The Trollbäck crew: EP Marisa Fiechter, co-creative director Joe Wright and Jakob Trollbäck.

Long before he founded his eponymous creative studio, Jakob Trollbäck was a musician and DJ in Sweden and, to hear him tell it, he owes his success as a designer to the skills he learned making music. “Most people who play the guitar are self-taught. You listen to other people play the guitar and try to play what they do. That was pretty much my approach to design as well. Early on, I bought the best designers’ books and then I started just ripping them off,” he says. “The thing is, you can do that to learn the technique, the same way you can learn to play a song on the guitar, but then it’s up to you if you want to do something of your own.”

Trollbäck and his colleagues at Trollbäck + Company, a New York-based design studio specializing in motion graphics and branding that launched in 1999, have certainly learned to make their own with it, so to speak.

The company has eagerly sought a broad range of work over the years, including network rebrands, film title sequences, music videos and live-action commercials for clients such as HBO, TNT, CBS, AMC, Miramax, Fox Searchlight, Volvo, Jaguar and Nike.

Trollbäck and his co-creative director Joe Wright say their work is rooted in the idea that design must always serve the concept of a project – no unnecessary frills here, thanks. And that idea has served them well: Trollbäck + Company has won dozens of industry awards over the years, from a Primetime Emmy to a slew of BDA North America Design Awards.

“Jakob and Trollbäck + Company are certainly a gold standard in the international motion graphics and design industry,” says Jonathan Block-Verk, president of PromaxBDA.

Trollbäck’s design career began in Stockholm in the 1980s, when he was working at a record store and DJing parties at a friend’s art gallery. “I helped him make the invitations for the parties and different shows at the gallery,” recalls Trollbäck. From there, Trollbäck found himself being asked to do more design work, from invitations to flyers to posters for a dance troupe. “At that point I was like, ‘Well, maybe I’m actually a graphic designer’.”

With this epiphany, Trollbäck opened his first design company. He christened it Par Avion because he liked the design of airmail stickers. It wasn’t long, however, before Trollbäck began to feel the urge to move to New York. “I was always fascinated with America,” he says. He sold his record collection and most of his other possessions and boarded a plane for the Big Apple.

Shortly after arriving in New York, Trollbäck landed a job as a designer at R/GA, which at the time was a leading motion graphics company.

Although he had never worked in the field, Trollbäck says it was not a difficult transition thanks to his experience spinning records. “As a DJ, I was always thinking about sequences and building stuff up,” he says. “When I realized what they were doing there it seemed completely natural.”

Michael Montes, who runs the commercial music company Sacred Noise, has collaborated with Trollbäck + Company on a handful of projects, including its design of the opening titles for the 25th anniversary of the TED conference, an annual gathering of some of the world’s most fascinating and leading thinkers.

“Jakob has a rich, deep understanding of all aspects of design, and his work has a real sense of rhythm and flow to it,” he says.

After nearly eight years at R/GA, Trollbäck decided it was time to open his own studio where he would have creative control and autonomy when it came to choosing projects. With his wife Lisa, a former director of marketing at R/GA, they launched Trollbäck + Company with just four other people on staff, all of whom had come from R/GA.

Since then, Trollbäck + Company has grown to an 18-person studio, which can grow as large as 40 when needed, with employees working at desks side-by-side in one large open space. “The cubicle of the day is headphones,” jokes Trollbäck.

“We have a very relaxed environment and it’s a pleasurable place to be, and I think that’s how it should be,” adds Wright.

The company used to have a ping-pong table that got heavy use. As more staff were brought on, there was no longer room for the table, which was donated to the Art Directors Club, an association of art directors and graphic designers for which Trollbäck is a board member. The ping-pong table was replaced by a foosball table, a more fitting game for a company with such a large European contingent. “We’ve got one Swiss lady here who kicks everyone’s ass,” says Trollbäck.

While a chilled-out atmosphere is nice, every new designer Trollbäck hires has to bring a unique perspective. Joe Wright was one key addition, says Trollbäck.

“It was just obvious, the momentum, the ‘go’ that he had,” says Trollbäck. “He came in and he was very vocal about things, he had so much energy. Obviously, we come up with different ideas about things, but we are so incredibly in sync.”

Prior to joining Trollbäck + Company in 2002, Wright was operating his own small studio in London. His work there ranged from CD cover design for music labels and motion graphics for the likes of Channel 4, Film4, the BBC and MTV Europe. That work eventually led Wright to a director gig with a London production company.

Like Trollbäck, Wright eventually decided to move to New York to expand his creative boundaries. “I felt like I wanted a new challenge and a change from London,” he says. “I was having a meeting with somebody and they said, ‘You should check out this company Trollbäck + Company. They’re doing really interesting work that’s very European-based.’ I met Jakob and we just got along very, very well.” Following a brief period of freelancing for the studio, Wright joined Trollbäck + Company full-time.