tomaz tijerina konja
i am an industrial designer who works across disciplines, combining hands-on making with a deep interest in discursive and experimental design.
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tomazkonja@gmail.com
@tomazkonja
1. Familiar Faces, 2025
Designer
Art Director
Rhino3D
Art Direction
Design Thinking
Justin Mason
Abe Bazzi
Responsible
Project Statement
Familiar Faces is a rotating event series inspired by the spontaneous, location-shifting ethos of Boiler Room, created by a team rooted in the Metro Detroit area. At its core, the project aims to strengthen the local creative community by bringing together makers, artists, and designers in a setting that feels energetic, informal, and culturally alive. Each event begins with an open call for work and collaboration with the surrounding neighborhood, allowing local creators to share their projects and connect directly with their city. After the exhibition, the night transitions into an after-party that can only be accessed by attending the show, reinforcing the idea that community comes first and celebration follows. Familiar Faces is ultimately about cultivating a space where creativity, culture, and connection thrive—an event built on the belief that when people gather around good work and good energy, the rest naturally falls into place.
Process
The process behind Familiar Faces began with a simple question: how can we integrate local creatives more deeply into the communities they shape? Wanting to see more thoughtfully curated events outside major cultural centers like New York and Los Angeles, we set out to design something we ourselves wished existed. As makers, we immediately turned to the hyper-local—local music, local food, local artists, and the people who define a place.
The project took shape while we were studying abroad in Barcelona at BAU, the College of Arts and Design of Barcelona. There, we observed a strong relationship between students, neighborhoods, and the makers who filled those spaces. That sense of connection and mutual support became a model for what we felt was missing in the communities we come from, and what many parts of the United States—especially middle America—might also be longing for.
Using design thinking, we refined the concept and built out the structure of the event. From there, we developed branding, created a mock-up of the event space, and explored promotional strategies to help bring the idea to life. Although Familiar Faces has not yet been realized as a physical event, the groundwork has been laid, and we hope to bring this vision to communities across the U.S. in the near future.