Matthew recently joined our lineup of font designers, so we wanted to take a minute to introduce him to everyone.
Ben recently won our typography grant over at Society6. We thought we should show you some of his work and let him introduce himself with this little interview.
Name: Tim Lahan
Company: Trademark™
Website: Trademark-Trademark
About: I’m trained as a graphic designer but grew up illustrating and later drawing on bathroom walls. I run my own one-man studio in New York under the guise Trademark™, where I take on all kinds of work from branding, apparel, web stuff when I have to, and also use it as an umbrella for personal work.
Color: Pea green
Music: Descendents
Book: Factotum – Charles Bukowski
Designer: No one in particular
Animal: Goat
Favorite Website: Married to the Sea
Place: Pennsylvania
Shape: Triangle
Artist: Ed Ruscha
Typeface: Akzidenz Grotesk
Movie: Ghostbusters
Work: sucks
Word: Lexicon
Season: Fall
Magazine: Swank
Favorite Place: The woods
Guilty Pleasure: Cigarettes, cannolis, hamburgers
Distraction: Silly putty
Love: Everything
Hate: Everything
What are you working on right now? A pretty good balance of personal projects and branding stuff for some startups.
What career would you switch to if you had to stop your current profession? Full-time mountain man. Overgrown beard, straw hat, cabin in the woods, the creepy old dude that’s almost folklore to little kids in the town below. When I’d go out for good I’d leave behind all these wild phallic wood carvings and fancy corn cob pipes. I haven’t thought about it too much, really.
We caught up with the hard working Will “Mr. Fancy Pants” Bryant this past week. He’s a freelance illustrator and a new “student” at Public School, a collective that we’re excited to see develop.
Run us through a typical day for you.
Now that I’m married and the wife has a solid job I’m slowly becoming a morning person. I wake up around 6:30 AM, zombie around in my undies and then make my wife’s lunch. I usually stick around the house, make the bed, and get things in order before going for a run or heading into the studio early. I try to arrive at Public School around 8AM set the coffee for 9:10AM, attempt to catch up on e-mails and get my Things.app organized so it will tell me what to do for the day. Sometimes I catch up on my blogging duties in the morning and then just set sail into the freelance ocean. Sadly, i’m a slave to the inbox so I’m constantly checking it throughout the day (while working or pretending to work). There’s loads of interaction and male bonding while working until I head home at 5:30 PM to greet my lovely bride. In the evenings we might go for a bike ride, cook some yummy food, watch the Cosby Show or Friends or Diagnosis Murder or Home Improvement while the kitty lays on his back to air out his belly. Throw in some giggles, snuggles, and maybe some late night e-mailing before bedtime.
We really like your MSNTCE work. How did that all come about? Is it easier making something not that cool? Do you set a time limit for yourself?
Thanks! I think I was camping at the wrong blog when the MSCE came about. I kept seeing all this awesome stuff coming from all over and felt a little bummed that I missed it. So I decided to just start making stuff under this crappy umbrella and I feel no pressure about uploading these sometimes terrible ideas/executed thoughts. It’s so easy! You’re already admitting, yeah this isn’t that cool, but it made me laugh for a bit. Plus it forces me each day to experiment with something. I haven’t really set a time limit, but I’ll quickly kick my own shin if I get caught up in some minor detail. Most of these pieces have been created in a last minute rush (as if you couldn’t tell). You should join!
Maybe we will! As type dudes ourselves, we’re always curious how people find this weird practice. How did you get into graphic design and specifically drawing type?
I honestly feel like my life was constructed and composed before I even knew what design was. Little circumstances and experiences have led me down this incredible path. What got me started on type derives from two people. Kate Bingaman Burt sensed my interests in undergrad and totally took me under her wing. Her enthusiasm and aesthetic poured into my work from the beginning. Then she goes off and brings in Mike Perry to be a judge/guest lecture at Mississippi State in 2006. I was able to meet him and he critiqued what little work I had at the time. I was working on my first (terribly unsuccessful) threadless submission. It was all hand drawn and Mike encouraged me to keep with that, then my soul was glowing from his lecture. I had never seen such wonders and coolness! So that experience definitely had a HUGE impact on me and my work.
S’s are really difficult to draw consistently, what’s the most challenging letter to draw for you?
S’s are tough! They never look the same. I really just love drawing all the letters, but I think C’s look stupid. Well, i mean that, unless there’s some goody face or drippy goo hanging out in the counter space.
You listen to a lot of music, what music makes you the most productive?
Oh man I do listen to loads of music. It’s somewhat slowing down, but i’m still finding treasures everywhere from running the music blog. If I HAVE to focus and really fire something out I really on psychedelic droning jams from Black Dice, Animal Collective, Deerhunter, Junk Culture, Pocahaunted, White Rainbow, etc. On the other hand sometimes I have to bring in the sunshine with Caetano Veloso, El Guincho, Dent May, Devendra Banhart, and Beach House.
We noticed on Public School’s Attendance list (your members) that most of you have moustaches, what kind of school is this!?! Do you have a moustache (yet) or is that a Senior thing?
Before I moved in there was a one month period where everybody grew mustaches, but a couple of the guys couldn’t. Within the school context it sure puts the creep stache into perspective! haha. As far my stache, no chance. It hardly grows now and it’s like a reverse hitler with a big space in the middle. It’s sad.
What’s coming up for you and your schoolmates? What are you looking forward to working on?
We’ve got a Public School Exhibition at Thunderbird Coffee in August and I’m very excited to display work here in Austin. Everyone here is a freelancer but sometimes collaborate when the project calls for it. So i’m definitely looking forward to collaborating within the same studio! I’ve loved working with great people over the internet so I’m sure this will lead to some good stuff as well.
You told us you really enjoy home cooked meals, do you have favorite recipe?
YEEEES! The wife cooked some awesome mediterranean quesadillas recently. They were full of flavor and ultra satisfying. Ingredients: costco’s frozen chicken breast, onions, classy tortillas, greek dressing, olives, feta, oregano.
Sounds amazing! Explain your nickname “Fancy Pants”.
One the first merch gigs I landed was for Rare Device. I drew this rad old man and a speak bubble that said, “Oh, Hello Mr Fancy Pants!” Then a few months ago this blog was confused by the wording in my bio and assumed I called myself Mr. Fancy Pants. I thought it was so ridiculous that I quickly took it and i’ve now got my own tax ID as Mr. Fancy Pants!
If you weren’t illustrating or designing, what would be your next choice for a career?
Realistically, I could sell shoes. I worked at a cool shoe store during high school & college summers and was pretty successful in knowing the products and interacting with customers. But, why be real? I’d TOADALLY be deejaying, painting murals, and running my own Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle’s pizza place. I’d have to get the rights, but how sweet would it be if all the characters worked out the hip restaurant and the Foot Clan delivered all the pizzas. Just imagine all the decor, well designed menus, and themed drinks!
This week we feature British designer, Chris Gray. I came across one of his shirts on Beautiful Decay and was pleasantly surprised by his other work. Let’s learn a little more about him.
Name: Chris Gray
Company: Toy / WSS
Website: http://www.thisistoy.com / http://www.weshallsee.co.uk
Short explanation of what you do / who you are: I am a freelance designer working from my tiny shared studio in Manchester across print, film & web. I also run a small independent art business working alongside 9 other European illustrators.
Color: Black
Music: Chad VanGaalen (this week)
Book: Down and Out in London & Paris
Designer: Geoff McFetridge
Animal: Kingfisher
Website: http://www.as-found.net
Place: In the Sun
Shape: All of them
Artist: Salvidor Dali
Typeface: Trade Gothic LT No. 20 Bold Condensed
Movie: I’m watching ‘SYNECDOCHE’ tomorrow. So hopefully that.
Work: One of those jobs where you convince yourself that there is no idea to find, and you go through stages of believing you are complete failure as a designer. Then it hits you like an Iceberg and for those first few moments it makes you feel like a demi-god. It is surely the best feeling you can get.
Word: Rad!
Season: Summer
Magazine: Graphis 1958 – 1974
Guilty Pleasure: Riding kids bikes
Distraction: G, C, Em, D. I still suck at F
Love: My Girlfriend. She gives me more ideas then anyone I have ever met.
Hate: Mistaking Salt for Sugar
What are you working on right now? In 8 hours I start painting a new mural for my solo exhibition in which I took all the graffiti out of the venues toilet are turned it into some form of giant interlinking illustration.
What career would you switch to if you had to stop your current profession? Why? I went through a stage when I was younger whereby I wanted to be a pro BMX rider so I could cruise the streets in the sun all day doing flip-whips. Unfortunately I never quite got good enough.
Mike Davis works just down the hall from us so there’s a pretty good dialogue back and forth between our office and Burlesque where he works. He’s also a huge nerd for classic graphic design and runs a blog , So Much Pileup, devoted to digging up the greatest of graphic ephemera from the high modern to post modern years (Definitely worth following). And, we should also probably mention that he’s a talented club DJ (Mike2600).
Name: Mike Davis
Company: Burlesque of North America
Website: http://burlesquedesign.com
Short explanation of what you do or who you are, one or two sentences.
Burlesque is a group of graphic designers, illustrators and screenprinters. Headquartered in Minneapolis, we create graphic art for mainly music-based clients, host art exhibitsin our First Amendment art gallery, and put out music releases on our BRLSQOTHEQUE record label
Color: woodgrain
Music: Black Sabbath, Public Enemy, The Kinks, Wild Style soundtrack, MSTRKRFT
Book: Herb Lubalin: Art Director, Graphic Designer, Typographer
Designer: Herb.
Animal: Cobra Kitten
Website: friendster.com
Place: Space
Shape: Obelisk (no homo)
Artist: Chuck Close
Typeface: Helvetica Bold
Movie: Raging Bull, Empire Strikes Back, Goonies, When We Were Kings
Work: What?
Word: What!
Season: Autumn, even though I live in a city where the space between Summer and Winter lasts 30 seconds
Magazine: Plumpers
Guilty Pleasure: MC battles, 21st century Pro Wrestling
Distraction: The internets
Love: Hate
Hate: Love
What are you working on right now?
Cuckoo clock art print, two gig posters for Flight of the Conchords, CD artwork for anticon
What career would you switch to if you had to stop your current profession?
Fulltime DJ / music maker.
Why do you __________?
Because you always ______________
Swedish graphic designer Joakim Jansson is this week’s featured designer. His work encompasses many areas related to design including art direction, graphic design, typography, illustration, branding and web. He also contributes to the Style Press blog and DJs as Soda Popinski in his spare time. Here’s a little more about him and his work…
Laurent Fétis is a busy guy. Fortunately, he had a few moments to answer some simple questions. We will be posting more exclusive, short interviews in this format soon , so please keep following. (Above Image: Dirty French Psychedelics, Artwork by Elisabeth Arkhipoff & Laurent Fétis)
Name: Laurent Fetis
Website: http://www.laurentfetis.com
Color: all colors
Music: “U Can Dance” DJ Hell Feat Brian Ferry
Book: “Maximes” la Rochefoucault
Designer: Lucas Ossendrijver
Animals: Smilodon and platypus
Website: http://www.newscientist.com/
Place: a nice one
Shape: fat un-timid shapes
Artist: Elisabeth Arkhipoff
Typeface: a nice one
Movie: Das Geheimnis der schwarzen Koffer directed by Werner Klingler
Work: Drawing
Word: Super
Season: Spring
Magazine: Fantastic Man
Guilty Pleasure: Drawing
Love: Anastasia Constantinescu
Hate: ?
What are you working on right now?
Books, Magazines and global identity design
What career would you switch to if you had to stop your current profession?
I don’t know
Thanks to Laurent for his answers. If you readers enjoy features like this, please comment and if you have anyone you’d like to see featured in this manner, let us know.
For all who don’t know, what is D-Fuse? D-Fuse was founded by Michael Faulkner in the mid-1990s, D-Fuse is a group of designers and artists working in a trans-disciplinary method with cutting edge technology. Exploring a wide range of creative media, from mobile media, web and print to art and architecture, live A/V performances, TV and film, D-Fuse encourage their audience to reflect on the key relationship between sound and image. They continuously endeavor explore the possibilities of digital art through their desire to develop a unique language for the needs of the digital world.
D-Fuse’s visual art is screened internationally – at Sonar (Barcelona), onedotzero festivals, The V&A Museum (London), Nokia Labs in St Petersburg and Moscow, Mori Arts Center (Tokyo), Eyebeam (NYC), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Prix Ars Electronica (Linz), and the Lisbon and Valencia biennales. D-Fuse have collaborated with ground breaking musicians Scanner and Beck, as well as contemporary classical composers Steve Reich (performed with The London SymphonyOrchestra) and the Italian ensemble Alter Ego (who work with Salvatore Sciarrino and Philip Glass)
Explain this recent tour you’ve been on, what is the project, and how has it progressed as of yet. Surface originates with our interest in cites and how people relate to their surroundings in the urban environment. East Asia is particularly interesting, because cities are very diverse and have been going through great changes over the past few decades. The collaboration with local artists in each city is a key component of the project – it enables us to engage directly with the experiences and concerns of the people who live there, a bit like seeing the city like a local person but with fresh eyes. At the same time the dialogue with these artists requires us to question our own ideas and approaches. Surface is very ambitious, as we are researching each city and create new material in only a few days before performing the latest version of the piece.
How do the multi faceted aspects of your work come together – do the mediums feel separate or do they all remain fluid and connected? Our team with Michael Faulkner and Barnaby Steel creating video and Matthias Kispert for audio, has been working together for a number of years now and we always create sound and video at the same time, so both feed off each other and develop together. They’re pretty much inseparable.
How about the architecture projects? At the moment we’re working on a few public art projects, we’re always interested in redefining spaces. This is also something that happens with our Vjing, working with layers of transparent screens we create temporary architecture.
How do the collaborative projects work? Specifically with Beck? D-Fuse has always been about collaboration, sharing and moulding ideas together. Beck was an interesting project because there was only small amount of collaboration involved, it took us a little while to realize we were going to be left to our own devices with no interference from the record label. Beck was the only person who had input and that was pretty laid back. I only wish we had more time to develop the project, it was a pretty intense deadline. This and the VJ book wiped me out energy-wise.
Do you ever feel that technology limits what you’re trying to do? No but often the machine always wants more RAM or hard drive space. When we started over 10 years ago, you were lucky to make something move on screen, now there are almost too many choices and maybe too many people trying.
What would the work be without limits? What are some technologies that you’d like to see pushed father? I guess our limits are creative time, energy and render time. Funnily enough, I got quite used to those render moments they gave you time to reconsider the edit. Also the good thing about technology is cost is always coming down so you can wait a little while and still have the best set up at a fraction of the cost to high end film industry. We have just brought a Sony EX-1 XDCam tapeless camera. A few years ago that sort of thing would have cost $200,000 today it costs $6000.
VJing has come a long way since its start two decades ago. Where is it going? VJ culture has really spread into different areas in recent years – people who just used to play in clubs now work on art installations, interactive pieces, live cinema, remixes of films for Hollywood studios, or motion graphics and events for the commercial world. The scene is maturing with sub categories – DVJs, A/V, VJs who sample, narrative VJs, Live Cinema/sonic Cinema. Almost like how punk music evolved, a whole variety of music was named ‘punk’, but then you had new genres evolving new wave, Raggae/ska, and early electronica. I think the great thing is it is getting to be known in the public domain, people are now creating music and video on an equal paring.
Will it become consistently more prevalent? Yes, I am surprised considering how much screen based hardware there is out there. I am surprised it has not been more. This is probably because, most of it has been used for advertising and peoples general lack of understanding of VJ culture. Hopefully this is changing.
What is the significance of live video editing… what are its capabilities? Live Video editing is really interesting and more suited to a long VJ club set, where the whole performance is amorphous and evolving. We enjoy these, however our set for Surface is a live cinema (Sonic Cinema), so it has to be based on a timeline that we mix over, in order to cue and combine the audio, which is played with Ableton Live. The video is a mixture of edited clips that are either tempo controlled on a Pioneer DVJ1000 and video clips on Macbook Pro using modl8 or VDMX.
What are the downfalls of the medium? Endless back ups and Filling. Mike Figgis says in his book on digital filmmaking “with the digital age, he has become a filling clerk/ film maker.”
What are you most afraid of? Realizing no one is really in control of the planet, just lots of power struggles and maybe we’re f*cked environmentally.
Have you seen Alien Vs. Predator Requiem (AVPR) and would you suggest watching it? No, but my friend went to see it instead of Beowulf (which is a terrible film). He said the feeling in the cinema was how bad it is, the first one was surprisingly ok.
Advice for life? Do some shit jobs first, then try not sucked into the money break away and you’ll appreciate creative freedom later on in life. Also everyone should visit a third world country to put your life in perspective and see how lucky you are.
Favorite Websites? http://www.globalrichlist.com/
Is there anything else you would like say, what have you been thinking about? Tax avoidance of the super rich, I heard a program on the radio about this, (the UK is a tax heaven) they mentioned if they paid their proper percentage this would be enough cash to resolve global warming! Not sure how they worked this cost out but still interesting.
Have you ever had a reptile as a pet? Yes, a terrapin.
We recently caught up with Gregory and put together this little video feature on him and his work.
About Gregory Euclide
Gregory Euclide is an artist and teacher living in the Twin Cities of Minnesota. His attraction to the landscape originates from his experience of growing up in the rural landscapes of Wisconsin. Free to roam from farm field to forest edge, he developed an appreciation for authentic experience within the natural landscape. The complexity and interconnectedness of the environment had a profound impact on him as a child and would become the content and conceptual framework for his future work.
After teaching high school art for three years in southern Minnesota, he took a teaching job in the Twin Cities. In 2001 Gregory was awarded a summer residency at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. This time allowed him the opportunity to explore a number of materials and techniques important to the development of later works. In the past few years Gregory has shown his work at over one hundred events and locations in the Twin Cities. He has been awarded a a Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant and a Jerome Foundation Residency through the Blacklock Nature Sanctuary. Currently he is teaching high school art and attending graduate school at The Minneapolis College of Art and Design on a Trustee Scholarship.
How did the poster medium begin and how? When Xenu, ruler of the galactic confederacy first brought humans to this earth he also brought with him something called “posters” along with “beer” and “the beach towel.” These basic elements were used as recruitment tools to convince humans to stay and populate the earth. And they’ve been here ever since. Just ask Beck.
What qualities do you value in your work, what do you strive to create – in terms of rock posters / In terms of art prints? I don’t know. It’s pretty selfish. The posters we create are mostly clientless (no other input except each other and the music) and are more times than not for bands we like so to put it simply, we just make something we like, that we think the band would like, and other fans of the band would like. So many cyclical arguments have been fueled by people debating what a poster is supposed to be. Art? Design? I think people are scared to admit that posters are really just whatever you think is cool and communicates effectively (you can define “effective” yourself.) The art prints are just like the posters except we don’t have to make them to promote our own ideas instead of somebody else’s.
Explain the role of music in your work. Is it a market or a creative catalyst? From our experience there’s little money anywhere in the music industry for a designer. Most any designer would cream his or her jeans to do more music design so labels/bands/promoters rarely have to pay anyone much to do work for them. Which is what spawns the process of selling posters for yourself, it’s one of the few ways that we can make some money in the industry. That being said, we do have some larger clients, the band Cake for example, that have been return clients that we’ve worked with for years and have built a strong business relationship with. And yes, we like music. We listen to it a lot. We’re listening to music RIGHT NOW!
How important is typography to you all and what is your level of interest in this subject matter? We both love typography and do consider it very “important to us” but our relationship with it is more emotional than academic. Some people serious about typography would think that you need to have some fucking studied background on the history of every typeface before you use but neither of us really care. We tend toward “classic” mid-century typefaces mostly because that’s what inspires us. The formatting, the style, the shapes. We like to experiment within those bounds but neither of us cares about a lengthy dissection on the history of “News Gothic Extra Condensed.”
Tell us about your worst job ever. Any horrible job that we could think of is going to sound like we’re whiny little crybabies because in essence they would come down to “they watered down our vision!” or “they didn’t understand our creative process” or “we went through SOOOooo many revisions!” while out there in the rest of the world there are designers right now that are dealing with clients that may be verbally abusive ego-maniacal CEOs with no respect or desire to understand graphic design or are losing all confidence in their own personal identity because they’ve found themselves in a scenario of having to compromise their morals in order to make ends meet. We’ve had those projects before at previous jobs, and we’ve seen and heard about similar jobs at other studios. I like to believe that because we’re picky on jobs we choose and can choose to deny work since we’re such a small studio we have saved ourselves from some of these legendary gut-wrenching soul-sucking jobs. Or maybe we’ve just gotten lucky so far….
Appropriation, how do you feel about it? ”To design is to communicate clearly by whatever means you can control or master.” – Milton Glaser
There are a lot more of your art prints as of late, Is there an intentional push in this area? What are your long term goals? Little at Aesthetic Apparatus is planned or intentional and we generally don’t have long term goals. But, for example, the DOOMDRIPS series we’ve been doing has been well received and it’s fun to do so the decision to make more is an easy one. Also knowing that often times people will buy posters simply for the design — not caring about the band — is another thing that pushes us to do art prints.
Do you have ideas or ambitions to create work beyond the realm of posters? We’re not sure if by “beyond posters” you mean other graphic design or by “beyond posters” you mean starting a recording studio or something but…we’ve always done design work beyond the realm of posters. Logos, packaging…you know, the things design studios are supposed to do. Our poster work is a great way to promote ourselves as designers (when people see a well designed poster it’s easy for them to see how that same design sense can be applied to a variety of projects) and it’s possible that posters may, in the future, someday be a great way to promote ourselves otherwise. Who knows.
Define Scream Printing for our readers. It’s been long understood that there is a direct correlation between the chemical reactions in water and the human voice. We use this research to further our goals of studying the water-based inks we print our posters with and creating the best poster we can. Through trial and error we’ve discovered that the human scream creates a wavelength that strengthens the bond of the cells in the pigment to the water in the ink. The ink will thusly lay flatter on the page, the paper will warp less and the ink will be generally more manageable. We’ve also discovered that whenever Danzig’s “Mother” is played the ink reacts in the opposite manner. A whispering voice also emanates from the ink that seems to say “Zule.
Have you ever shopped for a reptile? Reptile? No. Reading glasses FOR a reptile? Yes.
What are you most scared of? Floating wolverines, magic carpets, urine festivals and taco harnesses.
Do you collect anything? Dust! And china dolls.
About Aesthetic Apparatus
Often considered Minneapolis’ best totally unknown design super team, Aesthetic Apparatus was founded around 1999 in Madison, Wisconsin by Dan Ibarra and Michael Byzewski as a fun side project from their ‘real’ jobs. Over the years their limited edition, screen printed concert posters have secretly snuck into the hearts and minds of a small, rather silent group of socially awkward music and design nerds. Now, Aesthetic Apparatus is a full time, full-fledged, insanely unstoppable, and occasionally award winning design mega-studio. They will break your heart and drink your blood.
How influential was your start as an intern for M&Co [Tibor Kalman's studio] in terms of a developing conscience in your art? What else in your background fostered your thoughtful sensibilities? In terms of developing a “conscience” M&Co wasn’t as key as being a student of Hans Haacke and being exposed to a lot of socially engaged art while at Cooper Union. Everything from the Situationists, to Act Up (AIDS activist collective) which was very active at the time, and Gran Fury – the graphic arm of Act Up. Also a collective known as Group Material – many more. All these people were trying to find a way to make work that was integrated into a social setting, a public conversation and not stuck in the “other world” of gallery/museum art. They were also trying to find a way past object orientated art, past traditional understandings of beauty which are always tied to the wants and needs of cultural power holders. This was and still is central to what I’m trying to do. While I only took one design class, I went into that world trying to find a way out of the art world, and a way to communicate to more than the converted.
You work in different media across all components of a project; can you talk about how film, illustration, photography, et al. happen and function together? I really just think of myself as a filmmaker and graphic artist; essentially stuff you experience in time (film), and stuff that is out of time (graphics/drawing/art/whateveryouwanttocallit) – those are the real categories for me. For me they are not so different because I am working with the same issues, or concerns or problems in all these different forms. Ultimately I’m more interested in the content, in what the visuals are about – so I never paid so much attention to what “media” or “profession” I was working in. I think most of those categories are just boxes our culture created, “careers” really, but they don’t necessarily relate to an individual’s path. I develop all my ideas in the same notebook and some ideas are better expressed in film, some in graphic work. I think my multi-medianess comes partly from being a kid who grew up in the 70′s watching TV, living in a multi-media world. Another part comes from being a student of conceptual art – which isn’t as interested in the visual form, or the craft, or the medium so much as the idea. Artists like Fischli and Weiss have been really influential to me in that respect: their work is all over the place, both in terms of style and “medium” but spiritually it’s all on one path.
Your career has snowballed in a pretty fortunate trajectory…How has the reception been of your new documentary [Does Your Soul Have A Cold?] and what other new activities are being realized? I can see where you’d say it’s “snowballed”, but from the inside it’s been a very bumpy, up and down, not so easy path. It’s hard to convince the world that you can be both a graphic artist and an artist and a filmmaker. I’ve had to build up a “career” and then start another one at least two times now. Then there are just all the struggles that I think most of my friends go through making work: a lot of self-doubt, not being as good as you want to be, not being seen the way you want to be, not being as in control as you want to be. I feel really lucky I got to make DYSHAC, my first feature length documentary, and I’m really pleased with how it came out. For me at least, I feel like I really grew with this project and was able to do the most socially engaged piece yet, and maybe even help people – but it has been very difficult to get it into festivals and get press for it. You never know what’s going to happen or how your work is going to go over, which is really hard to get used to. I haven’t at least.
With Humans and similar projects, the messages seem like subjective reflections that you want to share. What is your objective? Part of the Humans project is trying to inject really personal motifs and issues into “mass produced” items like posters and scarves and fabrics that would then become part of someone’s everyday life. I think by sharing something really personal about yourself, something that you are truly struggling with, can be generous, or helpful (“hey I worry about that too”) – not just self indulgent. It can hopefully create a space for more emotional, messy ideas of ourselves, or at least be a friend or ally in peoples’ own struggles to be more open, free, less bound by all the fears and rules in our history that we’ve all internalized into our innermost selves.
What are you currently most interested in? Any ideas, cultural luminaries, issues you want to point readers to? I’m really impressed by people that foster little self-made voluntary communities. Like this website (we blush). Like ANP magazine. Like Arthur magazine. Like the “Learning To Love You More” website. Like the “Manystuff” website or “Viewers like you”.
About Mike Mills
Mike Mills is a film and music video director and graphic designer. Originally from Berkeley, California, he graduated from Cooper Union in New York City and is now based in Silver Lake, Los Angeles. He has created videos for such musical acts as Moby, Yoko Ono and Air, and released the feature film Thumbsucker in 2005. He has also worked as a graphic designer on promotional material and album covers for such acts as Beastie Boys, Beck, Sonic Youth, and Ol’ Dirty Bastard. In addition he co-founded The Directors Bureau with Roman Coppola, and has created graphics for X-Girl, Marc Jacobs, and currently produces his own line of posters and fabrics called Humans by Mike Mills.
