Duration: Six years.

Location: Prague, Czech Republic.

Education: Jozef Ondrik studied at Tomas Bata University in Zlín, Czech Republic, and received his MA at Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Zdeněk Kvasnica studied at Tomas Bata University in Zlín and received his MA at Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague, Czech Republic.

Career path: We were classmates at Tomas Bata University in Zlín; we have known each other since 2008. After our graduate studies, we met again and worked together on a visual identity for a Los Angeles–based fashion house. This project was a failure from start to finish, but it brought us closer together, and that’s how it all began. In 2012, we established Deep Throat Studio, which has served as an open space for collaboration and discussion about graphic design and how it relates to practice. Currently, our studio has three members—ourselves and our new member, Matus Buranovsky.

Cultural influences: Ondrik is influenced by literature concerning the themes of realism, naturalism and negative humanism, classical and electronic music, and movies with actors like Buster Keaton and made by directors like Paul Thomas Anderson, Vittorio De Sica, Alfred Hitchcock, Takeshi Kitano, Sidney Lumet, Nicolas Winding Refn and the Wachowskis. Kvasnica is influenced by electronic music, Swiss author Erich von Däniken, animated and moving films, and concertina books, which look like an accordion and are constructed without a single stitch.

Favorite projects: A web project for a platform that connected various sectors of the government, nonprofit organizations, private-sector companies and community projects. This platform enabled users to better understand environmental issues, endangered places and natural disasters and how to find the most feasible solutions for all these issues. We created a web portal to enable users to get the maximum amount of information in a relatively short amount of time. The custom content management system consisted of several widgets that a client can combine with each other without disrupting the system’s visuals or functionality.

Work environment: Deep Throat Studio is like [the band] Gorillaz because we are virtual—around us is everything and nothing at the same time. Sometimes we are five or six people working together on project; but at other times, we are just Jozef and Zdeněk. It depends on each member of our team as well as what will influence her or him. We are supporters of a modern model of physical multidimensionality.

Approach: We both have two strong and powerful characters, and we are always pushing ourselves forward. We have totally different personalities, and we think about projects in very different ways—maybe that contrast distinguishes us from other studios.

Aspirations: To be somewhere on a beach, sipping drinks, looking out on the horizon, enjoying the countryside and waking up late—we have all these clichés in our imaginations. But, we like graphic design and the daily agenda associated with it. For a long time, the two of us have been thinking about opening a bar and restaurant where we will cook!

Philosophy: Simplify, simplify, simplify!