In the symphony of human thought, where voices weave dreams and questions spark light, Lefteris Heretakis stands as a beacon, a guide for seeking minds. An educator and podcaster, he journeys through the echoes of Greece’s myths and Vietnam’s restless spirit, gathering wisdom to kindle others. His classroom is a forge where hearts align with eyes, and, inspired by Freire, he ignites courage over conformity. Through his podcasts, he listens—deeply, reverently—transforming each voice into a star within a constellation of insight. In his New Art School, observation becomes rebellion, a refusal to let machines see for us, and teaching, an act of kindling torches to burn through doubt. Step into the orbit of Lefteris Heretakis, where education is not a vessel filled but a flame set ablaze, and every conversation a melody of infinite possibilities. Now, let us begin the interview with this visionary
When you think about your journey as a designer and educator, from Greece to Turkey, Spain to Vietnam, and China. How would you introduce yourself to someone who knows nothing about your work?
I am a designer, educator, and podcaster. I used to train to become a classical violinist, but the visual arts became more prominent as I entered my teens, so I followed that. My home country, Greece, shaped me through history, myth, and the idea that images are vessels of collective memory. Turkey revealed to me the raw tension between tradition and modernity, where minarets and billboards stand side by side, a reminder, as Jan Tschichold once argued about typography, that “new forms grow from old roots.” Spain gave me the gift of open dialogue, echoing Bruno Munari’s playful insistence that design should be democratic, joyful, and experimental. Vietnam offered the energy of a young generation impatient with limits, resonating with Paulo Freire’s belief that education is liberation, not conformity. China confronted me with scale of culture, of ambition, of continuity, and kindness. There I saw how ancient philosophies coexist with hypermodern cities, reminding me that design is always a conversation across time: between Confucian order, Daoist flow, and globalisation. I do not see myself as just a “designer” or “educator.” I am a bridge-builder, a traveller through ways of seeing. John Ruskin wrote that “the greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something.” My work is to help others see, not what is visible, but what is possible.
You describe visual communication as a flood that rewrites memory. As an educator, do you guide your students to “swim in it” or to “slow the river down”?
The flood of images is our condition, cannot stand aside. However, David Ogilvy said that only dead fish go with the flow. Students must learn to swim in it, to feel its turbulence, to experience how memory is rewritten daily by scrolling feeds, by advertising, by the visual noise of our age. But they must also learn to slow it down, to pause, to reflect.
Tschichold reminded us that typography is never neutral: every arrangement of letters changes how meaning enters memory. Every image, whether from a brand, a government, or an individual, alters our collective perception. Bruno Munari warned against “machines that produce without thought,” and I see this everywhere in the flood: images generated quickly, consumed instantly, forgotten immediately.
I guide my students to realise that they need to choose where and how to swim. To immerse with empathy, but then to step out and become cartographers of the flood, mapping its currents, questioning its forces, exposing its power. Only then can they design responsibly, with eyes wide open.
Your CV lists both traditional drawing and advanced digital tools. Do you see these as opposite poles, or two hands of the same creative body?
Drawing and digital tools are two hands of the same creative body. Drawing, as Paul Klee said, is “taking a line for a walk” and “making the invisible visible.” It’s a thoughtful act of presence, translating perception into gesture, fostering attention and reverence, as John Ruskin emphasised. Digital tools extend this by offering speed, scale, and experimentation, but, as Paul Rand noted, they are instruments of design, not substitutes. Without observation, digital work risks becoming soulless.
Observation grounds creativity; digital tools amplify it. Drawing hones hand–eye coordination, while digital platforms enable imaginative exploration. Together, they form a continuum, blending attentiveness with invention. Design education thrives in this balance of human sensitivity and technological possibility, uniting hand, heart, and eye in a single practice.
You founded The New Art School on observation and hand, heart, and eye coordination. In a world where AI “sees” for us, what is the future of human observation?
AI generates images but cannot observe with human reverence, pausing in awe at light or dusk’s colour, as Ruskin described. Human observation is slow, fragile, and embodied. I am teaching students to see beyond symbols and encounter reality, as Bruno Munari suggested. In an automated world, this attentive looking is subversive, an ethical act of refusing to let machines see for us. Design education grows more vital, urging students to dwell in perception, as Josef Albers and Paul Klee emphasised, cultivating slowness and presence. No algorithm can replicate the human act of seeing with love, a skill essential for designers in an age of machine vision.
Your Design Education Forum unites industry, academia, and students. Which collision of ideas there has surprised you the most?
What has surprised me most is not the difference but the similarity. Students fear they lack readiness. Industry fears irrelevance in a fast-changing world. Academia fears its own irrelevance. At the Forum, these anxieties collide and dissolve.
Paulo Freire taught that education is not “banking knowledge” into passive learners, but a dialogue where all are co-creators. The Forum confirmed this for me. When industry professionals admit their own uncertainty, students see them not as untouchable authorities but as colleagues. When students voice their raw ideas, industry remembers its own beginnings. When academics listen without defensiveness, research becomes alive again.The most surprising collision, then, is not between ideas but between fears. And when those fears are shared openly, they transform into trust. That is when dialogue begins.
You host two podcasts giving voice to designers and educators. Has one guest ever said something that completely reshaped your own philosophy?
Not one guest, but many. A chorus of voices that, together, have deepened my philosophy. Again and again, I hear that design is about service, to community, to culture, to humanity. Ken Garland’s First Things First manifesto haunts every conversation, reminding me that design is never neutral, never only commercial.
One moment stands out: a guest described education as “lighting torches, not filling vessels.” The echo of Freire was unmistakable: education as awakening, not transmission. Since then, I see my role not as an expert who deposits answers, but as someone who creates conditions where questions can burn brightly enough to guide.
So yes, my philosophy has been reshaped, not by a single revelation, but by listening. Listening has become, for me, the most important design tool.
From working with corporations, ministries, universities, and publishers, how do you keep your personal voice alive amid so many institutional ones?
Institutions ask for certainty, efficiency, predictability. But design thrives on uncertainty, ambiguity, risk. To preserve my voice, I return to first principles. I draw. I write. I teach. These acts ground me.
Ruskin wrote that education’s aim is “not teaching men to earn a living, but to live.” When institutions ask for outcomes, I remind myself of processes. When they demand surfaces, I search for depth. Paul Rand insisted that “design is the method of putting form and content together.” My voice remains alive when I keep that balance in mind, resisting pressures that would split them apart.
In the end, I keep my voice by remembering why I began, not to serve institutions, but to serve students and communities. That memory is my compass. Institutions may change their demands, but the compass does not waver.
As a mentor supporting designers worldwide, what is harder: passing knowledge across borders—or passing courage?
Knowledge crosses borders easily. A lecture can be streamed, a book translated, a tool downloaded. Courage is different. Courage must be awakened in the heart of each student, within their own context, their own fears.
Munari said, “To complicate is easy, to simplify is difficult.” Courage is like that: difficult, because it asks us to strip away protections and excuses. Freire spoke of the “pedagogy of hope,” the idea that education should not only inform but also embolden. This is what I aim for as a mentor.
So yes, passing courage is harder. But it is also more necessary. Because courage is what allows knowledge to transform into action. Without courage, knowledge is inert. With courage, even limited knowledge can change the world.
You are pursuing a doctorate in drawing. Why dedicate years of research to such an ancient practice? What mystery still hides in its simplicity?
Drawing is ancient, but never exhausted. Every line is a new event. Klee taught me that drawing makes the invisible visible, and Ruskin saw drawing as “prayer made visible.” My research is not about nostalgia, but about essence.
Why does drawing matter in an age of photography, film, and AI? Because drawing is thinking in real time. It captures not only what is seen, but how it is seen. It reveals hesitation, confidence, doubt, qualities no machine can replicate.
The mystery that hides in drawing’s simplicity is presence. To draw is to honour reality by attending to it. To borrow from Heidegger, it is “dwelling” in the world through line. That is why I dedicate years to it: not because it is old, but because it is inexhaustible.
You wrote about bursting the “reality bubble.” If art and design education has built its own bubble, what might happen the moment we burst it?
If we burst the bubble, art and design education would rediscover humility. Too often, we speak only to ourselves, constructing hierarchies of taste and language that exclude the world we claim to serve. Bursting the bubble would return us to communities, industries, and struggles outside the academy. It would force us to ask Ruskin’s question again: “What do we teach for?” It would remind us of Ken Garland’s manifesto, which demanded that design serve “cultural and social needs” as urgently as commercial ones. Bursting the bubble is not destruction but regeneration. When we let the air of reality in, oxygen follows. And oxygen brings fire. That fire will burn down illusions and will also light torches that will guide us forward.
Connect with Lefteris Heretakis:
The New Art School: https://newartschool.education/
Design education: https://linktr.ee/thenewartschool
Videos: https://odysee.com/@thenewartschool:c
Podcast: https://designeducationtalks.buzzsprout.com/
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