Yaren Öz

Experience: 19 year

Born in Kocaeli in 1983, Yaren Öz graduated from Uludağ University Computer / Design Department in 2003. After her graduation, she worked for Olay TV and a local newspaper in Istanbul, and took an active role in preparing various publications and guides. In 2004, she started to work as Visual Arts Director at Ekonomi Publication Inc. Taking an active role in various projects and activities in the pioneering organization of the sector, Öz was appointed as the General Manager of the organization where she has been working for nearly 13 years in 2017. Yaren Öz, who founded her own company, graphic design in January 2019. She is happily married and a proud mother.

Öz, had taken various responsibilities in creating a corporate identity with creative designs, consolidating brands with fresh ideas, and helping them to leave their mark on social media with remarkable strategies. She has also undertaken the design and directorship of Grafikare Design as well as being the founder of the company.

Where did this design idea come from?

Yaren Öz was born in Kocaeli in 1983… You have already read these lines above.

Well, I would like you to hear this design story from me, and not in a corporate language.

How did it all start?

I’m from Hereke, my ancestors have chosen there to settle. Let’s not dive into the origins now; immigrants, Circassians, Laz, hybrids… you know, classic Hereke. I’m sure there are some who may know. A coastal town just before Gebze, the last border to Istanbul in Kocaeli province.

Why did I talk so much about it? Trust me, I have no benefit out of it. It’s just… that town has a special interest in design. Hereke has been in the center of an art story known and registered by the world. It has made its name known to the whole world with its famous carpets that I would recognize whenever I see them.

Is it possible for someone to say that they are not into art when they are born as the daughter of a carpet master? Absolutely not! You must! You feel it up to your bones… You solve all the color elegance and harmony through colorful silks. Especially if you learned to tie knots and embroider when you were a kid. (I believe I got my handicraft from my mother, she had made extraordinary carpets)

The Daily Hurriyet, 1989

Judging by my last name in the news, I was not Turkish back then :))

I started drawing when I was in elementary school (in the words of the grown-ups, when I became able to think straight). I believe I got my painting genes from my father. My first source of inspiration was the paintings that my father made with extinguished embers by burning tobacco (Those paintings I never got from my grandma).

Of course, it wasn’t possible to approach the fire. While I was pottering with charcoal drawing, I found myself trying to paint everything around me, drawing charcoal pictures of whatever painting I could copy at home and hanging them on school boards. I didn’t neglect poetry for sure. Just as I said, it’s because of Hereke… I had to be an artist. Even though I thought about singing for a while, I’m glad I gave up, we cannot have every single ability, right? That one did not work. Then I started to play the guitar and let someone else do the singing part.

Then one day, the sewing machine that my mother had not touched for years caught my eye. The one that she brought all the way back from Germany for her dowry, however, whether she had her dowry is still unknown. At first, I have been staying until the evenings while I was secretly tried to discover the tool. But when I finally got my permit, I gathered all the pieces of fabric in the house, even by tearing the fabrics apart 🙂 and I said to myself that’s how you do it. I designed and sewed my school skirt to not get blown since it was blowing like a balloon in every tiny wind. I still reminisce the shock on my mother’s face when our next-door neighbor comes to the door to ask for the pattern.

Years went by and when I was trying to find myself through painting, music, poetry, tailoring (though it was clear as the day) I found myself as a STEM major in high school. It turns out that this design ability comes from mathematical intelligence. -I’m not saying it, YÖK says so.-

This situation is expressed quite a lot by those around me. In fact, I don’t think it would be an indicator to finish a STEM-based high school with second place(!)

I set my mind to it, I’m going to study a design-oriented department at the university. I will do what I love. I will write, I will draw, I will tear it apart and do it again. By the way, I’d better stop applying it to the items at home 🙂

Did I manage to do it?

Yes, I did.

Always feeling my family by my side, even though I quit carpet making, I was now too an artist-spirited designer of the family. My relatives that get married made me design their invitations, business owners wanted business cards, the neighborhood grocery store wanted me to design flyers to put in the apartments. Was I on the right track?

Yes, indeed!

Definitely the right track, be patient, start small, move on to biger things.

Did we move on?

Yes!

We did, we are and we will!

Sincerely,