Tell us a bit about your background, and the disciplines and media your work comprises. Like most kids, I started drawing and painting around the age of four or five. I can remember building and painting clay dinosaur sculptures in the 2nd grade with my classmates; handprint paintings were one of my favorites. Later in the 5th grade, I graduated to drawings of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle characters. I was skateboarding a lot more those days- my dad taught me how to skateboard. I grew up in the small town of La Verne just east of Los Angeles, one of those perfectly groomed suburban neighborhoods. My High school art teacher and parents were always very supportive of my interests, and I had a lot of friends who enjoyed drawing and painting. My high school art teacher pushed me creatively and technically; he urged me to follow my art interests and to pursue studies at an art college.

I eventually studied art and design at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA. I learned a lot about image making and met a lot of really amazing instructors and artists over the next three years. While attending art school, I met Justin Krietemyer. We immediately worked well with each other, and before we knew it, we were working on commissioned assignments, art shows and websites together. It made sense for Justin and I to keep working together on projects, so upon graduation we decided to launch National Forest, a design firm that would exploit our individual talents and our collaborative chemistry. Over the last three years we’ve completed projects for traditional print campaigns, advertising, product design, interior design, art direction and web design.

Aside from National Forest we still find time to work on printmaking and personal art projects. I am constantly trying to find that impossible balance between making personal artwork and client driven work.

What kind of messages do you infuse in your personal work beyond visual interest? Beyond visual interests, I enjoy creating objects that other human beings can relate to- not quite nostalgic, but closer to a personal photograph or memory. I’ve always felt a stronger connection to tangible, printed objects, so that’s what I like to make. Most of the ideas for my personal works are created from past experiences and childhood memories. But I prefer creative freedom in my personal work so the concepts and ideas are different from piece to piece. I feel like my process is very intuitive, so many of the meanings or messages are often revealed after the piece is created.

When creating personal works, I like to keep most of my ideas fairly subtle or ambiguous; I think it’s important to let the viewer make their own assumptions about messages and meanings within a body of work. Another person’s interpretation, according to his or her own experiences, is very interesting and significant to me.

Would you share some artists, authors, movements, places, ideas that you’ve found influential? I just recently took a three-week trip with my brother to Japan and Thailand. I couldn’t believe what we experienced in that short of time. I am so used to working and living in Los Angeles that the entire experience became a genuine culture shock. Transportation alone was extremely different: elephant back, tuk tuk, long boat, speedboat, train, plane, etc. Both Japan and The Kingdom of Thailand are absolutely beautiful countries to say the least, and there is something very inspiring about interacting with a culture on the opposite side of the planet. Japanese printmaking and Asian art have always been of serious interest to me; while in Japan, I discovered a brilliant artisan by the name of Kiyoshi Awazu. I also very much enjoy the complete works of Mr. Tadanori Yokoo.

Although I appreciate many different artists, movements, etc, I always seem to fall back on the timeless- John Steinbeck, Ed Emberly, Paul Rand, Ken Kesey, Neil Young, Little Brown and Company, Saul Steinberg, Bruno Munari, The Eames. To me these artists and their art bridge time.

Can you let us know what you’re working on currently? I am currently finishing up a series of concert posters for the “Be The Riottt” music festival in San Francisco, working on several t-shirt graphics and one all-over pattern design for “Sixpack France.” I’m also working on a couple of artist series T-shirt graphics for Stones Throw Records, a limited-run letterpress print produced by DWRI Letterpress and concepting for a 3-D art/object/wooden/toy/thing with Android8. Justin and I are curating a 12 man poster print show, and working on several new poster prints along with re-printing a couple of older ones. I just finished the artwork for my “Threadless select” t-shirt graphic that is due out anytime now, finished a board series for Burton a while back that’s out this winter, and my contribution to Faesthetic just dropped. I am painting on some wooden objects at home for the hell of it, trying to learn how to cook a little better this month, trying to ride my bicycle more often and buying a drum set for the 3rd time. I’m also adding learning Spanish to my “to-do list”…

About Steven Harrington

Steven Harrington lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. Aside from owning and operating National Forest Design with fellow artist Justin Krietemeyer, he still finds time to work on both commissioned and self-inspired art projects of his own. Influenced by images, fashion and graphics discovered in Time Life Encyclopedias from 1965-1972, thrift stores, and The Moody Blues, his art might be termed contextual objectivism. That is, he views each piece he creates as a tangible object that is part and parcel of a larger context; the object helps define the context and the context helps define the object. Whatever feel or meaning the observer takes away from the piece belongs to the observer. Nothing is shoved down his or her throat. Discovery is the key. Some of his most recent projects include a four board series for Burton snowboards, contributions to the French clothing line Sixpack, and a series of silkscreen prints based on the idea of “community.” He has exhibited work in Los Angeles, New York, Dallas, San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia, Montreal, Tokyo, Melbourne and Barcelona.

Did you have any reservations about publishing the monograph so early in your careers? What did you learn during the process of putting it together? We didn’t have many reservations about making the book. Who wouldn’t like to make a whole book about your own work? And when the publisher basically gave us no restrictions, it was too good of an offer to refuse. Since none of us had actually started our professional career as designers when the book came out, it felt kind of strange. Releasing a monograph is usually something you do at the end, and not the beginning of a career. One problem of releasing a book so early on, might be that people very soon will try to label you as one type of designer, and that clients come to you because they want you to do one sort of design. If you’re not aware of this you might easily end up doing the same things for the rest of your life. We talked a lot about this while designing it – Trying to push the work in as many diverse directions as we possibly could, and at the same time push it in a direction that we would like to explore.Making the book was also probably the best job we could ever get. The projects we had done earlier on were not at all of this size. Of course we learned a bit about production and got some experience in doing a larger typographical job. More importantly, we learned about editing ourselves, writing about what we do and putting our work into context. We actually designed the book twice. The first time the book didn’t include that much text, but that didn’t feel right. The book didn’t say anything about the context of the work or reflect the environment of Metronomicon Audio – It just felt like a range of random images that didn’t have anything important to say. When the publisher told us they would like to put the release on hold for six months we decided to start all over again. That was a valuable experience.

What have you been up to since the release of Yokoland? It’s now been about 6 months since the release of the book. At the time it was released we had just finished college, we didn’t have a studio and most of the projects we had been doing were projects we had started ourselves. Since then we’ve been fixing our new studio, had a couple of exhibitions, designed a few of record sleeves for Metronomicon Audio, tried to get enough work to pay our rent and for the first time in years had a one month vacation. So far a lot of our time has been spent on work of a more boring character. Like administration, answering phone calls and e-mails, going to meetings and getting a grip of the economical part of the job. None of us knew that it was so much boring work connected with this job. A former teacher of Aslak told us that he had read an interview with the designer Morag Myerscough where she said that she answered phone calls all day, and when her clients went home she started designing. It has felt a bit like that sometimes. And it’s probably not going to be any less phone calls in the future.

What effect has the attention had on your progress? So far it doesn’t feel like we’ve gotten that much attention. We’ve done a few interviews and some students have been e-mailing us about internships, but that’s basically it. But of course it feels a bit scary to experiment in new and unknown areas when we’re not the only one to see the final result anymore.

How has your involvement with Metronomicon Audio and music in general affected your art and design efforts?Our interest in art and design started with an interest in music. As teenagers we couldn’t really relate to the art we were shown in art classes at school – It was either old art that had little or nothing to do with us, or it was contemporary art that didn’t speak to us at all. We were interested in other things like music, records, books, music videos, film and graffiti. And it was the interest in these things that brought us into art and design.We started working with Metronomicon Audio about five years ago now, and the label has definitely played an important role in our development as designers. From running the label and working with the musicians we’ve learned how to organize our studio, deal with clients, and to collaborate – not only with each other, but also with clients. But the most important thing we’ve learned is to be open for new inspiration from every possible place, and not to be afraid of failing. In this way Metronomicon Audio has definitely been important. We’ve also got a form of freedom in the work with Metronomicon Audio, that you rarely find elsewhere. That’s probably something we can bring into other jobs. When that’s said, the work for Metronomicon Audio tends to be quite different from other jobs we do. Even though we try to put a lot of ourselves into every project we do, different jobs always call for different solutions.

What has influenced your practice and how do you see yourselves inspiring others? There are a lot of things that have influenced us through the years, so that list could be a mile long. As we’ve said the work for Metronomicon Audio has been of major importance, since this has been a place for us to find our own graphic voice. In the same way, the exhibitions that we’ve done the last year or two has taken us in a slightly different direction. One the people that has influenced us the most is Norwegian artist, designer, musician and filmmaker Kim Hiorthøy. He has kind of been like a mentor for us and from him we have learned that it’s not impossible to work in different fields simultaneously. We’re also huge admirers of the work of filmmaker Michel Gondry, as well as work of filmmakers like Mike Mills, Spike Jonze and Geoff McFetridge. There are also a lot of other contemporary designers, artists, filmmakers and musicians that have influenced us. And then there are a lot of historic periods that have influenced us. Just think of all the interesting periods in the history of art, how much interesting music that exists, and how many good movies that have been made, not to mention all the good stuff that’s out there that we still haven’t seen. In this way, we hope to be an inspiring little secret for other people to discover.

About Yokoland

Young Norwegian designers Aslak Gurholt Rønsen and Espen Friberg, who have been collaborating on projects since they met in high school at the age of 16, inhabit Yokoland. Together they create design, illustration and art that are idyllic, humorous and poetic without ever being mawkish some of which has been featured in Hidden Track. Being one of the most inventive design studios of today, Yokoland skillfully blends their Scandinavian approach to design into their work melding elegant humor and human touch, exploring new ways of creating graphic design solutions to stunning effect.

In a previous publication you stated: “Amidst the attention given to the sciences as how they can lead to the cure of all diseases and daily problems of mankind, I believe that the biggest breakthrough will be the realization that the arts, which are conventionally considered ‘useless,’ will be recognized as the whole reason why we ever try to live longer or live more prosperously. The arts are the science of enjoying life.”

How specifically do you think art can be presented to the common person as a part of their life rather than merely a part of museums? Can you give any examples in the visual arts that help illustrate this statement? This is an area that my new group the Physical Language Workshop is currently working on. Our hypothesis is that by re-architecting some common web technologies, we can provide a new kind of distributed creative supply/demand that has not yet existed. Different levels of artistic expression will have varying levels of associated value. Average art can have an average value, and can be a new kind of creative currency.

Today most people see art as a way to visually express ideas and feelings. Are you implying that art can be functionally useful to the general public? Do you think one day society will accept art as a science because technology has become a new form of art? I think creativity is an important untapped resource in our society. Currently, only the “most creative” get to be creative. I think that it is a shame. The general public needs a means of exercising their creativity in order to discover some kind of tangible benefit from it (beyond the mere joy of exercising the freedom to be creative).

Technology hasn’t given birth to a new form of art; people using technology have given birth to a form of art that is perhaps new. The biggest question is no longer, “Is it new?” The biggest question now is, “Is it any good?”

What is the benefit of teaching creativity and art? In every in-flight magazine there is a piece of wisdom. Today I flew to NY and there was an article in the in-flight magazine on proverbs. It said there is a Japanese proverb, “To teach is to learn.” Is there no greater benefit in life (besides family) than learning? I am currently enrolled in an MBA course, which has very low creativity, but I am learning new things everyday. So it isn’t just about creativity and art. It is the experience of enrichment through learning as learning, or learning through teaching. To work the “exploration muscle” in your brain is a worthy way of life.

As a teacher, how do you judge “good technology” when there seem to be so many aspects to consider? What aspects or traits of technology do you consider to have value? Good technology is always best when it is not the major issue of discussing a technology-based experience. When it is invisible, and simply the source of the magic of it all, it is best. I have heard this said similarly many times before by many people, but I feel that it is usually said from the perspective of someone who knows very little about the technology under discussion. It is convenient to discuss the technology as “getting in the way.” In the way of what? Oftentimes it stands in the way of a thin idea. Why is the idea thin? Because technology demands you to treasure it — to do what you can because something new is possible. Technology craves attention, and we feed its insecurities. In the process of serving technology, we often forget why we were doing something in the first place. Such a process inevitably gets you in trouble because the all-consuming attention given to the technology leads you to an arrival point with very little conceptual strength. One must always seek balance by acknowledging the infinite hunger of new technologies (for more technology).

What links are there between design and technology? Design can aid technology, but many producers of technology don’t seem to value design. Why have you chosen to unite the two? I chose to unite design and technology because it was relevant for me to do so at the time. But I do not think it necessary for anyone else starting out. Everyone is different and valuable. My value came from the mix of those two things.

You talk a lot about Paul Rand. What is it about his design work or his approach to design that fascinate you? What objective or insight did he give you “to aspire forever?” The humility and the confidence in Paul Rand, the person I met, continue to inspire me. He had a wonderful balance of strength and weaknesses that was very human, but also superhuman. At 82, maybe that is a natural state of being.

Is your work more a process of discovery or the application of a consistent methodology? Do you work for personal satisfaction or for solving larger problems? I find my work to be a constant process of discovery and failure. In only the rarest of moments do I see any success. And I know from experience that success can be fleeting, so I do try to find pride in my many failures whenever possible.

What do you consider a failure? A failure, technically speaking, is something that turns out in a way you didn’t expect or hope. A real failure is when you don’t have enough talent to take that unexpected twist and ride it into something better than when you first started.

What is your interest in typography? I have no real interest in typography today. I used to be part of the cigarette-smoking, chummy Swiss cult in Tokyo but I broke free.

How are typography and technology currently connected? The connection between typography and technology is the same connection that everything has to technology today. Everything is (unfortunately) connected to technology today.

Do you think this new generation of technology will lead to some groundbreaking shifts in the way we communicate? No.

How do you describe your profession to people? I call myself a person that aspires to think creatively. I’ve managed to turn that into a profession as a professional professor. I lucked out.

What other professions would you like to practice? Currently I’m getting an MBA. After that I plan go to cooking school. So maybe I want to be a chef in the future.

About John Maeda

John Maeda is a world-renowned graphic designer, visual artist, and computer scientist at the MIT Media Lab, and is a founding voice for “simplicity” in the digital age.

We haven’t talked to you in awhile, so we are really curious, what are you working on these days? Where are you based now? I have been living in Amsterdam for 3 years now. After living 4 years in Milan I decided that it was time to move. An advertising agency called Wieden+Kennedy offered me a job as an art director at their agency in Amsterdam. I decided to accept the offer and to move to Amsterdam, which I had been before and I really liked it. Now I love it!

I had 2 great years in Wieden+Kennedy. It was like an intensive course. In May of last year I decided to quit that job and to focus more on my works and production. The stars had the right alignment to make it happen.

I decided to open a studio/shop. That way I was not forced all day to be the in studio alone, but instead always having people around. It really helps me to work. And since I am fully supporting my own self production, I am able to create a place where other creatives can show their works and hopefully sell them. Then I am fully on my little child Aiko.

What are your goals that you have for the studio and shop in the upcoming year (2007)? For me it is already amazing that I have my own place. Coming here in the morning and opening the door feels so good, it is incredible. I opened Hanazuki with a girl from Amsterdam, her name is Hanneke. She is a really tough girl with lots and lots of energy and passion in what she does. Together we had in mind the same idea and felt the same urge to create. With Hanazuki we want to focus on creativity, on inspiring people to act and create. Having an open space for people to visit and stay is a great starting point. We already have people coming in asking if they can use the sewing machine, if they can make their own puppets, if they can print and so on. This means that we have started on the right path, they feel this is a creative place and when they leave from here they go home wondering with a smile on their face. I just hope I can keep this alive.

With all the focus and energy into Hanazuki, are you still working for clients? Or you have gone the path of customers instead of clients? Most of our income still comes from commercial works. We do not dislike it. Now we just have the luck to be able to choose what projects to work on. Kind of choosing the best project that fits us. In this way our personal and commercial works merge more. This is a result from 9 years of hard work. I have been working all over and for a lot of different clients and agencies. This gave me the opportunity to meet a lot of great people that I now share projects with. The studio right now is producing works for Nokia, Electronic Arts, MTV Network, Katapult Records. I don’t know if I am ever going to quit doing work for clients. Sometimes it can be very frustrating, but other times if you are lucky and find the right project, then it is just great. Like everything it goes up and down. I think I will keep working for clients as long as they keep calling me.

We are not sure if many people know your client work as much as your personal artwork. Is your commercial work a totally different realm of execution, or are you applying your characters and little stories into your clients projects as well? It really depends on the project or client. I started as a designer in Milan, so I was used to trying to find visual solutions to follow the brief given by the client. This means that I had o adapt and find different styles to execute the concept. Sometimes clients ask me to go free and follow my own style. Other times I am ask me to adapt my style. But in the back of my mind I always work using the same mindset and attitude. Visually the project can differ but conceptually they have a lot in common. The little characters and stories are mine. I don’t know if I am ever going to give them to someone for advertising purposes. I really don’t think so.

Your have lived all over Europe, Italy being one of them. How has the move from Italy to Amsterdam affected you and your work? Amsterdam is a place that one can easily get side tracked, have you been able to still keep the same work ethic and focus? Since I was born, I have been on the move. I always lived each movement like stages in my life. I can associate feeling and emotions to different places in the world. Amsterdam is just the stage in which I am right now. I don’t know where I am going to be next. Maybe I stop, maybe I keep going? I love to discover places and people; Amsterdam is such a mix of culture that I fell completely in love with it. It is a small town so it is easy to move around and meet friends. At the same time it is a “place to visit” for millions of people from all over. I never liked the way of working in Italy, you have to know the right people, get introduced, act cool, etc. Here it is more natural, people appreciate more talents and there is generally more respect in what someone can do. It is more rewarding. I have been sidetracked all my life, I was more than ready to move here and be in control of my action, ethic, etc. Even though sometimes I sleep out of track, but that is just cool.

Do you like Yogurt? If so what flavor? I love it! I like the pure one with honey and nuts. Like the one they make in Greece. Uff so gooooood!

About Niko Stumpo

Niko Stumpo was born in Drammen, Norway. He grew up in the ice lands of Norway, and at the age 6 he moved to Italy, and began vigorously skateboarding. During many years, skateboarding became his life. He had become a sponsored skater and toured around Europe with his sponsors. The fun stopped when he had a severe injury, and was forced to change his career to another focus, which led to “art.” He had finished High School in the field of art, and later enrolled in a Fine Art Academy, however never completed the actual course. Even though, he had a great passion in art and could see the great potential of it – through his own creativity. Instead of continuing school, he became fascinated with Web design, and one of his early inspirations on the World Wide Web was an animated butterfly on the first edition, “The Remedi Project.” Since then, he has contributed to “The Remedi Project;” he has worked as a creative director at a major design agency in Milan, Italy,then he started freelancing for different companies, then as an art director for Wieden+Kennedy in Amsterdam, now he runs his own companies called HANAZUKI and Aiko focusing more on artistic projects and creations of events.His artwork has been exhibited in places such as the Biennial of Tirana and Valencia, the World Wide Web Exhibition in Sao Paolo, Brazil, the George Pompidou in Paris, the Riviera Gallery in Brooklin Ny, The MACBA in Barcelona, in the Bomuldsfabriken in Norway, the 55Diesel store in Milan, Palazzo Fortuny in Venice, the 451F gallery in Amsterdam, The MONTANA gallery In Barcelona etc. His works include clients such as MTVitaly, MTVfrance, MTV USA, Electronic Arts , Sony PS2, Nike, 55Dsl, Lexus, Condé Nast, MandarinaDuck, Capcomm, Powerade, Heineken, Goretex, Vodafone, E3,Thomas Cook, Nokia.

You state that you are not concerned about style. You have really developed a styled language that you use for your work in the past two or so years. Do you feel any pressure to do work within that style ever? Style doesn’t come first. When I start working on something, I don’t think ‘oh I should try to use rounded shapes with this color etc.’, I just experiment different things, different tools (photography, vectors, drawing) and I see what happens. That’s why I don’t feel any pressure of any kind. In the future I would like to learn a 3D software, to use more drawing, to mix more and more techniques.

What has been your favorite project and why? I liked working on “L’Arbre Genialogique,” a comic book I made last year. It wasn’t the first time I created characters, but it was the first time I gave them a personality and feelings. And I must say that was magic, because I had so much fun while I was writing and drawing the story. It’s obviously a very different feeling when I’m doing graphic design. When I started it, I didn’t have a clue about if I was able to find a good story, and after a couple a pages, I got the idea. For each page I tried to come up with something surprising, funny.

What keeps you going and motivated from project to project? Trying to get the extra little thing that makes an image a little bit different from what I’ve done before. I want to surprise myself and to have some fun. The best way to get surprised is to mix techniques, for example, illustration and photography. Since any image ends up on a computer, of course, the temptation is strong to mix different tools. The frontier between illustration, typography and photography is melting more and more. Typography can be treated like photo, I can add a drawing on the photo, it’s 100% freedom. It’s getting very interesting now and it’s very easy. But it’s not new. When one sees an issue of the American magazine Fortune from the 1950′s, there were some fantastic spreads with a mix of graphics and photography, it’s very spectacular, especially because at that time they didn’t have any tools to visualize the final result.

If you could stop doing client work, would you? Or do you find client work is necessary both creatively and finically? I think client work is necessary for me because most of the time I’m obliged to make things that I wouldn’t have made and it’s a good way to learn new skills or new ways of seeing. I guess it’s because I’m also a graphic designer, I’m used to dealing with the client’s wishes. But of course it’s important to work with the right clients, and it’s not so easy to find the right ones.

What projects are you currently working on? Some illustrations for commercials. When I’m finished, I want to make an experimental video with Pleix and my second comic book.

Do you have any hobbies? Paintball, parachute jumping, bunji jumping, sky diving, boxing. No seriously, I spend my free time with friends, traveling and meditating. I also enjoy TV, movies, exhibitions and bookshops.

Have you ever shopped for reptiles? Actually yes! It was a long time ago, at a flea market I found a stuffed lizard, 50 cm length, some legs were broken, so I decided to customize it, to replace the missing parts with metallic or plastic elements and to add a kind of engine on his back. I painted the whole thing in grey. The final result is interesting, it’s like a Robocop lizard.

About Genevieve Gauckler 

Born in 1967 in Lyon, France. Graduated the ENSAD (Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs) in 1991 in Paris.

Geneviève Gauckler is a Paris based artist who creates numerous lovable characters, blends them into everyday life scenes and turns the fantastical world into reality with her magical power. She has an evident taste for simple, colorful shapes. She’s into everything and constantly amazed, handling and creating images and shapes with dexterity and innocence. Geneviève Gauckler can look back on broad experience in the field of graphic design, illustration and art direction.

Starting with french record label F Communications (Laurent Garnier, St Germain) she later worked with directors Kuntzel & Deygas on promos for Dimitri from Paris, Pierre Henry and Sparks, as well as commercials (e.g. Yves Saint Laurent’s Live Jazz), tittles for French/German cultural TV-channel Arte and some short movies. She has also art-directed the franco-nippon fanzine « Minimix ». In 1999, she was hired by the Internet company boo.com to create their online fashion magazine. While in London, she worked for the design agency Me Company, developing a number of projects for the web.

Since 2001, Geneviève has been focusing on videos (Brigitte Fontaine, some experimental videos with the collective Pleix), art (Mandala Project), illustrations for various magazines (Flaunt, Beaux-Arts Magazine, Le Figaro Japan, IDN, Form) and books (the lattest one is the book « Head, Heart and Hips » about the artists from Big Active in UK), corporate identity (Hip), character design (Pictoplasma), exhibitions (Colette stores in Paris and Tokyo), comic book (L’Arbre Génialogique), animated tittle sequences (German-French Arte Channel). Two books have been published about her work, in Japan by Gas Book and in France by Pyramyd.

What is your favorite project to date and why (2006)?

I think maybe the titles I did for a Chocolate skateboards video years ago (1994-5?). It was one of the first things I ever did for them. I drew silhouettes of characters on the computer, then cut molds from the drawings. I then went to Girl in Torrance and Johannes and I filmed me pouring chocolate into the molds. We imported the video into Media 100 and made it hi-contrast and I put type over top. That was it. It was done. It ended up looking hi-tech though. It was one of the first times that the idea and the process outweighed the sort of manual effort put into something. Also it was great to work for Spike and Andy Jenkins, heroes of mine. So that project comes to mind.

Also having just graduated Cal Arts I was pretty determined to apply what I was doing there to my own world, skateboarding world. My entrance essay for the MFA program was about design living outside of the design world, hi for low sort of stuff. Around this time things were starting to get focused for me.

What was the concept and goal behind the Pepsi campaign?

To sell lots of Pepsi One? For me doing the campaign was about going through familiar territory and trying to keep it interesting. The campaign was based on graphic work I had been doing about 4 years ago. I still do very graphic work, and sometimes character-based work, but the specific work they were interested in was sort of in the past for me.

So I had a lot of the same concerns I always have when doing very graphic work, but I was also very practiced at it all, so the challenge in the project was to try to make the project challenging.

One of the concerns I always have when doing the simple graphic work is to make the images (in this case characters) have some sort of depth, or heart. I don’t want to put work out into the world that is just heartless simplification, I want to create things that are feelings or thoughts or jokes, distilled into their simplest cleanest form.

I always imagine some kid in their apartment, and one day someone puts up a billboard across the street, and in that low rent neighborhood (like where my studio is) they never change the billboards. So he/she has to stare at this same image for about 6 months, every day. So I do some simple 2 color graphic, and they have to live with it. So I want it to be the image that is understood by the commuter driving by to work, but that somehow grows on the person who lives across the street from it. I believe good intentions work to achieve both goals.

When working with clients, do you find it important your final result still resemble your own ideas and visual aesthetic?

I don’t care at all, but at the same time I like a lot of creative freedom, freedom to makes something the way I want. It has not really ever been a problem, clients generally gravitate to work that looks like I did it. Usually when I do something that I feel looks like I didn’t do it, it still looks like I did it too. If not thats fine too. Sometimes clients get bummed if you did something that looks different from what they know of your work, like as if you are fucking with them. Sometimes what I take seriously, clients do not.

If you could stop doing client work, would you? Or do you find client work is necessary both creatively and financially?

I do much more personal work, but I really like doing client work. Thats the whole game really, at least thats the game I have set up for myself. There is a part of the creative process for me that cannot be done independently. When I take on small client projects much more is generated than they consume, those ideas then have a whole life outside of the project.

It seems a little bit like a public school or home school dilemma. If your kid is super smart, and you are a super smart dad, like my friends Ian and Zoe, you might as well go ahead and do some home school then go to a big High School to meet boys. But what if you are not so smart, and your dads not so smart? Maybe you are better off getting ignored and bullied in public school, with a bunch of other kids learning to survive. Then take that anger and smarts and apply it to the chances you get, if you’re lucky to get a chance.

What keeps you going and motivated from project to project?

Everything. I have to motivate myself not to work so much.

What projects are you currently working on?

The Complete To Do List: I am working with Patagonia (the mountain gear co) on an extended contract branding and creating graphics for their Surf line. A record cover for Erlend Oye (from the Kings of Convenience) for The Whitest Boy Alive. We are also working together on a music/book collaboration right now. A solo show in LA at New Image Art. Work for a group show curated by Aaron Rose that will be in Mexico City in June. I have a skateboard Company called the Solitary Arts. We are prototyping a new board and wheel design right now. Just delivered a Title Sequence for a film called The TV Set. T-shirt designs for myself (running late on these). I did a line of Sunglasses that will come out next year, for a company called COLAB in Australia. I have to work on the packaging now. That is very strange, but I actually really like glasses. I have to get my car registered and smogged. I am late on this too. My daughter wants me to build a foot stool with her. I have the wood, but must perfect the design. Washboard abs by summer.

What hobbies do you have?

I have a lot of hobbies. I do things like surf and skateboard and have a healthy obsession with bicycles and bicycle riding. I like Hi Fi and children’s books, and children.

You ever shop for reptiles?

I live in Los Angeles, and you wouldn’t believe it but there are lizards all over the place. If I could sell a lizard for say $7.00 then I could be rich. My yard is crawling in slow moving lizards. My wife can catch them but they give me the creeps. So no WAY am I shopping for them, sell them, maybe. Also we had a rattlesnake in our backyard that was as thick as your arm. I swear, my friend who grew up in Topanga (lots of rattlesnakes there) said she had never seen one that big.

About Geoff McFetridge

Geoff McFetridge is a graphic artist and director in Los Angeles, California. Originally from Canada, Geoff moved to California to earn his MFA for Graphic Design at the California Institute of the Arts. His thesis project “Chinatown” won a distinctive merit award from ID magazine. In 1996, Geoff founded his own design studio, Champion Graphics. He also worked as the art director for Grand Royal Magazine from 1995 – 1997.

As a designer, Geoff’s artwork has graced magazine covers, clothing, posters, and furniture. He designed a series of t-shirts and home furnishings for Mini, a division of Xlarge Clothing. His “mini-poster packs” won a Design Distinction Award from International Design Magazine in 2000 and are part of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Arts Permanent Collection. Also, he created artwork for Dazed & Confused Magazine’s “Boycott Esso” campaign, which included stickers and animated video. Geoff has had solo shows at galleries around the world, including solo shows at Parco Gallery in Tokyo and Colette in Paris.

The success of Geoff’s graphics career naturally segued into titles and motion graphics for television and movies. The title-design for the skateboard company, Chocolate, was featured in the ACD 100 show, and earned Geoff an Art Directors Club Award. Geoff also completed the main title designs for the Dreamworks television show, “Freaks and Geeks.” His doodle-ridden titles for The Virgin Suicides, a feature film by Sofia Coppola, drew attention to Geoff’s work and led to prints and designs for clothing designer Marc Jacobs.

Geoff McFetridge’s commercials and music videos make use of live action, graphics, and animation. His animated spots for the ESPN Winter X-Games campaign were included in the Saatchi Cannes New Directors Showcase and also won a 2001 D&AD Award. His recent commercial efforts include the Napster Relaunch campaign, HP’s “N is for Nanotechnology” and an animation campaign for Orbitz.com.