I was checking out the Master of Design website of Toronto’s York University yesterday and found myself excited about a handful of pieces in their gallery—which mostly belonged to Brian Banton. His website says:
workspace of Sean Auyeung and Anna Corpron, the husband-wife duo known as Sub-Studio from NYC.
I’ve looked through The Strange Attractor’s Creative Couple series a little while back, but just came across Design Love at the blog of idsgn recently. TSA’s series started in November of ‘09 and their last post was in July. They conducted interviews with “creative couples” (designers, artists, illustrators, musicians, etc.) to chat about their work, space, challenges and benefits of working with someone they love. Head over to each interview to read them in their entirety and see accompanying photos, but here’s a couple snippets from the interviews:
From Caleb Beyers and Hanahlie Beise: What are the benefits of living/working together? C: We’re never really “off the clock” there are no arguments that start with “you’ve just been working too much.” We do go through periods that make us realize how important it is to take breaks, and to make time for each other.
H: The disadvantage would be that we are functioning as a couple and as business partners. It’s hard to be critical of your partner (couple) and take criticism. We have to break down the emotional barriers and comfort zones that most couples face.
And from Melissa & JW Buchanan from The Little Friends of Printmaking: We’re a team. And I feel like our relationship is stronger for having worked together so much. Sometimes I think about the hours I have to work and the sacrifices I have to make to complete our projects, and I can’t imagine how I would explain or justify that to someone who wasn’t as invested in the process as Melissa.
From Anna Wolf and Mike Perry: What’s it like working with your better half? A: Amazing. We work really well together. We do travel a lot so that we have our space… and when we’re in the studio together, we go for hours without talking. We just get into our thing and don’t come out of it until the day is over.
M: We both trust each other and believe in each other’s work. But its great because at the same time Anna loves telling me that something of mine sucks. We keep it open and honest. That said we don’t do that many projects together.
What are the best and worst parts of living and working together?
We are very fortunate that we work so well together and that we are able to spend so much time together each day. In some ways the traditional business/life structure seems backwards—spending 8-10 hours a day with people you may or may not get along with, while spending the margins of your life with loved ones.
We like that design is a forgiving profession when it comes to combining work/life balance. We know plenty of people who have maintained a design practice while raising kids at home. Technology has made this more possible, but there is something too about the nature of the work that allows for this flexibility. With our schedule we have the luxury to cook our meals, run errands easily or fit in exercise.
(…) A downside to our situation is that the exchange with people at an office can also be very inspiring—all the different personalities and experiences in one place converging. We find now that we get a lot of this inspiration from our client relationships. Another downside is that weekends and evenings are no longer sacred. We find ourselves working a lot.
And a couple others…
From Jake and Pum Lefebure of Design Army:Anyone who’s looking for balancing work and life is probably not truly enjoying what they do. I ‘integrate’ work to life and make it fun.
At its core, Miller sees graphic design as a medium based on the exchange of ideas. “What defines design is that it’s not private—it’s always social. It’s you, your presumed audience, your immediate design team, your client, and then the general public.” While there are ample opportunities in a project to make formal decisions and address issue of style—the “designy” parts of the design—they are always second to an expression of his subject matter, the meaning he is attempting to convey, and the overall intent of a given project. “My worst experience with a book or exhibition is when someone comes to me and says, ‘I’ve got it all figured out. I just need you to do this.’ It’s kind of like someone just ate all the food, and you’re there to do the dishes.”
The University of Illinois senior design show, Rendezvous, is this weekend at the Co-Prosperity Sphere in Chicago. This is the first year they’ve combined both graduating seniors in graphic design with the industrial design class.
As so many designers complain about their clients endlessly, it is refreshing to hear fancy-pants designer Michael Bierut give the industry a little pep talk on this topic as part of CreativeMornings (back from January!). Clients don’t suck the life out of every project, really. And if you find that they are, it’s your responsibility as a designer—and as a human being who wants to be happy—to change the work you’re doing and who you’re doing it for.
A lot of what he says is actually quite obvious, yet funny enough, we do need to be reminded. Here are a couple of his snippets:
“My work is so much better when I’m interested in what the client is interested in.”
“Clients run the same gamut—as human beings do—some of them are really smart and really nice and bad clients. Some of them are assholes and can be good clients.”
“The best clients love design, or don’t give a damn about it. The worst kind are the in-between people who care about design enough just to worry about it and then drive you crazy.”
“I never talk about ‘educating the client.’ I hate that phrase.”
“Tibor Kalman said you can never go wrong if you hire someone/work with someone smarter than you.”
“Bad clients take up more of our time than they should.”
He goes on to name some of his favorite clients and says, “these people are why you’ve heard of me.”
CreativeMornings is a monthly morning gathering of creative types organized by Tina Roth Eisenberg a.k.a swissmiss (swiss-miss.com).
So these were posted on swissmiss over a week ago. Since then, I’ve seen them around a couple more times on a couple more blogs (cool points go out to people noticing this before the swissmiss post). And since I’ve peeked them more than once myself in the past 10 days, I thought I might as well just post a few of the ones I’ve been drooling over. I’m talking about the Triboro Leftovers:
Triboro Leftovers is a compilation of unpublished type treatments, photos, sketches, illustrations and logo explorations that we have created over the years. Rather than allow these to remain lost on our hard drives we decided to set them free. We mashed together elements from hundreds of different projects—and in the process—deliberately stripped the elements of their original context and meaning. The results are visual remixes which stand on their own.
I love the new fictional and fantastic context so much. I wonder if Triboro’s clients would be able to pick out which detached elements/experiments were for their own projects. Ah, the designer’s graveyard is always, and inevitably, quite full, isn’t it?
Aaaand the boy had just gotten me this pretty little (big) book of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Other Stories, complete with gold-edged pages.
Yay! Ever since I heard Tim Burton was doing another Alice in Wonderland, I’ve been pretty excited (it comes out in March!). But my all time favorite version of AiW has been the 1985 version (watch the clip when Alice shows the court what’s what) I saw on television years and years and years ago. We taped it off the tv which meant we got to watch Teddy Ruxpin commercials for many years to come. We’ll see if Burton’s beats that. And until then… where have I put my drawin’ pens?
Recently worked with Robert at the Metropolitan Tenants Organization in Chicago to produce a poster + fliers for their upcoming fundraising event. Mark it in your cally and head over to Simone’s if you’re in the area!
Mercurio Brothers in Berkeley, California offers extremely competitive prices for letterpress printing. They have a super handy quote form on their website that will give you the number immediately—which is great for us non-patient people. I ordered some samples last week (for $5) and received them yesterday. Really nice work. They offer a handy FAQ page which is helpful info even if you don’t use them. MB also got great reviews on Yelp, where a reviewer advises to accompany your online requests with a phone call in order to receive the best service (which is good advice for anywhere). I for one am looking forward to some new business cards in my future…
I’ve been going through all of my bookmarks the past few days and doing a much needed process of organizing, categorizing, tagging and trashing. I forgot I had so many good resources of inspiration in here! Thought I’d share some of the lovely stuff I’ve rediscovered.
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