One Minute With

Author Archives: Conor O'Driscoll

About Conor O'Driscoll

Conor O'Driscoll is a designer and writer, who writes for AppStorm.net. He also enjoys writing about himself in the third person.

One Minute With… Jeff Sheldon
April 16, 2012 7:54 pm 2 Comments

Hi Jeff, thanks for taking time to chat with One Minute With. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your work.

Hey, I’m Jeff Sheldon and I’m the founder and designer of Ugmonk. Ugmonk started as a small side project to design and sell a few t-shirts, but quickly grew into a much bigger brand to the point where I was able to leave my day job to run the the business full-time. I now ship thousands of products to over 55 countries all around the world. I absolutely love running Ugmonk and am incredibly thankful that I get to do this full-time.

Walk us through a typical day in the life of Jeff Sheldon.

Wake up. Check email, Twitter, etc. Grab some breakfast and then make the long commute all the way upstairs (I work from home). Every day is different but I usually tackle any urgent emails first before diving into the rest of my to-do list. While design and product design is what I enjoy most, it usually only makes up a minor part of my day. On any given day you’ll find me doing a variety of things including working on new designs, product photoshoots, contacting suppliers, managing customer service, writing blog posts, ordering new products and lots of other miscellaneous tasks. I usually work till about 6 or 7 to take a break for dinner and spend time with my wife. Some days I continue working in the evenings but try to always get a good night’s rest. Every day is a little different.

How did you get into design? Was there a defining point in your career, and if so, how did it shape you as a designer?

I grew up doing all types of traditional art (painting, sketching, sculpting) and it wasn’t until I got to college that I transitioned into design. A lot of people don’t realize how much crossover there is between art and design. The same principles of composition, color theory, shape and form all apply to both so having a foundation in art was a huge boost for me. After jumping into the world of design, I quickly fell in love with typography and realized how integral type is to all design. My interest in typography and minimal design is what led me to launch Ugmonk as a fun side project.

How do you approach a new project? What’s your creative process like?

Since I run my own brand I constantly have new ideas running through my head, sometimes to the point where it’s impossible to shut off. It’s less of a project-by-project basis and more of a constant stream of concepts and ways to improve and grow Ugmonk. When it comes to specific designs, I try to always start with pencil and paper to rough out my ideas. While most of the end products are recreated in a digital format before being produced, sketching is must less constrictive than jumping straight into Illustrator or Photoshop. You can read more about my process here:

Ugmonk Behind-the-Scenes
Designing Better Than I Deserve
Inside My Sketchbook

You’re obviously best known for Ugmonk, your online clothing store. Considering that countless designers sell apparel on their online stores, why do you think that yours has taken off more than most others? Did you originally go into the project hoping to be able to make a living from it?

I had no idea that I’d be where I am today with doing Ugmonk. I started it as a creative outlet while working at an agency where I was doing mostly production work. I never thought of it as a business or as something I could eventually do full-time, I just really enjoyed creating the products and getting feedback from people who appreciated what I was doing. I can’t pinpoint one specific thing that has made it take-off, but I like to tribute a lot of it to my passion and hard work that have kept it going. Most people see that success I’ve had and think it happened over night, but I’ve spent countless hours building the brand over the years to get it where it is today. Rather than partying on the weekends or watching hours of TV, I’m usually busy working on the next release :)

Your site sports designs that date back several years. When most fashion changes at a painfully fast rate, how important to you is it to create designs which can stand the test of time, and how do you go about doing that?

Yes, that’s a good observation. My goal is to create products that are less focused on popular trends and more aligned with my personal design taste. The Ugmonk style will continue to evolve but I hope to keep the timeless design a main part of the brand.

If, in some Freaky Friday-like situation, you could live the life of another designer, illustrator or creative, for a day, who would it be, and why?

That’s a tough one. It would have been awesome to be a fly on the wall in the studios of the great American designers like Paul Rand, Saul Bass, and Herb Lubalin. These guys pioneered much of what design is today and much of their work still hold up today, decades later.

What design tools could you not live without?

The essentials: pencil, sketchbook, Illustrator, Photoshop and iMac. Other tools I use: Panasonic Lumix GF1, scanner, Macbook Air, Lightroom, and Wacom tablet.

And finally, what tips would you give to anybody who is looking to get started in design?

Work really hard. Do more than the bare minimum or assignments or client projects. Also, do self-initiated projects. You’d be surprised what happens when you do good work and put it out there.

Thanks Jeff!

Many thanks to Jeff for talking to us. I really enjoyed his answers, and hopefully you did too!

Why not check out Jeff’s site, and follow him on Dribbble and Twitter?

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One Minute With… Justin Mezzell
March 22, 2012 7:55 pm Leave a Comment

Hi Justin, thanks for taking time to chat with One Minute With. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your work.

I’m a designer/illustrator living in Orlando, Florida. I bide my time between my wife, our dog Huxley, an incredible community, Disney theme parks, and do the occasional design here and sometimes there. Aside form calling the Sunshine State home base, I commute to San Francisco for part of every month so it wouldn’t be a stretch to say my office is often nestled in with the clouds. Other than that, I tend to enjoy a good film and/or an equally good – often better – book. My work is largely illustration with the occasional web and UI design.

How did you get into design?

I was always a doodler. My brother and I would scrawl notebook after notebook with sketches and concepts to stories and fake games. I had all but fallen out of any pursuit of art professionally when I was contacted by a local magazine, RELEVANT, while in college to start an internship. I didn’t feel like there was anything I was doing at the time that I was ultimately passionate about it, so I thought I’d give it a try. From there, it all happened really fast so I guess you could say I stumbled into it.

How do you approach a new project? What’s your creative process like?

I love storytelling. I think if I could actually write well, I’d pursue a career in being a novelist but it’s not a gift I have in my arsenal. I try not to let that stop me from telling stories. Most of my self-initiated pieces are created as a window into a larger story. Not necessarily one I’ll finish or write, but more a still from a narrative that is fully self-internalized. The creative process is scattered in the specifics. Inspiration is sporadic and the concepts strike at some of the most inopportune times, but I hunt down anything I can log into and save it until I can start breaking it down and bringing it to life. A lot of my illustration is influenced by my editorial background. You learn a lot about fusing the worlds of narrative and aesthetics – on a deadline. Music is another integral part of the build process. I usually seek out what artist I think best tells the story, put it on repeat and have at it.

You have quite a fun, retro feel to your illustrations. Where do you get inspiration from?

It’s funny because I didn’t know that I really had a vintage flair to my work until a friend had pointed it out to me. Not being schooled in design or art, the history of it is somewhat of a largely uninformed blur. After doing a bit of googling, I was hooked. What started as a quest for simplification of complex objects and mechanics ignited a full-fledged romance of all things vintage. I love antique packaging and lettering, the reductionist art form of retro illustration and mid-century modern architecture. I’m inspired by people’s visions of the future. There is something beautiful about building a lens into the future from our own respective time periods. Retro futurism is probably the most inspiring worldview to me in its boldness to dream. I look to people like Jules Verne who existed as a man outside of his own time – drafting a world in fiction that did not yet exist in reality. Now, we can look back on his dreams as our past but it makes it no less awe-inspiring. It’s actually the near eradication of the NASA space program’s budget that concerns me most as a dreamer. The impact of a generation that won’t get to watch the pursuit of the seemingly impossible. It’s a great shame and, I believe, dangerous to ambition.

I understand that the worlds of illustration and graphic design are worlds apart. Have you experienced this? Which do you prefer, and why?

Working in the freelance world will absolutely make you feel that chasm. A lot of clients approach me as solely one of the other. I’m either illustrating in tandem with a design environment already provided for or I’m providing design sans illustration. It’s not always ideal, in my opinion, but I can see where people draw the distinction. At the very core, both have the same ultimate goal – communication. As I continue to grow and develop, I seek to overall become a far more effective communicator. In that way, I hope to see those lines diminish.

If, in some Freaky Friday-like situation, you could live the life of another designer, illustrator or creative, for a day, who would it be, and why?

Eric R. Mortensen works for NASA. I don’t know what exactly that entails or what specifically could even be shared, but it’s safe to say that out of all the professions friends of mine have, this one really blew my mind. It’s always an incredible experience to get to work on something that you care so passionately about. I think back to past projects where I’ve really been sold on the concept before the first pen stroke is laid down. It’s an awesome opportunity to believe in what you do and in the case of Eric, how could you not want to be part of that? Also, the dude is just an incredible illustrator and really has an eye for perfection.

What design tools could you not live without?

Coffee. More as a point of dependency but I suppose in some strange, addiction-riddled way, it’s a tool. Obviously, the Adobe Suite. But I’ll leave Flash out of that mix in a big way. Dribbble has been an incredible catalogue of inspiration and, more importantly, a real quarry of work opportunities.

And finally, what tips would you give to anybody who is looking to get started in design or illustration?

Get busy failing. Dream. Build. And Iterate often. Continually find new ways to do something that seems difficult. But more importantly, remember that life exists beyond your design career. It’s outside of your computer screen and it’s happening right now. Don’t let yourself get so wrapped up in who you are as a designer that you forget who you are as a person. The legacy you leave behind and the stories that you tell are so incredibly important – so tell them well.

Thanks Justin!

Many thanks to Justin for taking some time to talk to One Minute With. I really enjoyed interviewing him, and hopefully you enjoyed reading it!

Why not check out Justin’s site, and follow him on Dribbble and Twitter?

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[CLOSED] Win a Pennant!
March 19, 2012 1:29 pm Leave a Comment
Update: This contest is now closed. So tough. Congratulations to Joseph Marsh for winning this fantastic pennant!

——————-

Earlier today, we published a chat I had with Eric Mortensen, and in that interview, we talked a bit about his new project, The People’s Pennant. They’re producing stunning pennants from some of the best designers out there, and Eric was nice enough to donate one to One Minute With. Now, we’re offering you the chance to win this fantastic prize, with a simple tweet!

About The People’s Pennant:

The People’s Pennant create awesome limited edition pennants, from amazing designers, with a new pennant released every single month. There are only 250 of each pennant produced, so with each purchase, you get a unique piece of design culture and join the People’s Pennant elite.

But hey, what do I know about pennants? Here’s Eric and the gang to explain what they’re all about:

Rally around the small things in life! Driving with the windows down. Lazy Sundays. A freshly sharpened pencil. Whatever it is that makes you happy, we want to celebrate it. So we bring you: The People’s Pennant. We elevate the pennant from the confines of sports to the awesomeness of the everyday. Our pennants are hand-printed and hand-sewn in the U.S.A. Crafted by folks who’ve helped shape the tradition since the early 1900s, they have produced felt products with care for home-town victories to world championships. Collect all of the pennants, and show some team spirit for the small things in life.

What You’ll Win:

Today, we have this beautiful pennant, designed by Ken Barber, up for grabs. If the idea of coffee isn’t enough to set your heart racing, the sweet, sweet lettering by House Industries’ in-house typography aficionado definitely will be.

Here’s what Ken had to say about his inspiration for the piece:

I’m a coffee connoisseur’s worst nightmare. No Ethiopian Kemgin beans, private cuppings or pour-over Tonx for me; I prefer the nasty convenience store variety. Twenty-four ounces of burnt decaf with a few generous shots of hazelnut creamer and a handful of artificial sweetener packets is perfect when I need a late afternoon fix. But no matter how you take your coffee, enthusiasts of all types can appreciate this clarion call for caffeine.

This design is priced at a very reasonable $35, but we’re giving you the chance to get it for the ultimate price of free!

How to Enter:

It really couldn’t be easier to enter. All you have to do is follow these three steps:
1. Follow @PeoplesPennant on Twitter.
2. Follow @ConorDesign On Twitter.
3. Tweet from your account with a link to this page. Try to say something nice about either OMW or The People’s Pennant too. It won’t help you win, but it’ll make us feel all happy inside.
To make it even easier, you can tweet directly from this page:

Tweet to Win!

We’ll collect up all the tweets on March 26th and randomly select a winner. The winner will be announced in this post, and on Twitter, on the 27th.

A Few Rules:

We hate rules as much as the next guy, but there a few bits and pieces we need to make clear:
1. This competition is open to people from anywhere in the world. We’ll even throw in the postage for free.
2. You can tweet as many times as you want, but you’ll only get one entry per person. Gotta keep this thing fair.
3. This contest ends at 23:59 (Ireland time) on March 26th, 2012. Any entries made after then will be chucked in the bin. But we’ll still love you.
4. We’ll be contacting you via Twitter if you win. If you don’t respond within 48 hours, we’ll give it to somebody else. So just check your Twitter.
5. If you aren’t following both @PeoplesPennant and @ConorDesign, you won’t be entered into the draw. This isn’t because we want more followers, it’s because we’ll have to DM you. Also, we want more followers.
Good luck, everyone!

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One Minute With… Eric R. Mortensen
1:27 pm 2 Comments

Hi Eric, thanks for taking time to chat with One Minute With. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your work.

Thanks, Conor! Well… I’m Eric and I live in beautiful Baltimore, MD. I’ve bounced around the midwest in the last few years, residing in Detroit and Minneapolis, and after a brief stint in Nashville, I made my way out east for school. While I am finishing up my MFA in graphic design at MICA, I am also working part time as a designer for NASA, Goddard Space Flight Center. This year I launched a music distribution startup with my brother called Soundsupp.ly, and started a felt pennant print series with my friends, Jess & Tim, called The People’s Pennant.

Walk us through a typical day in the life of Eric R. Mortensen?

My partners and I have been working on The People’s Pennant for the last 5 months, so many of my days lately have been supporting the project – orchestrating with contributors, placing orders with vendors, designing the website – it’s a handful! Some days when I’m not in class I head down to Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, which is a short drive from Baltimore. I work on projects with NASA’s Biospheric Sciences branch, particularly Carbon Cycle studies, and have enjoyed using design to help scientists better communicate their research to the public. Being on campus is amazing, and I often leave time in my day for wandering through buildings I don’t work in. My favorite is building 29, where NASA is currently building the successor to the Hubble, the James Webb Space Telescope. Watching the engineers in cleanroom suits delicately assemble this multi-billion dollar instrument, thinking about it being able to look back to the beginning of the universe and tell us new things about ourselves and where we came from…it’s almost enough to make a bearded man choke up a little bit.

How did you get into design? Was there a defining point in your career, and if so, how did it shape you as a designer?

Our family got an Apple Performa in the mid-ninties and my uncle showed me how to draw the James Bond “007” logo in Illustrator using bezier paths. I was hooked right away! A few years later, like, every single one of my friends started a band. Or at least it seemed that way. I didn’t have any musical talent, but I still wanted to run with all these cool kids so I started designing them t-shirts and album covers. The internet became a popular thing and those bands wanted websites, so I taught myself how to do that. Sooner or later I accumulated a portfolio and design became a legitimate career path.

Music really fueled my young passion for design at that time. I still think one of my defining moments as a designer was seeing that first album cover that I had labored over come back from the printer. I couldn’t believe it, it was so real now, all wrapped in cellophane! Truth be told, I still feel that sense of excitement when things come back from press.

How do you approach a new project? What’s your creative process like?

I usually dedicate a fair amount of mental bandwidth to something, a project or a problem, up front and just let things sit. I try not to be in a rush to start pushing a pencil to paper. It’s less like waiting for that cliched lightning bolt of inspiration hitting and more like getting the slow burn of good chili dog going. When it is time to start cranking and making I tend to make fast decisions and generate a variety of options for myself. I think half of being a good designer is being a good editor.

Your style is decidedly vintage, albeit with a geometric twist. Where do you get inspiration?

I guess I owe the vintage influence to my mom. She is a big time collector of cool, mid-century advertising pieces and signage, so our home growing up was filled with the stuff. She’s an antique dealer now, so we bond over a shared aesthetic interest that tends to be more graphic and of that era. I think the geometric twist comes from those “Learn to draw” books I had as a kid, like “Learn to draw Disney characters” and whatnot. They always had you build the drawings from basic geometric shapes. I guess I just stopped after the first few steps, skipped the final details and stuck with squares and circles. I like when different forms of an illustration have a relationship to one another, it provides a sense of order…and makes aesthetic decisions seem less arbitrary.

You’re studying at the Maryland Institute College of Art. With the design industry changing at such a fast rate, how important is a formal education in design, do you feel?

I think a formal education can be a part of a successful career path in design, but is certainly not a requirement by any means. For me, the decision to go to grad school was a decision to disrupt my 9-5, design-agency trajectory in a way that allowed me to re-evaluate what I wanted out of life and how I could achieve it. I needed an environment and a timeframe that would challenge me to put my work front and center. For some, that might not be necessary, but I think it’s just important for you to react to what you need. The best part about all these changes in the industry is that it is all up for grabs. I think if you have the passion and are willing to live that out to the fullest extent, you can make just about anything work. I never doubt the resourcefulness of a hungry bear. They will find a way into your garbage whether you hang it up in a tree or not.

If, in some Freaky Friday-like situation, you could live the life of another designer, illustrator or creative, for a day, who would it be, and why?

I might be abusing this question by answering Alan Bean, but I’m going to say Alan Bean. Al was an Apollo astronaut who flew to the moon on Apollo 12. He was the first astronaut artist, and it is said that he sketched extensively while on the lunar surface. Can’t really beat that! I also think it would be neat to be Robert T. McCall, an amazing illustrator and visual historian at NASA during the birth of the program through the space shuttle era, as well as a conceptual artist for sci-fi films like 2001: A Space Odyssey and Disney’s Black Hole. While looking through a book of McCall’s space illustrations as a kid I decided I wanted to be astronaut. Re-reading that same book as I got a little older made me want to be an artist.

What design tools could you not live without?

I’ve recently taken to running just about everything I do through a Xerox machine. Rip it down from the screen and run it through the grinder, get a good layer of flavor on it! I love the surprise element, not knowing exactly what is going to shoot out on to that tray!

And finally, what tips would you give to anybody who is looking to get started in design or typography?

I think I would encourage anyone interested in pursuing design to think of it as a platform to express something you truly care about. Don’t get caught up in design culture, or portfolio lust – there is so much more out there! Love something and then share that with conviction through your work.

Thanks Eric!

Thanks so much to Eric for giving us an insight into his world! I loved talking to him, and found his answers really interesting!

Why not check out Eric’s new site, The People’s Pennant, and follow him on Dribbble and Twitter?

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One Minute With… Jeff Rogers
March 15, 2012 10:36 pm 1 Comment

Hi Jeff, thanks for taking time to chat with One Minute With. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your work.

Thanks for having me! You know, I have been thinking about this question a lot lately. Some days I don’t really know who I am or what I do. HA! But I think I am a designer who does a good bit of custom lettering. I run my own 1-man business, which is to say I am a freelance designer. I’d say half the work I do is client work and the other half is self-initiated because that’s just what I have always done. As a junior designer with crappy “pay my dues” jobs, I would always go home and do the work I really wanted to do so it became a habit. Much of the client work is birthed from the self-initiated work but by the time I am doing it for a client, it’s “old” and I have moved on to something else. I actually love that flow. About 75% of my client work comes from personal connections here in NYC which I also love.

Walk us through a typical day in the life of Jeff Rogers.

I usually sleep too late (because I never can get myself to bed before 2 am), get up, make breakfast & coffee, clean up the apartment from the day before, take a shower, get dressed, put my shoes on and then go to my desk and tackle the day’s work always trying to not get distracted by Twitter, Dribble, etc. which is tough for me. If I don’t have plans in the evening I’ll usually work until my eyes are dry and red or until I am frustrated with the project. OR if I get on a roll.. I’ll just work until I’m done. I love to be “on rolls”. That’s always the goal. I never feel like I get enough done during the day but that’s OK. I make sure and spend time with my wife because she is awesome and I feel better when I’m with her. Right now we usually eat lunch together and watch an episode (or 2) of Breaking Bad before hitting the hay.

How did you get into design?

My grandmother was an amazing landscape painter and my dad can draw really well. Between the two of them, I learned how to make pictures and I fell in love with drawing and painting really early in life. I discovered graphic design in my junior year of college when I decided I needed to change my major from 2D Studio to Design in order to “learn the computer”. I came to the realization that I didn’t want to rely on painting to make a living. I figured I could always paint. After the first semester as a design major I was totally hooked and couldn’t get enough. I didn’t paint again for about 5 years after college, but I finally am again.

How do you approach a new project? What’s your creative process like?

First I decide if it’s something I really want to do. I get offers from people sometimes that just don’t make sense for me but usually I’ll do it. (I have a hard time saying no. Working on it.) After figuring out things like fees and schedule, etc. I get a pencil out and start sketching. I always start with pencil and paper because that’s the fastest way for me to get ideas out. Then the process takes whatever turn it needs to depending on what the project is. I like doing work in 3 rounds: sketches, roughs, and final. It’s a nice way to stay on track and keep the client in the loop. I like to avoid doing a bunch of unnecessary work so if I can get the client on board at all the stages, it usually works out better in the end… in general.

You’ve left a full-time position at SpotCo to go freelance – What made you make the switch, and how does freelance life compare to the 9-5? What challenges does it bring?

I loved my time at SpotCo. It taught me so much and I wouldn’t be anywhere near where I am today without that experience. After 3 years there, my freelance work was picking up, my wife got a killer new job with a big fat paycheck, so I thought it was time to jump ship and see what would happen. It’s been about a year and so far so good. Like I mentioned before, I like to keep things fresh and new and I felt like I finally knew how to do theatre posters so I wanted a new challenge.

An awful lot of your work is done by hand – How important is it, in your opinion, to keep the analog traditions of yesteryear alive?

It’s extremely important. So much of a person’s humanity comes out when a piece is done by hand and I think people have a deeper connection with it. And I would say the same thing about starting ideas on paper instead of the computer. When you start at the computer, you are limited to to the confines of your knowledge of the software, etc. but letting ideas and form come right out of your hand is way more effective. And I’m not saying you have to be able to draw really well. Stick figures will do. But working out form and composition with a pencil is fast and you can get through a lot of variations until you find the best one. I never do 1 version. The first one is always the throw-away.. but it has to get out of the way in order to dig deeper.

If, in some Freaky Friday-like situation, you could live the life of another designer, illustrator or creative, for a day, who would it be, and why?

Probably one of those silk-screen gig poster guys like Jason Munn, A. Micah Smith, or the guys over at Aesthetic Apparatus or Heads of State. I LOVE gig posters and would love the space and ability to make them. It’s about splitting the time doing ideas/design and then getting your hands dirty with the print-making process. Also I am a musician so it would be great to connect with music in that way.

What design tools could you not live without?

My pencil and my paper… and also my tracing paper. Great for revisions and not having to erase and start over and working out compositions. Not copying work. HA!

And finally, what tips would you give to anybody who is looking to get started in design?

Learn by doing. Do as much as you can and be around people who do what you want to do. Whether that is a college or a studio or a specific designer or design community. Like that Anthony Burrill poster says, “Work hard and be nice to people.”

Thanks Jeff!

Many thanks to Jeff for sharing his thoughts with OMW. I had a lot of fun talking to him, and I hope you love the interview as much I do!

Why not check out Jeff’s site, and follow him on Dribbble and Twitter?

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One Minute With… Trent Walton
March 5, 2012 9:16 pm Leave a Comment

Hi Trent, thanks for taking time to chat with One Minute With. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your work.

Howdy! I’m Trent. I work as 1/3 of Paravel with two of my best friends based out of the Texas Hill Country. I’m a husband and father of a 1 year old little dude named Henry. Oh, and my wife had to put me on a font allowance.

Walk us through a typical day in the life of Trent Walton.

Up at around 6:00 without an alarm, unless you count the 1 year old. I start with a big breakfast, then some exercise, and usually land in the office between 8:00 and 9:00. We just moved into a new home. I love it. The office is above the garage with the only door being an external one, so it helps me keep work time separate.

Over the next hour I’m joined by my cohorts in our campfire chat room, all of us cleaning out inboxes and charting out priorities for the day. My favorite thing about my work is that from this point forward days vary greatly. Sometimes I’m writing and planning, others I’m coding or designing. I try to take a nice long lunch hour so I can enter the rest of my day (that lasts till about 5:00 or 6:00) with clear focus on one or two larger tasks. Occasionally, I’ll work evenings if I want to finish a personal project, of if a deadline gets tight.

How did you get into design? Was there a defining point in your career, and if so, how did it shape you as a designer?

I’ve always been focused on the web, and began to take web design as a career more seriously when I saw that technologies were evolving to give designers more control over things like layout and type. Early on, I was just happy to see how much could be achieved when abandoning table-based layouts.

Going back further, I grew up around American muscle cars. I spent a great deal of time at races and swap meets and became obsessed with the design identities tied to the scene. I’d buy car badges, hood ornaments, and manuals just because they looked cool. I think that played a formative role in my design sensibilities and love for type.

How do you approach a new project? What’s your creative process like?

It’s different every time, but the projects I think turn out best are collaborative. I am usually in some version of a project management role, so I really begin by focusing more on the talent and personalities involved (clients and contractors). Paying attention to things like work environment, camaraderie, and communication (that aren’t usually project deliverables) makes everything better. Aside from that, we do a lot of sketching & candid arguing and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

On your site, you’re constantly experimenting with all-new web technologies and practices, from responsive web design all the way down to CSS hyphenation. Do you view yourself as a designer who also develops, a developer who also designs, or in a carefully-straddled middle-ground? If you give up one of the two, which would it be, and why?

It’s hard for me to imagine separating the two. I call myself a web designer, and I try to be proficient at whatever it takes to make what I want (or what is needed). It’s nice to be able to conceptualize and execute. That being said, It’s also nice to have friends who are more talented than you are so you can get help along the way.

On OneMinuteWith, I talk to a lot of designers about self-initiated projects. With Paravel’s work however, everyone else is effectively blown out the water – You’ve created projects such as The Many Faces Of, Lettering.js, FitText, and ATX Web Show, to name but a few. How much of your work is self-initiated projects, and how much is client work? Is there one you prefer over the other, and why?

Client work is always there, but the amount comes in waves. From the beginning, we’ve had the goal at Paravel to do what we love. I find that what you share online is often what you’ll get hired to do. So, if you show people that you’re good doing rush jobs and work that doesn’t require innovation, then that’s probably what you’ll be hired to do. We try to take jobs that don’t have a clear point B and require newer technologies. Then, when we have to build tools to aid us in our efforts (like Lettering.js or FitText) we share them.

If, in some Freaky Friday-like situation, you could live the life of another designer, illustrator or creative, for a day, who would it be, and why?

I think I’d like to set further outside the ‘creative’ file drawer and switch with someone who gets to work outside. I’d love to spend a day as a farmer or a rancher. I think life/nature has a timing that is artificially accelerated within the walls of my office. I’d love to do some work where content streams and email priority levels don’t impact the task at hand.

What design tools could you not live without?

I buy graph paper and pens in bulk. I love Coda, and hope there’s a version 2 on the horizon. Web-based tools like Dropbox for file storage, Harvest for accounting & time tracking, and Typecast App for typesetting & design have each equaled a quality of life upgrade ‘round these parts.

And finally, what tips would you give to anybody who is looking to get started in design or typography?

Focus on the basics. I’m always learning, and I think a common thread has been that I’m always surprised to realize how carefully considered the simplest elements can (and probably should) be. Thinking about type down to details like a baseline grid and clear hierarchy has become central to my process, while any random photoshop technique regularly proves to be less useful and applicable over time.

Thanks Trent!

Many thanks to Trent for sharing his thoughts with OMW. I had a lot of fun talking to him, and I hope you love the interview as much I do!

Why not check out Trent’s site, and follow him on Dribbble and Twitter?

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One Minute With… Kendrick Kidd
February 29, 2012 7:31 pm 1 Comment

Hi Kendrick, thanks for taking time to chat with One Minute With. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your work.

Thanks for having me, Conor!

Well, I’m currently working out of Jacksonville, Florida for a local advertising agency called Shepherd. In addition to that, I’m one half of Halftone Def Studios (a small screen printing business), and I freelance for myself on nights and weekends. It keeps me pretty busy, but I like it.

Walk us through a typical day in the life of Kendrick Kidd.

Hmm, typical day… I’m usually up by 5:00 a.m. everyday, and depending if there’s waves, I try to squeeze in morning surf session with friends before work. I’m at the office by 8:30, salty. After a couple cups of coffee, and visiting several design sites, I start cranking on my work list for the day. If I’m lucky, I’ll grab a slice of pizza with coworkers for lunch, but more-often-than-not I eat at my desk. By 6:00 I’m heading back to my house to see my wife & son. After dinner my freelance work starts and last until it’s time to go to bed. Wake up – repeat.

How did you get into design? Was there a defining point in your career, and if so, how did it shape you as a designer?

It’s hard to pinpoint one thing that got me into design. I think it’s something I’ve naturally been attracted to my whole life. My parents were great about encouraging me to draw when I was growing up, I think that, with some direction from my high school art teacher eventually lead me to a design career. I feel lucky that I took a definitive direction at a pretty young age, while some of my friends struggled to find a major in college, I knew going in what I wanted to do.

How do you approach a new project? What’s your creative process like?

When I was younger I use to wish my creative process was more sexy & magical, but I’ve come to appreciate its’ meat & potatoes reality. So I start with a client input meeting and get as much direction as possible. From there I do a bit of research and start sketching out rough ideas (this step usually includes a Yuengling or two). I try to work as fast and loose as I can at this stage to keep the thoughts moving. A quick edit of the sketches for relevance, and I present the roughs to the client. If there’s any major direction changes I try to address them at the sketch stage. Once a direction is chosen it’s off to the computer for rendering. There’s usually some back and forth with the client to tighten down the finer points, then Pow!!… I fly home in my private jet & have dinner with my wife & son at Disney (that last part’s a lie).

Typography is clearly a strong point of yours. Do you see a clear distinction between lettering and type design, and would you ever consider releasing fonts professionally?

Thanks man, that means a lot! Not always sure how well I do it, but it’s totally something I try to focus on.

I definitely see a difference between lettering & type design, for sure. Though some folks can do both, I feel like both require a unique skill set. It’s like the difference between being able to bake a really awesome cake, and being a baker (sorry, I watch my fair share of The Food Network).

I’m pretty intimidated by the idea, but designing a font is on the bucket list, for sure. Would love for it to happen sooner than later, just waiting for some gusto and the right circumstances (ie enough free time).

Your work includes a vast range of fields, such as print, logos, apparel, and illustration work. If, in some weird hypothetical universe, you could only do one of these, which would it be, and why?

Wow, thats tough.. I love variety. I think I’d get bored if I could only do one thing. I guess if I had to choose one it’d be identity work. I love thinking about branding systems & how designs will carry from office pencils to outdoor signage and everything in between.

If, in some Freaky Friday-like situation, you could live the life of another designer, illustrator or creative, for a day, who would it be, and why?

Hmm… I’d split the day: 9:00am – Noon Ken Barber, Noon to 5:00pm Draplin. Ken because I’d love to have his understanding of lettering for a few hours, and Draplin just cause the man is rawesome.

What design tools could you not live without?

A pencil & Adobe Illustrator. If you took those away I’d have to find a new vocation.

And finally, what tips would you give to anybody who is looking to get started in design?

I heard Candice Olson say something to the effect of, “Take your work seriously, and not yourself.” Always thought that was solid advice.

Thanks Kendrick!

Thanks so much to Kendrick for giving us an insight into his world! I really enjoyed talking to him, and found his answers really interesting!

Why not check out Kendrick’s site, and follow him on Dribbble and Twitter?

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One Minute With… Matt Chase
February 23, 2012 7:39 pm Leave a Comment

Hi Matt, thanks for taking time to chat with One Minute With. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your work.

Thanks very much for having me, Conor. I’m a Kansan-born designer, living and working in Washington, DC. Presently, I’m enlisted in the ranks of Design Army, where I’ve been fighting the good fight for about a year and a half now. Just before landing in DC, I was interning with ad house Crispin Porter + Bogusky in Boulder, and prior to that, while in school, enjoyed a few summer stints at Hallmark Cards in Kansas City. I try to push my work to tap the widest gamut I can, exploring anything from child-like whimsicality to more serious reflections on life & culture. I’ve got an insatiable taste for the irreverent and am always looking to circumvent the obvious. The past few years have really introduced me to illustration, which I only briefly started fooling around with toward the end of my college years, so that’s been a ton of fun.

Walk us through a typical day in the life of Matt Chase.

Pretty normal schedule, really, save for the fact I live in DC, so I probably get offered things like meth and PETA literature more often than most people. I usually get to work around 8:30 and try to catch up on personal things like e-mail / Twitter before settling into real work. I can’t really get into the details of a day at Design Army, but I can tell you that each one is certainly a new adventure. Every person who walks in that door puts their entire life into what we do there, and it’s pretty amazing to see what comes out when we’re done. I usually make it home around 8 or 9, and either dive right into more work or just take it easy. Admittedly, there’s always a project I know I should be doing when I get home, but after after 12 straight hours in the studio, I try and slow things down when I know I need to.

How did you get into design?

For Christmas, when I was in fifth grade, I asked for a scanner and an Ocarina of Time Player’s Guide. I fired it up and the first thing I did was scan the cover and change Link’s tunic from green to red, which it obviously should have been in the first place because the Goron Tunic allows you to walk through volcanoes and looks way more badass. That’s probably about the time I got hooked, although the majority of my academic career was spent under the assumption that I’d ultimately pursue an English degree. It wasn’t really until high school that I realized design could afford me a rare opportunity to mix my passion for writing and my passion for art. Our teacher at the time, whose background was in pottery, was phenomenally underqualified to be heading the new Computer Arts course we just introduced, so my senior year was basically spent making faux album covers for bands I invented and fabricating track names to songs that only existed in my head. It was a good year.

I went on to Kansas University, whose program is amazing, and was introduced to a new world of designing around concepts instead of bands called FunkStain. I got lucky the summer after my sophomore year and netted the last internship spot at Hallmark Cards, where I worked the next two summers, and during the year headed the advertising staff of our university’s newspaper, which turned out to be this crazy, surprisingly beneficial exercise in collaboration. Most of the campaigns we ran were the brainstorm children of myself, the marketing kids and local business owners. Working under those circumstances for so long made communicating and developing concepts with later clients much easier. It was like a little microcosm of the real design world—with real clients and real budgets and real deadlines—but in a student atmosphere, with friends and booze and basketball and stuff. Still being in school, it was great to be able to compare the workings of the classroom environment to all the things the classroom environment was preparing me for—in between my classes.

How do you approach a new project? What’s your creative process like?

Every project is obviously different, but the first thing I try and do is clear my mind of any assumption I might have about what the client is expecting from me. I’ve found that trying to design around the notion of what you think another person probably wants is needlessly restrictive. But I think a lot of people get caught up in that. It’s like, “oh, well, you probably hired me to do this because you saw this one thing I did—” And while that might be true, you can’t keep your focus there. So, fresh start, always; that’s the first thing. The nature of the work usually dictates the process. For illustration, which comprises the majority of projects I do in my spare time, it’s the idea that I’m after. I’ll do a lot of quick thumbnails, hoping to unearth visual metaphors or clever interactions that speak to what I want the final piece to say. That’s the bulk of the process, actually. I’d say it’s about 80% fiddling around on paper or staring really, really intently at walls while talking to people and 20% finalizing. Computer execution tends to go pretty quick.

You gained a good deal of attention for your USPS rebranding concept – How beneficial is it, do you feel, to work on self-initiated projects, as opposed to just paid work?

USPS paid me $8 million for that work.

It’s funny you ask though, and a lot of people don’t realize this, but that was actually a school project. Not necessarily in the self-initiated realm, but I think it does address the same kinds of considerations that go into developing projects outside of what you do for clients. There’s no one to answer to but yourself—no deadlines, no budgets, no HR reps to appease. And that’s liberating, big time. It’s basically the workday equivalent of grabbing a beer after 8 hours on the job. Everyone needs that.

One of the first things I noticed when I got into doing this was that it’s a straight-up passion industry—we do this because we love it. We stay up late to draw pictures of bears and letters and logos for things that only exist in our heads. Regular people don’t do that. Regular people sleep. How many accountants do you know who go home and crunch numbers in their spare time? The answer to that question is zero. I would even go so far as to say that if you aren’t doing work just for the hell of it—or if that notion repels you in the slightest—then you might be in the wrong field. We all want to do good work. We crave it, we need it. But at some point, we’ll all be in a position where good work isn’t happening, even with good clients. So you have to find it on your own. If that means making it for no one, then you make it for no one.

Throughout your online presence, there’s a great sense of character – You use humour to great effect on your site. How important is it to be a ‘real person’ in the design industry, rather than just a PS/AI robot?

That means a lot — thank you. I would never presume to say it’s important or not important to be a certain kind of person; I think the only thing that really matters is to be yourself, as high-school-counselor as that sounds. If you care about the work that you do, your personality will come through; it’s inevitable. And people will start to notice.

If, in some Freaky Friday-like situation, you could live the life of another designer, illustrator or creative, for a day, who would it be, and why?

James Victore, probably. More than anyone else I can think of, he embodies this belief that good, powerful ideas should be at the heart of everything you do. I mean, most of his work literally requires the dexterity of a four-year-old, and yet he manages to say things that no masterfully-perfected, digitized wonder of a piece could ever do. And that’s rare. In a world where we so dutifully worship technical proficiency and brilliantly choreographed superficiality, his work always serves to remind me that making something beautiful will never mean as much as making something good.

What design tools could you not live without?

Pretty standard stuff, really. Pencil and paper (whatever’s cheapest), Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, e-mail. Google images totally revolutionized research; I can’t really imagine not being able to scroll through a hundred pictures a minute. I love anything editorial-based, so I always keep some kinds of magazines around. I could probably toss my cell phone in a dumpster tomorrow morning and forget I’d done it by noon.

And finally, what tips would you give to anybody who is looking to get started in design or typography?

The biggest piece of advice I can give to anyone is to work hard and love what you do.

The second is to avoid being derivative. Half the design work out there looks almost the same, and at least half of that looks almost exactly the same. It’s what happens when people to look to what’s popular for their inspiration, and stop looking inside. More with the counselor shit, I know, but it’s true. Don’t be concerned with having a style, or what your piece is going to look like when it’s finished. Style is always secondary to substance. You can buy a Ferrari kit car for a quarter of what an original Ferrari costs, and yet the real ones out-sell the fakes two to one. Why? Because a flashy red car on its own doesn’t mean anything; it’s what’s under the hood that counts. You need substance, and you don’t get substance from replicating what everyone else is already doing. Don’t set out to build a better-looking Ferrari, set out to build a better-performing car.

Thanks Matt!

We’re really grateful to Matt for spending a few minutes with One Minute With. Hopefully you found his responses as interesting as I did!

Why not check out Matt’s site, and follow him on Dribbble and Twitter?

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One Minute With… Mikey Burton
February 20, 2012 8:08 pm 1 Comment

Hi Mikey, thanks for taking time to chat with One Minute With. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your work.

Yeah, I’m Mikey Burton, I’m a designer and illustrator based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I spend my days doing a lot of illustrations, infographics and small identity projects. I really like bears. The animal. The lovable, cuddly, yet ferocious animal.

Walk us through a typical day in the life of Mikey Burton.

I work out of the house at the moment, so it’s a pretty strict program. [Chuckles to himself] It’s very easy to get distracted if you’re at home alone – If you break out of that you can very easy end up, y’know, doing the laundry during the day!

So yeah, I get up, gotta have my coffee, gotta put my shoes on and make myself feel like I’m actually at a job. Usually the morning is when I do the most of my thinking – It’s when my brain’s the most fertile and when I’ll come up with the best ideas, so that’s usually used for concepting, or if I have to sketch for a job, that’s when I do it.

Midday: Design, illustration, and that goes on until I fall asleep. Lately I’ve just been working like crazy.

How did you get into design?

As a little kid, I was always drawing, and my mom was always buying me crayons and pencils. After highschool, I was like, “What do I do? I want to do something creative, but I don’t wanna be a starving artist.” So I decided to go into the noble art of graphic design, not really knowing what that was at the time – I just thought I’d probably be making CD packaging, which is really funny to think now, as it’s such an outdated thing!

So I went to school, and learned a lot of hand skills, not anything computer-based. This isn’t even that long ago, and yet it sounds ridiculous talking about it… I remember buying like $1,500 worth of drafting supplies in college – not even a computer – just so you can sit down with a T-square, an X-Acto knife and rapidograph pens and make stuff by hand like that, with high precision quality. So that was a very big shock to me, and I wasn’t very good at it – I did really bad the first semester, but at some point I got better, and realized that it was just this weeding-out thing that they did at school. But it went on, and I was actually invited to the Master’s program at my school, where they had a combined degree in which you got your Master’s and Bachelor’s all at once.

I found myself being there for 6 years, at the same place. If you’re at the same school for that long, you kinda have all the same professors. That’s great, it’s very intimate, and you’re very good friends with them, but you can only learn so much by being with the same professors, so me and my friends unintentionally started to run our own business – We didn’t set out with a business plan, we were just like “Oh, we’ll just start doing concert posters and see where it goes…” It was just this fun thing to do to inspire ourselves and get our creative juices going. It was just me and two other guys, and we started this company called Little Jacket, which is actually still around in Cleveland, Ohio.

Back then (around 2004), it felt like pre-Internet days, even though it obviously wasn’t! I feel like younger students now have so many things that make it easier – There’s Cargo Collective or there’s Indexhibit, all these things that you can build a website out of, all these different communities you can be involved in, all these different social media outlets that you can get your name out there with. We were just doing posters on a local level, it had this local buzz, and we’d share our work on gigposters.com. Doing these silly posters actually led to doing client work, which we did for about 4-5 years. Around 2008/2009, I was just kinda spent, so I finished my degree, finished school, and moved to Philadelphia for a job in advertising, because I was tired of working on my own and that not going so well, and I wanted to learn something new from somebody else – The idea of working with a proper business with larger clients appealed to me, so I did that for 2 years, at this place in town called 160over90. A year ago, I quit that, and now I’m working on my own.

How do you approach a new project? What’s your design process like?

It all depends on what it is, but I am a big advocate of sketching – No matter what you do, it’s always a really important part of the process to just sit down, sketch and get all of your ideas on paper. It’s one of those things that makes me feel better about my work: to just get it all out so that I can see it, and ask myself “Is that all I have?” I always set myself this challenge when I’m sketching to fill the whole page,so that there aren’t pockets that are left, and you have to really force yourself to get that extra idea out. Sometimes, that’s the coolest idea you have.

One of the things that I regret a lot is that on my site, I only have end results – I usually have loads of good process stuff, and I never show that, which is kinda sad. So that’s a goal for the year: To get a blog up where I can talk more about what actually went into things, as opposed to just the end product.

You’ve been involved in a few high-profile self-initiated projects, such as Freelance Ain’t Free. How much of your work is self-initiated projects, and how much is client work? Is there one you prefer over the other, and why?

This is another thing I’m trying to work on this year. I can’t say no to client work. I don’t turn away a lot of client work, but it’s really hard. If I can see myself getting it done in the next few days, I usually don’t say no. Just because I like, uh, money.

And that’s a good way to be – to just not say no, work really hard and take on everything you can. But in the same respect, the things that I really like (that have been working out) are some of the side projects that I do, like Freelance Ain’t Free. Some people do these side projects and get hundreds of thousands of followers out of it, or just really cool work – Jessica Hische is just the Queen of Typography now, after doing Daily Drop Cap, and now she gets to do the titles for the new Wes Anderson movie, which is just awesome and amazing!

In my case, Freelance Ain’t Free was just a simple idea which I made myself do – It wasn’t like I was going to build a site around it, I just went home to Ohio, and was like “Okay, I love letterpress, I need to print something while I’m there.” I was just tired of people coming to me saying “I only have $5 for you to do 100,000 hours worth of work.” I mean, you’re a giant company, you can pay me something. I just got kinda frustrated with that, so I thought “‘Freelance Ain’t Free’, that’s a cool idea”. So I just did some prints of that, and thought that they were cool, so I did a little site around it. As I was doing that, I decided to do a logo for it. When the site launched, I thought “Oh, this logo is cool”, so that became a t-shirt – It was just this organic process. I didn’t have to pay for stuff along the way – I didn’t pay for the prints, because my friend gave me the paper and let me borrow the ink, which was really nice of him. I just sold the prints, paid him back for whatever I owed him, and then I had money left over to print the t-shirts, and now it’s just this thing that pays for itself.

It’s been pretty interesting, because it’s not like it’s a ton of work – I mean, I have to pack up all the prints and stuff, but I’ve sold a couple hundred shirts, and, for a dude working out of his apartment, that’s money in pocket. I remember thinking when it first came out “Man, I need to focus on these side projects more” – You can do things that you like, or think are fun or interesting, and actually make money out of it – It’s kinda crazy.

That even applies to my thesis project that I did in school – Usually when I lecture, that’s a big part of my talk, because there was a 4-5 month process of me just working and making stuff, and it going nowhere. In the educational world, I did a really bad job, but in the end, it was a lot of work that I really liked. Years after I was done with it, it was picked up on a couple of blogs, and these guys who do run Out Of Print Clothing contacted me about collaborating. Their idea is real, beautiful, old art, whether it be Moby Dick, or The Great Gatsby, printed on t-shirts. They really liked the work I had done, and asked if I would be their first artist series, and I was like “Yeah, of course!” That’s another thing that I just made for myself that become this other thing outside of that – I still collect royalties off of that now, which is really cool.

So yeah, self-motivated work is… awesome. And I wanna make more of it.

Your style is awesomely vintage, and, as you’ve described it yourself, “Midwesterny”. Did you decide to adopt that style, or was it simply something that evolved? How important is it, do you feel, or establish a style, as opposed to maintaining a variety of styles?

It sucks, because I look at a lot of the trends out there in the world now, and I don’t want to be part of a trend, but I know that my work can be seen as trendy. I think why my work is textural, or retro, or vintage, is because when I was in school, they had a printing press there – one of the old letterpresses, with a pretty decent type collection: just a lot of stuff you can go in and get your hands dirty with. That part of it was so interesting to me – the fact that you could move stuff around, and not have to use a computer, you could line up this type and it prints, and if you don’t ink it right, it’ll print out funny. There was a certain beauty to that mistake: it was just so rich and honest. Even back around 2000 there was all those “distressed” fonts and vector garbage stuff, but this was honest and truthful – I always loved that aesthetic out of letterpress and screenprinting and the qualities that came with the printing itself, so I always try to recreate that in the most authentic way I can, with it still being a digital work.

I don’t like that it’s a “style”, because I worry that someday, that style will end, and then I’ll be out of a job – That’s really frustrating. Even though I do do a lot of illustrative work, I like to make it somewhat conceptual at the same time, so there’s at least some wit or simple idea to everything I do. That way, it’s finding a visual solution, rather than it being just a “cool style”.

If, in some Freaky Friday-like situation, you could live the life of another designer, illustrator or creative, for a day, who would it be, and why?

I dunno, that’s a really tough one. Part of me wants to just have a letterpress, live in the woods, not talk to anybody and just print. I dunno if I’d ever want to be anybody else, but that’s what I want to do. There’s this documentary (Alone in the Wilderness) about this guy who goes into the woods and builds a log cabin out of nothing, he even builds the hinges of the door, and kitchen utensils and stuff. I think that’s awesome. And then I wanna just have a letterpress and print all day. In silence. And just grow a really big beard. Like, never cut it for years. And then someone will see me and be like “Who is that?”

Does that answer your question?

What design tools could you not live without?

Oh, jeez, I have a lot! I can’t live without my Mac, I guess – That’s pretty obvious, everybody says that.

I have a printer that I use, that prints out things really poorly. That’s how I generate a lot of my textures now – It’s some really old HP Laserjet. Whenever it breaks, I’m just gonna be, uh, fucked. I actually don’t know what I’d do. Before that, I’d always use really abrasive stuff, like acetone transfer pens. I was using them one time, and my nose just started bleeding. I was just like “This isn’t good.”

I have a couple of books that I like.

Handbook of Pictorial Symbols (Dover Pictorial Archive)
Rudolf Modley, William R. Myers

Trademarks and symbols; vol. 1: Alphabetical designs; vol. 2: Symbolical designs.
Yasaburo Kuwayama

American Wood Type: 1828-1900 – Notes on the Evolution of Decorated and Large Types
by Rob Roy Kelly

I really like the Rob Roy Kelly wood type books, I have a couple of those.

When I get something that I really like, I tend to stick with them for a while. I’ve just switched to a Micron 0.5mm pen that I always use, and I always use the same sketchbook now.

And finally, what tips would you give to anybody who is looking to get started in design?

I’ve already talked about doing self-initiated projects, that’s always something that you have to do. When I talk about it to people, I call it “work for work” – The idea that self-motivated projects generate client work. I’m a complete advocate for that.

The other thing is simply don’t be a dick. It’s something I think about a lot of the time – You just kinda have to be nice to everybody. No matter how much somebody rubs you the wrong way, you just have to be really nice. The design community is so small, and everybody knows everybody, so if you treat people poorly, or you don’t work hard, or you’re just mean, everybody’s gonna know pretty quickly. Especially now, with the internet, where everybody has online personas, you just gotta be nice, you just can’t really be a dick.

I worked at a place here in town, and I think about the network of people who worked there, and where they live now, and how I acted around them when I was working with them. One guy worked there for 12 months, and he’s now the art director at New York Magazine. One guy lives in LA, and he does projects with Good Magazine. One guy I knew worked at Nike for a couple of years. That’s three people, and it pushes it all to different coasts – It’s kinda crazy how many people you interact with, and then how it has just spread out in that way. So don’t be a dick.

Thanks Mikey!

Thanks a million to Mikey for talking to me – I really enjoyed talking with him, and hopefully you love his answers as much as I do!

Why not check out Mikey’s site, and follow him on Dribbble and Twitter?

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