Set designer Ibby Njoya reminds us that nobody can succeed alone

I’m interested in learning more about your process from a practical perspective. Could you take us through the last shoot you did?

That was for MCQ, the BREATHE icon. What the directors wanted was for it to feel like the outside. So we hired props that would indicate the outdoors environment, like traffic lights, a lamp post – all of these elements that we could have on the day to help tell that story. The U-shaped green area in the video was a little more playful but challenging because we had to cover one side of this structure with rocks. I thought that surely 10 bags of rocks would be enough, but we ended up using 30 or 40 bags. It seemed as though there were never enough rocks. We just kept putting more on and we ran out very quickly. You’re there like, “Damn, I thought I had enough.” I think I spent three days in B&Q back and forth just being like, “Yo, I need more rocks.”

The idea was for the rocks to be round and pebbly but we couldn’t get exactly that because that was too perfect. We ended up having to go with what was available at the time. Obviously, these things happen really quickly. You don’t have enough time for things to arrive so in the majority of these kind of projects it’s more of a reaction. We don’t have the luxury of having the time to overly prepare something. You have to see what’s available to you at the time. If you can get the exact thing – amazing. If you can’t, then you need to get something else close to that.

Initially, we had the idea of using fake grass but I wasn’t a massive fan because sometimes it can look really fake. For this, we wanted there to be a naturalness to it. We ended up deciding that real grass would tie in a lot better with the whole story and the whole iconography of the collection. On top of that, we had to cut these lines into the grass. That was quite challenging because I thought we could use hair clippers to cut it. My team was like “no, it’s not the same, but ok.” I thought it would be fine. If you cut your hair with this stuff, you can cut grass with it. Then I got my razor from home. I turned it on and it didn’t do anything at all. The whole team was just standing there looking at me like “Okay, cool, we’re not gonna say anything. We’re just gonna let him go for it and look like an idiot.” [laughs] It was wonderful. I learnt a lot from it. Lesson number one: don’t try and cut grass with your hair clippers. [laughs]

“One of the interesting things about set design is that sometimes it’s scary because there’s so much that can go wrong. That’s where the excitement is. You push for that. As creatives, we love problem-solving. We love an experiment. It can go wrong but that’s fine. We learnt something from that.” – Ibby Njoya

I think it’s interesting how in these creative fields you can go very conceptual and have lots of ideas about the themes but then it really comes down to these super practical solutions. 

It’s one thing having amazing creative ideas. It’s great to have those and that’s how amazing things are created but, at the same time, it falls back to how we realise these ideas. Obviously, there are going to be obstacles that get in the way or budget or time constraints. There are loads of things that are gonna be thrown at you where you need to find ways to wiggle your way around it to try and create something that not only you will be happy with but the client will also be happy with. We had problems on the day of the set up where the heat reacted to our paintings that we had created and it didn’t sit the way we wanted it to sit. On that day, the day before the shoot, we had to repaint everything. We had to start again on all of the paintings, scrap everything that we had spent three days doing. And we had to do it in an evening. It’s challenges like that that you have to loosely prepare for and then be ready to react. You can plan but you cannot plan for stuff that you don’t know will happen. It’s forever keeping some form of contingency for when shit hits the fan and you need to react. One of the interesting things about set design is that sometimes it’s scary because there’s so much that can go wrong. That’s where the excitement is. You push for that. As creatives, we love problem-solving. We love an experiment. It can go wrong but that’s fine. We learnt something from that.

“Not all of this is glamorous and fun but as long as you and the team are having a great time while solving these problems that’s fine. ” – Ibby Njoya

You also have so many people relying on you. You can’t postpone anything if there’s a shoot day with ten other people.

If something is set there’s already so much money and time that has been spent on that date. Unless something really, really bad happens you have to try and adapt. Normally if there’s an issue you need to find a solution. You don’t have the luxury for something to go wrong. You’ve got to do it. You’ve got to find a new way or another way to achieve whatever needs to be achieved. At the same time, everyone’s always like, “This is going to be great! We’re gonna do this!” My agent is really good at that. Every time I call him like, “This is going wrong,” he’s like, “Listen. Just relax. You’ve got this.” And I’m like, “Alright, cool! We’ve got this. Let’s go!”

In that way, you begin to create a solution and I think it’s also very, very important to have a good team around you. Two brains are better than one. You can get someone else’s opinion. Other people can see things that you don’t necessarily see in that moment. It’s so important. We could not have done anything we did with this shoot without the team being there and being supportive and being able to get shit done. Not all of this is glamorous and fun but as long as you and the team are having a great time while solving these problems that’s fine.

There’s that cliche of the fashion people who shout at their assistants and are mean to everyone they meet. I think this is often a result of stress and pressure. I realised how important it is to learn to take a step back and take a moment of relaxation and remind yourself that we’re here to work together and make it a nice moment.  

I don’t want to say it’s justifiable to be rude to someone because it never is but there’s stuff that happens that way. It’s really hard to deal with these things and therefore you’re reacting in a way that is counterproductive for you and the entire team. For us, the way I work with my team, we’re fully looped in on as much of the creative process from the beginning as possible. Then we’re all in the loop. We know every element of the project and how it needs to be. If one person is stressed then another person can understand how we can alleviate that. We work together to try and solve whatever it is. Sometimes we’re stressed. Sometimes I’m stressed. Sometimes the whole team is stressed but the thing that keeps us going is us having a great time. I think it’s about that relationship between whoever is in charge and the rest of the team. Not making it like, “You work for me and you do this.” We’re here to work together and complete something.

“One thing that we all need or want as people is to feel like you’re valued in whatever you’re doing. ” – Ibby Njoya

You’re saying that, if you don’t just see people as executors of your idea or assistants but if you involve them in the creative process, they’re much more likely to also offer that support in times of stress. 

Exactly. That’s the way I think about things. People tend to be more involved in something when they can voice their opinion and it’s heard. It becomes more valuable. One thing that we all need or want as people is to feel like you’re valued in whatever you’re doing. If whoever you’re working for makes you feel like you’re not or like you’re just there to do whatever they need you to do then I guess that’s gonna be difficult.

“This is my way of shutting things out or trying to relax: I go home and I play a lot of Call of Duty.” – Ibby Njoya

Do you ever use yoga, meditation, or mindfulness to deal with stress? If not, what is something you do outside of work to recuperate from those stressful days?

I would love to learn how to meditate but I don’t know much about meditation. I do a lot of nothing sometimes. Sometimes I’m just quiet and I don’t do or say anything and people sometimes say, “What are you thinking about?” and you know what? I’m thinking about absolutely nothing but because you asked me what I’m thinking about it’s making me now think about what I’m thinking about.

This is my way of shutting things out or trying to relax: I go home and I play a lot of Call of Duty. That’s a really good way to destress. It’s not the best game for not stressing but it’s a different form of doing something. You’re not thinking about, “I need to complete that. I need to complete this.” The objective is to do whatever you need to do in the game. Before quarantine I used to go climbing quite a bit which was really good because in that moment when you go into the space and you put your phone away in the locker and then you have however long you’re there for like two hours or whatever it is. You have one objective and it’s to complete whatever project you have in front of you while climbing and that’s it. You’re not thinking about anything else but that moment and being present in that time. That’s a way for me to de-stress.

Our jobs require us to be in multiple places at multiple times and problem solve many different things, so everyone really appreciates those moments where we just focus and are by ourselves and have no distractions and only one purpose. 

Yeah, 100%. For some people it’s great but for some people it’s not. I have a friend who says she can’t do nothing. She needs to fill her days and do something. She’s always busy. For some people that’s just the way it is but for me, I want to chill out. I want to do nothing, especially when you spend a long time doing something. It’s nice to do zero or as little as possible.

“In the industry, there’s never enough time.” – Ibby Njoya

I think that is a very constructive quality and personality trait in a time where people are constantly forced to be busy. Do you think the industry could change anything to alleviate some of that stress? 

For us, time is the biggest issue and has the biggest value. In the industry, there’s never enough time. In some cases, there’s not enough time to fully realise something the way you need to do it which means you end up trying to find a fast solution. I think for the set design industry, you spend your time putting things in place. In terms of stress, time is what’s making a lot of things difficult. We spend a lot of time just preparing for the worst thing that can happen. If it does happen, we are ready for it. For example, we’re doing a shoot on Monday. The photographer wants storm and wind in the studio. That’s all we know so far. We don’t know anything else about the shoot. You then begin to prepare like – where am I going to find this storm? How am I going to create a storm and wind? What does he mean by wind? You begin to ask yourself these questions and therefore what you do is – who do we know that can get us wind in two days? You spend most of your time preparing whatever is being thrown at you and how you’re going to handle it.

“Very often people talk as if it’s only individuals doing things but you never do anything by yourself. You can never do anything by yourself.” – Ibby Njoya

It’s not an easy job you have.

It’s good though. I think it’s fun. I don’t think this should sound scary at all. The amazing thing that I love about what I do is the element of collaboration, taking something that is just an idea and somehow finding a way to make it a reality, however realistic or non-realistic it might be. You make something. You get to create with people. You get to create something that was just an idea a couple of days ago and now it’s here. It’s in front of you. You’re seeing it. There’s that gratification of seeing something that was talked about over a beer and then a week later it’s here. You’re realising it. There’s that joy to it. And meeting new people. You’re meeting fabulous and really clever people all the time, people that think in ways that you don’t think. Very often people talk as if it’s only individuals doing things but you never do anything by yourself. You can never do anything by yourself. You need people to be able to help you. I think sometimes people that work with you get forgotten.