#rickylinn

[kleanmagik]

[rickydsgn]

Interview

Was recently approached by a high school student who asked me if I could fill out an interview for him as part of his career project, so I happily obliged. Thanks Jonah for the great questions, you can read the interview below:

At what point in your life did you choose the path of art and design? 

It was mostly through blind luck actually. I sort of dabbled in art and had an interest for it as a kid but I quickly forgot about it as I grew older. It wasn't until during my junior year of high school that I rediscovered art and design. I was part of my school's badminton team at the time and they needed a new T-shirt for the upcoming season. Having messed around with Photoshop for a bit for the last few months, I thought I could take a stab at it. Naturally, it came out looking quite terrible but the rest is history, I was hooked on making images. It was during my senior year of high school that I decided to formally study design in college.

Why did you choose the Art Center College of Design?

I had a friend refer me to an Art Center alumni during my last year of high school who was running his own little design studio nearby. My friend had interned for him briefly and suggested that I go talk to him to figure out which art school I should go to and how. So I met up with the guy and he basically said Art Center was the only option he was willing to recommend, drawing from his own experiences and time there. Before I met him I didn't even know Art Center existed at all, but he was very convincing in his testimony of the school. So being the naive person I was then, and not knowing much about art and design, I decided Art Center was the only place for me as well and didn't look much further than that.

But instead of Art Center right after I finished high school, I actually ended up going to California State University Long Beach (CSULB) because my parents were adamantly against me going to art school. The compromise was that I then go to CSULB to study graphic design, albeit they were definitely hoping that I would eventually fall out of interest in that and pursue something more "worthwhile". I spent one year at CSULB before transferring out to Art Center, and although I didn't learn much during my time there, I'm actually very glad that I got the chance to experience at least a taste of a normal college life. But over the course of that year I started picking up some small freelance jobs here and there and started making some pocket money from it. That kind of changed my parent's minds a little once I started making some money and I was able to get myself out of Long Beach and over to Pasadena. 

How many different genres of design would you say you dabble in? (web, illustration, etc.)

These days I usually do graphic illustrations and branding work for clients. I get requests and briefs for motion design animations from time to time because of some of the motion work I had done in the past for school and in my spare time, and at rare times I get contacted to do some packaging work for a band's new CD or a refresh of an existing product line. I've never really dabbled in the web that much professionally but have done websites and coded a few things as part of my course work through school. One of the things I really hope to get to do professionally in the near future is to design magazines, newspapers, books, etc. 

What experiences have you had that shaped your career?

My parents trying to dissuade me from doing graphic design was a huge source of motivation for me to get better early on because I wanted to prove them wrong. And really there are few motivations in life stronger than wanting to prove yourself capable to people who thought you weren't.

My one year at CSULB and the friends I've made there help me stay grounded and realize that there is a world outside of design. It's very easy to lose sight of the bigger picture when you go to a trade school like Art Center and you're kerning type for the umpteenth time and you are surrounded by other design students and conversations about design.

A professor I had in my third semester at Art Center really pushed me beyond anything I thought I could have accomplished and I was incredibly lucky to have been taught by him as he retired right after the semester ended. I struggled so much in his class but he never let off the gas and kept pushing me to do better. I hated him for most of the semester for constantly giving me hell even though I thought what I had was good enough. But the last few weeks as things clicked I really grew to respect him because the project came out better than I ever thought was possible of me and I really felt myself mature to the next level.

That same semester I took a course on Intro to Modernism that really opened my eyes to the history of everything that have come before us and that is where I discovered Suprematism, Cubism, Constructivism, Midcentury design and the Bauhaus. Those schools of thought had a profound impact on my understanding of art and design and it changed the way I worked and the things I worked on.

Dribbble and Tumblr have been invaluable in giving me an outlet to broadcast my voice and my work out to the world and Dribbble in particular has provided me with more job opportunities and connections than I ever thought could happen. It's a fantastic platform if you're able to rise above the noise and get noticed. Dribbble let's me connect with professionals working today while Tumblr let's me connect with other students like myself or aspiring designers looking for advice and inspiration from someone who's walked a step or two down that path. 

What was your first design job as an artist? 

During the summer between my junior and senior year of high school circa 2008 I got myself an unpaid internship off Craigslist thinking that I would be able to learn on the job and improve my skills that way. The internship turned out to be a bit of a rouse and I found myself basically creating infographics for no pay and wasn't learning much either. Nonetheless, that internship actually turned out to be invaluable because those infographics back in 2008 through 2010 were all the rage then. Those pieces actually got my name out there as an infographic designer as some of the ones I did went viral. I got a considerable number of clients down the line mostly in part due to that internship.

Anyway, fast forward to about six months after I wrapped up my internship with that company, they called me back asking if I would like to make a few more infographics for them and I said sure, provided that I would get paid for them, and they obliged. So they paid me $50 for each infographic that would take me like 10 hours to do on average. $50! But I couldn't have cared less at the time. I was making money, however small, doing something I was really enjoying putting time into. And I got really good at being really quick in Illustrator. 

How would you describe the graphic arts profession?

In a word: competitive. The other side to that coin however is that the profession is also very friendly and inviting, but there is always that undercurrent of competition that is always sitting beneath the surface. I feel like the industry's at a point where supply is far outnumbering demand (though that's been shifting back as more people realize the necessity of designers). So you really have to carve out your own niche I think. No one person or studio can do it all, and especially as a freelancer, you really have to hone in on your voice and your style and really just hope that others find it worth paying you money for.

What tools or methods do you use to aid you in the design process?

The biggest thing outside of actually being in the software programs would be my Moleskine notebooks. I never start on anything without at least doing a quick doodle of it first. I'm on my seventh notebook right now and you can pretty much trace almost everything I've made to some obscure sketches and drawings I've put in my notebooks over the last few years. 

Coffee, music, and a good amount of head banging are always staples to poke the process along as is the norm with a lot of creative folks. In Frank Chimero's words: "I bash my head up against my desk like everyone else. We’re all the same."

Design is always aesthetically changing how do you keep up with the constant changes to remain relevant in the industry? 

I like to say that although the aesthetics of design may change, its foundations will always be the same. For example, graphic design will always rely on grids. Now, the way the grids are placed may change but the purpose of why we use grids won't ever change. And in that sense you're actually able to resist the fickleness of aesthetics because good design is based on good fundamentals. A formal education in design becomes extremely useful here because it helps you build that foundation and discover your own philosophy about what design means to you and your community, both locally and globally. Knowing the core of why you do design and why you think it matters does infinitely more to keep you relevant than trying to keep up with the trend of what's in currently. 

Have you ever had a bad experience with a client not liking your product? If so what did you do to come to a consensus? 

I've actually been extremely lucky that I've rarely ever had a bad experience with a client. The way I work with clients I make sure we are both on the same page at varying stages of the process so that neither of us feel lost on which direction we're both heading in. I check in with them frequently and send them works-in-progress shots of the project so they can voice their concerns if they see something they're not agreeing with. At which point I either agree to their notes and changes or try to argue my case for why I think what I've done is the right decision or the piece. At the end of the day though, you can only pitch your case and argue so much before you just have to bow your head and comply to the client's notes if they are that adamant about it. You never want to surprise clients with a polished version of something you've never discussed before with them and present it to them as the final deliverable. 

What has been your favorite project so far? 

Probably the Arizona rebrand/packaging project. Everything just came together really well for the project and things clicked early on in the process with no hiccups so it was just a ton of fun to work on and crank out the designs with good coffee and good music at my side. Very little head banging involved.

I really like your work especially your Maron piece. What artists or art styles have influenced your work?

The Suprematist/Constructivist, Cubist, and Midcentury schools of thought have formed my trifecta spheres of influence. And my Maron piece, as someone on Dribbble noted, looks kind of like Neo-Cubism and I really like that classification for it. Kazimir Malevich, Alexander Rodchenko, El Lissitzky, Picasso, Juan Gris, Edward McKnight Kauffer, A.M. Cassandre, Alvin Lusting, David Klein, Kurt Schwitters, Charley Harper, Saul Bass, are just a few big, big names from the pantheon of masters that have come before us.

More contemporary artists include the duo at Always With Honor, the duo at Lab Partners, the duo at Heads of State, the duo at DKNG, Kevin Dart, Frank Chimero, Meg Hunt, Brent Couchman, Olly Moss, Andrew Kolb, Josh Brill, Lotta Nieminen, Mike McQuade, Richard Perez, Mikey Burton, Aaron Draplin, Dan Matutina, Matthew Lyons, Eric Mortensen, Kelli Anderson, Scott Hill and his Foundry Co., Mike Lemanski, Ty Wilkins, Evan Stremke, Dan Cassaro, I mean the list is absolutely endless. 

Programs and software is always changing, is it a struggle to learn and keep up with those changes?

Definitely. Even as a somewhat tech-savvy person myself, the immense array of programs and software and languages graphic designers sometimes are expected to learn is overwhelming. Just read any debate on whether or not graphic designers ought to learn how to code. But thankfully design never happens in a bubble and more often than not you'll be collaborating with people who know things you don't and vice versa. 

Who is your favorite contemporary graphic artist, has his or her work influenced yours?

Speaking strictly graphic artist, (artist being the operative word) I think I would have to say Kevin Dart. He's a local L.A. talent that has had immense success with his illustrations and I am never not in awe of that man's work. I come from a slightly different angle given that I come from a graphic design background, but I still learn a lot from him, especially the composition of his illustrations.

You have a distinct style, is that hard to maintain while the design industry is growing bigger and more popular? 

To be honest I'm always quite surprised to hear that I have a distinct style since I kind of feel that I don't. Our work as designers and artists are an amalgamation of everything we've seen that we have stored away in our memory banks. We digest all this information and spit it back out into the world through our own filter shaped by our experiences in life. Looking at my work, you can clearly see the influences that have shaped me and molded my work (all the aforementioned designers and artists). For a long time, I never understood what Picasso meant by "Good artists copy, great artists steal." Now, I get it.

The problem with the proliferation of design and the plethora of design blogs that catalog them is that a lot of people are just blindly copying without knowing why and I think it's a phase a lot of designers that are starting out just have to go through to get it out of their system. (Look at the never-ending iterations of the Keep Calm And Carry On posters) I did the same, but you have to get beyond it eventually if you want to grow and mature. As young designers trying to grasp onto something that makes sense to us in terms of the final outcome and how it looks, we blindly gravitate to certain styles that resonate with us without actually understanding why and the process and reasoning it took to get to that outcome. This goes back to what I was saying about knowing your own philosophy about design and what it means to you.

What is the best advice you could give an aspiring designer?

I don’t know how qualified I am to be giving advice at this point but for what it’s worth, I do have a few things I have learned over the past few years.

Be hard on yourself. There is this weird notion that being self-critical is a bad thing but I would argue the exact opposite. Self-motivation is so important to getting better. No one wants you to succeed more than you. So stay motivated and keep pushing the limits of what you can and want to do. (Sidenote I've actually written a short little article on this subject if you want to check it out: http://stemmings.com/be-hard-on-yourself/) Don’t wait for someone to push you to do better. As you may have heard countless times, design is not a job you do, it is a lifestyle you live. 

Don’t be afraid to show work you’re proud of, especially as a student. Post them wherever you can build yourself a presence online, whether it be your own personal site, Tumblr, Twitter, Dribbble, etc, account. Nothing bad can come of it and can only help to gain you some exposure and get your feet wet into networking with other designers and land you some potential clients. I have been really fortunate that all my freelance clients have come to me because they have seen my work from which ever corner of the internet that they may have found it.

And lastly this is something I feel is invaluable to students moving forward professionally. Keep your ego in check and be patient with yourself. As students we often times have unrealistic expectations to become great really quickly. I certainly did. We look to those above us and admire their successes, without contemplating what it took to get there. I struggled for a long time in feeling confident about my own work because of voices both inside and outside my head saying that I can’t do it. Only now am I starting to feel more secure about my credibility as a graphic designer. It takes time to build yourself up from the ground, both in skill and maturity.

[breathless]

Ricky: *calling*

Me: *answers* I think I'm in love with John Lennon.

Ricky: John who?

Me: Lennon.

Ricky: You're outta luck. He's dead.

[deceptiprincess]

Shouldn't it be Everything has been/is being Avenged and nothing hurts?

I guess either way could work. Whichever as long as the word "Avenge" is in there somewhere.

[deceptiprincess]

Dear future me & dear past me.

Dear past me,

Cherish it man. There are so many times where I wish I could go back right now. You're really lucky to know all the people who consider you a friend. Don't forget them, even the ones that may not be your friend in the future. No matter who it is they mattered to you at some point.

Dear future me,

Well I hope wherever I ended up I'm happy with it. I have no idea what I'm doing right now. I hope I figure it out soon and I hope that it's good. Most of all I hope that I'm happy. Happy with my job, family, and whatnot. And I hope that I'm still with the same person, and that doesn't change or anything. And I wish for robots to take over the world.

[jessmassdesign]

Start wandering

Do it here I'm actually not sure what it is but rickylinn is making a poster for them so I'm banking on the fact that it is going to be snazzy.