted to show on their screens, so the young duo had their chance. Their first big commission was for graphics and animation for RTL Klub’s Klip Klub. More and more television companies and other companies began to understand the importance of design. First RTL, then MTVA and TV2 also hired them to work as creative producers on their brand identity. They occasionally did smaller interesting jobs on the side: video clips, exhibition designs, installations, etc. Balázs founded Play Dead Studio in 2008 and Pál joined the studio in 2015, where they design and produce television sets, virtual studios, video wall animations and exhibition installations. Their most important projects include shows for X-Factor, VIVA Comet, RTL News, as well as channel identities for MTVA, RTL and TV2 group. Moreover, they have created exhibitions for Millenáris and the Hungarian Open Air Museum in Szentendre, or the fairy-tale musical Álomutazó (Dream Traveller), for which, in addition to the enormous stage set, they also created a three-hour long led wall animation. Their work includes more than a hundred sets, two hundred and fifty television show designs, thirty-six channel identities and thousands of led wall animations.
Balázs Rajcsányi, Pál Varsányi
Balázs Rajcsányi born in 1974, Siófok. Pál Varsányi born in 1975, Budapest. Exported as production designers. Currently founder (B. R.) and creative director (P. V.) of Play Dead Studio.
Dear architecture students! Enjoy what you learn, if you don’t, switch! If what you get at university is not enough, then go on study trips, visit trade shows, open days, presentations! Feel free to seek out well-established architecture studios! Apply for internships! Get a taste of real work as soon as possible! Reality is the best teacher. Never forget functionality! Architecture is applied art, your creations will be used by people, perhaps throughout their entire lives. But diversity, courage and innovation should be just as important! Learn systems thinking! Get acquainted with the people and their work involved in the processes and creative stages related to a product. Comprehend what affects what! Inspiration is important! Be open to other arts! Exhibitions, theatre, film – old and new – are essential. See the world with a curious but critical eye! – Balázs Rajcsányi Dear architecture students! If you have the chance, travel as much as possible and explore the world with your eyes wide open! Explain to yourselves why you like or dislike a building or a city. Ask questions! From others as well as yourselves, and try to formulate your internal drives: what are your desires, your goals? Draw a lot, collect your ideas somewhere, they might come in handy someday, even outside the architectural profession! It’s worth looking back years from now to see how you’ve changed and evolved. Attend your classes! Many subjects may seem boring or unnecessary, but it’s hard to make up for lost time later. And perhaps most importantly: the building you design should not be trendy or cool or break all the rules, it should be beautiful! – Pál Varsányi
Manifesto ↓
For me personally, functional knowledge helped a lot when I switched to television set design. Having learned how people use a given building. I was able to translate that to set design from the perspective of actors, audience, director and other crew members alike. I designed better functioning and more cost-effective sets. And recognising the correlations with the path from drawing board to project handover helped me think in terms of systems. What will affect who and what in the creative process. – Balázs Rajcsányi I consider spatial vision a great advantage, and I often try to use it in my work, for example when I’m designing a path for camera movement. Often I have to create vast spaces and big crowds in an animation, and I make good use of my architectural studies in such cases. In fact, in a slightly more abstract form, but designing a complex graphic identity also there has links to architecture: thinking in terms of the larger system and the details it incorporates, designing modular elements, etc. – Pál Varsányi
Career path ↓
Balázs Rajcsányi and Pál Varsányi met in 1993 at the Faculty of Architecture of the Budapest University of Technology. As a first-year student, Balázs was already working on 3D visualisations for an architectural studio, and later he was known for creating renders for graduating students and tutoring his own group on the use of CAD software. According to Pál, “Balázs was already teaching himself computer animation by then. He transferred his knowledge to me along with the 3D Studio software on ten floppy disks. There was no turning back at that point.” In 1997, in their fourth year at university, around the time when commercial TV channels were launched in Hungary, they started operating under the name Dogfish. Back then, those channels had no clue how to use modern technology or even what they wanted to show on their screens, so the young duo had their chance. Their first big commission was for graphics and animation for RTL Klub’s Klip Klub. More and more television companies and other companies began to understand the importance of design. First RTL, then MTVA and TV2 also hired them to work as creative producers on their brand identity. They occasionally did smaller interesting jobs on the side: video clips, exhibition designs, installations, etc. Balázs founded Play Dead Studio in 2008 and Pál joined the studio in 2015, where they design and produce television sets, virtual studios, video wall animations and exhibition installations. Their most important projects include shows for X-Factor, VIVA Comet, RTL News, as well as channel identities for MTVA, RTL and TV2 group. Moreover, they have created exhibitions for Millenáris and the Hungarian Open Air Museum in Szentendre, or the fairy-tale musical Álomutazó (Dream Traveller), for which, in addition to the enormous stage set, they also created a three-hour long led wall animation. Their work includes more than a hundred sets, two hundred and fifty television show designs, thirty-six channel identities and thousands of led wall animations.