April! We had our first blogger extraordinaire, Lucy Feagins from well known The Design Files (http://thedesignfiles NULL.net). She gets a gazillion hits a month for being the go-to-girl on all matters of design, interiors, and anything new and fun in the creative world – and it definitely didn’t happen overnight. With a wow-ing 96% readership being female, it was nice to spot some boys in the audience. Click here to download her tips!
Adam Morris has the best beard we’ve ever seen. No shit. Look at it. It’s bushy awesomeness distracted us constantly throughout our early morning interview. And it’s distracting us again now from getting to Adam’s important bits. See, Adam is founder of Monsieur (http://monsieur NULL.com NULL.au/) – a newly formed digital shop in Melbourne. He preaches a smart, useful and beautiful approach to digital. And we reckon his opinion is worth hitting publish on – seeing as he’s worked on all things digital since nineties. And… He has a beard. But seriously, we got pretty deep into www’s in this one – so scroll away and then go make something useful and pretty and make us proud.
Junior: Ok Adam, let’s go back, way back…
Adam Morris: I started out typesetting magazines and designing for print. I worked with a small ad agency in Queensland through that role and ended up teaching their art directors HTML after hours. I’d taught myself HTML and was also studying Multimedia at university at the time. And then I became mates with those guys, and one of them moved to London, got a job in an agency there, and then got me one too in the web design department. This was in 1999/2000. It was a really interesting time as it was right at the height of the dot com bubble. Because of that, I got into roles that I wasn’t really qualified to do. Which was great. It’s the best way to learn. I had a couple of web design jobs in ad agencies and digital shops in London and Edinburgh before I came back home.
Jr: Sounds like a great time to be cutting your teeth…
A: Yeah, I did that for five years or so, and then I moved back to the Gold Coast. I worked as a traditional art director for six months, and then I opened up my own little design agency that did web stuff, for a year and a half. I had some decent clients. I had Billabong – which is about all you can have on the Gold Coast, right? So I did that, fluked some work from Monster.com via the ‘States, so I did sites for them. It was weird how that came about. It was about that time that CSS website design became really big. There was all those CSS design websites, putting up a new site/page every day. That whole web 2.0 aesthetic. A very weird time.
Jr: Did you find you more creative in your own business than in agency land?
A: No, not really. Probably less. Back then it was more about doing what you could with the technology. I always had a love for typography, grid systems and modernist design, so that always drove a lot of what I was doing so it was truly a design mind-set. But working in a big agency and collaborating with people with really diverse skill-sets really opened my eyes to ideas and real creative thinking. Working with copywriters, planners and UX folk really opened up a whole new world for me. That is what I consider to be a more meaningful form of ‘being creative’ anyway – solving problems through communications AND interaction design, rather than communicating in a more abstract sense through aesthetics, design and composition.
Jr: More recently you worked at DT Digital, and Cornwell Design in Creative Director and Director of Digital roles. Do you find yourself on the tools still – do you still code and do all that nerdy stuff?
A: I love it. I miss it. Towards the end of DT, as I had two roles there, CD of DTDigital and also Digital CD at Ogilvy, it was really full on so I never had any time to do stuff. I was across nearly every job in both agencies. It’s hard to adjust to. You go from spending every day of your life creating things, and then all of a sudden you find yourself in a place where you are coordinating stuff and going to a lot more meetings, managing staff and working more closely with clients.
Jr: Do you think having a technical background is really advantageous in working in digital adland?
A: Definitely. If there is someone in your agency who you can kind of draw upon then that’s always helpful. I think the work that I consider to be the most interesting work in the world is brought out of tapping into emerging behaviour that is based around technology – that kind of innovation hits the sweet spot almost. I’m trying to think of a good example. Everyone uses Nike+ as the example, but just an awareness of how people start to use technology to augment real life situations. Like how people are starting to pair technology with real-life behavior before other brands do. Nike jumped on really quickly when they noticed people were listening to their iPods while they were running, then going and making that experience more awesome. It’s all about timing, so now they own that behavior. Nike watched what their customer’s were doing, took a leap of faith and now pretty much ‘own’ music-plus-running. No other brand can touch it now. If you’re first to market it means everything.
Jr: Creatives coming out of AWARD school and the like come from the classic art director copywriter way of working. What kind of skills and thinking do people need coming through now that will give them a real edge?
A: I definitely think you need an awareness of digital and behavioral trends—it sort of seems like graduates don’t understand media very well. I don’t think anyone ever speaks to them about the challenges of different media. Why what you are doing needs to change or be different depending on how people are interacting or absorbing the message and what context they’re in. I don’t think that there is enough focus on the people at the other end of advertising. I think that’s the biggest thing that agencies are moving from dealing with now – shifting from thinking about perception to thinking more about behaviour. I think media has totally dictated that. Now creativity is always dictated by the medium that it’s made for. TV and radio in particular are always about bringing something down to its essence, reducing complex stuff to a very simple message that needs to be communicated in a 15 or 30 second spot. Finite media. Digital is different because it’s infinite media. And it requires complexity and depth. Layers of stuff. It’s not about reducing something down to a really simple message; it’s about doing something of value that people can explore.
Jr: Sometimes it’s hard pitching that kind of thinking to people without that level of understanding… They want to know “what’s the ad in it?”
A: It’s blatantly obvious that that doesn’t work in life. Take a banner ad for instance, where we think we’ve done really well if it has a .5% click-through rate. That’s crazy and insane. That’s where the bar is set and it’s incredible. Agencies continue to spend most of their digital budget on banner advertising, which is totally ineffective. It blows my mind. I just think banner ads are inherently stupid. It’s taking that interruptive concise, here’s our message, and putting it into a medium where it’s totally irrelevant. 99.5% of the time what you are putting there is a pain in the ass to people. It’s stopping them doing something that they are trying to do – trying to read a news article, etc.
Jr: Like page takeovers. Those things must make media companies so much fucking money.
A: That’s why it keeps on going, because there’s so much money in it. Brands don’t really have the confidence to put money elsewhere because it’s risky. At least you know what you’re going to get with a banner ad. But it’s genuinely really easy to double or triple the effectiveness of what you are doing if you try doing something a little bit different. We need to take marketers out of their comfort zone more. It’s not too hard to do the maths and model a per-interaction cost… Try this, spend this much money, just have a crack at it. It’s generally 10 times more effective, sometimes 20 or 40 is you sit down and compare it to display ads.
Jr: We read post about thinking small (http://garethkay NULL.typepad NULL.com/brand_new/2011/05/think-small NULL.html). Very interesting, and very true for these times, don’t you think?
A: I think it’s very right. You look at the stuff that Burger King do, online, which is up there with the best stuff that is happening. They must do a couple of hundred campaigns a year. Whopper sacrifice, that kind of stuff. It’s relatively small, but effective. They probably do a lot of stuff that fails and you never hear about it, but that’s kinda the point. “Tiny bets” as Gareth Kay puts it.
Jr: Do you reckon we will see the death of banner ads any time soon?
A: Probably, but not for a couple of years. Just because it’s still low risk and marketing directors are probably more comfortable with that as their success metric. Which is sad, but then again that’s a massive opportunity for us all to do better stuff.
Jr: What would you say to the junior working in an ad agency, that 80% of their job is doing shitty banners, but they want to do better stuff? What do you think the opportunities are for someone in that position?
A: If you have to do them, you’ve got to do them as well as you can. If I was a junior having to do that kind of stuff I’d be coming up with other things and trying to slip it under the CD’s nose, and saying, well, what if we did this, and what if we did that, and being more aware of what is happening. Being more aware of how people are using the internet. Again, Whopper sacrifice is the perfect example of that. Being aware that there is this cultural phenomenon happening on Facebook. Simple. Being aware of that kind of stuff, and being aware of it early, and first. Identifying it first. A lot of that stuff is planner territory. So talk to planners as much as you can. Ask them what problems they’re trying to solve for the agency’s clients, get as much insight as you can out of them.
Jr: It seems like everyone is a digital strategist these days, which I suppose a good digital creative has to be in a way.
A: Being aware of that stuff is really important. And it’s also pretty interesting I reckon. Maybe I’m a bit weird but I find all that stuff, how people’s behaviour is changing as a result of digital becoming the dominant media, is pretty exciting. So much change happening all the time.
Jr: A copywriter was telling us the other day how when he started in advertising ten years ago, he and his art director had to share a computer, and they didn’t have office email. If that was ten years ago, imagine what it could be like in another ten years. If they didn’t have email back then and they were sharing a big chunky iMac, what will it be in ten years? We might not even go into an office…
A: I reckon it will probably end up being more like a Hollywood movie industry where you have floating creative directors who just recruit teams of freelance talent for particular jobs. Horses for courses.
Jr: A highly mobile crew. Indeed. A bit like yourself and your new business really. What sort of stuff are you going to do?
A: Mostly digital based service stuff, like branded utilities. That’s what I want to be doing. I refuse to do banner ads. Just out of principle. I’m really interested in the role of digital in enhancing or augmenting existing behaviour — so just incrementally improving things or making something more fun.
Jr: That’s it isn’t it. That’s the key. Make people’s lives easier, or more fun. Lastly, what do you think most people get wrong in doing digital?
A: Using clicks or impressions as a success metric. It’s part of the banner ad problem we were talking about. All the focus is on pushing people somewhere or getting them to click on something, with little or no thought about what happens at the other end. And if they are thinking about what goes on at the other end they’re making assumptions about behavior that are unfounded. That people will like something or use something that they just straight-up won’t. Like microsites for frozen peas or Facebook pages for insurance. You know, just adding to the massive pile of digital ghost towns.
When speakers take our simple brief of ten tips in ten minutes and change it to however they see fit, it’s so much better than sticking to the rules. Rules = Lame, buster. Paul Marcus Fuog, from Coöp (http://www NULL.co-oponline NULL.net NULL.au/), gave us one simple tip at our Melbourne event last week: ‘Learn from others’. We then had special appearances from all kinds of designers, including Sagmeister (http://www NULL.sagmeister NULL.com/), telling us a stellar little tip or two each. It was like ten speakers in one! Bonus! If only we gave out pencils (which would have cleverly corresponded with 2/10 tips) so that everyone could write them down.
While Junior was in New York, we found Hamish Smyth (http://www NULL.hamishsmyth NULL.com/) tucked into the folds of Pentagram NY (http://www NULL.pentagram NULL.com/). Hamish had one of those experiences where so many rad things happened to him, we just don’t know how he did it all. First, he won a work placement at Pentagram. Second, he won a two week trial at Fabrica (http://www NULL.fabrica NULL.it/), Italy. Third, he won a full internship at Pentagram. Then! Just to top it off he’s recently been offered a full year back at Fabrica. New York or Italy, or both? AgIdeas NewStar (http://www NULL.agideas NULL.net/index NULL.php?nodeId=25) — enter now! Only five days left! That’s more than enough time to do something great.
Junior: You entered agIdeas newStar in your last year at uni?
Hamish: The start of fourth year I was doing honours at RMIT, at The Works. It’s a design studio run by the honours students. There are usually about 8-10 students there. I had just begun at The Works when I entered newStar, and all I entered was basically my work from third year. I already had it together in a PDF, so it wasn’t difficult to enter. For the Collie Print Trust award, also a part of newStar, you had to enter three pieces, so I just picked out my three most confident pieces and sent it all in. And then, we waited. They short-listed about thirty people for the award and at the agIdeas conference the international speakers judged those thirty entries, then the winner is announced on the last day of the conference.
Jr: From there what happened?
H: After announcing the winner I went up on stage — it was the best day. I was in shock I think. That was for the Collie Print Trust Award, which was flights, accommodation and two weeks work experience at an international studio of my choice. I chose Pentagram New York. Luckily I didn’t have to say anything on stage, because I wouldn’t have been able to speak. Ken Cato was standing there when I walked off of stage. I met him quickly and then he asked if I wanted to go to Fabrica as well, because they wanted to send me there too. I don’t know what I said, but ended up saying ‘Yeah that would be awesome’, or something stupid like that. They announced that on stage too and also gave away another three Fabrica awards because they liked the other entrants’ work so much.
Jr: What happened after you found out you won?
H: After the conference ended that day I was invited to the dinner that night at the Melbourne Museum, and got a wad of business cards from all the people that I met. This was in May and I was still completing honours at Uni. I could have left and started the trip straight away – but I decided to finish studying and begin the award in January 2010. Because I’d won two awards – one to Italy for Fabrica and the other to New York – instead of sending me over and back twice they bought a round the world ticket for me. The ticket lasted a year so I could travel too. I left Australia in January and went to Fabrica first, spent two weeks there on the trial and then I had four months before I had to be in New York. I ended up backpacking alone in Europe for four months, couch surfing everywhere and taking loads of photos – it was a pretty amazing experience. I had never been overseas before, so it was a real eye opener for me in a positive way.
Jr: What were you doing when you got to Fabrica for the two weeks?
H: I was on trial in the visual communication department, with another Australian girl, Ramona Lindsay, who also won the Fabrica award at agIdeas. We were working with the other designers there, and they had just got a new job for the UN World Health Organisation. Basically it was a large-scale worldwide poster campaign. They were in the early stages of the design process, had just finished researching and were starting on concepts and coming up with ideas — the fun part. We just slotted straight in with them and started working. It was a really challenging brief.
Jr: It’s pretty hard to prove yourself in two weeks!
H: Yeah, and it’s a tough job, you’re in a new place, you don’t know anyone, all the while trying to prove to them why they should invite you back.
Jr: Were there lots of other foreigners there too?
H: For sure. It’s probably one quarter Italian. But it’s a very international environment. English is the official language but a lot of Italian gets spoken. The people there were really friendly, completely into what they were doing and they’re all really talented. From speaking to the current “Fabricani”, the best thing about Fabrica is the people that you meet there and the contacts you make. After you have been there for a year you get to know these people pretty well – so by the end of the residency you have really talented friends from all over the world.
Jr: And then you left, and thought you hadn’t got a place to stay there at Fabrica?
H: I thought I bummed it. I left it really disappointed in myself. I wasn’t really happy with the work that I had done there so I thought that that might have had something to do with it.
Jr: What did they say when you left?
H: ‘We’ll be in touch’. ‘It was great to have you here’. I heard that they take ages to get back to people – I heard six months in one case. But nine months had passed and then I got this email last week totally out of the blue. The email was an offer asking me back for the year residency if I was willing to accept. I was pretty shocked to get it!
Jr: Do you find the style of stuff that you are used to from Melbourne, and RMIT, and even your own style of design — did it fly over there or was it very different?
H: I didn’t really get a chance to practice anything like I had done in Melbourne –which was good. Fabrica is all about very visual and confronting imagery, stuff that works on a global scale. I’d say that that is pretty different to my style, which is more of a traditional generalist graphic design I guess.
Jr: What is Fabrica like?
H: There’s many different departments there including– photography, visual communication, interactive design, design (products, furniture etc), video, music and Colors [Magazine]. There is probably around forty to fifty young people – the residents – plus the Fabrica staff. They give you a flat in town, and you live with another Fabricanti. They all go out, get pizza – that sort of stuff all the time. It’s really fun. I think the total population of the town, Treviso, is about eighty thousand, but the central town within the old walls is smaller. Lots of pizza and very cheap but good wine!
Jr: So what did you do after Fabrica? Travelled and then ended up in New York?
H: Yes, I got here [NY] in May, had two weeks to explore and then started the work placement at Pentagram. Back in February I was emailing a designer at Pentagram to organise the work placement. I basically asked her if I could stay longer than the two week placement. I thought I had nothing to lose if I asked. She said no, I couldn’t, but that I was welcome to apply for the Fall internship position they had open. I sent in my portfolio and got a phone interview with them in April. I did that when I was in London. I was in a hostel, on a bunk bed at night. I was really nervous but it must have gone OK.
So from there I went to New York and was at Pentagram. By applying for the internship I had turned the two week placement into a trial for the internship.
Two days after I started I was fortunate to get put on this urgent project that was happening within a different team. I was the only person in the office who was free that day, so I was lucky that I got to do it. I was thrown in the deep end, we had a meeting the following afternoon and they needed the project done by then. It was an environmental graphics job for a pitch with a big client. I had six hours to get all of this stuff done and was freaking out a little. I worked really hard, got some stuff together, and apparently the client liked it.
Jr: So it’s probably always different.
H: Yep. At the moment we’re working on a book and some signage. It’s really varied. I work for Michael Bierut and his clients include a lot of arts related projects, signage and publications.
Jr: You’re learning a lot?
H: So much. Working with Michael Bierut (http://www NULL.pentagram NULL.com/en/partners/michael-bierut NULL.php) is obviously pretty interesting and you learn something new from him every day. Even just listening to him on the phone you learn a lot about how he deals with clients.
Jr: Do you ever get to meet clients?
H: I’ve been in a few meetings, but generally interns won’t get to do that. Unless you’re very closely involved with the project. But, it’s a small team so you are always pretty involved, and not stuck in a corner on Photoshop all day. We do have to do that some days, but never all the time.
Jr: What advice would you give to the next winner of the internship?
H: My advice to those entering would be to only enter work that you are truly confident in. If you aren’t confident in even a small part of a project, cull it from your folio. It’s better to have five great things than ten OK projects. Also, you’ve still got time so you can probably do seven projects in that time. Make your own briefs up. Rebrand something that needs rebranding and put it in your folio. Work your ass off because it’s an amazing opportunity. Finally, work hard for a long time and good things will start to happen.
Entries close for agIdeas NewStar Monday 15th November. Enter at newstar.agideas.net (http://newstar NULL.agideas NULL.net)
As you may have guessed, we’re all for helping the young ones get somewhere in this loopy doopy world. Lucky for you, we’ve been given the heads up about agIdeas 2011 newStar (http://www NULL.agideas NULL.net/agideas-2011/newstar) — known to be one of the most prestigious and important design scholarships in Australia for young, up and coming, fantastically amazing, super rad designers.
The super quick low down: there’s a call for entries launch party on Thursday the 16th of September held at 1000 Pound Bend in Melbourne. Then, you’ve got until the 15th of November before entries close. Reckon you can pull the best design moves to send yourself on a jetplane to Italy? Read below..
The scholarships include: The Collie Trust Award (http://www NULL.agideas NULL.net/agideas-2011/newstar/collie-print-trust-award) and Fabrica Award (http://www NULL.agideas NULL.net/agideas-2011/newstar/fabrica-award), Italy, each valued at over $5000.00 in airfares and accommodation, plus the invaluable experience of working with a leading design studios.
The Collie Trust Award provides the winner with airfares, accommodation and two weeks work experience in one of the following leading studios: Pentagram (http://www NULL.pentagram NULL.com/), UK; Smart Design (http://www NULL.smartdesignworldwide NULL.com/), USA; Guerrilla Games (http://www NULL.guerrilla-games NULL.com/), The Netherlands; Ahn Sang Soo (http://www NULL.ssahn NULL.com/) Korea; Browns (http://www NULL.brownsdesign NULL.com/), UK; Mister Walker (http://www NULL.misterwalkerdesign NULL.com/), South Africa; IDEO (http://www NULL.ideo NULL.com/), USA; Prologue, USA; SeymourPowell (http://www NULL.seymourpowell NULL.com/), UK; Les Editions Volumiques (http://www NULL.volumique NULL.com/), France; and Gnomon School (http://www NULL.gnomonschool NULL.com/), USA.
The Fabrica Award from the Benneton Group Design Studio in Italy provides the winner with airfares, accommodation and a 2 week trial at Fabrica — from which they can be awarded a 12 month scholarship. To be eligible, you must be a true junior — under 25 years of age.
Fabrica (http://www NULL.fabrica NULL.it/) is led by an international team that supports the creative development of young artists / researchers from all over the world. There, the winner will participate in a range of communication activities, in cinema or graphics, design or music, or within new media or photography, as part of Colors Magazine (http://www NULL.colorsmagazine NULL.com/). In its role as a laboratory of applied creativity (its name comes from the Latin word meaning ‘workshop’), Fabrica deals with new forms of communication, following two key principals: hands-on approach to training (the young grant holders are invited to ‘learn by practice’), and a multi-disciplinary approach.
The experience for many of past winners has been life and career changing. 2009 winner, Hamish Smyth completed two weeks work experience with Pentagram NY, and has now been awarded a 12 month internship. 2007 winner, Ben McNamara, believes that ‘winning the NewStar competition really kickstarted everything simply by giving me the confidence to back myself … without it I don’t know where I would be now’.
Students and new graduates are invited to submit their best work in 2D, 3D and multimedia. A panel of leading Melbourne designers will shortlist the entries and the winners will be selected by the international guest presenters from agIdeas 2011 International Design Week.
Shortlisted finalists will be showcased in the agIdeas 2011 Book and in an exhibition at the Melbourne Museum in 2011.
agIdeas 2011 NewStar is part of the annual agIdeas International Design Week.
The agIdeas 2011 NewStar call for entries launch party on Thursday 16 September at 361 Little Lonsdale Street, Melbourne. Entry form can be downloaded from http://www.agideas.net/agideas-2011/newstar (http://www NULL.agideas NULL.net/agideas-2011/newstar) or contact the Design Foundation for further details on 9416 2966. Entries close Monday 15 November 2010.
What do you get when you mix up two cool kids, no money, and a shit load of imagination? Tin & Ed (http://www NULL.tinanded NULL.com NULL.au/) told us all sorts of crazy things about starting out as designers. Not only were they young-en’s that started their own kick-ass studio (http://www NULL.tinanded NULL.com NULL.au/) straight out of Uni, they’re now represented by the one and only Jacky Winter Group (http://jackywinter NULL.com/) and are wrapping Australian design into a tornado of coloured paper and loopy costumes. Look at those outfits! They’re super cool bananas!
Jr: First of all, tell us how you guys met and started out.
Ed: In the Melbourne Design Guide it said we met in Vietnam designing a punk rock magazine.
Tin: We did meet designing punk rock magazine but we didn’t meet in Vietnam.
Ed: It does make it sound like I picked Tin up in Vietnam.
Tin: I was the punk rock kid on the street.
Jr: That’s so funny.
Tin: We met at Uni, at Swinburne, at the end of first year. Ed was in multimedia and I was in graphic design.
Ed: I did visual arts, and then I took a year off, and then started up at Swinburne doing multimedia. The good thing about Swinburne was that there was a major class that was with everybody else so I got to meet the graphic guys, and got to see what they were doing. I was much more interested by what they were doing, so I fought like hell to transfer over into graphic design – so I was in Tin’s class in second year.
Jr: Did you start working on projects together?
Tin: We had this collective with two other guys, John and Pete. We worked together and did things like magazine covers, which we thought was what graphic design was… We designed just one cover together which was completely ridiculous.
Ed: Neither of us are very punk.
Tin: We did it as an opportunity to do something outside of Uni, which in the long run was really good for us because you have real clients, and real deadlines.
Ed: Uni didn’t like it at all.
Jr: They didn’t like you doing stuff outside of class?
Tin: They didn’t make it easy for you to do it because they have so many projects, and they weren’t adaptable enough for you to actually try and include your external projects.
Ed: I think it’s a little bit of a shame that you can’t say, I’ve got this real world project – can I build it into one of these fictitious projects – and it’s like no, you can’t do that. And from a folio point of view that was one of the biggest things in terms of getting work. If you can say, this is the stuff that my lecturer asked me to do, and this is my real world stuff, I think that’s really important.
Jr: I would imagine that any employer would look far more favourably on someone that had real world work.
Tin: Exactly. We wanted to work together and they didn’t know how to mark us that way. It was a constant fight with the system and it wasn’t flexible enough for us to work the way we wanted to work. They want you to work in a particular sort of way. They train you up to be a junior designer for a design studio. That’s their goal for you, and that’s not really what we wanted to do. So there was a conflict there and I think that made it difficult. But, I’m glad that we went through it…
Ed: I think the art of Uni is that you’ve got all this criteria to meet, but you also have to try and work out how you can still do what you want to do. I think that’s pretty much the only way I got through it — by changing or engineering a brief to be something that I was actually interested in.
Tin: We saw a lot of people coming out of Uni who didn’t want to be designers anymore. What they were probably really saying was that they didn’t want to be that kind of designer. There’s all that confusion there. I don’t know what it’s like now though.
Ed: The biggest thing for us was that we realised that marks were totally irrelevant, and at the end of it you really need to have something strong that you‘re happy to sit down and talk about…
Tin: That you are proud of…
Ed: Even if you didn’t get a good mark.
Jr: It is so subjective.
Tin: Yes, it is really subjective. I remember they were teaching us all this stuff about design and what it should be. Some lecturers don’t allow you to put your own personal spin on what you’re doing, and I don’t really agree with that. Shouldn’t design be something that you do because you are enjoying it, and you are doing it as much for yourself as for the client? Don’t you get a better result if you are doing something for yourself as well?
Ed: I think it still is all about the client. But, I think you can do both. Something we try to do, and what we feel makes our work stronger, is when we are interested and passionate about it – and that’s when we are invested in it. We do things we are interested in at the time, things that we want to explore, in a way it’s really just for ourselves but we are connecting that back to the client too. We are not just going off and doing whatever the hell we want, it’s really is about making those connections and bringing them back to the client.
Jr: Does the client ever shun that sort of reason?
Tin: I think we’ve been lucky in that. For the most part we’ve had some really open clients, we don’t really get too many clients that are too prescriptive about what they want which is good for us because generally we are interested in very different things at different points in time and…
Ed: I think we can always say why things are the way they are.
Tin: We think a lot about things so it is not like we are going ‘let’s just make stuff out of paper’. There are an infinite amount of answers to any given problem. If you can do something you are interested in, that also works really well for the client too, then you are both happy. And you’ll do a better job.
Ed: You’re building on the concepts with the client in mind. The final outcome will be representational of that. It doesn’t really matter what it is.
Jr: One of the most interesting things about you guys is that you didn’t work anywhere before you got together. When did you decide to create Tin and Ed? Was Next Wave the start?
Tin: We got the Next Wave project, which was the day we finished Uni.
Ed: That was crazy…
Tin: I think I was at Kinko’s crying because my film wasn’t coming out, and I got the call. We didn’t expect to get it because when we had the meeting with them, they asked if we could design a 100 page publication and we were like yes! But we’d never done anything like it. At Uni when you design a magazine you do the cover, the contents page and a double page. We just said yes to being able to do everything.
Jr: So how the hell did you get the job?
Tin: I think they must have liked our ideas and we also had a quite big folio of work that we had done as well. Then, they gave us an office, in their office; it was a little room, just a side room.
Ed: It was a pretty amazing project. We didn’t know anyone, and we were surrounded by all these artists. We immediately became part of the community.
Tin: That was really good because we met the Crumpler guys who we have done heaps of work for and as a starting point, it was really fantastic.
Jr: When that finished what happened next?
Tin: That did go on for a long time. We started working for Crumpler (http://www NULL.crumpler NULL.com/au/) and people just started coming to us with projects because the Crumpler stuff had such a large exposure, and people really liked it. Then, we moved into our studio here, and the work just kept coming in.
Ed: I suppose the other thing, because we haven’t been in a studio, or this is the way I see it, we haven’t got used to earning a decent wage…
Tin: It was a long time before we started really earning. You are just scraping by but that’s the way it is. I think because we have never really had proper jobs before it didn’t matter because we were doing what we wanted and…
Ed: I’ve spoken to guys who’ve been in studios and gone on and done their own thing, they find it much, much harder.
Tin: They can’t do it because they are living off half the amount of money that they had so it was good that we just skipped the whole getting paid.
Jr: Did you have jobs at coffee shops or something?
Tin: No, never, we had to live off what we made.
Ed: It was definitely tough…
Tin: When you first come out of Uni you still have that crazy energy to make stuff and that really can take you a long way and I think that sustained us for a long time. We got really burnt out because we were working seven days a week and we took five days off a year.
Ed: Remember the time we worked Boxing Day or something stupid?
Tin: Yes. And New Years Eve.
Jr: Where does that motivation come from?
Tin: I think it was just this energy that we had from finishing Uni and just all of a sudden we were able to do what we wanted..
Jr: You had a real sense of purpose to what you were doing.
Tin: Yes, it was like, this is our life. This is what we are doing. We still have that feeling now, but I think it is a little more controlled.
Ed: I think it is also realising that your off time is really important, and that having weekends is actually a more productive thing to do – because when you are working you want to be working, instead of feeling overworked.
Tin: We got really burnt out at one point, and now we try to cultivate the creativity by having time off and going overseas, and taking the time to do things which will actually refill our creative reservoir.
Ed: Because when you’re working all the time, there ends up being nothing left.
Tin: What we were doing was amazing, really awesome work, but it wasn’t sustainable at all, you couldn’t keep on going with that forever because you would probably just decide not to be a designer anymore. It’s not really healthy to be working seven days a week forever, but for that time we just had this crazy energy.
Ed: We still do when we have to, certainly when the deadlines are crazy. When we get a big job that’s just part of what you have to do.
Jr: Are your friends hard working artists too?
Tin: Yes. We are surrounded by lots of really amazing creative people. I think that’s the best part of being in Melbourne. Everyone is really supportive of each other and everyone works really hard.
Jr: Have you had kids asking for internships or work experience?
Tin: We get a lot of people who want internships from France for some reason.
Jr: Really?
Tin: Yes, I’m not really sure…
Jr: You guys are big in France.
Tin: I don’t know, maybe, I really don’t know, but we get a lot of emails from them.
Ed: It has been quite funny because we have updated our website relatively recently and it’s good because the people asking to do work experience, the caliber of their work…
Tin: It’s completely increased, and it makes you feel good. We’d really like to bring someone else in.
Jr: On a full time type of thing?
Tin: No, just work experience, generally when we are working on big projects we will involve all our friends and stuff. The studio is called Tin & Ed, we don’t really want to expand…
Ed: I think we like the idea of collaborating. That is really what we do, when we get a lot of work on or whatever we get other people involved. It’s collaboration.
Jr: Collaboration rather than come work for us.
Tin: We like working with other people, I think lots of different people.
Ed: I think you get much better results when you are collaborating, you get someone that’s awesome, that can do stuff that we can’t do from a totally different point of view.
Jr: Where to now? What’s the plan, do you just want to work somewhere cool and be with your friends until the end of your days?
Ed: That’s a big question isn’t it.
Tin: We have lots of ideas.
Ed: We have lots of plans.
Jr: You’ve just got to pick one and run with it.
Tin: I don’t think it’s necessarily having to choose one, I think that we can have a few plans. We are very easily bored so I think that it is good to have a few plans that we can go with.
Ed: Really one of the biggest things that we’ve done is having this business adviser because essentially what she does is really simple. She asks us what we want to do and how we are going to do it – so it’s working out what are the things involved, and when are you going to do it by. It is very simple, but then she’ll come back to us next time and ask how we went with those things. It’s really great because we keep that going and to have somebody there…
Tin: Somebody who you have to answer to. She tells us that every time we finish a project we have to reward ourselves. So, we always have oysters…
Ed: That’s a big thing, we do owe ourselves quite a few oysters.
Tin: We used to do it religiously, maybe we can do it today.
Ed: I think we should do it. But she is really good at helping us feel like we are going somewhere. It is one thing to set goals but to realise you are actually achieving them is a really good thing, because then I know within myself I feel better about it, it’s like I’m not running around in circles with no idea.
Tin: I think that our plans are to work on more collaborative projects with other people, like product based collaborations and also our own..
Ed: We’ve got shit loads of exhibitions coming up.
Tin: We have four exhibitions this year, two of them are solo shows, two in Melbourne and two in Sydney so we’ll be busy with that.
Ed: There is heaps of stuff that is happening and I guess we don’t need to make that many plans this year because there is so much to do already. But we will definitely continue to make plans beyond that.
Jr: What’s the best way to get you involved in a project?
Tin: Email us and tell us about the project you are working on. We have been involved in agency projects really early and also conceptual stuff as well – we used to do a lot of conceptualising for publicists.
Ed: My favourite thing is to follow a project right the way through so the best thing is to start off talking about what ideas you might have for the project.
Tin: That is, if you have a slight idea and want help developing it. But even the smaller projects, the projects where we have been brought in later have been enjoyable. We really like the agency work actually. It’s always been really, really fun and challenging and we have always gotten a lot from them.
Jr: Any advice for kids who are just finishing Uni and want to start their own studio?
Tin: I say go for it, I guess that’s all you can really say isn’t it. It’s a scary sort of thing.
Ed: Just work hard…
Tin: I think that you have to be prepared to work really hard when you are starting and you have to be prepared not to have very much money and…
Ed: I think pretty much anyone can do it.
Tin: But you also have to decide what sort of studio you want it to be, because you have to be selective about the sorts of jobs that you get. What’s in your folio is the sort of work that you will get; so only put the sort of work that you want to do in your folio. I think that’s probably good advice.
Scott Thomas, also known as Simple Scott (http://simplescott NULL.com/), was the Design Director who helped to get Barack Obama elected as American president in 2008. Scott is not your typical designer, that much is true, although the typical designer should certainly be more like Scott. He’s an incredibly articulate and clear thinker heavily influenced by architecture, modernism and the human experience. All of which make his work completely utilitarian in the best way possible; people seem to interact with the websites he creates and the communications he’s published in an astonishingly involved way. But aside from all that intellectual hoo-hah, Scott is a totally gracious bro from Chicago who knows his shit more than most. How to live life better, how to find meaning in your work, what to do when things aren’t working, how to have friends and still have a fulfilling career… At least all the stuff we were dying to know, cause, you know, if it’s good enough for Barry Obammy, it’s good enough for you.
Junior: Scott, something’s been bugging me about this ‘successful career’ thing for a little while now… How do you have friends and still find time to indulge in the deep-thinking and hard-work a ‘successful career’ requires? Especially when you’re young.
Scott Thomas: I think it’s important to understand time. Everyone is in a rush. Many people don’t spend time enjoying things and living in the present moment. With work, when there are those times that you can’t take it any longer, you have to step away from it. Go do something fun, go hang out with your friends.
However, I also feel in those same instances where it’s important to walk away from your work, it’s important to walk away from everything else for a while and just work. That’s where true concentration comes from. Concentration is hard nowadays; it’s becoming more and more difficult. iPhones are constantly buzzing, emails always coming through, YouTube clips to check out, Facebook messages popping up all over the place–you don’t really want all that distraction. In order to be truly successful and do something well you have to shut off the outside world for a while.
Jr: But how do you do that if your friends are persuasive people?
S: They’re persuasive, but you don’t let them persuade you.
Jr: So can I tell them to fuck off?
S: No, you shut them off. You close everything. You turn off your phone. You go out on the weekend and tell them, “Guys, I’m not going to see you for a week because I have to get stuff done. I’m not going to be accessible by phone and email and I won’t really respond much so… c’est la vie.”
Ideally, go someplace that doesn’t have internet. Then you can spend more time concentrating and working. It’s an ebb and flow. I’ve never really lived in NYC but I can imagine living here would be hard–I’m only here for a week or so once every couple of months and I don’t stop when I’m here, I’m constantly moving. I can see how NYC could be a distraction. But your network can grow vastly very quickly, especially if you can do something well.
Jr: New York is a great place to come when you are young and be social. But it’s not such a great place when you want to sit down and focus and do some work, especially work that is going to get you somewhere other than work that is just going to pay the bills.
S: Right. I think that’s the balancing act. For me I’ve always seen creatives struggle with it–”I’m going to go to New York to become famous!” No, you’re not, you’re going to go there and struggle paying for an apartment and struggle with your career. If you’re doing things well and you come here, and you already have some things established, then I think it’s the place to be. It’s just like everything else.
Personally I have a season where I don’t do anything. I hibernate in the winter. I keep in very mild contact with my friends, but it’s good for me. I need to be secluded when I work.
Jr: Have you always been like that?
S: Yeah, I studied architecture in college. Luckily the architecture studio is a quiet place. Typically I wouldn’t work there during the day, but I’d go there at night from about 7pm-3am. I’d spend hours working at night, and that was so helpful because I had no distraction, and no outside influence. If I have people around me I want to hear what they have to say.
Jr: Ah yes! I suppose that’s the difference between an office job and working freelance for yourself. At an office you have to deal with all the people around you and the politics that go with it. But when you’re freelancing, you get up in the morning, sit at your desk, and it’s just you. You have the decision whether you do work or not. There are no excuses.
S: I think that’s one thing that it definitely does–it allows you to form your own mind. I think the disease of a corporate environment is that you get stuck doing whatever they demand you to do. You’re a task man. You’re a yes man. You’re stuck in a world of checking things off the list your superiors are telling you to do, rather than following your passion, your desire, and asking the questions you wanted to ask.
Jr: Then again, you need mentors, and motivation, and a firm kick in the ass if you don’t have a sense of urgency in what you do.
S: I think the trick is to have close friends that you work with that will give you that kick in the ass, that will push you, inspire you, and drive you. Doing something completely alone–there is no real way to get a good product in the end. In order to grow you need constant influence at a young age. Constantly adding fuel to the fire.
Jr: So how did it happen for you? On the way here you were saying you studied architecture then dropped out?
S: I didn’t drop out so much, I kind of switched. I transferred and went to Iowa State and found that graphic design interested me. I didn’t know why, but I felt that architecture was too engineering based, too structural and not artistic enough. I wondered if I needed the freedom that graphic design was going to offer me. It was a difficult challenge for me early on, and I found that I actually needed a math problem and some structure. That’s why the web made so much sense to me. I started building websites pretty early on, in 1998.
Jr: Is that what you do now? Mostly web stuff?
S: I’m very web focused. I did the Vote for Change website. I created the architecture concept and worked with the developers to do it.
Jr: So you never did print?
S: Of course I did. The thing that got me jobs was that I could open up Photoshop and I knew branding–I’m a very multi-faceted designer.
Jr: Although it’s probably one of the most hirable skills at the moment–having web knowledge.
S: It is, but even more so if you’re also a real designer. Not only can I make your website work, but I can make it look good.
Jr: Where did you go after you finished college?
S: I was really unsatisfied just doing graphic design and I didn’t really enjoy it. I wanted to explore, so I went to London for almost a year. I didn’t really have plans when I went, I ended up working in music distribution.
Jr: Putting shit in envelopes and sending it to people?
S: No, I designed CD covers, cases and packaging. Brand stuff. It was a good chance to allow me to explore. But I wouldn’t claim any of that work to be good stuff in my eyes. I was an intern so I was getting paid, you know, crap. I also worked at a pub. It was an experience that kind of altered my perspective on things. It was the first time I was in a different culture, and I realised that there was a big world out there. After that, I went back to Iowa where my family is from.
Jr: Did you have anything to show for it?
S: Not really, I mean, I had a new haircut and wore fancy clothes. I was on a completely different planet when I got back. The people in Iowa knew that. My mind was completely on another planet. I was only there for six months or so. It was hard. It was a culture shock. I had serious anxiety from not wanting to be there, you know, I went back to fucking Iowa. The coolest thing there is cornfields and hay-bales. I tried to work on small bullshit projects freelancing to save up some money so I could get out as soon as possible. The best thing about it was after that, I was never the same person. I become instantly clear as did my understanding of everything.
Jr: What changes?
S: I think it’s the reality that you can go anywhere and do whatever you want to do. You can say, “I can do it, this is my future, I’m going to do it,” and not blink.
Jr: Yes. That stage where you realise you’re in complete control of the rest of your life.
S: This brings up an interesting subject of lucid dreaming and many people’s fascination with being able to control their dreams. Why would you want to control your dreams when you have complete control of your life?
Jr: Many people think they aren’t in control of their lives; that life is continually swirling in a vortex of other peoples shit. But they completely are in control–it’s just a matter of perspective.
S: Totally. You get stuck by the system. You’ve got all these forces telling you that you have to do this and you have to get a job and you have to work in a cubicle and this is life. “This is life son, welcome.”
Jr: Were your parents like that?
S: No, I was lucky. They supported me. I think that they realised early on that I had my mind made up. I told them I was going to move to Oregon and go to school, and they looked at me like I was crazy.
Jr: Why was it crazy?
S: Because it was so far away from them.
Jr: They didn’t have to financially support you at all?
S: I think that was the problem, I was paying for a bit of it and was realising how much it was costing me.
Jr: Most parents these days seem to be happier with whatever you do as long as they don’t have to pay for it. Which can be harder in some ways because you need that.
S: That support?
Jr: Yeah.
S: Especially when you are beginning to realise the necessity of money. Try as hard as you want to fight it, at the end of the day, you need it.
Jr: A lot of money when you’re a kid turns out to be nothing when you’re older.
S: I try not to think about money as much as possible.
Jr: London is more expensive than anywhere though. How did you cope there?
S: Again, you don’t think about money.
Jr: What about when you get into debt?
S: Think about how you are going to pay it off.
Jr: So what did you do when you moved from Iowa?
S: I moved to Chicago. I met some friends who invited me to come live with them, so I did. It was right downtown and I loved it instantly. My roommates were great, they were creative, and it was nice to be around people who were constantly doing stuff. I worked for quite a few years in user-determined design at IA Collaborative (http://www NULL.iacollaborative NULL.com/), analyzing all sorts of things. Everything was very focused on user experience, mostly products. Not online.
Jr: Solving human problems, rather than wondering where to stick the logo?
S: Yes, absolutely. It wasn’t focused on stylizing. For me it was very focused on the sort of stuff that you look at and think, “Wow, that’s so simple, why didn’t I think of that?” Analyzing those things and how they work. Trying to innovate new solutions. It made me dive deep, it was very immersive, an all encompassing job.
Jr: That’s the sort of education people need for solving problems.
S: Oh absolutely, it taught me so much–I learned a lot about how to approach user experience design. Now that I consider myself a user experience designer, a lot of people say, “What the hell does that mean? What do you design?” I want to design the entire experience and not limit myself to one chunk, one part of it. I don’t want to just design the logo, I want to design the bottle, the product, the packaging, the experience of when you open that door at the convenience store–I want to control all those senses. I think that’s my architectural mind coming out as well as branding, communication, design–everything.
Jr: Maybe that’s more design thinking than architecture?
S: Not necessarily. I think great architects want to have the ability to design everything in their space. Everything makes a huge impact. I personally believe that architects want to control the entire experience.
Jr: Is architecture the next step for you then?
S: Yes, absolutely. For me it’s a personal thing, it’s where my mind is most of the time. When I go away I draw more buildings in spaces than anything else. I take notes on places; how the height of a stair affected me. I think that way. It’s natural. That’s why the internet and what is happening technologically is another area I’m successful in and I think that my brain works well in.
In the same way that an architect connects spaces with one another, a web/interaction designer is connecting how our interactions connect with one another. As a web designer you’re not designing a poster. In fact, I’m not sure I could even design a poster anymore, I just don’t have that mind. A web designer is constantly creating a connections within a page, then from one page to the next. It’s far more of an experience and a way-finding device than anything else, so you have to be good at directing people to where they want to go.
Jr: What do you think is the biggest failing of most online user experiences that you see? What are some good ideas for kids when they get an digital brief and they want to make it better?
S: I think the biggest problem is being stuck in the creative conceptual realm. The web is not a place to explore conceptual artwork. It’s just not. Personality is not necessarily something you want to inject into a website. They’re utilitarian. They are there to supply you with the ability to find information, gather information, and then leave. There are obviously some sites where you can be more conceptual but the truly powerful sites in our web world today are utilitarian, like twitter and Facebook and YouTube.
The reason they are popular is that people can use them. They can use them very effectively as a means to an end. I’m gathering all my friends here and I can upload a video and share it with all my friends, or I can find any book in the world. That’s what the web is today.
I also think it’s important to stay away from projects that are just bad ideas. Sometimes I struggle with that when someone wants to pay you, but when you start knocking it out you see the site is never going to go anywhere because it’s a bad idea. That’s always hard. I bet the same occurs in architecture.
Jr: Probably. Maybe the same occurs in everything.
S: I’m not sure why I think architecture is the next general step for me, I think it’s also due to the fact that after the Obama campaign it’s really hard to take on a project that has that level of significance and importance. I’m really not sure if I want to take on that level of importance again or do something that big again.
Jr: What was the importance? That it changed the direction of the United States?
S: That and the design of the campaign. I don’t think that design has ever been done like that in politics. We focused more on trying to do things right, and quickly, and make things look good, and look right. Rather than just making things.
Jr: What was the difference on the Obama campaign? Why was that so different?
S: Because of the way the organisation was structured. We didn’t have a top-down organisation, we had a bottom-down organisation. Lets take choices of typography for example. If we started to use Gotham, it wasn’t like we had to go and speak to our bosses who had to then ask Barack. Obviously Barack Obama has no thoughts on typography. I go home and have wet dreams on typography so clearly they are going to trust me on that decision; they’re too busy to think about it anyway. So if I was to write a report on why I wanted to switch from Gill Sans to Gotham, it probably would never have gotten read and it also would have been a waste of time.
Jr: Is that what usually happens?
S: I feel like in most corporations you have to justify all of your reasons and ask the person above you so you don’t get fired. There’s all those systems in place. I hate the word ‘systems’, because it also means boxes, and coffins.
Jr: So basically they just trusted you to do the right thing, and it was pure luck that you were incredibly good, otherwise it might not have been such a success.
S: Ha, yes, I guess you’re right. Although I’m sure they wouldn’t call it luck. You know, I think it’s important to understand what the power of design is. The power of design is not saying a single thing but communicating a whole lot. If you’re a writer the best sentence you could write is probably the one with the fewest words possible. If it communicates everything you want to say in the smallest number of words possible that’s what you’re reaching for.
Jr: Simple is better.
S: I call myself Simple Scott, so of course I agree with that.
Jr: How simple can we get? How do you choose between using a typeface? Something as simple as that?
S: We can’t go into something that specific straight away. We need to talk about what simplicity is. The important thing to understand about simplicity is you need to dive deep into the complexity of the situation.
It takes one person to think about all the complexities in order for true simplicity to be derived. That seems crazy right? You have to dive to the edge of oblivion before you know what’s going on. I think that’s true. I think that you have to do the largest amount of analysis before you can make the most simple and elegant solution.
Jr: So you’re saying before you worked on the Obama campaign you knew everything about him and his policies and everything he was trying to achieve.
S: During. It was a constant process of learning. You’re not going to be able to know everything about everything. But you need to know a little bit about what the problem is. Like the voting process. The notion is that voting registration in the USA is a complex process. You need to think about what the problems you’re trying to solve are. Then once you know and understand that, you try to make the most elegant solution, then walk people through the process.
Simplicity is a difficult thing to wrap ones mind around. The only things that are simple are the things that are truly empty (http://www NULL.youtube NULL.com/watch?v=PG4uRmTJUU8), that are truly void. The second you start adding a second variable it becomes complex. The design of a spoon is really complex when you boil it down. Something as simple as a spoon requires a lot of knowledge and understanding about human needs and the way we do things.
I think the beauty of simplicity, the reason I call myself Simple Scott, the reason I chose to make that my life’s work, is because I think it’s something that I can be constantly challenged by for the rest of my life. I can spend the rest of my life making things simpler and never get bored. I think everyone should find something like that. You think about some of the greatest minds in existence, like Albert Einstein, who was trying to take two theories and bring them into one basic idea, one unified theory. He never really reached it, but I don’t think he was ever really bored.
Jr: That’s right. Being constantly challenged. Which is a problem for many people who get a job somewhere and end up working 9-5 for ten years and not being that happy.
S: It happens all the time. People getting bored as hell or living out somebody else’s dream.
Jr: For many young people, especially those reading this interview, thirty seems like the roof in career terms. From your experience, can you offer any advice on how you put yourself in the perfect position so you can continue to grow and challenge yourself?
S: I have two plants in my house. One is a spider plant, and the other is something I can’t remember the name of. The interesting thing about the second plant is I bought it the week that I started at the campaign. It was a real little guy with four leaves. I bought it because I wanted to watch it grow. I knew that by working on the campaign, I was going to grow too–the plant was a representation of my personal growth. A plant doesn’t grow in a set path. It grows based on where the sun is, how much rain it gets, how much water it receives, how much attention it is having. All these elements play into the plant’s growth. It applies the same to us. If you take this as an analogy for the question, you don’t know which way your leaves are going to grow until they grow that way. It’s important to respect that, appreciate that, and to not look too far ahead into things.
Often times we want to have the answer to where we’re bound to go, but the truth is, we’re just here. If you spend your entire life living in the future you’re never going to enjoy the present and you’re never going to enjoy now. Then when all of a sudden you don’t have anything in the future to look towards, you don’t know how to appreciate the present. You become a sad old man. So I would suggest that everyone lives like a plant.
Jr: Sometimes things just happen, much like when you switched from architecture to design–you just know it’s the right thing to do at the time. And now with architecture, you’re about to begin on that journey, but who knows what strange and interesting places it will take you.
S: I might go back and teach for the rest of my life.
Jr: That could be the calling. I guess you need to leave it open for that.
S: Everyone needs that understanding and appreciation. I have a hard time with the notion of committing to anything at the present moment, and I think it’s because I’m really enjoying now. In the past I spent so much time living in the future that I started to forget why I was excited about life.
Jr: Well it sounds like you’re in a pretty great spot existentially now anyway. But how do you get there? How did you get there?
S: Time. Flow. I just got back from Japan. I was in Japan for two months. One of the things that I learned and really appreciated, and I learned a lot there, was this notion of master. Sensei. The notion of apprentice vs master. The difference between doing things as young people and old people. Sometimes we lose sight of that. We don’t want to listen to our elders or someone who has been in it for a while. Obviously it’s a double-edged sword, but our masters here are jaded by the fact that no one will listen to them. In Japan though, they are respected, welcomed and embraced. They’re able to flourish with it as well. I like that dichotomy there, the notion that the master is getting something from the youth that he teaches and the people that he teaches are getting the lessons of a lifetime. It’s a very structural society. They deal in hierarchy all the time. At a meeting everyone puts their business cards on a table and they’re ordered by who is more superior. It’s very structured.
Jr: So would you say structure is a good thing?
S: I don’t think Japanese people would consider it a good thing. I just think it’s interesting. I don’t think it happens here in the States. I think there’s a constant wanting to trump and to be better than.
Jr: It’s a good reason to get out, see different cultures and do different things, because for others something else works.
S: Yeah totally. I’ve never been in a society that was that much of a utopia. You could set your laptop on the table and walk away, and it would still be there. There’s no crime. There’s such a regard for the other person that that just doesn’t happen. Even in a place that is so dense. We’re talking about half of the people in the USA condensed into the size of California. But because Japan is so mountainous they only use 20% of their country. The rest is basically uninhabitable. Isn’t that crazy?
Jr: It certainly is. And you went there on sabbatical, which is another interesting topic. Your mentors told to go or your head might explode.
S: Yeah, people were telling me my head might pop off. Obviously after you do something really large like the Obama campaign, you know, take on a really big project and you accomplish it, after you cross that thing off the list, which for me a was an item that said, ‘win this fucking thing’, once that was checked I had no idea what to do next. I knew I didn’t want to go to Washington DC. I was offered a job at the Whitehouse, but I knew I wasn’t the right guy, though I would love to help the democracy further. I don’t think that it was the right time for me to help my country in that way.
Jr: Who came up with the idea for Japan?
S: I did, it was always a place I had wanted to explore. I wanted to go someplace where I wouldn’t be able to read anything, I wouldn’t see any typography that I understood, I wouldn’t be able to read any adverts. Everything ended up looking cute and kind of silly because I couldn’t read it, and that’s what I wanted. I wanted an escape from all of that, and I found it there. I found a great peace in Japan, even in a city as busy as Tokyo, which is very peaceful in areas, and there’s a great connection to nature even within the city. And there was stuff everywhere! All these interactions make up your experience, having more experiences increases the amount of knowledge that you have and possess, and the more you can potentially experience, the more that you can potentially know. I think it’s true for anybody.
If you have any passion to know yourself better than you knew it before, go someplace that is completely and utterly foreign to you. Go with no one else, go by yourself, go with no plans, and no conceptions about what it is going to be.
If you want a more in-depth look into how Scott engineered the Obama campaign, watch this speech he gave (http://vimeo NULL.com/9145266) at the Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago.
Another brilliant Junior event is done, full of incredibly social and interested young awesomes. Andrew Ashton of Studio Pip & Co (http://peoplethings NULL.com/) was an even awesome-er older awesome — he ignored our brief, and told us stories of what inspired him to work. We also got our act together and filmed the thing, so if you missed it you can see it on a screen near you once we’ve edited it up all nice. In the meantime, look at all these kids attentively listening! It’s like a classroom full of learning.
If you wanna be a success in this game, sometimes you need to do things you might not want to. But, as Stan will tell you, it’ll make you better than anyone else hawking their folio about. And it’ll be impossible not to get a job.
Ever shown your folio to someone and they’ve made comment about having seen one of your ideas before?
No? Lucky you!
For most of us though (including me) having an idea that has been done before is an occupational hazard.
So if someone tells you they’ve seen one of your ideas before, ditch it.
Yes ditch it.
Don’t sit there fretting about how long it took you or the fact that it’s one of your favourite pieces of work.
Just ditch it.
And as you crumple it up and toss it into the bin take a moment to sit back and smile.
Why?
Because you’ve come up with an idea that was considered good enough to run. Possibly even good enough to have won an award.
The only problem being that somebody else had the idea before you.
Now all you need to do is sit down with your pad and pen and come up with a new idea that’s just as good, that nobody has seen before.
Juniorversity — presenting an educational video from the internet every week.
Paul Rand (http://www NULL.paul-rand NULL.com) is a total banana. A crazy old coot who Laszlo Moholy-Nagy (http://en NULL.wikipedia NULL.org/wiki/Laszlo_Moholy-Nagy) called, “an idealist and a realist, [who used] the language of the poet and business man.” Students of design will know him well. But students of design should not know him best. His approach to communication and art (http://www NULL.paul-rand NULL.com/thoughts NULL.shtml) is especially pertinent to writers, architects, publishers, photographers, advertisers, and above all else, thinkers. Although Rand may be a total banana, his legacy is that of a true genius–an original maverick of communication and modernist philosophy. We suggest you watch these more than once.
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