Info Set:

Name:
Dan Ibarra/Principal, Aesthetic Apparatus

Education Background (school / self taught, etc):
Design: Madison Area Technical College/Printmaking: Self-taught

Where you first worked and when (visual/graphic design job, etc):
In 1996 I was hired right out of school as a graphic designer for the software company Sonic Foundry. I think I was employee number 20. I was also 20 years old. I left a year and a half later.

Favorite book ever (design or non-design related):
Uncle Shelby’s ABZ book. Hands down best writing ever.

Recommended design / thinking / creativity / illustration book(s):
Every designer should read (that’s read, not just look at the pretty pictures) Tibor Kalman “Perverse Optimist” at least once but preferably twelve times.

The Introspective / Inspiration Set:

1. What made you decide to do what you do?
Initially I didn’t have any choice, I wanted to pursue art and the commercial art program at the technical school was the closest my GPA could get me. But within the first six months I realized that all the band logos that I had drawn on my assignment notebooks and the t-shirts that I had made in high-school were actually a creative category of their own.

2. What’s your process for conceiving new designs/projects?
Research as much as possible about the subject, attempt to know if front to back; sketch (by hand and digitally) horrible idea after horrible idea; see a glimmer of a good idea in one horrible idea; pursue that idea; over-think that initial good idea until it’s dead; repeat process until a good idea sticks.

3. What do you regret not learning while you were in school?
I received a really strong production-design education while in class. I spent all my free-time outside of class teaching myself everything else I wanted to know (type design, printmaking, design history, etc.) If you regret not learning something in school that you really wanted to know, it’s your fault for not pursuing it. Nobody is handcuffing your education. If you want to learn about it, then go learn about it.

4. What’s your most valuable ability? i.e. conceptualization, hand/computer skills, etc.
I guess my most valuable ability is a lot of patience and resolve to solve whatever problem is in front of me. It’s an overwhelming desire to really understand something. I think it stems from my constant self-education while in school.

5. What, in your opinion, is the most exciting aspect of the art/design world right now?
The most exciting thing for me is the fact that graphic design doesn’t know WHAT the fuck it is right now. How does graphic design exist amongst revolutionary contemporary ideas like sustainability, intellectual ownership, biomimicry, etc; all these issues that are being tackled by other art and design disciplines. Graphic design is trying to figure it’s shit out. I like not knowing what the future holds.

6. If you could move anywhere right now, in consideration of the art/design scene, where would you go?
I would move the city of Minneapolis 500 miles south.

7. What’s your daily routine?
6:55 – wake up to my six-month-old daughter waking up next to me, inadvertently slapping me in the face.
9:00 – Arrive at studio (via bike)
9:00-10:00 – coffee/internet/email
10:00-1:00 design or prep films/screens for printing
1:00 – lunch (today, vietnamese bahn-mi sandwich from the Seward Co-op)
2:00-4:00 Continue designing or print poster
4:00 – Drink a beer, continue designing/printing. Or if it’s a slow day, check out gigposters.com
5:30ish – Bike home.

8. What’s the best advice anyone has ever given you, regarding design or otherwise?
Our old boss at Planet Propaganda told us before we left; there are three criteria to assess a design job with: money, timeline and creativity. Make sure the job consists of at least two of these agreeable critieria. If only one of the criteria is agreeable, do not take the job. You will rarely, if ever, have the opportunity to work on a job that is agreeable on all three criteria

9. Who would you call a mentor / attribute as the inspiration in how you work / do things?
It’s our boilerplate reply, but it’s still the truth; our test prints are always the most inspiring thing in our design discipline. Here is a genuine piece of trash that, through a completely unconscious and organic process, becomes layered with some much imagery and color that it becomes it’s own beautiful work of art. What is the most humbling are our attempts to recreate test prints that look “okay” but seem to never successfully display the vibrance, inventiveness or surprise that comes with one of these prints. So, basically, our trash is the most beautiful thing we make.

10. If you had just one piece of advice for students / new grads, what would it be?
Don’t worry about getting a dream job right out of school. Get an easy job that you can learn from but isn’t too creatively taxing. Then take all your creative energy and newfound income and invest it all in whatever it is that really inspires you. Spend all your free-time doing that without any regard for profit or notoriety. Continue until you meet someone that shares your same vision. Partner with that person and work with them for as long as possible.

Check out more from Dan and Aesthetic Apparatus here.

General Intro/Info Set:

Name:
Will Bryant

Company Name:
Member of Public School

Education Background:
BFA (Graphic Design) from Mississippi State University (2008). I plan on getting my MFA in the next few years!

First Real Job Ever:
Define “real.” haha, I’ve never worked on salary. In high school I worked at this hip shoe store, the Gap one summer, and random jobs for family friends. I had a student design job for a semester and an internship for a year during college. Straight out of college I just kept freelancing.

First Real Job That Racks Up Social Security Miles:
uhhhhh, I’m an Eagle Scout.

First Design Job:
During college I was a student graphic designer for the Carl Small Town Center for a semester, and then a graphic design intern for the Public Design Center for a year. At the PDC I worked for Clifton Burt & Kate Bingaman-Burt. I learned a lot a lot and made loads of stuff. Definitely a defining moment in my career to be surrounded by learning opportunities, thinkers, and makers.

Favorite book ever:
I wish I knew how to read good. haha, but seriously. My attention span just kills my ability to enjoy a book. My brain and eyes jump between the lines and through the pages. However, my favorite book would have to be The Great Divorce. It sutras up a lot of bizarre imagery and textures for me.

Favorite book design/illustration related:
“This Is…” series by M. Sasek, Hand Job: A Catalogue of Type, Beautiful Losers

Recommended design / thinking / creativity / illustration book/mag/blog(s):
Frank Chimero’s blog, Grain Edit, Good Magazine

The Introspective / Inspiration Set:

1. What made you decide to do what you do?
I never really decided, I honestly feel like this is what I’m supposed to do and every life experience was designed to lead up to my current state. It’s a blessing to be called to make stuff that leads to engaging with people from around the world.

2. What’s your process for conceiving new designs/projects?
Unfortunately, a lot of times the idea just falls on my head or stirs me in my sleep. Too often I think of something in the shower and forget it before I can jot it down in my scout book. Once I recall an idea I pick up a drawing pen and paper. Most of the time new designs/projects are pieced together by stream of consciousness drawing sessions. After these are scanned in I make more critical thinking decisions and try to make sense of the nonsense.

3. What do you regret not learning while you were in school?
Learning & retaining web/code, american history, geography, among other general subjects.

4. What’s your most valuable ability?
Connecting with people.

5. What, in your opinion, is the most exciting aspect of the art/design world right now?
Collaborating!

6. If you could move anywhere right now, in consideration of the art/design scene, where would you go?
First off, I LOVE Austin. Especially where the art/design scene is. It’s at an exciting state. The obvious place I’d like to head to is Portland! I hope to spend some time there at some point. Either for school or work or both!

7. What’s your daily/weekly routine?
I like to start my day by going for a run or working out. I often do some chores around the house before heading to the studio around 8 or 9. Spend the day making stuff, blogging, and fighting the email dragon. I try to have lunch with my wife a couple times a week. The afternoon usually turns into a scramble and head home around 6. Sally and I play wii, cook dinner, watch a movie or just do something together. I often do some blogging or emailing in the evenings and sometimes some drawing before bed.

8. What’s the best advice anyone has ever given you, regarding design? work? life?
Don’t wait for permission. Honor your mother and father. Do a good turn daily.

9. Who would you call a mentor / attribute as someone who’s inspired you most / influenced how you work / do things?
Kate Bingaman-Burt, Frank Chimero, and fellow members of Public School.

10. If you had just one piece of advice for students / new grads, what would it be?
Be honest; with yourself and with others.

The Will Bryant Set:

1. Most fun project you’ve gotten to do in the last year.
2010 has been incredibly good to me! Working at the SXSW Fader Fort for Converse was a lot of fun! Working with Mark Menjivar for TRLA has been really rad too.

2. Project you’ve learned the most from. What’d you learn?
Every project is a learning experience. Especially on the business side of things. Estimates, invoices, write offs, time management, and being organized are things I’m constantly trying to learn more about.

3. Public School: how long have you been involved w/ Public School, how’d you get into it, do you plan on building tenure?
I’ve been a member of Public School since June 2009. I got in by handing out free stuff and hanging around their old studio. We’re just enjoying the ride right now!

4. Projects for clients. Projects on the side for fun. What’s the ratio for you at any given time?
For me…i have my peanut butter and my jelly. I prefer to mix the two. Sometimes I add honey. I try to apply this to work and so far a lot of the client work as been fun.

5. Do you have a favorite Will Bryant activity?What are your top 3 favorite mediums in order.
#1.Stuff
#2.The internet
#3.1990s basketball players

6. If you had to pick any other job you’d do – that had nothing to do w/ illustration / design / art… what would it be?
I hope to someday get my MFA and become a professsssor, but aside from that I’d probably be a bicycle cop or a high school basketball coach.

You can see Will’s contribution to Winners Press’s Winners Winning amongst lots of other releases (subscribe to Good mag? If not, you should…). For even more Will Bryant, visit will-bryant.com which should lead you to even more Will Bryant (like twitter, etsy, etc).

Education Background (school / self taught, etc):
Jeff has degrees in Marine Biology, Illustration and Graphic Design from the University of Arizona. Shay has a degrees in Communication Design and German from the University of North Texas.

Where you first worked:
Shay: My first job was at Tractorbeam, a small studio in Dallas. At Tractorbeam, I was my own account manager, my own production artist, own stylist, my own everything (which isn’t a complaint, that’s very typical for a small studio), which made it hard to focus on creative. So I decided to work for Fossil, and I love the fashion industry and culture there.

Jeff: My first job was a cartoon strip. I had one in my college newspaper, and I got picked up by a syndicate my senior year. It was in a few newspapers around the country, which was neat, but it was so much work (a daily and weekend comic strip) for so little cash. I eventually had to call it quits in favor of my design career, but I don’t regret that. I love design and illustration, and the cartoon life is a hard one to break into.

Favorite book ever:
Eames Design by Neuhart, Neuhart and Eames. Charles and Rey Eames are a huge inspiration for us. If you don’t know them, they were an amazing husband and wife design team that made absolutely gorgeous and smart furniture, textiles, posters, products, toys. Everything they did was beautiful, and they collaborated on everything, and shared a studio together.

Shay: We are huge readers, and I have to get these in! Favorite non-design books are Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger and The God of All Things by Arundhati Roy.

Recommended design / thinking / illustration book(s):
Oh gosh. We could write this whole interview on books we recommend. But here are a few that have inspired us.

1. Charlie Harper by Todd Oldham. We are compared to Charlie Harper a lot. He was a painter and illustrator, and is best known for his screen prints of birds. We are so inspired by him, and we love to design birds as he did. But we are very careful not to step on his legacy – we try to mix our styles and although we are enamored with him, we don’t want to plagiarize him.

2. The Complete Calvin & Hobbes by Bill Watterson. Not just because of my cartooning background (Jeff), I am hugely influenced by Mr. Watterson’s ability to draw anything, anything at all, with a simple twirl of ink from a brush. The next time you see a Calvin & Hobbes book, take a closer look at all of the background and environment, the trees, snow, cars, landscapes. Gorgeous, and they communicate so much information with so little ink and (seemingly) effort.

3. A Hearbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers. If you don’t know Dave Eggers, please do. He’s the Editor of McSweeney’s, and an uber-talented writer (novels and screenplays). This is his memoir of raising his brother after the death of his parents, and trying to start a magazine and get his career off the ground at the same time. We have two kids, and we’re trying to grow our studio day by day.

1. What made you decide to start bee things?
We love collecting books and ephemera. I (Jeff) would always tease Shay (whose nickname is “bee”) for collecting things and constantly rearranging and styling the house – I would come home from work and there would be a new something, and I would say “there’s another bee thing”. That’s where the name came from. We have always been creative, makers of thing, and we really never turn that off. Once we were married, we wanted to do something together, but we never knew what exactly that would be. When Shay was pregnant with our first son, I would make her a snack bag every day to take to work, and draw birds or bugs or whatever on them everyday, and people would comment on them and say “you should make those and sell them!”, and that sort of started it. Our house had custom-built shed in the back, and we converted it into a little screen printing studio without really knowing 100% if we would like it, but luckily, we loved it. We started printing illustrations on snack bags (we still do), and as we got better at it we started making art prints and other things. We feel so lucky in in life, and feel fortunate to have work coming our way and two healthy kiddos, we wanted our work to be happy, and we wanted to make things that we love to share our happy.

2. What’s your process for conceiving new designs/illustrations?
Being a husband and wife, we have a great advantage in that we can talk and bat ideas around anytime. One of us will have an idea while we’re brushing our teeth, and we’ll talk about it and go sketch it down. I (Jeff) can’t tell you how many ideas I’ve lost over the years because I didn’t have someone to bounce it off of or sketched it down. We work well that way. But as far as our process goes, we always sketch out ideas first to hammer out the big picture, and get the design far along on paper (it saves so much time to ideate that way) before we get on the computer. Then Jeff usually does the actual illustration, and then we talk about it back and fourth and get it to where we both are happy with it.Then we print it, but that’s a whole other article.

3. What do you regret not learning while you were in school?
We both wish we had taken more printmaking classes, now that that’s what we’re doing. We’ve had to learn as we go, trial and error. I’m sure there are probably better ways to do some of the things we’re doing, but we’re doing what works for us.

4. What’s your most valuable ability? i.e. conceptualization, hand/computer skills, etc.
Jeff: Shay is amazing at color theory and art direction, knowing what people will like. She takes the renderings of the prints I do and really knows how to hone them, soften them, make them really appealing. She has this amazing ability to read the trends and know what people will like.

Shay: Jeff is very conceptual, a very smart thinker, and a gifted illustrator – had this crazy ability to take a complex thing and make it into its most simple graphic form. I hate him sometimes. And he can also interpret and illustrate in a lot of different ways. He can take the same bird, for example, and make it graphic, or hand drawn, or cartoony, or textured, or collage, or cut paper. All of our prints are a mix of styles but feel like they came from the same happy place.

5. What is the most exciting aspect of the art/design world right now?
It’s an exciting time right now. There’s a handmade revolution, an illustration revival going on right now. The 90s and early 00s were all about Photoshop and 3-D rendering, slick and glossy. Look at movie posters and ads – all slick effects. There’s a backlash against that, which happens with any trend. We’re noticing a lot of movie posters and tv ads that use illustration. It’s really refreshing and wonderful to see. It opens everyone up to doing more of that, and the general visual landscape is far more rich for it.

6. If you could move anywhere right now, in consideration of the art/design scene, where would you go?
London. We love London. The whole city is well designed, down to the public transportation, the posters, the museum exhibits, everything.

7. What’s your daily routine?
That’s the best part about what we do: we don’t have one. Every day is different. We may draw one day, print the next, pick at the website (new one coming soon!), or read. And we don’t mean to make it sound like everything is wonderfully fun all of the time, we do billing and figure out wholesale prices and do production. And because we’re still growing bee things, we still have our day jobs (Jeff runs his own studio, BarfootWorldwide, and I (Shay) am a Senior Art Director at Fossil, and oversee the catalogue group).

8. What’s the best advice anyone has ever given you, regarding design or otherwise?
We are constantly looking, always have our eyes always open for things that might inspire us. We’ve really made being creative our lifestyle, not just our jobs, so we never really turn it off. It’s like being a writer or comedian in that way – if you shut off your brain while you’re not actually writing, you miss all kinds of input and things that would trigger ideas or jokes.

9. In illustration/design, do you think is it more important to have a very distinct and solid style or have more of a range of styles?
Both. We really strive to have a range of styles but with consistent feel to everything. We want our work to have enough variety so that it’s interesting for someone to see everything we do and not get tired after seeing a few images, but they can’t be so different that they don’t feel like “us” anymore. We try to explore and experiment, but stay true to our “brand” or flavor of work.

10. Who would you call a mentor / attribute as the inspiration in how you work / do things?
Each other.

See more work and goodies at www.bee-things.com.

Where you first worked (in design / illustration, etc):
My first real design job was at Planet Propaganda after I finished school; Melissa was the designer for the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine & Public Health, Department of Surgery (a job I was always jealous of). Both of these answers are really cheating, though, because we’d already been doing Little Friends for a few years at that point and were somewhat known already. So I guess Little Friends was really our first design job.

Favorite book ever (design or non-design related):
I like One Hundred Years of Solitude by Marquez, Melissa prefers Wonderland by Oates.

Recommended design / thinking / illustration book(s):
The Archigram monograph, or 100 B&W Illustrations by Raymond Biesinger

1. What made you decide to become designers/illustrators/printmakers?
It’s easy to see the benefit of printmaking– Just the idea of making multiples has so much practical and conceptual appeal; plus there are all sorts of process-oriented rabbit holes to explore. You could spend your whole life making prints without having to repeat yourself. Moving into design & illustration was a natural outcropping of what we were doing with our prints. We were already trying to do something with a conceptual underpinning, something that went beyond being decorative or formalistic, and at that point you’re already halfway towards illustration anyway. Illustration & design just became another venue for our “unique” set of problem-solving skills.

2. What’s your process for conceiving new designs/illustrations?
We let the subject matter guide us to a large degree. We research. There’s a lot of staring into space involved. We’ll spend a good three hours hashing out the particulars of the design problem between the two of us, usually in the form of very petulant complaining. It’s a good thing no one else is around to hear it.

3. What do you regret not learning while you were in school?
Maybe some CompSci stuff. If we had some leet developer skillz, our game would be so much tighter.

4. What’s your most valuable ability? i.e. conceptualization, hand/computer skills, etc.
It’s conceptualization. The quality of your ideas is the one thing that defines you as an artist or a designer– because after a certain point, we’re all talented, and you can’t count on luck. So you have to develop a process of conceptualization that works. Whether it’s design literacy & connoisseurship, or finding a partner that challenges you, or looking at what everybody else is doing and just running the other way– whatever, just do it.

5. What is the most exciting aspect of the art/design world right now?
The internet, because you can try anything.

6. If you could move anywhere right now, in consideration of the art/design scene, where would you go?
We were looking at Portland, Oregon recently, thinking about a moving there within the next few years. A lot of artists and designers we know live there, and it would be fun to be a part of a community of our peers instead of a couple of hermits. That’s the boring, realistic answer. The fun answer would be Mexico City or Berlin, or both, using some kind of not-yet-invented spatial displacement technology that would allow us to have a chicharron in one hand and a pretzel in the other, looking at two art openings, one with each eye.

7. What’s your daily routine?
We get up at 10am, take calls and check e-mails, eat breakfast, play with the cats, and then start working, with intermittent food and internet breaks… Then ten or eleven hours later we watch TV and go to bed. You may have noticed that none of the stuff on that list took place outside the confines of our house. So, yeah. Non-stop excitement.

8. What’s the best advice anyone has ever given you, regarding design or otherwise?
Take lots of breaks.

9. In illustration/design, do you think is it more important to have a very distinct and solid style or have more of a range of styles?
Having a distinct style and honing it and developing it has been our approach. It’s important to us. Of course, we come from a fine art background, where the notion of authorship carries more weight; In graphic design, there’s a prevailing notion of “whatever works best, works best.” It’s hard to argue with that, so there is a certain validity to being able to fake a bunch of different people’s styles, although if you ever meet those people in person they might give you the stink-eye (or worse).

10. Who would you call a mentor / attribute as the inspiration in how you work / do things?
We don’t have a mentor, but we would like one. We’re currently mentor-deficient. If there’s an older, famous designer out there that wants to be best buds with us and provide us with sage advice, we are currently accepting applications. Visually, we’re inspired by little details and arcana. I could spend an hour looking at the stitching on a hockey sweater or a web page that just shows bus stop signs from different cities; Just give me something to look at. And the person who most inspired us when we were first figuring things out was Geoff Mcfetridge. The thing that really impressed us was the wide variety of kinds of work he did. He’s sort of a design omnivore, and that’s been a model for our approach to design.

Visit the Little Friends of Printmaking website here.