Hi Ethan, thanks for taking time to chat with One Minute With. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your work.

Hey! Thanks so much for inviting me on One Minute With.

I’m an independent designer/developer, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Over the years I’ve worked for myself and for agencies, and for clients like New York Magazine, The Sundance Film Festival, and Stanford University. Also, I wrote an article back in 2010 and a book in 2011 on “responsive design,” describing a way to design more flexibly for the web—to think about how our designs and content can flex and grow and, well, respond to the changing size of the screen, allowing us another way to design across different devices.

Also, I like robots. And swearing. I do both on Twitter as @beep.

Walk us through a typical day in the life of Ethan Marcotte.

The short version? It involves a laptop, not a few Adobe applications, a few phones and tablets, a sketchbook, and tears.

I’m still waiting for the movie rights to be optioned.

Whilst we’re on the subject of your daily life, has your life changed much since your Responsive Web Design articles & book came out?

So here’s how I started to respond: “I don’t know as my life’s changed all that much.” But I realized that’s, well, patently false. There’s been a lot of interest and excitement around responsive design, which is fantastic and thrilling and weird and humbling. And as a result, I’ve been able to work on some impossibly great projects, travel to some wonderful corners of the Globe, and meet some generally great people. I feel incredibly lucky and fortunate, and I’ll enjoy this as long as it lasts.

How did you get into design?

I think it’s safe to say that when I started, most folks had found the web by accident. And I’m no exception. While I was in college, studying for a literature degree, I’d started messing around with Photoshop and HTML—nothing too fancy, just a few sites for some student groups. I enjoyed the hell out of it, but it wasn’t anything I ever seriously considered. But once school wrapped up, I thought, well, heck: why not try it professionally for a bit? Take a year or two off before grad school, see what this whole “web” thing is all about.

And man, that first job. I tell you.

The first studio I worked at was staffed by former musicians, architects, computer scientists, photographers—you name the discipline, it was probably working out of that tiny little Soho office in 2000. I’d somehow gotten hired to stand at this weird crossroads of every artistic medium ever, surrounded by a bunch of fun, ridiculously smart people, all of us trying to figure out how the hell this “web” thing actually worked.

So yeah. I fell in love with the web that year. And maybe a little bit with the people who work on it.

A few years ago, you left the world-renowned Happy Cog to go freelance. Why did you make that decision, and is it one you are glad you took? How does working freelance compare to working at an agency?

I wrote quite a bit about why I left back then, but it boiled down to wanting a few new challenges: to write a bit more, and to do a bit more public speaking. I still miss my coworkers daily, and we keep in touch as much as iChat and Twitter and the occasional phone call allows. But I haven’t regretted moving on one bit.

That’s not to say I wouldn’t ever take on another opportunity at some point. If the work’s exciting, the challenges involved enough, I’m up for anything. But I love what I’m doing right now.

Well, I’ve done healthy amounts of both: I worked freelance for a few years before joining up with Happy Cog’s West Coast office (née Airbag). The differences aren’t huge—I’m still doing plenty of client work—but I like having a bit more control over my schedule, over the projects I work on. There are scary bits, too, like ensuring you’ve enough work lined up, being more directly responsible for the health of a project, but even the scary bits are fun.

In addition to your design work itself, you’ve written an awful lot about design and development, and spoken at numerous conferences. If, in some crazy hypothetical universe, you could only do one of these things (Design, Writing, Conferences), which would it be, and why?

I’d write. As awful as that decision would be, there’s no question.

Where do you see yourself in, say, 5 or 10 years? Do you still hope to still be writing, designing and speaking, or do you want to have moved on to something bigger? Or do you happen to have another revolutionary web design practice up your sleeve?

Ha! I honestly have no idea. I’ve never been able to formulate a six month plan, much less one that looks five years down the road.

As for a new web design idea, I’ve totally got you covered. You ready? Here it is: imagemap all the things.

You’re welcome.

wait where are you going

>

What design tools could you not live without?

IconFactory’s xScope. TextMate. Stewart Brand’s How Buildings Learn. My Quattro sketchpad and a well-chewed pencil. Photoshop, for better or worse. Things, also for better or worse. My iPhone’s camera. Adam Greenfield’s Everyware. Any Charles Mingus album. (Extra points are awarded if it’s the “In Paris” compilation.)

And finally, what tips would you give to anybody who is looking to get started in design?

I’m paraphrasing Jeffrey Zeldman here, and badly, but something he said once sums it up for me: always show up early, be nice, and stay hungry.

Thanks Ethan!

We’re really grateful to Ethan for spending a few minutes with One Minute With. Hopefully you found his responses as interesting as I did!

Why not check out Ethan’s site, and follow him on Dribbble and Twitter?

Hi Jacqui, thanks for taking time to chat with One Minute With. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your work.

I’m an illustrator based out of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada which is a city just outside of Toronto renown for its steel factories and donut shops. I was born here in Canada, but soon after was whisked away by my British family, growing up in England, Libya, Zambia, Bahrain and then back to Canada as a teenager. That was quite the culture shock at the time, but by now I’m nearly used to Canadians (except for the whole hockey thing).

I’ve been doing freelance illustration for about 10 years and I also teach part time at the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto. The bulk of my work has been in magazines, but lately I’ve been working more in book publishing and advertising and doing more hand-lettering too. Some of my clients include Sony, Rolling Stone, AOL, LA Weekly, The Boston Globe, The Financial Times & ESPN.

When I can I like to work on personal work for art shows. I’ve been exhibited in Toronto, L.A., San Francisco, Philadelphia, San Diego and Shanghai. Lately I’ve really been interested in doing bigger paintings and collaborating with other artists I admire, so I’ve been trying to do more group shows. Any excuse to paint and to travel somewhere new is welcome.

Walk us through a typical day in the life of Jacqui Oakley.

I stumble out of bed around 9:30 and with coffee in hand get to tackling my email inbox. I’ll then usually move onto either working on final illustrations or linears (rough pencil drawings) for clients. Illustration work tends to move really fast with the deadlines often being just a few days from start to finish, so there’s usually always something to keep me busy with. If no jobs are in there’s always business/admin work to catch up on; invoicing, contracts and promoting. Of course when I’m teaching I’m also coming up with new projects and marking students’ work. I tend to break for lunch around noon where I luckily get to catch up with what my husband’s been working on and try to wind down with a bit of a TV show, (lately it’s been The Wire or Twin Peaks). He’s a graphic designer at Poly http://polystudio.ca/ who works from home too. Since we tend to work a lot it’s great that we’re just across the hall from each other in our respective studios, so we can be a part of each other’s workdays, offering a fine balance of encouragement and criticism. It helps so much to have someone to bounce ideas off of or to get out the frustrations of some of the more difficult clients. Of course most of our clients are gems. As most freelancers know, evenings tend to be a time for work too, or at very least taking time to switch over to doing paintings for shows.

How did you get into illustration? Was there a defining point in your career, and if so, how did it shape you as an illustrator?

I got into illustration quite by accident. I always loved art when I was a kid but never knew quite what to do. I remember my friends wanting to be actresses or singers and I always felt like I was the odd one out. So later, after high-school, I randomly enrolled in an art degree program but found it wasn’t challenging me enough. I wanted and needed feedback and criticism to get off my ass and become a better artist. I visited my friend at Sheridan College’s illustration program in Oakville, (just outside of Toronto), and I was blown away by the talent there and the focus on learning classic skills such as life drawing. The next year I switched over and was gripped with the idea of being an illustrator.

With illustration I enjoy the fact that that I’m not just accountable to myself and my own whims. I need to communicate to a wider audience and I get to inject art and ideas into the lives of an average person rather than solely focusing the smaller realm of art galleries. Illustration is a great opportunity to participate in a larger discussion. Also, day to day my projects are constantly changing so there’s little room for boredom. You’re given a problem and you have to figure out how to solve it visually and conceptually rather quickly. This sometimes pushes your work in unexpected and interesting directions you might not have come up with yourself. I always love the idea of the ‘black-box” contest: here are a few specific elements – lets see how you’d add your voice to the mix. Illustration is constantly like that, which is sometimes frustrating but often inspiring.

How do you approach a new project? What’s your creative process like?

After accepting a job from a client, and having received the pertinent project information (article, brief, etc.) I start off brainstorming with words and small doodles of random ideas that come to mind, then maybe collecting a bunch of reference images, before then moving onto roughs and linears. I tend to start going through folders on my computer and go online searching out imagery and inspiration that can get me excited and open up the possibilities of a project. This can be vintage illustration, design, textile patterns, vintage poster design, etc. With each job I try to add something that I’m excited by at the moment whether it’s a colour scheme, a new line technique or a new concept which will always show in the final illustration. Not all jobs are the most thrilling so it’s up to you as an illustrator to find your entry point into the solution.

Once a linear is approved, sometimes after some revisions, I blow it up to the size I’m going to work with and transfer it onto paper. I used to work in oils, but these days I usually block out a few areas in acrylic paint, sometimes with Frisket film, trying to keep it loose and get some texture in there with dry brush. Then I go onto inking lines, and then maybe a few spots of colour again in acrylic or coloured ink. Sometimes, especially for smaller spot illustrations, I’ll ink the lines by hand, then scan and add the colour digitally. At the end I’ll place the image up on my server and send the client a link to pick it up.

You’re best known for your vivid, organic illustrations with awesome textures. Was it a conscious decision to find a style you liked and stick to it, or did it simply end up that way? How has your style developed over time?

Thank-you! ‘Style’ is really just a constant evolution to find what feels right to you and will keep you excited and involved. I’m constantly looking at design and imagery that I can bring into the mix. Early in my career I started off being excited by ornate imagery and the detail in Art Nouveau work and the collaged textured work of artists like Kurt Schwitters and Robert Rauschenberg. I also really like work or furniture that has an aged worn feel to – I don’t tend to like work that feels too clean and glossy. I’m also really inspired by vintage illustrators and comic book artists and the design in vintage posters and ephemera. So, really with my work it’s finding a balance between detail, and graphic design while trying to keep a loose hand-rendered feel. Hopefully it’s a path that keep me excited throughout my career.

I find the larger the pot of work you’re inspired by the more unique your work will be and the more you’ll have figured out what feels like ‘you’. Over years and listening to other people’s feedback, you figure out where your talents lie and what aspects of your work resonate the most with others, and then hopefully you build on those and work on the things you’re a bit more unsure of. Also, a ‘style’ isn’t only figuring out what imagery gets you excited but also what compliments how your solve problems conceptually. As long as you stay interested in art and design, those inspirations will seep into your work and your work will evolve naturally into something you’re excited by and something that plays on your strengths.

As a young illustrator it’s really easy to get overwhelmed by the incredible amount and variety of work out there. It’s hard to know exactly which route you should go and also what’s going to earn you a living. You do need to be inspired by what’s going on around you but you don’t want a ‘style’ that’s already been done or that’ll be shortly outdated. As long as you figure out and keep working on your talents and keep evolving and stay interested, you’ll find out what works for you. Illustration is always a balance between the personal and the collective. You want to have work that feels unique to you and stands apart from the crowd, but it still has to communicate something to the masses. It’s an interesting situation to play with.

Most of your work is done with brushes, paints and inks. At a time when both design and illustration have gone almost entirely digital, how important is it to you to keep alive the older, more handcrafted traditions of the past?

I don’t reality feel like it’s my job to keep alive the older traditions, I just tend to be more excited by the techniques of older artists and try my best to come close to their talent. I also just enjoy working by hand and the spontaneity that comes with it. When I’m painting and inking I feel so much more physically involved with the work and I am able to better connect to what I’m doing and solve problems better. I also like the possibility of ‘happy accidents’ that can lead you off into an unexpected direction. That’s not to say I don’t admire digital work. There are a ton of illustrators, some who are close friends, who do the most amazing work all on the computer. For me, I just always revert to liking the feel of paint on paper.

If, in some Freaky Friday-like situation, you could live the life of another designer, illustrator or creative, for a day, who would it be, and why?

Ha! Good question. I’d love to switch up with someone who has a totally different career and a different creative take. Since my job is such a solo occupation it would be interesting to see how a group of talented creative folk collaborate on something so big and multi-faceted like a film. Maybe I’d choose to investigate the partnership between the director Jim Jarmusch or Wong Kar Wai and the incredible cinematographer Christopher Doyle. Or, if I am brave enough to see what’s going on inside his head maybe my pick would be the director Alejandro Jodorowsky. He comes up with the most surreal and unique imagery in his films but has also collaborated with amazing creative people. In the original and unmade version of the film Dune he brought together such a super-team of creatives including Dan O’Bannon, Jean Giraud (Moebius), Salvador Dali, Orson Welles, and even music by Stockhausen and Pink Floyd. Thank God there’s finally a documentary coming out about this.

What design tools could you not live without?

I’ve been working reality long hours lately and since I’m tethered to my desk without much company I do like to have a good audio book on to keep me company, preferable a long-winded fantasy or vintage science fiction or horror book. I think it’s my hope that anything with fanatical imagery and descriptions will seep into my work. Also, I’m an avid podcast listener. Other than that even though I work mostly by hand I need Photoshop to scan my work and tweak it here and there. I also use it tons for moving around elements in the linear stage. The rest of my tools would just be ink, paint, the occasional piece of Frisket film a new crisp detail brush and a nice cup of tea.

And finally, what tips would you give to anybody who is looking to get started in illustration?

It’s tough at first going out on your own. Remember that everyone has had really slow times. Just keep promoting yourself and doing good work that feels right to you and it’ll pay off. It’s a bit obvious, but don’t forget that you enjoy art & design. Sometimes when art becomes a daily routine it can seem like a chore. So try to remember to work on personal projects when you can, collaborate with friends, continue looking at things to keep getting excited and add to the vocabulary of your work. It’ll come through in the end.

On more thing: as an illustrator the fact that your job is so tied to your personal interests is both a blessing and a curse. It’s hard to separate your personal life from your professional life especially when you work from home. You want to put in long hours since you enjoy what you do, and sometimes you need to due to tight deadlines. So trying to maintain some semblance of a schedule is key. On the other end of things, you get to draw for a living and collaborate with interesting creative people, which is pretty amazing. You’re part of a long line of illustrators that have commented on and even changed society which is pretty incredible to be part of.

Thanks Jacqui!

Many thanks to Jacqui for taking some time to talk to One Minute With. I really enjoyed interviewing her, and hopefully you enjoyed reading it!

Why not check out Jacqui’s site, and follow her on Dribbble and Twitter?

Hi Mike, thanks for taking time to chat with One Minute With. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your work.

Love to. So, my name is Mike Jones, I am from the great city of Columbus, GA – Representing the South! It’s about 2 hours southwest of ATL, and we house one of the largest military bases in the country, Fort Benning. I am married with 4 kids and one dog (Hey Karen, Jake, Alexis, Elise, Carson & Chewy!) and I have been doing design for about 12 years now. I am the Senior Graphic Designer at OmegaFi, and I am the Co-Founder of Columbus Creative. I also do my freelance work under EightOne (my personal brand), and I write a blog called “Buckets of Barbecue“, because I love BBQ & food! I am not what you might think a typical designer would look like – I am like Draplin: a big ‘ol dude, used to play Professional Arena Football for the Columbus Lions. I love my Church & tend to put a lot of my faith in my work, but I get inspired every day by a lot of different folks on Dribbble. My favorite things to design are logos, military insignia, hand-drawn type & t-shirts. So that’s me: God, family, food & design!

Walk us through a typical day in the life of Mike Jones.

My typical day starts out with waking up, prayer, then getting the kids out the door for school (props to the wife for making that happen – I am not a morning person at all.) Then I get to work, get a cup of coffee and check Twitter, FB, email & Dribbble to see what’s going down. I then get to it, I turn on turntable.fm and get my Christian music jam on and see what’s on my to-do list. Then have some lunch – BBQ, if I can – and finish up the day, all while staying in the mix and keeping up with the goings-on of all the social media craziness. I leave here at about 5:25 to go pick up my kids from school – we get home, I cook dinner, hang out with the family, feed the baby, put all the kids to bed, watch TV and hang with my beautiful wife, check social media & Dribbble, play some Battlefield 3 on XBOX (Bucket826 is my Gamertag) with my buddies and then get to bed with the wife, unless I have freelance work that I need to work on – all ending around 2:30 AM. Then I do it all over again!

How did you get into design? Was there a defining point in your career, and if so, how did it shape you as a designer?

I got into design early on. I would say I knew I wanted to do something with computers and drawing but did not know what ’til it was time to pick a major in college (Go Wolves! – University of West Georgia!) I have always been able to draw really well, and it was fun, so I figured I would find something that I would get paid to do that never seemed like I was working. That’s everybody’s goal, right?!

I will say that most of what I have learned about being a designer came from after college in the professional world. If I didn’t know how to do something I saw and liked, I would seek out the person that did it and pick their brain. It’s very rare that another designer won’t share a technique if your motives are humble and true. I basically picked the brains of designers that had rad skill sets. You are never to old to learn something new. So I still practice that today – if I see someone’s work on Dribbble, one of my most inspiring stops of my day, I will reach out to them and introduce myself and ask “How did you do that?”

I can’t specifically pinpoint an exact event, but after our first conference last year and the good response I received from that and from all the Dribbble love I have been getting, it just made me want to go create more and just strive to get better everyday. I love design. I want to bring great design to my town and make a name for design in Columbus!

How do you approach a new project? What’s your design process like?

My design process… Well, it starts out with asking a lot of questions to the client, then I get to researchin’ – I go to the web, look to see what competitors in the market look like and what they are doing, then I make notes on all that, get out the trusty ol’ Moleskine sketchbook (I have to agree with Von Glitschka that drawing needs to be the foundation of every design) and start sketching concepts – so loose, then more refined, and then I present my sketches to the client – some don’t do this, and I guess I would know not to do it when that kind of client arises, but for now it works. They may or may not see something that sparks their “Oh yeah, that’s the right direction” response, but they might. Usually, they do and I go from there. Then it’s refining my sketch, redrawing for the last time and scanning into Illustrator (Adobe love – I am the Manager our Columbus GA user group.) I vector it out, throw it up on Dribbble to get feedback for myself & for the client. Then, finalize and deliver – Good times!

You create awesomely detailed lettering with a slightly retro feel. Where do you get inspiration?

I get inspired by so many things & peeps. I could sit here and name off a ton but the desigers that inspire me most are Jeff Finley (I learned about doing hand-drawn lettering from him), Von Glitschka, Fraser Davidson, Todd Radom, Mackey Saturday, Emir Ayouni, Aaron Draplin, James White, Claire Coullon, Gert van Duinen, Nick Slater, Glenn Jones, Ryan Hamrick, Rogie, Francois Hoang, to just name a few. And all for different reasons! Dribbble is a great place to be inspired and inspire others – It’s part of my daily routine. Other things that inspire me: my kids, food (Oh yeah, food!) and, well, look around us – God is the best designer of them all, so his creation inspires me daily. The world around us – from our friends, to the label on the coffee cup, can bring you a spark of creativity! Keep your eyes open. Also I mentioned research in my previous answer – I love learning from what people used to do back in the day when computers where not used. Vintage has its place you can learn a lot and take a lot from those kinds of old designs and repurpose them.

You run a design conference, Columbus Creative. How is organising this different to your usual work? What new challenges does it bring?

It’s nuts, bro! I started this with my good buddy Daniel Severns last year. We are Columbus Creative, a Co-Op designing solutions to help non-profits get their design & web needs met. We also are the local Adobe Users Group and we started doing a conference last year to raise membership for our group and get our name out in the community. We had Jeff Finley of GoMedia and Von Glitschka of Glitschka Studios fly down and speak on design for the day. We got inspired to do this from 2 people: Francois Hoang who puts on Montreal Meets and Jeff Finley who puts on WMCFest. I thought, “Well, if these guys can do these rad events then why can’t we?” And we did just that. It’s a fun and tiring battle – You already saw what my daily routine is like, now add to that a ton more work during the Winter and Spring! There’s calling the vendors, coordinating funding through backers & sponsors, getting all the speakers to commit and all the swag designed and ordered. It’s not easy, especially with only the 2 of us doing all of it. But when it’s all said and done, we put on a rad event and bring something awesome and different to Columbus, GA! (I keep saying GA, because since Jeff is one of our speakers, people assume we are in OH, where he is from…)

We want to get big enough to where we can make it into a two-day event and then eventually into a weekend long conference. It will happen, just watch! This year we bumped it up a bit: We added 2 more speakers, and lunch! And next year, it will be our first 2 day-er with breakout hands on training sessions as well as film screenings by my buddy Spencer Howard who runs Lightscameralists.com. So we are def. ready to up our game and get it to the level of WMCFest and Montreal Meets. All is all it tiring but a heck of a lot of fun and I get to meet some of my favorite artists to boot! I will give this piece of money-saving advice (Karen, don’t read this part): When you are booking tickets make dang sure your speaker knows he need to be at the airport – no-shows are very expensive! So, to recap, it’s not that organising the event is different to what I normally do, it just adds to the amount of what I normally do. Watch for us to get on the design conference map really soon.

If, in some Freaky Friday-like situation, you could live the life of another designer, illustrator or creative, for a day, who would it be, and why?

Fraser Davidson – His work is so freakin’ boss! And it would be interesting to see what life would be like as a normal-sized person, haha! I would love his skill set. Bro doesn’t even need a sketchbook! Plus, I would get to chill in the UK for a day and eat some good eats. But it would only be worth it if the skills stayed on the switchback, haha!

What design tools could you not live without?

Software would be Illustrator & Photoshop. Books: The Bible, Vector Basic Training and my Moleskine sketchbook. And BBQ!

So finally, what tips would you give to anybody who is looking to get started in design?

You want to be a designer? While school isn’t the be-all-and-end-all of being a designer, it will ultimately rank you higher in helping place you in a job, but with that said, you could have a degree and your portfolio could suck, so yeah. Have a great portfolio, do the kind of work you want to get – If you want logos, do logos for everybody you know and make each one your baby. Sketch, sketch and sketch some more – Keep your sketchbook or scratch pad with you. You never know when or where inspiration will strike. Don’t ever hesitate to ask questions of someone who is better than you at something. And don’t forget to research, and know what you are trying to design for. And last but not least, love what you do! Be passionate about it. Don’t just get a paycheck, make waves: start a conference, do something that starts getting you noticed, or at least gets you out of your design comfort zone!

Thanks Mike!

Many thanks to Mike for sharing his thoughts with OMW. I genuinely had a lot of fun interviewing him, and I hope you love the interview as much I do!

Why not check out Mike’s site, and follow him on Dribbble and Twitter?

Hi David, thanks for taking time to chat with One Minute With. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your work.

Thanks Conor, I am glad you like my work. I was born in Australia, too late to be a baby boomer, but too early to be of Generation X. I did however go to The Emily Carr School of Art And Design in Vancouver with Douglas Coupland who coined “Generation X”.

I have lived and worked in Australia, New Zealand, USA and Canada. Growing up in Australia in the 1960′s was like growing up in the 1930′s in North America. In Queensland they did not even have daylight savings time because they feared that their curtains would fade from the extra hour of daylight.

In the schools, we used desks that had actual ink wells in the corner and this was when I first started to draw with a fountain pen. When I got bored I would put the hair of the girl in the desk in front of me in the inkwell and watch the capillary action.

Once, as a boy, my Grandmother had a fortune teller read my tea leaves and she told me that I would work with computers when I grew up. This was very puzzling to me and I pictured myself dusting off my white lab coat and loading a reel of tape on to some giant machine.

My first exposure to computers came in 1978 when I graduated from Mercer Island High School in Seattle and a friend had an Apple II. At that same high school I was diagnosed as artistic by an incredible art teacher, Ron Adams who told me that some people actually got paid to make images. Later in art school I had a Commodore PET, then an Amiga and a short while later the first Macintosh.

My style has been labeled nostalgic, retro and vintage, but my influences simply come from the graphic images and pop art that I grew up with. I specialize in logos, branding, screen printing and illustration.

I am half Irish and half Scottish, so I like to drink, but I don’t like to pay for it.

Walk us through a typical day in the life of David Cran.

I get up early no matter what. I read the newspapers online from every town I have ever lived in. I go on Dribbble and Flickr. I read my e-mails, but I never answer them in the morning. I make myself an espresso on my 1963 Atomic stove top coffee maker.

Then If I am in Vancouver I walk one of the numerous trails without a cell phone. This is when I start planning how to draw the ideas that have come to me during the last night’s sleep. If I am in Seattle I visit Bruce Lee’s grave and then go canoeing in the arboretum.

I then return to my home studio and hit the computer. I listen to music all day.

My wife or my son Riley will occasionally stop by to critique my latest creation, Riley being a full captain with the Kerning Cops.

How did you get into design? Was there a defining point in your career, and if so, how did it shape you as a designer?

Although I had always had a fascination with logos and branding, I went to art school to major in photography and film making. The darkroom was located next to the graphics department, but that area was considered off limits to any self respecting fine artist. Graphics was for geeks with sheets of Letraset, but I soon noticed that all the hottest girls in the school took typography.

One day while I was waiting for my film to develop I wandered downstairs into the printmaking department and I liked it so much that I never left. Screen printing then became my obsession, which would later lead me to create colour separation software called Screenprint Separator and then inkjet film positives. After art school I married one of the girls from typography and I needed to make money, so I founded one of Vancouver’s first t-shirt printing companies. We made everything by hand until I borrowed some funds from a client and bought my first Mac with a laser printer. Business took off and we were soon printing 80 percent of the shirts sold at Whistler and Blackcomb mountains.

Then my friends from art school who were by now working in Vancouver’s burgeoning film industry started asking me to design and print props. In those days there were no colour printers, so we screen printed everything like signs, newspapers and fake cereal boxes for use on TV shows and movies.

The demand for movie props drove me to draw my own fonts, because in the early days there were only about 10 fonts for the computer, 3 of them were “clown heavy”, “barf bold” and “Helvetica”. Soon I was designing fake logos for television episodes of Wiseguy and 21 Jumpstreet where I met a wonderful guy named Johnny (Depp).

This led me to doing real logos and business boomed. Soon I bought one of the first colour computers, the Macintosh II with a blazing 12 megahertz and a massive 40 megabyte hard drive. I used to load that beast into my car and drive it home every night so I could continue working.

How do you approach a new project? What’s your creative process like?

That is a tricky question. Sometimes an idea comes quickly from out of the ether. Sometimes I have to think for a week. I always thought that as I got older, the good ideas would be harder to find, but this has not turned out to be the case.

I rarely look at other logos for inspiration. Digital photography has proven useful for Illustration. When I draw in vector, I often start from a blank page and start experimenting until I have something interesting.
Then I make numerous corrections until it looks right. I listen to my customer. I think about of my customer’s customer.

You have to be willing to scrap some work no matter how much time it took.

Your son, Riley, is also a graphic designer, and a fantastic one at that. How important was it, to you, to pass on the torch to the new generation? Do you ever hope/fear that he will one day surpass you?

I raised Riley to be an artist. Music was a big part of that. Its something that we have in common in a huge way. He can really play the guitar and I thought that he might become a professional musician. Now, he has entered the graphics world. I could not be more proud of his work and great success. Certainly the Lost Type Co-op has become a web phenomenon.

He has already surpassed me in many ways, and that is why I had a son in the first place.

I came from a family of accountants, writers, lawyers and soldiers so I am happy to see Riley continue with my graphic heritage.When I told my Dad that I was going to art school, he said in his heavy Australian accent “Is there any dancing at this school, son?”

You’ve had a long and illustrious career spanning over 30 years. Having seen dozens of trends come and go, and new technologies change the industry, where do you see the design industry going in the next, say, 5 or 10 years?

For the first decade I worked on a computer that was not even hooked up to the internet. My first scanner was black and white. My first copy of Photoshop was given to me by Adobe on a floppy disk. We used to add texture by taping prints from the laser printer to the road outside the studio and waiting until after rush hour to retrieve them.

During all of that, I thought, “Wow, this is great!” I would wish for a few special tool additions to Illustrator, but I really could not imagine the changes that we see now.

The way we can send what we make over the net has created a whole new community that never existed before. This connection will continue to strengthen graphic design as a career – we can now work globally.

I feel that Illustrator and Photoshop have about all the features that anyone would need. The next big drive should be a massive change to how user friendly graphics software is. I can’t imagine learning Illustrator and Photoshop from scratch today. It might be easier to learn the operations manual of a Trident submarine.

If, in some Freaky Friday-like situation, you could live the life of another designer, illustrator or creative, for a day, who would it be, and why?

I would be a designer at Guigario or Carrozzeria Ghia SpA. I have a passion for vintage cars and most weekends you can find me covered in grease with a small gash on my forehead.

What design tools could you not live without?

Well, I tried running Photoshop on an abacus once with no results, so I could not carry on without a Mac.

Digital camera, Dribbble and Flickr. Chardonnay. My assistant mouse-riding lovebird named Apple.

Oxygen.

And finally, what tips would you give to anybody who is looking to get started in design?

This life is not for idle types or wimps.

Graphic design can be cruel.

Work your ass off, but be polite, even when you are tired and crabby.

Don’t build a giant ego.

Don’t copy other designer’s work – they will find you.

Never answer e-mails first thing in the Morning (think about it first).

Don’t use Helvetica.

Above all, consider yourself lucky to have this job, keep your sense of humour and don’t sit for long periods.

Stay out of Portland.

Thanks David!

Thanks a million to David for chatting to OneMinuteWith! I loved talking with him, and hopefully you enjoy his answers as much as me!

Why not check out David’s site, and follow him on Dribbble and Twitter?

Hi Idiot, thanks for taking time to chat with One Minute With. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your work.

Hey, Conor! I’m your usual web designer/developer hybrid, all self-taught. I guess I like to mess around on the Internet more than most, though. By day, I like to work on my blog and various other side projects (Gradients, Motherfucker, and Spiffing CSS, to name a few), and by night, I like to do the same.

How did you get into design? Was there a defining point in your career, and if so, how did it shape you as a designer?

Honestly, I never really got into design, but I do remember being in secondary school, choosing the subjects for the upcoming GCSEs (exams), and my art teacher telling me “you’re not an artist, and you’ll never be an artist; you can’t draw. Don’t take my class.” I never did take his class, but it did give me a goal. Since that day, I’ve always tried to make it as an artist of sorts.

I got in to web design by accidentally viewing the source of a site one day, and feeling like a CSI:Miami hacker; it intrigued me. I just spent more and more time reading magazines, books, blogs, and just playing about.

How do you approach a new project? What’s your design process like?

Depends on what the project is, I guess. If it’s an article for my blog, I just write the idea down on this little whiteboard I’ve got, and when I’ve got time, I’ll just write it up, design it, and code it. Just like that, all in one mad dash. No browser-testing, no fancy IA work, nothin’. Actually, all of my personal projects are like that. It’s more fun.

If it’s a client project, I start by taking two aspirins (since it’s going to be a headache), and have a sketch or two, then I just dive into Photoshop and go nuts. I’ll probably come up with about 5 or 6 different concepts before runnin’ my favourites back to the client. If they’re happy (hah!), then it’s right into Espresso we go to code that bad boy right up. Then I need those aspirins again, because I actually try to browser-test.

With your name, your blog, your Twitter feed and your self-initiated projects, you seem to maintain a high level of humour in your online persona. How important is it, do you feel, to be a character in this industry, rather than just another HTML/CSS bot?

So, so important. As long as you can confidently convey your message to other people, and be proud with the name that’s in that copyright line of yours, it’s all good.

Where do you see your career in 5, 10 years? Do you still hope to be making viral sites and popping aspirins, or do you want to have moved on to something bigger/better/smaller/worse?

Hopefully, I’ll be working on my startup. Not sure what it is yet, but it’ll change the future of social B2B communication. I’ll never stop making my little sites, though. It’s just too fun.

If, in some Freaky Friday-like situation, you could live the life of another designer, illustrator or creative, for a day, who would it be, and why?

Oh, it’d have to be the Oatmeal, if only for the power to illustrate velociraptor comics.

What do you do in your free time? If you have any, that is, considering how many websites you seem to pop out…

I’m an avid lover of many things: my guitars (and a whole host of other instruments — I love music), my dog, Molly (she’s even at the bottom of my Hire Me page), and martial arts (I do Jiu-Jitsu, which means I end up with a broken rib every Thursday).

What design tools could you not live without?

Software: Photoshop, Espresso, Google Chrome, Gradient.app, Adium, Reeder, iA Writer, Wallet.app, and probably a whole load more

Hardware: Anything Apple make. I’m a sucker for the aluminium.

Books: nothing in particular, but my library card is pretty worn out, so I’d say that.

Websites: Twitter, Forrst, Dribbble, and anything in my RSS (which is so long, it’d take me an hour or two just to start the list).

Notepads: UI Stencils, and good ol’ plain white paper. No fancy moleskines for me.

And finally, what tips would you give to anybody who is looking to get started in design?

Don’t give up, and keep involved with the community. We’re a nice bunch of folks, apparently.

Thanks Idiot!

Thanks so much to Visual Idiot for giving us an insight into his world! I loved talking to him, and found his answers really interesting!

Why not check out Visual Idiot’s site, and follow him on Dribbble and Twitter?

Hi Sean, thanks for taking time to chat with One Minute With. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your work.

Hey! I’m Sean: a lettering artist, type designer, and interface crafter hailing from San Antonio, Texas. I run Bold Perspective with my partner and co-founder, Brian Purkiss. We’re a design firm primarily focused on web design and branding. During the day, I’m handling design and the business side of things while Brian codes up a storm as our developer, bringing our designs to life.

You may know me as “seanwes”. Little-known fact: Wesley is my middle name, hence the handle. Lettering is something I’ve always been very fond of, and while it’s something I’ve done since middle school, I’ve only recently in the past couple of years really pursued it with a vigor.

I’m not sure if I’ve determined the catalyst, but if I had to pinpoint an event, I’d say it was meeting Kyle Steed for the first time in 2010. Kyle is one of the most genuine and humble people you’ll ever meet. I had the privilege of talking with him over coffee where I experienced the contagiousness of his passion. His enthusiasm for doing what he loved was very inspiring. He advocated a disregard for external validation and instead promoted a simple dedication to creating for it’s own sake and recognizing inherent value irrespective of peer approval. I’ll always appreciate the time he took out of his life to invest in mine.

Walk us through a typical day in the life of Sean McCabe.

I’ll be honest, I usually check my email, Twitter and Instagram on my phone from bed before my feet even hit the floor. A typical day begins with taking my wife to work at the coffee shop in the morning. It works out very well for me because I have a convenient source of unlimited espresso—something I take daily advantage of.

Work at Bold Perspective typically starts at 8am. We’re pretty casual in the first half hour, catching up on our Twitter feed, maybe doing some light reading as we wake up. Client emails are taken care of first, and then we get to the fun stuff.

We really get into our work and usually eat lunch at our desks without stopping. While we work hard, we offset it with regular mid-afternoon Xbox breaks. It’s times like these when working for yourself is definitely a blast! We love what we do, and we always get the work done, so we’re able to be fairly flexible outside of that. Some days we may sleep in an extra hour and others we’ll stay to work a bit later in the evenings. Recently, we’ve instated what we like to call “Bold Perspective Friday” where we take a break from client work and focus on growing our business and improving some of our Labs products like wpLifeGuard.

We’ll typically call it a day around 6pm, which usually makes for a 10-hour day. Compared to a typical day job, we’ve usually put in about 40 hours by Thursday, and that’s what allows us to have Fridays as “extra” time to invest in growing our company.

While lettering is most of what I share online, it’s actually something I do almost entirely on nights and weekends. I’ll sit down to a delicious home-cooked meal after work, made by my wonderful wife, and we’ll watch a tv show or two. After that, my time is pretty much consumed by lettering until midnight or 1am. If I’m not working on a commissioned piece, I’m working on a personal piece. I always make an effort to create, no matter what.

How did you get into design? Was there a defining point in your career, and if so, how did it shape you as a designer?

My dad introduced me to computers at a very young age. I was fascinated by technology. I never was very into videos games as a kid. I was more interested in making things and learning how things worked. I knew I wanted to do something in the technology industry, but wasn’t sure what. My dad taught me some programming languages, I knew enough about computers that I started up an IT business in high school and was repairing computer full time for a number of years, but none of what I was doing felt like THE thing.

I freelanced web design in high school alongside my computer repair business. I have always been very creative, but at the same time very logical and meticulous. Design fit this niche for me so perfectly, and I really began to enjoy my freelance work as a web designer. Eventually it got the the point where I was getting more work than I could handle. I saw this as an opportunity to expand. I called up my friend, Brian, and two months later we took the leap into full time web design with Bold Perspective.

How do you approach a new project? What’s your creative process like?

I have a lot to say on process and I feel that it would probably be best to point to a couple of places I’ve written on the topic for those want to go more into depth.

With lettering, it’s a question I was getting asked more times than I could handle. It lead to me writing the Learn page on my website. It goes over my typical process for a lettering piece and answers several general questions about getting into lettering.

For design, I wrote Establishing a Process (Pt3 of the Enabling Successful Projects series). It goes over everything from the benefits of displaying a process to setting client expectations and breaking down your process into steps that are digestible and easy to comprehend.

You’re certainly known in the design industry for your hand lettering – Do you find that it’s useful to have a niche, rather than being a jack-of-all-trades? Did you approach design with that aim, or did it naturally evolve?

This is a great question. When it comes to design, I tend to err more on the side of letting the content dictate the design rather than imposing my own style (though I see either as being very valid approaches). With lettering though, I think I’ve naturally come to develop my own style and voice. I think it’s helpful to have a core element that is distinctly your own, but still maintain a variety within your work.

It’s worth noting that you will always play your best hits. So make sure you are displaying the type of work that you want to continue making on your portfolio. When you have variety in your work, you’ll be less likely to get sick of getting asked to recreate one particular style over and over.

Not only do you design awesome stuff, but you also write about design, release fonts, and much more – How important is it, do you feel, to contribute back to the industry that fostered you?

I think it’s extremely important! I am completely self taught myself, and without the generosity of this fantastic community, it would have been very difficult to glean a education. The open and helpful nature of the design community is what makes it so great. The selflessness of those who share their knowledge is invaluable for those of us who are wanting to learn real, relevant skills without racking up huge student loans.

I think a formal education can be a great thing, but it’s certainly not a prerequisite. If you don’t learn HOW to learn in school, you’ve learned nothing. While schools can teach many fundamentals, I’ve found that there are many critical gaps that are left unfilled. It’s instances like these where it is crucial that you proactively seek to further your own education. Resources like Design Professionalism and Method & Craft are literal gold mines with a wealth of knowledge that is overwhelmingly helpful.

It is for this reason that I share my process, and for this reason that I write on the topic of design. If what I share is able to help someone else succeed in this industry, I consider it an honor. It really is the least I can do, and I will happily spend the rest of my career doing my best to give back.

If, in some Freaky Friday-like situation, you could live the life of another designer, illustrator or creative, for a day, who would it be, and why?

I would have to say it would be the late Doyald Young. The man had such a love and devotion for his craft. I really do love the thought of loving what I do as much as he did at his age. The understanding he surely gained in his many years of experience would no doubt be of incredible insight.

What design tools could you not live without?

A full set of Microns and a trusty 2B pencil. While I try, I’m certainly far from perfect, so a good eraser is equally as important! When it comes to computers, I use Photoshop and Illustrator quite heavily. I would love to see Photoshop get a viable competitor, but it certainly pulls its own weight. I’m a keyboard shortcut fanatic, so if you look over while I’m designing in Photoshop, it may look like I’m typing an essay.

And finally, what tips would you give to anybody who is looking to get started in design?

Ok you ready for this one? Your portfolio isn’t big enough. I’m serious. Coming into this industry as a new design can be very daunting. Very quickly you’ll be aware of the front runners—those with great success and large followings—and it’s very easy to be discouraged. It’s tempting to look for the fastest and easiest way to get some recognition. Want to know the secret? There is no fast way. Everyone you see who you think has “made it”, has poured blood, sweat, and tears into what they do. They’ve spent many years consistently dedicating themselves to their craft in order to get where you see them now. (By the way, there’s really no such thing as having “made it”. I wrote about it in Arrival is a Fictitious State)

If there’s one piece of advice I’d like to leave you, it’s this: Do good work and continue to do good work. Only with a large portfolio and a vast amount of work will you be able to discover your own unique voice, and your individual style. Only with persistence, will you improve, and only with dedication will you gain recognition.

Thanks Sean!

Thanks a million to Sean for talking to OMW! I really enjoyed talking to him, and found his answers really interesting!

Why not check out Sean’s site, and follow him on Dribbble and Twitter?

Hi Neil, thanks for taking time to chat with One Minute With. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your work.

First off, thank you for interviewing me! I am a 22 year old letterer and designer living in Michigan. I usually do custom lettering and sometimes a tad bit of illustration to mix in.

Walk us through a typical day in the life of Neil Tasker.

Nothing too special, Usually wake up around 9am and check out emails/respond and eat breakfast. Usually from there I begin to work on projects, or continue them from the night before. I play a lot of tennis, and usually break from working during the day and walk down the street to where the courts are conveniently located. It is really refreshing to exercise and come back to what you were working on. I usually work till 11-12 and then call it quits for the night.

How did you get into design? Was there a defining point in your career, and if so, how did it shape you as a designer?

I actually don’t have that typical story of “I have been coloring since I could hold a crayon.” I never planned on being a graphic artist or artist in any sort. I had went off to college in South Carolina to play tennis and to major in Spanish, and that wasn’t working out, so moving back to Michigan, I had to register late for classes at college aka pretty much every class was full. Scrolling through the list I saw graphic design, and under that the course was typography. I had no clue what that even was, but decided to take it as a filler, and that first day of class, I left smiling, thinking “people actually get to do this stuff?! and from on there, I have loved every aspect of typography.

How do you approach a new project? What’s your creative process like?

I’ll get a brief from a client and we discuss what they like/dislike and from there I begin sketching for hours, trying different letter forms, and go back in forth with the client through sketches, until they love what they see. From there it is scanned into illustrator and outlined with the pen tool, and usually hours of tweaking goes on in that stage. Then you have the final!

You are best-known in the design community for your awesome lettering – Did you go into the industry hoping to carve out that niche for yourself, or did it just evolve? How important is it, do you feel, to have a niche in an industry so full of awesome designers?

I knew I had wanted to do lettering from the get go after that typography class and I had hoped to carve out that niche for sure. I am still trying to find my own style and always trying to push to better myself. I think it is really important for you to find an area of design that you absolutely love doing. You will always be willing/enjoy putting in the hard work and practice. Those two things are a great recipe for really standing out amongst the crowd in any situation.

Your lettering is distinctly retro, with beautiful swashes and perfect curves – Where do you get inspiration?

I look at a lot of old type specimen, from books to anywhere when traveling and also on the internet. There is a ton of old lettering on Jeremy Pruitt’s Pinterest, from patches, signs, papers etc. It is the most beautiful stuff I have seen. I also love looking at Dribbble and see all the beautiful things everyone is making.

If, in some Freaky Friday-like situation, you could live the life of another designer, illustrator or creative, for a day, who would it be, and why?

Claire Coullon: I love watching her post pictures of her process online to the final versions, and she is the nicest girl. She will take the time on hundreds of Dribbble shots to give really helpful feedback and is always there to help/want you to succeed.

What design tools could you not live without?

Pencil and paper for sure, and Illustrator. A book called Scripts by Louise Fili is also one of my favorites, it has lettering from different countries, and a lot of really helpful knowledge in it.

And finally, what tips would you give to anybody who is looking to get started in design?

Really look and try different areas of design to see what you really have a passion for. When you are doing something you love, you are willing to put in whatever it takes, and your hard work will meet many opportunities!

Thanks Neil!

Thanks a million to Neil for sharing his thoughts! I really enjoyed talking to him, and found his answers really interesting!

Why not check out Neil’s site, and follow him on Dribbble and Twitter?

Hi Jeff, thanks for taking time to chat with One Minute With. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your work.

Hey, I’m Jeff Sheldon and I’m the founder and designer of Ugmonk. Ugmonk started as a small side project to design and sell a few t-shirts, but quickly grew into a much bigger brand to the point where I was able to leave my day job to run the the business full-time. I now ship thousands of products to over 55 countries all around the world. I absolutely love running Ugmonk and am incredibly thankful that I get to do this full-time.

Walk us through a typical day in the life of Jeff Sheldon.

Wake up. Check email, Twitter, etc. Grab some breakfast and then make the long commute all the way upstairs (I work from home). Every day is different but I usually tackle any urgent emails first before diving into the rest of my to-do list. While design and product design is what I enjoy most, it usually only makes up a minor part of my day. On any given day you’ll find me doing a variety of things including working on new designs, product photoshoots, contacting suppliers, managing customer service, writing blog posts, ordering new products and lots of other miscellaneous tasks. I usually work till about 6 or 7 to take a break for dinner and spend time with my wife. Some days I continue working in the evenings but try to always get a good night’s rest. Every day is a little different.

How did you get into design? Was there a defining point in your career, and if so, how did it shape you as a designer?

I grew up doing all types of traditional art (painting, sketching, sculpting) and it wasn’t until I got to college that I transitioned into design. A lot of people don’t realize how much crossover there is between art and design. The same principles of composition, color theory, shape and form all apply to both so having a foundation in art was a huge boost for me. After jumping into the world of design, I quickly fell in love with typography and realized how integral type is to all design. My interest in typography and minimal design is what led me to launch Ugmonk as a fun side project.

How do you approach a new project? What’s your creative process like?

Since I run my own brand I constantly have new ideas running through my head, sometimes to the point where it’s impossible to shut off. It’s less of a project-by-project basis and more of a constant stream of concepts and ways to improve and grow Ugmonk. When it comes to specific designs, I try to always start with pencil and paper to rough out my ideas. While most of the end products are recreated in a digital format before being produced, sketching is must less constrictive than jumping straight into Illustrator or Photoshop. You can read more about my process here:

Ugmonk Behind-the-Scenes
Designing Better Than I Deserve
Inside My Sketchbook

You’re obviously best known for Ugmonk, your online clothing store. Considering that countless designers sell apparel on their online stores, why do you think that yours has taken off more than most others? Did you originally go into the project hoping to be able to make a living from it?

I had no idea that I’d be where I am today with doing Ugmonk. I started it as a creative outlet while working at an agency where I was doing mostly production work. I never thought of it as a business or as something I could eventually do full-time, I just really enjoyed creating the products and getting feedback from people who appreciated what I was doing. I can’t pinpoint one specific thing that has made it take-off, but I like to tribute a lot of it to my passion and hard work that have kept it going. Most people see that success I’ve had and think it happened over night, but I’ve spent countless hours building the brand over the years to get it where it is today. Rather than partying on the weekends or watching hours of TV, I’m usually busy working on the next release :)

Your site sports designs that date back several years. When most fashion changes at a painfully fast rate, how important to you is it to create designs which can stand the test of time, and how do you go about doing that?

Yes, that’s a good observation. My goal is to create products that are less focused on popular trends and more aligned with my personal design taste. The Ugmonk style will continue to evolve but I hope to keep the timeless design a main part of the brand.

If, in some Freaky Friday-like situation, you could live the life of another designer, illustrator or creative, for a day, who would it be, and why?

That’s a tough one. It would have been awesome to be a fly on the wall in the studios of the great American designers like Paul Rand, Saul Bass, and Herb Lubalin. These guys pioneered much of what design is today and much of their work still hold up today, decades later.

What design tools could you not live without?

The essentials: pencil, sketchbook, Illustrator, Photoshop and iMac. Other tools I use: Panasonic Lumix GF1, scanner, Macbook Air, Lightroom, and Wacom tablet.

And finally, what tips would you give to anybody who is looking to get started in design?

Work really hard. Do more than the bare minimum or assignments or client projects. Also, do self-initiated projects. You’d be surprised what happens when you do good work and put it out there.

Thanks Jeff!

Many thanks to Jeff for talking to us. I really enjoyed his answers, and hopefully you did too!

Why not check out Jeff’s site, and follow him on Dribbble and Twitter?

Hi Justin, thanks for taking time to chat with One Minute With. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your work.

I’m a designer/illustrator living in Orlando, Florida. I bide my time between my wife, our dog Huxley, an incredible community, Disney theme parks, and do the occasional design here and sometimes there. Aside form calling the Sunshine State home base, I commute to San Francisco for part of every month so it wouldn’t be a stretch to say my office is often nestled in with the clouds. Other than that, I tend to enjoy a good film and/or an equally good – often better – book. My work is largely illustration with the occasional web and UI design.

How did you get into design?

I was always a doodler. My brother and I would scrawl notebook after notebook with sketches and concepts to stories and fake games. I had all but fallen out of any pursuit of art professionally when I was contacted by a local magazine, RELEVANT, while in college to start an internship. I didn’t feel like there was anything I was doing at the time that I was ultimately passionate about it, so I thought I’d give it a try. From there, it all happened really fast so I guess you could say I stumbled into it.

How do you approach a new project? What’s your creative process like?

I love storytelling. I think if I could actually write well, I’d pursue a career in being a novelist but it’s not a gift I have in my arsenal. I try not to let that stop me from telling stories. Most of my self-initiated pieces are created as a window into a larger story. Not necessarily one I’ll finish or write, but more a still from a narrative that is fully self-internalized. The creative process is scattered in the specifics. Inspiration is sporadic and the concepts strike at some of the most inopportune times, but I hunt down anything I can log into and save it until I can start breaking it down and bringing it to life. A lot of my illustration is influenced by my editorial background. You learn a lot about fusing the worlds of narrative and aesthetics – on a deadline. Music is another integral part of the build process. I usually seek out what artist I think best tells the story, put it on repeat and have at it.

You have quite a fun, retro feel to your illustrations. Where do you get inspiration from?

It’s funny because I didn’t know that I really had a vintage flair to my work until a friend had pointed it out to me. Not being schooled in design or art, the history of it is somewhat of a largely uninformed blur. After doing a bit of googling, I was hooked. What started as a quest for simplification of complex objects and mechanics ignited a full-fledged romance of all things vintage. I love antique packaging and lettering, the reductionist art form of retro illustration and mid-century modern architecture. I’m inspired by people’s visions of the future. There is something beautiful about building a lens into the future from our own respective time periods. Retro futurism is probably the most inspiring worldview to me in its boldness to dream. I look to people like Jules Verne who existed as a man outside of his own time – drafting a world in fiction that did not yet exist in reality. Now, we can look back on his dreams as our past but it makes it no less awe-inspiring. It’s actually the near eradication of the NASA space program’s budget that concerns me most as a dreamer. The impact of a generation that won’t get to watch the pursuit of the seemingly impossible. It’s a great shame and, I believe, dangerous to ambition.

I understand that the worlds of illustration and graphic design are worlds apart. Have you experienced this? Which do you prefer, and why?

Working in the freelance world will absolutely make you feel that chasm. A lot of clients approach me as solely one of the other. I’m either illustrating in tandem with a design environment already provided for or I’m providing design sans illustration. It’s not always ideal, in my opinion, but I can see where people draw the distinction. At the very core, both have the same ultimate goal – communication. As I continue to grow and develop, I seek to overall become a far more effective communicator. In that way, I hope to see those lines diminish.

If, in some Freaky Friday-like situation, you could live the life of another designer, illustrator or creative, for a day, who would it be, and why?

Eric R. Mortensen works for NASA. I don’t know what exactly that entails or what specifically could even be shared, but it’s safe to say that out of all the professions friends of mine have, this one really blew my mind. It’s always an incredible experience to get to work on something that you care so passionately about. I think back to past projects where I’ve really been sold on the concept before the first pen stroke is laid down. It’s an awesome opportunity to believe in what you do and in the case of Eric, how could you not want to be part of that? Also, the dude is just an incredible illustrator and really has an eye for perfection.

What design tools could you not live without?

Coffee. More as a point of dependency but I suppose in some strange, addiction-riddled way, it’s a tool. Obviously, the Adobe Suite. But I’ll leave Flash out of that mix in a big way. Dribbble has been an incredible catalogue of inspiration and, more importantly, a real quarry of work opportunities.

And finally, what tips would you give to anybody who is looking to get started in design or illustration?

Get busy failing. Dream. Build. And Iterate often. Continually find new ways to do something that seems difficult. But more importantly, remember that life exists beyond your design career. It’s outside of your computer screen and it’s happening right now. Don’t let yourself get so wrapped up in who you are as a designer that you forget who you are as a person. The legacy you leave behind and the stories that you tell are so incredibly important – so tell them well.

Thanks Justin!

Many thanks to Justin for taking some time to talk to One Minute With. I really enjoyed interviewing him, and hopefully you enjoyed reading it!

Why not check out Justin’s site, and follow him on Dribbble and Twitter?

——————-

Earlier today, we published a chat I had with Eric Mortensen, and in that interview, we talked a bit about his new project, The People’s Pennant. They’re producing stunning pennants from some of the best designers out there, and Eric was nice enough to donate one to One Minute With. Now, we’re offering you the chance to win this fantastic prize, with a simple tweet!

About The People’s Pennant:

The People’s Pennant create awesome limited edition pennants, from amazing designers, with a new pennant released every single month. There are only 250 of each pennant produced, so with each purchase, you get a unique piece of design culture and join the People’s Pennant elite.

But hey, what do I know about pennants? Here’s Eric and the gang to explain what they’re all about:

Rally around the small things in life! Driving with the windows down. Lazy Sundays. A freshly sharpened pencil. Whatever it is that makes you happy, we want to celebrate it. So we bring you: The People’s Pennant. We elevate the pennant from the confines of sports to the awesomeness of the everyday. Our pennants are hand-printed and hand-sewn in the U.S.A. Crafted by folks who’ve helped shape the tradition since the early 1900s, they have produced felt products with care for home-town victories to world championships. Collect all of the pennants, and show some team spirit for the small things in life.

What You’ll Win:

Today, we have this beautiful pennant, designed by Ken Barber, up for grabs. If the idea of coffee isn’t enough to set your heart racing, the sweet, sweet lettering by House Industries’ in-house typography aficionado definitely will be.

Here’s what Ken had to say about his inspiration for the piece:

I’m a coffee connoisseur’s worst nightmare. No Ethiopian Kemgin beans, private cuppings or pour-over Tonx for me; I prefer the nasty convenience store variety. Twenty-four ounces of burnt decaf with a few generous shots of hazelnut creamer and a handful of artificial sweetener packets is perfect when I need a late afternoon fix. But no matter how you take your coffee, enthusiasts of all types can appreciate this clarion call for caffeine.

This design is priced at a very reasonable $35, but we’re giving you the chance to get it for the ultimate price of free!

How to Enter:

It really couldn’t be easier to enter. All you have to do is follow these three steps:

1. Follow @PeoplesPennant on Twitter.
2. Follow @ConorDesign On Twitter.
3. Tweet from your account with a link to this page. Try to say something nice about either OMW or The People’s Pennant too. It won’t help you win, but it’ll make us feel all happy inside.

To make it even easier, you can tweet directly from this page:

Tweet to Win!

We’ll collect up all the tweets on March 26th and randomly select a winner. The winner will be announced in this post, and on Twitter, on the 27th.

A Few Rules:

We hate rules as much as the next guy, but there a few bits and pieces we need to make clear:

1. This competition is open to people from anywhere in the world. We’ll even throw in the postage for free.
2. You can tweet as many times as you want, but you’ll only get one entry per person. Gotta keep this thing fair.
3. This contest ends at 23:59 (Ireland time) on March 26th, 2012. Any entries made after then will be chucked in the bin. But we’ll still love you.
4. We’ll be contacting you via Twitter if you win. If you don’t respond within 48 hours, we’ll give it to somebody else. So just check your Twitter.
5. If you aren’t following both @PeoplesPennant and @ConorDesign, you won’t be entered into the draw. This isn’t because we want more followers, it’s because we’ll have to DM you. Also, we want more followers.

Good luck, everyone!