Why don’t we start with what Grovemade is about? Let’s start there.

Yeah, that’s a that’s a hard thing to define. I think it means something different to everybody who’s involved. But for me I think it starts with my personal why, and everybody at the company has that personal why. It’s not exactly the same as the company why.

Yeah.

We’re together in whatever point in time because it’s close enough for that time to overlap. It’s good. So Grovemade started as more of kind of like an art project. We wanted make cool stuff and have fun doing it. That was  literally our business plan. The marketing plan was if we make cool stuff, people will talk about it.

Right. Yeah, that’s I mean that’s fairly logical.

Yeah. It’s so Portland, right? Over the years, my interest has evolved to maybe where it’s not as selfish but what the company is about. I had no idea that we would get bigger and had no idea of how to develop an interest in how the team can accomplish so much more than an individual. So it’s evolved to be about a team that can accomplish things because of our culture, we can create products that can’t exist otherwise. I think from our customers’ perspective we’re a design company, and internally too, we are a design company. That’s the biggest overlap is we’re driven by design. We’re not making stuff just so it can be sold.

We’re not looking for like a niche where we found something like a keyword that we can sell on Amazon. You just make a product for it. We’re designers first. We want to contribute products that there’s a point to, that there’s a reason it exists. We try to find opportunities or feel like we can contribute to the genre and bring something unique. We’ll take a driving force behind the work we do.

That’s also like this challenge because you know sometimes there’s already too many things out there or in maybe the simple solution is the best. Or we’re like, “Ah! But it looks like everyone else’s!”

When I was when I was learning about the origins of Grovemade, i came very quickly to the iPhone 3G that was sort of Phase 1, and the last time you and I talked, you talked a lot about how you want to kind of get away from being companion products and kind of do your own thing. What would you say is sort of the prime motivator behind that?

Yeah, we’ve been like pivoting away from the iPhone case thing. I mean since the beginning, Joe and I our vision was not to become an iPhone case company. It’s why all the people that popped up during that time, the name “case” was in their company name. But we already knew that’s not what we wanted to become. So that’s why we’re not called Grovecase or something.

The reason I bring that up is because I get the sense that when we talked about your relationship with Tanner Goods, that, yeah, they’re a competitor, but you’re very transparent. there is sort of a natural competition in everything you do. How do you feel that informs the designs that you produce?

Yeah, I feel like we we definitely have this culture of trying to be original. I don’t know if that comes from like respect for the competitors. It might just be like our desire to create something. And there’s a really interesting blog post on the wall that where there’s like a philosophical clash there. Because we actually tried to design like something with a little bit more mainstream appeal, and Kevin and Sean were like really against that, you know?

Why is that?

Because it’s not what we do. We usually try to create things that are totally unique. We made them all of this great design, and it’s beautiful, well-done, And we just put a ton of time into the details. But at first glance, it’s conventional. So you really struggle with that. The the article is really about that struggle. It’s something we embrace, though, to like disagree on, hash those things out.

Well, that’s kind of funny. When when I walk in here, I get a real sense of how the company works without even talking to anybody because I look around and I see maxims all over the place like “This is who we are”. “We’re going to try to get better every day” Did that evolve from something, or…

I think in the early days it was the OGs. You know, the people that started the company. When when you’re smaller, culture is going to happen from the people that are there. Over time, you started zeroing in on key elements, reinforcing them, and making sure the team aligned.

Yes. So it’s more to point the ship.

But all the stuff, you know, with our team right now and you have the right people, it’s kind of just there. You don’t need to tell people about that. Because they’re here because they’re like that.

Well, I noticed with this meeting that I just got to see. I mean, that was awesome, like you you guys weren’t a company. You guys were a team!

Nobody planned that. It just happens. You know?

Every Friday.

Every day.

Every day?

Yeah.

Wow.

I don’t know. Maybe like three or four months ago we just had to do like closing general meeting. Like what’s discussed on the fly and stuff just kind of evolves naturally.

Yeah. In in 2016 last year, you were in an interview on Huffpost, and you were reported as saying, “Controlling the process from beginning to end and by having a highly motivated team you can create products that otherwise wouldn’t exist”. How would you say that drives the products that Grovemade chooses to create?

Yeah. That’s core to our identity, I think. There’s some stuff down that is easier. But there’s some stuff that I don’t think can exist any other way like a speaker. There’s nothing like it out there. It’s because it takes so much effort to get there and you have to control it all. The outside people, they’re not going to have that driving them.

Do you do you feel like as somebody who’s bringing products to market and you know going and interviewing customers, do you feel like you have a better sense of what they want than they do? Is there empathy, I guess is where I’m going with that.

Yeah. I think it’s actually a weakness of understanding what our customers want. Because our company started with like much more simple thinking, like we’re just making stuff for ourselves. And there was a purity to that which contributed to our success. And we’re trying really hard now to get better at learning from customers and we’re finding a good place through it. We’re not just a company creating solutions but also we’re not just like this design company doing whatever they want. We’re using our skills and talking to them trying to find new solutions that they haven’t even thought of. We’re not giving them exactly what they say they want, but we’re listening to them, trying to figure out like what do they really need, and we’re providing that solution. Maybe it’s something they don’t even know existed. That’s the level we want to get to.

Well, it’s it’s funny because when you were at Hand-Eye Supply in 2013, you said, “We don’t need to worry about other people if we’re focused on what we do. We’ll just be fine.” Would you say there’s value in the design process Grovemade uses regarding not looking at what other people are doing?

Yeah. I think the fact that we’re not like competitive, we’re not like obsessed with copycats and competitors, it gives us an edge because our energy doesn’t think that we believe will be more worth worthwhile. When people give like positive energy focusing on our culture. So it’s an advantage because that negative energy that’s typically sent through those areas is just getting channeled somewhere else.

And do you feel like when when a customer opens up one of your packages via the mail, I’m guessing, they can kind of sense that?

That’s that’s our hope. You know, it’s not as obvious I think to the average consumer, but I think their experience with us has layers. And at first it’s just the design. It’s like, oh, this thing looks cool. I want it. And as they get deeper and as they buy our products, they engage with us more starts changing into their appreciation for our process and their appreciation for our people and what we believe. And they’re like, “Oh! I believe in the same thing.” You know, it becomes like a deeper connection. And that’s when it’s really good, and our products, you know like that catch-all that is sitting in your home. It’s functional. It’s beautiful. That’s surface level. But we like to be aware it’s more than that to people.

And what’s the last thing Grovemade brought to market?

The most recent thing is probably the new watch and before that the speaker was a big launch.

And the speaker was a collaboration project?

Yeah. With Joey Roth. Actually, both of those were collaborations which are pretty rare. Usually we just work in-house.

As I’m looking around and I notice these speakers, can you tell me a little bit more about why I’m seeing this beautiful surface on the speaker on the outside, and then there’s there are these bumps on the inside? What’s that all about?

Yeah, so speakers started with you know first we reached out to a friend of ours, Joey Roth, who has expertise in the early design. We tried on our own, and it was just too technical. And the design started from him being really excited about he’d show me these audio simulations and he’d explained to me that usually he gets to use like cabinet techniques and it doesn’t fit the audio simulations. So he has to compromise and use all these things of create angles because they’re not you know for stuffing things in there. But he got excited when I came in. I’m pulling up the things you can do with the CNC, and he came up with this idea of sandwiching two halves together. We could create the ideal acoustic form on the inside. And the outside takes a lot of surfacing, as you know. The CNC takes forever. The inside kind of happened when we were we were designing the thing. I was really concerned about the the time it takes to machine it.

Sure.

We’ve stayed away from 3D surfacing because it just takes too much time. Our product’s not that expensive, relatively speaking. And we’re really trying to make it affordable or reasonable, reasonable. It’s like a decision for somebody. So I was very concerned about the tool paths taking too much time, and on the inside even more concerned because it’s really hard to sand the inside. You can’t use orbital sanders and stuff very well. So we had the idea to just leave the tool path; leave the stepovers. I think we’re using a half-inch ball-mill. Joey put in a simulation that didn’t affect the acoustics in a negative way, and it was also kind of a nice contrast to the outside, so…

Right. It almost has sort of a shell sort of thing happening. it’s really beautiful. Well, let me go back for a minute to all the designers who know how to make stuff. That’s the only kind of designer you hire. And when we talked a few weeks ago about the pocket knife, you guys had sort of what was that was a workshop with a with a knife maker that kind of gave a consult, or how did that relationship work?

Oh, on the pocket knife? That was a lot of work. I personally did a lot of research reaching out to people that make knives.

Yeah.

Shops that make knives, just learning as much as possible. And we got a lot of friend help from a friend of mine that works at one of the major knife companies. And he gave us a lot of advice — free consulting.

And you know we’re sitting here in…what is this space that we’re in called? Does this have a name?

Yeah. This is the showroom.

Okay. So I see the showroom. I see sort of like the marketing and the the design areas. I see no inventory. What’s that all about?

Yeah, we have very little, so we’re not like a company that buys like 10,000 units at a time from China. Since we do our manufacturing, the the vast majority at least, we do lean manufacturing and have as little inventory as possible. So that’s for multiple reasons. That’s a whole other subject. But the big advantages are you know how big batch is, we can correct things quickly or improve products on the fly. And it also prevents us from waste because everything we do is definitely on the difficult side, and there’s problems. So if we’re doing large batches like we’ve done in the past, and we’ve run into problems where we’d have to throw out like 300 units or something like that…Now if we notice a problem, we waste 10.

When I first came in here and you were giving the tour to the Oregon Entrepreneurs Network, you were talking about how you’ll get an order in the morning, and you can ship it end of day, does that does that scale well? Like say you’re going to get a hundred orders in the morning. Can you keep up?

It depends. It depends. There’s definitely a limit.

Obviously, the speakers would you know…

We have some finished goods in inventory. We try to have a little bit there so if something goes wrong it doesn’t go all the way to our customers. So we have some. It’s just very little. So usually people are pick and packing from the finished goods, and we’re replenishing the finished goods. So it’s it’s not a true pull, but it’s close.

Yeah, yeah. Just going back there and looking at the machines they use to produce the stuff, it’s obvious that it’s it’s a low low volume production line effectively, right? You can do a whole bunch of iPhone cases at once, but the speaker is what at four at a time, four halves at a time?

Yeah, in the one day we’ll probably only make two. It takes so long. So in theory we’re supposed to have finished goods. It’s kind of like right now for example there’s a bunch of products that have zero inventory. So on that morning meeting the equivalent of the afternoon one Victor writes,  like they have to do these today. They have to ship today. So it goes from raw material, all the way through, and ship it out so it’s not late.

That’s quite a process.

You don’t want to do that because it’s inefficient. Because you’re making like little batches and like reacting. That definitely happens.

You talked about the mat over there, the for laying everything out on. Does that, first of all, does that have a name?

Blotter pad.

Okay. So the blotter pad. is that going to be sort of championing, ideally, everything? Could everything fit on there that you make?

Yeah, it’ll be a slightly different use case because you wouldn’t have a mouse pad. It’s really for people who have wooden desks. So the contrast is better.

And where did that idea come from?

We’ve been kicking it around for a long time. Mostly because there’s like this frustration where we find the ideal customer type. Let’s say it’s you. And you love wood. You’re a designer. And you believe you believe in well-crafted objects. And let’s say we’re marketing to you, but you might not even be a possible customer because you maybe you don’t own a desk or maybe a wood desk. And you don’t want to have wood on wood.

Right. Yeah. You need that visual break. That makes sense. We were talking a little bit about practical versus theoretical, education and I’m looking forward to writing about this topic because I I hadn’t really even considered it. Or I mean I’ve talked about it personally, but I’ve more actually wrote about it. And when slow, you have your designers working in the shop. what’s the value in that?

Actually, everybody works in the shop sometimes. We call it “all hands”

All hands.

Yeah. But there was a year, not last winter but the previous winter when it was part of our strategy to deal with the seasonality. You know, everybody was in there including me and Jim. I think the value, well for the designers — it’s kind of circular reason but reasoning, but I only hire designers that know how to build. Because it’s so important to begin with the process. Now Sean was in production for years, and he was production manager.

Oh, wow. Okay.

For yeah, three years or something. So he obviously knows how to make stuff in our way. So if the designers didn’t know how to make stuff, we’ll have problems because we have to make it. And it might be that designer. As we’ve gotten bigger, we’ve gotten even less connected to the making part. When we were smaller, we were like jammed in together, and everybody was doing everything. And over the last couple of years, we’ve gotten more separated. I mean, obviously more integrated than other companies.

It’s also fun for us to go back there. You know, it’s not something I want to be doing full-time at this point in my career. But I still like making things.

Do you do do you do personal projects back there?

Yeah, I do. Everybody at the company is allowed to if they ask me for permission. A few people do, but I probably use it the most.

I mean, hell, if you have the machines power on!

I don’t use the CNCs because they’re too dangerous. I mean dangerous as in like I might break something.

Yeah. You gotta to know your own limits!

And I can’t program anymore. But yeah, I remodeled my my place, did probably half the work myself and then just little projects here and there. It’s still fun.

That’s awesome.

Yeah. Unfortunately, a lot of my tools are gone, sold the welder, sold most of my best tool stuff. and it’s thousands of dollars of stuff; it was taking up space, so…

So what would you say is the future of Grovemade?

I think the future is: we’re going to get more sophisticated. I think the era of the the mid-level like simple maker company is coming to an end. the Internet is not this glitch anymore where it’s too easy to get free publicity. I’m excited about it, that it’s not going to be a free ride anymore. I feel like our culture is strong enough that we can learn to be more sophisticated digital marketing, eCommerce, but with stronger business. So our future is in becoming a stronger business, more sophisticated. It’d be nice to grow a little bit, to have more reach, and also so we can do more cool stuff.

Thanks again to Grovemade for having me over to celebrate them as the first member of the Good Design Cohort!

Are you interested in nominating your company for the GDC? Apply here!

The post GDC | Grovemade appeared first on PolyPlane.

Gabe: What is your story outside of Grovemade?

Ken: Okay, I guess we could go way back. How far back do you want to go?

I want to go all the way back. I want to go back to right before you moved here, if possible.

Okay. I was born in Japan. We moved to America when I was two, and when I was in the first grade, we moved up here to Portland. And we my parents liked the country, so we we had this house. It was kind of basically up by Skyline. And it was totally comfortable. It was such a shock coming from LA because there was a gravel road and we had horses.

And our neighbors were farmers that had like goats and sheep and everything. Kind of the crazy part of that story is that my next door neighbors that I grew up with like running around in the woods, one of the brothers, Ben, he ended up becoming a furniture maker, and later on we crossed paths again. We just started working together, and then he’s worked here at Grovemade.

So I guess that’s why you go all the way back, right? So all this started when I was a kid, like me and my friends Ben and his brother Joel, we we grew up in the woods just exploring and like building stuff. Their dad was like a super handy guy. They built their house. I remember helping them like demo a house when I was like eight years old. We were country kids.

That’s interesting. When I talked to Sean, he was talking about how his grandfather would like just roughly draw up a house and get it validated by architects. It sounded like you had sort of a very parallel path in that way.

Yeah. I really wanted to be like their dad. This person that can do everything. Like I remember he he made like a radio controlled airplane like from scratch. You know, like the wing was made out of foam, and he made this like wire cutting tool from scratch to cut the foam and then like fiberglassed it. It was crazy. So I mean we weren’t at that level, but we were constantly making stuff.

There there’s like a very distinct difference between someone who wants to build stuff and someone who wants to build a business. And it sounds like a little bird on the tree told me you have some you know history with Epson. Maybe some lineage there?

Masakatsu Tomita – President of Epson Portland, Inc.

My dad worked for Epson. He eventually became president of the factory in Portland. He passed away when I was 18, so I haven’t had like a lot of contact with like the business side of him, you know? And he was sick for a long time before that. By the time I was adult-ish, you know, he wasn’t really doing the business thing. But my mom tells me I’m turning into him, so maybe it’s just in the blood.

It could be. It could be. I assume through furniture and through RISD and that you that wasn’t really jiving for you. How did you do this? Did you have a mentor that was taking you under?

Right. Maybe we should go through that story. So I went after high school I worked for a year and went to college at the University of Oregon, and I couldn’t find what I liked to do. I was a physics major, and…I left that. And I think I switched to something else. And I switched and switched, switched, and I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I ended up kind of just traveling a lot during college. I went to school in Hawaii for a year and Japan for a
year. And when I was in Hawaii, I was trying to take the easiest course load possible. So I looked through the syllabus, and I was like, oh, art classes! I bet these are easy!

I’ve heard that story before.

Ironically I ended up spending all my time in studio. It wasn’t “easy”, but my intention was to not study and like go party and go to the beach. I ended up getting really into ceramics, actually, and photography, sculpture some. The other class I took was drawing which I didn’t really get that into, but I ended spending all this time in the studio. But at my home school, University of Oregon, you can’t take art classes, or it’s very difficult to take art classes unless you’re an art major.

Oh, okay. So you can’t cross-pollinate.

It’s hard to, yeah, because majors get first dibs. So I was kind of getting a little frustrated. I was like, “Oh, I kind of want to go to this artistic side, but I really didn’t want to be an art major”. Through that I took an architecture class and tried architecture, and something went off in my head like, “Wow! This is what I want to do.” Because it kind of combined my curiosity for art which I didn’t feel like particularly talented in, but I really liked. And I was always good at like math. It just came naturally to me like engineering-type stuff. So I thought architecture combines what I’m good at naturally but I’m not that into with what I’m not naturally talented I really like. It’s like, architecture! So I devoted the rest of my education to getting good grades as possible so I can get into grad school. And just graduate with anything. Applied to a bunch of schools, ended up at RISD — definitely like a lucky break. When I got there, I was overwhelmed with how challenging it was, how good everybody else was except me.

They they weren’t there to party!

I think it’s called like imposter syndrome or something, except I was actually an imposter. I think that syndrome is supposed to be when people feel like they are but they actually belong there; and I just didn’t belong there.

When you and I talked at the coffee shop, you said you left because you were sort of dissatisfied with the practical side of what you were doing.

Yeah. The their educational model is super-conceptual, and ironically that’s why I went there. So when I was looking at all these grad schools, there were some that were really engineering focused, and RISD is the most conceptual one. And I knew that I struggled with conceptual stuff, so I did it on purpose to challenge myself. And it’s kind of an instance where, yeah, that’s great, but it was too far.

It was too far on the conceptual side.

Yeah. But I learned a lot because my thinking, my rationale for choosing that was like, hey, I’ve already I’m already a natural at this stuff. Like, why do I need to go to school for any of that? You know, like engineering-type stuff. So I went to this place that really made me step outside of my comfort zone. And i think it stretched my brain in ways that even helped me today, even though that’s not really who I am is like super-conceptual architect like wearing a cape and lecturing about theory. It’s not really me. But, being in that environment in a really intense year kind of got me to like ask some of those questions. So I don’t regret it at all. That was amazing.

So when you left, were you able to eventually seek out those pieces that you felt were missing? Or was it more you left so that you could have time to work on the things that you knew you were good at?

I think I went to RISD, I was like a normal person. And then after that year, I turned into kind of a creative person. You know, you do this kind of boot camp thing for people that don’t have an art background, and it’s super-intense. You take the same class with the same people, and you live together, too. And that I had a particular drawing teacher that his name’s Al DeCredico. He’s like kind of controversial guy, but everybody hates
him. And I hated him, too.

Just because he was hard, or…

The was hard, and he’s like yelling at you and stuff. It was an abstract drawing class, but something clicked at the end where suddenly I was an artist. And I wasn’t a normal person any more the way that I looked at the world.

Okay. So when you say it was a boot camp, were there drills or…

No, his boot camp was the intensity. Because it’s like 24 hours a day practically. That’s what it feels like because you you wake up in the morning. You go to class in the studio, and then studio ends and you’re doing it on your own with the same cohort and then you go back to your dorm and you’re living together. You do that for like two or three months straight.

I’m going to ask you a very cliché question, and I’m only going to ask you because I get a wide variety of responses from the people I ask. And it will be very interesting to see how your answer aligns with other people’s. What is design?

For me problem solving is the root of it. It’s how can you create something, make decisions about something that make it function and feel better which usually is from the aesthetics. But I believe design have like a heavy problem-solving component, and that’s why it’s kind of a buzz word, like design thinking for other disciplines. Designers are optimistic. It’s because they feel like they can solve any problems. That’s what you do. And actually I like the areas we have to compromise, and we’re like some aesthetic decision collides with, well, actually, that takes 20% longer to machine or I like those intersections or those collisions between like the practical parts and the aesthetic.

I was going to ask you, but I don’t think it’s a relative relevant question now, I was going to ask you how your Japanese heritage influences your design decisions. But it almost sounds like most of your design and creative life has been influenced by environmental circumstances.

The Japanese side influences my expectations, I think.

So it’s built in that way.

Yeah. So I grew up super Japanese because my parents thought we were going back to Japan the whole time. So they made me go to Japanese school. I didn’t even learn to speak English until I was five, or six. Because my dad was here for business, and they thought we were going back. So I went to Japanese school in LA, and then we moved up here, went to Japanese school on Saturdays every Saturday. When everybody else was watching cartoons, I was in Japanese school getting a the same language curriculum as Japan and math, too. So that’s why I’m good at math — I have a double education.

And American math, I mean, this is a tangent, but it was so easy compared to Japanese math. I was taking them simultaneously, so American math was always behind.

So it was a joke, yeah. So I was raised to be Japanese. I didn’t live there a whole lot. But when I go to Japan, I see kind of like the expectation for work ethic and also excellence for quality like in food or product or anything. Japanese people are always kind of talking about Americans in a little bit of a derogatory way. They’re like, we’re sloppy, you know?

I mean there’s good things about our culture. You know, the freedom. And that’s why most of the best technology and ideas come from here because of the freedom of thought. But I think I had kind of the luxury of combining because I’m Japanese-American…

Oh, it’s it’s a phenomenal combination, yeah.

You know, whatever I want from both. And my mom like claims that she’s got nothing to do with it, but if you go to her house, it’s like pretty nice.

Super Japanese?

And she has good taste. You know, she’s always doing creative projects or like when she makes me lunch, it looks good.

Yeah, it’s not just a pile of stuff served on a calendar.

Yeah. It looks good. Little touches of how she’d cut the carrots or whatever, you know.

Well, of course, then that you would create a company that has all this great stuff that’s high-quality. That make that makes sense.

My definition of normal is probably not the same as somebody else.

That’s good. No, I mean, normal is a spectrum, right? You sort of answered the how you’d become Ken the designer. How did Ken the designer become Ken the businessman? Because when you and I first met, and Amina asked you the question: How did all this happen?, you were like, ah, you know, I just dropped $75k on the laser cutter, that seems a little arbitrary.

Yeah, on a CNC. Joe (the other co-founder) drops $75k on the laser.

So that a lot of that is from what I did before right after school. , I worked for this guy, Gerard Minakawa who’s a bamboo furniture maker and sculptor. And I was apprenticing under him. And that guy changed my life, both design but mostly how I live it and as a it kind of turned me into an entrepreneur.

So I had no idea you could even be an entrepreneur, and it was just not something that I thought about. So I’d been working for this guy who’s kind of insane, you know? He was a brilliant designer, but I couldn’t believe how much he worked and how passionate he was. Up to that point, I was always worried about if I’d find a job that I liked. And this guy didn’t have a job. He just lived. That’s what he did. I see him every night like sketching with his little desk lamp on. And he’s not doing it because someone’s paying him to do it.

He’s doing it because he loves it.

That’s what he does. He’s like this unstoppable machine. So working with him kind of showed me like that you could do whatever you want and that work and life didn’t have to be this separate thing. And I just had no awareness of that until I met him, and I worked with him for a few years. And I think that impacted me later. And it still impacts our company. A lot of the things we do, a lot are from him. Just make sure that what matters to you is what you’re doing.

Yeah. How did how did you meet him?

Through my professor when I was frustrated at RISD, I asked my favorite professor for advice, and he told me to quit school and go work for this guy.

There you go! That’s that those are the best instructors, I find. Just go over there! That’s awesome.

So he’s got a company called Bamboo DNA.

Oh, okay. And is that part of Project Chaboo?

Chaboo. No. That’s the project I did, though. Bamboo DNA he builds these like large-scale sculptures. So when I was working for him, we did two at Burning Man, and then he he continued doing that full-time. Even after I moved up here and did my furniture thing or even during Grovemade, I’d go work for him every year.

At least one project I’d go work for him because the intensity of his projects and the spontaneous problem-solving that has to be done when you’re doing work on site, I continued to do those until I couldn’t do them physically. Both for that and also to never to keep myself humble because these projects are so intense, and I’m not the boss. You know, usually when I go on these things, I’d be the lowest on the totem pole, even though I was highest before because I’m not doing it every day now.

I’ve taken Sean [Kelly] on a project and three other people from our company have gone and worked for Gerard on projects.

That’s awesome. That’s good to encourage people to do trial by fire sort of situation.

They come back changed people. It’s it’s like a rite of passage.

So it looks like you are kind of addicted to seeking out that intensity.

Yeah. I think the reason I was so worried as a little kid about like finding a job I liked is it takes a lot for me to be stimulated. I get bored really easily. So I was like terrified of this idea of work. And I’m super lucky that I can like control that. I can vary the intensity. But yeah, it’s definitely a theme.

So what what is the most meaningful project you’ve worked on this far in your career and why?

They’re all different. They’re all different. I think those years working for Gerard really transformed it at kind of kind of the highest level. They transformed me as a person. But each one that we’ve done along the way has changed the way I think and helped me grow.

Yeah. Have you done any as sort of something that had personal meaning to you as part of your existence almost?

I think Project Chaboo which was a collaboration where I worked with 50 other designers to design this. I encouraged everyone to do like a reinterpretation of one of my furniture pieces. That kind of showed me the power of people, because up to that point I worked alone for a long time.

There was supposed to be a Chaboo 2. It never happened. That was incredible for me to work with that many people and see what they’re into and inspired by what they’re doing. I think that spirit has carried carried on to Grovemade. This space is about us as a team. When the chemistry is right, you can do amazing things, completely impossible for me to do on my own or anybody, really.

Yeah, yeah, the power of numbers. And the right kind of numbers, too.

Yeah, the numbers can make can drag these down. So that’s what we’re trying that’s what we’re always striving for.

When you’re developing a product or a piece of furniture, what would you say is your general approach to the design process, and do you do a lot of this process mentally?

Yeah. I mean, it’s changed a lot. I mean, I barely do any design work any more. Sean has really stepped it up. I feel like he’s better than me so at that particular part, so why should I do it? It doesn’t make any sense.

Well, let, okay, Let me in chronologically or temporally shift that over to when you were doing that kind of stuff.

Oh, yeah. So when I was doing furniture, I had kind of a very manual process. I really liked drafting by hand, so I had a huge drafting board.

Oh, you’re sick.

I was drafting it by hand. And of course it’s hard to change things, but I’d do the orthographic drawings and then isometric drawing. And I don’t know part of the just the act of manually doing it real intriguing. I really like making paper models. The early stages of design used to really frustrate me because a lot of my projects were really open-ended. I could do anything. So it was a lot of like going on walks with my dog. I had this particular park near my mom’s house that I liked to go to, and he’d just run around without a leash. And I had my sketchbook and catch what I was doing.

It was pretty solo back then. I would draw a lot, and even though when I was RISD I’d gravitate towards paper models, real like really sketch-level modeling and not the computer. I’m terrible at computer programs even back then. He forced us to learn them, but I was terrible at it. I was also not very good at 2D drawing. I really preferred sketching in 3D instead of translating. For example, when I was at RISD, I would fake my drawings. I would like do all these models, and then afterwards I would simulate that I had sketched them. You’d require some kind of drawings. And one critic actually called me out. I was amazed at how good she was. I was like, how did she…? She’s like, “That almost looks like you did those drawings after you…” I was like, “Oh, my God! How did she know?!”

You got humbled!

Yeah. Some people are really good critics.

So coming from that to this world of you know eCommerce, how has eCommerce changed how you approach what you find to be good design now? Or has it affected it?

Yeah. Only in recent times. So for probably this first six or seven years of the company, we were just making whatever we wanted to make. And it was all about what we like and this year we’re kind of shifting the way we look at things to I think it’s time to mature as a company and be more than like a hobby. And I mean it sounds crazy to say it’s a hobby because we have millions of dollars of revenue and all these people, but it kind of was.

Like, we weren’t a real business that serviced our customers. And that was part of the magic, you know, when everything’s driven by money, it’s all going to be the same. We were coming from a different place. So I’m looking for this year to without losing that magic of what are we really care about, and what excites us? Let’s look at what the customers care about and that part where it overlaps, that’s where we’ve got to be.

Finally, it’s in the process. Finally, eCommerce is part of the process. Finally we’re considering you know is this product going to get us referrals you know from PR? Is this product going to help us with search engine? We’re really thinking about that a little more.

Do you do you feel like the products that you’re producing should have sort of a self-marketing component to them?

Not necessarily. Up till maybe six months ago, we our company was running at a much more simplistic way of thinking about things like I described. And we’ve been really been working on the the past six months becoming much more sophisticated and really understanding the picture with all the components. So if we launch a product now, I’ll create a worksheet that has…it’s just a one-pager. It will say like this product is supposed to drive 20,000 clicks through PR and 5000 through a search engine. This product these complications with vendors. Here is our revenue goals. This product is designed not to get new eyes on our products but to add to customers that are already buying our stuff, you know? I mean, it’s a fifth grade level, one pager, but we never had that before. We were just launching stuff without thinking about it.

Yeah. And where are you pulling those metrics from?

From the past. So from really the the first thing we did is really look at the past and what the current picture. And it took a lot of data hunting on my part to dig in. I’m fortunate enough that the company can run itself, so I spent about three months. Nobody knew I was doing it because I wasn’t here. Like really looking into like what’s actually happening. I’m still guessing, but even the guessing is good. If it just signals intent, right? We’re doing things with intent.

Is there a bigger picture?

Yeah, and that’s what we’re putting together right now. , we’re trying to build a new strategy for success for a business based on our customer starting with them. And still working on it, but, yeah. We need we need to become much more sophisticated, I think.

What did establishing your own brand do for your satisfaction for you as a human?

Oh, versus like if we were like a retailer or something?

If you were just you know doing furniture more that struck your fancy and…

Oh, gotcha, gotcha. Well, I might answer your question in kind of a roundabout way, but I mean me personally, I a lot of my identity is tied up in the company. And I’m very proud of what we’ve accomplished or what we’ve what we’ve done.

You should be. It’s awesome!

Both in product and the people side. And I think everyone here has a lot of pride about that, and it’s a challenge for us because the pride leads to good work, but it also restricts us to you know from being a doing things that just make more money.

Right, right. I think that’s the companies that have the integrity to develop products with intention. They kind of outlast. They’re the ones with the long game in sight.

I’d like to think so. , but we are a business, and it’s been challenging at times to sustain it financially. So I’m determined to make it work, though, that that we can create a company where we’re not compromising that, and we can be financially viable. I know it can be done. It’s just harder.

I mean I kind of steered this interview more towards business, but I can’t help it because it’s part of who you are. I mean, you are so strongly tied to this, and I get the sense from our last conversation and just the time in between how much of you is in this place. And so I feel like it’s very relevant to ask you those questions. So with that, the question I’m going to ask you next was initially intended to be directed towards your design sensibilities, but I think it’s more about your overarching vision for this place. Where do you draw your inspiration from?

From other people mostly now. I used to be much more solo, so I’d get it from like reading books and like a lot of photographs; I would get it from. I looked at a lot of books of Japanese because I mean you can see all the books I have right here. All these design books. But now I spend an incredible amount of time maybe like a third of my week in what I call “professional development”. And that’s just learning. And a big chunk of that is learning from the people.

It’s kind of like a cheat code. The skill is in distilling it down to what matters for you. But there’s so many smart people out there.

Do you have like a top three?

Mm. I take bits and pieces from everyone. So I don’t have a person or I’m like I want to be this person. I’m looking at special specialists. Maybe there’s this digital marketing woman who’s like really good at that, but she has no idea about design or business or something like that. And I’m like I’m going to learn from her as much as possible or this design person or like a finance person. The specialists are so good. And I have a few mentors that
have kind of put it all together, but it’s pretty rare, and that’s kind of what I’m trying to do is like learn about everything and hopefully I can guide the company to get all those pieces working together properly.

And does Grovemade offer partnerships and entrepreneurial investigations?

Oh, internally? We used to. Yeah. Sean is really passionate about teaching the younger generation. So we used to have high school kids and college kids. But we don’t have the resources any more. For that, we did one-day internships which is actually kind of the highest return on effort where we can impact the world in the biggest way with the least amount of our time. Because people can come in here, and they can experience so many different jobs, you know? There’s not many places where in one day that you can job shadow like seven completely different jobs.

Well, that’s actually a good point because you we talked about you have designers working in the shop at when it’s slow, and it’s important for everybody to kind of understand how to do that. Are you eventually going to have those people learning the digital marketing side, too, or…

Not really. I think we’ve become more siloed recently, more specialized. You know, we’re always going back and forth between the efficiency of specialization versus the closer ties when everybody’s like together. And lately we’ve been trending towards more the specialization, so I think we have to be sensitive to mental space and time.

I hardly do any like real work, quote unquote, right, because I have to think about this bigger picture stuff?

Right, yeah. You’re macro.

And think about and talk to a lot of people. But I can only do that because we have this great team that’s actually doing good work, physically doing it whether it’s making the products or operating company marketing, you know? And those people wouldn’t be able to do that if they were trying to do my job.

Right.

So that’s the kind of beauty of team, right?

It it seems like this company is sort of a natural transition, an evolution from where you were growing up in the woods to the furniture to architecture school to Grove. What is this your stopping point?

I don’t know. I know like I’m the kind of guy that I’m always going to do what I feel like I really want to do, and if that’s no longer what we’re doing here, I’ll probably stop doing it and find something else. What we’re doing now is kind of a surprising evolution because I’m pretty introverted. I’m like kind of like being alone and doing my own thing. And I never would have thought that I’d be like leading a team and that I would find that rewarding. And I guess that’s what my dad was doing. He’s an executive. And I just wasn’t interested in it back then, you know? Kind of turning into him. It’s kind of crazy.

And I mean not to get too personal, but with the unfortunate loss of your dad, do you feel like there’s some sort of continuation of family legacy by going from the introvert to the head of the team?

I think so. Yeah. I know my mom’s always talking about that, but I mean he was a much much bigger scale. He had like 2000 employees, and we have 20. But…

You got to start with one.

I guess a lot of the ways I think about things, she says it’s similar and I hear old stories about my dad from people that worked for him.

Were you close with him?

Yeah, yeah. He was a people first kind of guy, and and he had kind of an unorthodox management style that and enabled him to succeed at a young age in a Japanese company which is pretty rare. And I kind of feel like the way I look at things is a little off compared to the rest of the world.

If he were here today, what would he say about this place?

I think he would love it. Yeah, he wanted me to be an engineer. He said that engineers are the smartest people at his company. So like mixing that fabrication side with business, I think he’d be pretty into that.

That’s awesome.

Yeah. And I mean he was a total business geek, right? He was always reading his books, but I didn’t really get it. And now it’s like now it’s all I think about is is business, you know?

Yeah, that’s good.

I would have never thought I’d follow in his foot…And maybe I was rebelling against that, you know, when I was younger.

Yeah. And then you embrace it and and then full bore go into it. That’s awesome. Ken, thanks so much for talking to me today. It’s been really good to get the Ken side of the story vs just Grovemade overall. I think by getting to know the individual people, you get a better sense of the company as a whole.

It’s really important to remember though that is company is not just me and Sean. Everybody has these vital roles. The magic is that we’re all working together, you know?

Are you a professional 3D artist or designer? I’d love to talk with you about your work! Reach out to me here and maybe you, too, will be featured in the ProTalk! 

**Editorial note – Joe Mansfield is the other cofounder of Grovemade. While he is still a friend of the company, he no longer has an official role.

The post ProTalk: Designer Ken Tomita appeared first on PolyPlane.

Last week we started our interview with Sean. Part 1 can be found here.

Here is the second part of our interview continued with Sean here:

Gabe: How do you cull your ideas? How do you pare them down? I mean I assume when you’re coming out with like say a belt buckle or a stand, you’ve got like a thousand ideas. How do you cut them down?

Process. Yeah, we we put them through we put them through a process.

And is it a vetting process or…

Not necessarily, but in but through through the process that that that we use to to design products here at Grove. So it’s a process pieced together from you know, like anyone’s process, it’s pieced together from a bunch of processes as well as like things that have worked for you in the past or how you work best as a designer or just as a person. And so it’s endless models. Wear testing; like it with a belt buckle, for instance. It’s it’s it’s creating models we’re testing. When acrylic models break when we’re trying to wear test them, then you have to upgrade to you know 3D printed steel models. And you just keep pushing it.  I think there’s there’s a quote that I really liked from “The Little Prince” where it’s talking about you know tearing something down or or or stripping something down to its nakedness, and in that nakedness, that’s the essence of of the idea. And so I’m I’m really paraphrasing it. But it’s a great quote. And I like to think about that when I’m designing something here at Grove.

“Perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add but when there is no longer anything to take away, when a body has been stripped down to its nakedness.” – de St. Exupery, Antoine. Wind Sand and Stars. Trans. Lewis Galantiere. New York: Harcourt Inc. 1967

So for instance we used to add a lot of materials altogether to kind of create like this mix, this mash up of of things for like on the monitor stand there’s metal. There’s the laptop one. There’s metal. There’s leather. There’s wood. And so when we were designing the key ring, we were trying to put it wood, metal, and leather into the designs. And as we were designing and making prototypes, we were like, oh, this is too much, too much, too much! And we just stripped away the leather. We don’t need leather. And we’re like, oh, wood. You know, this is going to be outside. It’s going to get wet, like all these different things. It breaks. So strip away the wood, and then you’re left with the metal, and we’re like, oh. Why didn’t we just start with that? Because because your your mind like goes to all these crazy places and things you want to try, and you don’t necessarily ask the right questions at first. And then you as you’re using it and as you’re making models, then you see like oh, this this won’t work because of this.

That’s a good feeling, too, when you get to that spot of “just enough.” Yeah, it functions the way you intended.

Yeah, you can cut and that moment when you can cut something away and be like, oh, we don’t need this entirely. It’s it’s going to be fine. It’s going to be great without this. Not just fine. It’s going to be better than it was. Like it was trying, this thing was trying to support this other thing, and this other thing is just detracting from this thing. So pulling it away all of a sudden opens up doors that you didn’t even see at first which is pretty fun. And that just comes with trying it. You just have to any idea that you had, you have to try. if you if it doesn’t get if it doesn’t come out of your head, it’s going to bounce around in there and mess up the other ideas. You feel like it’s just going to like it’s going to snowball, and you’re not going to ever feel satisfied. So you have to you have to try it, and once you’ve tried it, it’s out there in the world, and you can move on.

So do I guess that answers the next question which is, do you fall in love easily with your ideas? And describe that sensation of falling in love with an idea that ends up on the cutting room floor.

Yes. I do fall in love with ideas. When we first designed the knife, I was obsessed with the thought of integrating the clip into the blade.

Oh, yeah. That’s kind of cool.

So when it was a bent metal because the blade was bent, and the clip went on the outside of the housing and then it would clip on your pants, but then when you opened it, you’d flip the clip around, and it would like lock into the handle. I was kind of obsessed with that, and I rolled with that for a little bit. I was in love with the idea because I was just like this is so weird and and cool at the same time. And like no one’s done it. I think with every single project I have an idea at the beginning that I just kind of my mind latches onto. And that’s where that comes in where you have to like take it out of your mind and make it. And then once you make it, that either proves it or it or it doesn’t.

I’ve had so many times where I’d like hold a print, and I’ll be like, oh, yeah, that’s stupid. It it functions perfectly in the vacuum of your own brain.

Exactly. It’s  very it’s a very strange sensation. And then you you kind of become fixed on that idea, too. So getting it out there is good. Also, there comes kind of ego comes into that I think a little bit. Like we become attached to ideas. But the one of the best things to help with ego is to have friends around you who can tell you like, “Stop that. It’s a great idea, but it’s not working.”

Let’s go back to Circle for a moment. For an outsider looking in, this was kind of a big deal for a designer two years out of school. How did you get involved, and what was your biggest design challenge on that project?

Yeah, it was it was pretty exciting when it when it came about. It was my friend one of my friends from high school who was actually a senior when I was a freshman, but we knew each other. My friend knew me specifically after not seeing me for so many years. Luckily, he stumbled upon me on the Grovemade website, and there was a blog post about me a long time ago and back when I had my first portfolio online, there was a link. And years after that there wasn’t a link. So he hit the the sweet spot where he was able to click on the link, and he saw one project that he’s like, oh, that’s like the material that I want. That’s kind of like the aesthetic I want, the function I want. And he wrote me, and the next day we had coffee because I knew him immediately.

He went to college with a bunch of people I knew, too, from earlier in life, a different college than I went to, but we kind of still had like that same connection with each other. And so we had coffee, and it was really great seeing him. And he told me about this idea. And the best part was is that it kind of hit me where I was at at the moment. I wasn’t a parent yet, but I saw that need and I saw my parents had that kind of software on their computer and saw what they went through with like setting it up and all that stuff. And then now I like the aspect of like the time setting on it in terms of you know we’re on our phones constantly when we’re together like…

It detracts.

When I’m at home with my wife, like we’re both on our phones sometimes and just like sitting and like looking at stuff when we’re right next to each other. And so like having this thing that can can help guide in a way, help guide you to have a more balanced life was something I was really, really into. And the fact that it was for kids was really exciting, too because I was thinking at the time my wife and I were talking about you know starting a family, so it seemed like something…

That’s a very logical piece, especially if you can design it. I mean, how more intimate with a project can you get, right?

But it hit me emotionally, I think, too which was really it’s really great when something can do that, like you feel invested in it in that way, like this is going to do something really good for a lot of people, and that was like sign me up right now. I want to do this. So we had that coffee, and then the very next day, I met with the team that they’d assembled for the project. And then we just started rolling from there.

That’s cool!

Yeah. Looking back I always call it serendipity. It just kind of came together.

And and what was what was the biggest design challenge on the project?

I think definitely you know working in a team. We all had different ideas of what we wanted it to be, and being able to accept that not everything that I wanted to do with it was going to be put into the device. You know, like not maybe the form wasn’t exactly what I wanted it to be. The function didn’t turn out to be exactly what I wanted it to be. But what it does for the user is exactly what I want it to be. Like it’s everything I want it to be. So that was really important. And and looking back like the box most people are putting it with their router like…Kind of hidden, and it’s and it’s more of the software. But just being able to be on that team and have that experience and and do something different than anything I had done before — because I did do some projects in school that were digital like the you know the combination of a physical device and a digital software coming together and creating some sort of experience. And so it was something that I was moving towards that I wanted to do. And I hadn’t had an opportunity yet, and this one just fell into my lap. Which I’m very thankful. Yeah. It was really fun.

So going back even further back to school, was there something you wished you received in your education that you wound up learning later?

I think any school you go to there are things that you can say that like you know I wish I had this or I’m glad I had that, you know? There’s the things people like, that they don’t like. I was definitely a guinea pig, like one of the first.

I think it was the second graduating class through the U of O’s product design program, and the first class had four people. The second class had 13. So it was a really small class. And since then, though, the program has grown and changed and morphed and like they’re using different modeling software…when I was there and their structure of the class is a little bit differently. But I think I got what I wanted from it, definitely. But at the same time, as I moved forward professionally in in my career, I’ve seen where some discrepancies have been. But that’s okay because you can you can pick that stuff up.

Well, I think I mean to your point, it’s because you had this nice latchkey between your university time and Grove, it you’re sort of still learning, right? So I guess the takeaway there is like if you get yourself into a position where you have a seamless transition between one education format and another, you can back fill whatever voids you’re missing. I guess you can do that regardless in life, but it certainly helped in the work setting, I think.

I think too, at the time at the U of O, I did the the program down in at the school in Eugene. Then I moved to Portland, and I did their one-year BFA program out of two which is when I did the internship here at Grove. And in Eugene it was very, very focused on the making and processes behind you know manufacturing or design. So my first product design class, I learned what a parting line was. And I didn’t I don’t know how I I never noticed that line before or even really given it much thought, but like after that one class, like learning about parting lines, all of a sudden there were parting lines everywhere.

Everywhere.

And I was obsessed. And I became obsessed with understanding the process behind how each thing was made. And I think that was something that I really, really loved about that program was just that understanding of you know if you have an idea, here are the five different ways you can make it. And those five different ways can produce five different variations of that product.

So let’s do a little pop quiz trivia here for you. Coca-Cola bottle. Where’s the parting line?

Oh, I haven’t even looked at the the one that look that’s modeled after a cocoa pod like the old school bottle.

The glass bottle, yeah.

I just drank one the other night. Let’s see. A silhouette, curves, and then it has those little ripples. I don’t know. It could be along the sides that the logo is not so down…down the sides?

You got it! Yep. Right down the sides.

Yup. I was reading about it, actually. , there was like the history of that bottle, and I’ve been reading about it online like a month ago. And they were talking about how it was modeled after the pod, like the shape was modeled after a pod. And a bunch of people started copying the shape.

And now that’s like the ubiquitous soda bottle silhouette.

Yeah. But I was like, oh! I didn’t I didn’t know that part of the story that it was modeled after the pod. The little details on the glass are beautiful. So yeah. And then everything tastes better out of the bottle, of course.

I totally agree. So where do you find yourself most comfortable in your design life behind the CNC or behind pack stacks of Post-It note drawings?

I almost feel like I don’t find myself comfortable anywhere because you know…

Are you introverted?

I think can you be…Yeah, you can be an introvert/extrovert. I think I can definitely fit into both molds. It depends on… or maybe I don’t I don’t fit into a mold. It’s just …

 You’re on the spectrum somewhere.

There’s no parting lines here. I guess the human version of a parting line would be a belly button. Yeah. I think I don’t feel comfortable doing anything really because I always feel like I’m reaching for it, like I’m trying to reach for something and you know sometimes you’re not always on on your A game when you’re working, And that mixed with trying to design products that at at least at Grove products that are going to be made by people that are here, so you want to do right by everyone that’s here.

They’re going to look at you and be like, what the heck?

Ah, dang. This is so hard to make. We’ve had products like that were that were too hard to make. Well, but yeah, I think the idea that you’re you’re always reaching for for something better and always trying to push yourself. And you know it’s not good to be uncomfortable all the time, but it’s good to have that discomfort because that discomfort guides you to ask questions that you wouldn’t.

Yeah. “What are your limits?”

Yeah, and try to push past them. I mean, just just recently I love sticky notes, by the way. I do feel very comfortable when I put on a good song, and I’m and I’m flowing with sticky notes. It’s always always really fun. But then there’s that point where you have to you step back, and you’re like, what have I done? There’s sticky notes everywhere, and you have to somehow the sticky notes have taken you on a journey someplace, and you have to figure out like where the forks in the road were and that those forks most often are the different ideas.

Well, I mean I’m looking behind you, and I see all of the different color segmentations. So clearly there’s there’s some sort of logic behind the layout, right? So yellow means either drawing or specific thought.

Yeah, yellow is ideas, red is question or like something that we have to do; to look into. And then blue is a commitment. So that Kevin and I laid that out when we first started working together on the in the design department here. We’re just like we need a way to because we just had sticky notes everywhere. Like everyone’s using them. And I was using yellow, and he was using a red pen. I was using a blue pen, and we were, like, “Oh, we need a way to work together.”

I could do a whole podcast just on color coding. My girlfriend’s calendar is the most amazing mosaic. It’s like a Jackson Pollock of color. It’s incredible. And you ask her what each one of those means, and she’s like, oh, well, green’s blah blah, and red is blah blah. And I’m like, that’s amazing! My brain doesn’t function like that.

Yeah. I do this at home now, too. Like that’s that’s my color coding for sticky notes. And I don’t know if I if I ever worked someplace else if they had a different color mode, I don’t know if I’d be able to do it. I think I definitely could.

So speaking of sticky notes, you know, I see these hundreds of them around your your workspace here but no real illustrations or renderings in the traditional sense. Why is that? Like you have very beautiful line work  but it you never go past that like level one illustration. Is it just because you’re the one who needs to understand what that looks like, or is it because everybody around here understands three-dimensional form and can kind of…

I think it’s I think it’s a bit of both of those things. Something that we did early on when we first started doing the design department here at Grove is we discovered quickly that we didn’t pull out Copic markers very often. Instead we were pulling out stacks of cardboard and and pieces of wood and just hacking them together and getting to work on that on the actual visual for physical form that we could touch. And I think part of that is just because we’re making it here if we have the tools, but also you know the fact that we’re making it means that we’re not handing off a a rendering to someone, like we’re handing off…

You don’t need that communication level.

No. We’re handing off a prototype to someone and saying, “Hey, like this is what we’re making. Here’s the files that come behind it.” But what I love about sticky notes, again back to the sticky notes, is when you’re sketching on a sticky note, it limits you to that one…

That size.

…Idea. That very specific thing. And so Kevin and I would have and even now me working here like when I’m sketching on the sticky notes, I can just fill a board with ideas sketched out with little call-outs and things like that. But I just really love that and being able to see the grouping of them and then being able to organize them into kind of different categories and then also being able to pull out things and we will go to 8.5 x 11 paper but typically I’m jumping into CAD back to sketching. And the sketching helps me sort out the ideas that I don’t necessarily know how I’m going to do them in the CAD yet, and then once I get that sorted out with the sketch, then I jump into the CAD again and I do it. Or I jump to do a model.

There’s a lot of back and forth between those two things, and it all sounds like it goes sticky note, CAD, sticky note, CAD, sticky note, CAD, shop, CAD, shop, CAD, sticky note…That’s that’s kind of cool.

It jumps. It’s just a constant cycle. But that also it’s it’s kind of a funnel, too. And it’s also a reverse funnel. So at first it’s a reverse funnel, and then as you’re sketching and you know doing that jumping, it’s kind of moving in.

Yeah, just like a turtle’s mouth. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a turtle’s mouth, but it’s much like that.

I try to stay away from the turtle’s mouth.

They have amazing digestive tracts. It’s it’s like thorns, one one-directional thorns. So like once you go down this far, you can’t go any further back up.

That makes me think about the turtle in “Neverending Story” in a totally different light.

Oh, yeah! I never thought about that. Totally!

It’s terrifying because Atreyu…Atreyu? Well, I forgot what his name was, but, yeah, he’s so small compared to that turtle.

Oh, yeah. He’d get eaten up. So really, the drawings provide sort of a supplemental component with your design conversations with Ken and the team. How do you archive a system like this, or do you archive a system?

When we finish a project, we usually take all the sketches, some that are on paper, some that are on sticky notes, and we will put them into a folder or a file, and then we’ll put them in a filing cabinet. And then we just save them for you know if Max needs them for photography for photographing process or if we want to photograph our process later on, or we photograph during. Sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you’re moving so fast that you don’t stop to really think.

You don’t have time.

And so Kevin and I actually recently we pulled out a bunch of stuff, and we took some photos just to to have it digitally, too. But that little filing cabinet over there with the plant on top, that one has…

It’s such a humble little piece of furniture in this space!

Yeah, that’s the that’s the design filing cabinet. It has all of our working for the last three years in it. All of our sketches.

So we’re almost done here. What’s been the most meaningful product you’ve worked on, and why?

Ooo.

Sorry. I know that’s a hard question. I mean, what’s your favorite child that you had?

I’ve only had one, so you, well, I guess if you count a dog as a child, too, that’s hard to say. Yeah, I think it depends. It definitely depends on the product. I think at at Grove it’s more for me it’s been more about the business of Grove and and seeing it grow and go through good times and bad times and and you know it’s still here. And it’s all about the people, like even though sometimes people have to leave and like things happen and stuff like that, it’s always, always about the people. And I think that is part of the most meaningful thing about working here is the team and like the group of people that we’ve put together. Like that’s really special, and that’s something that I’ve always latched onto, like I’ve thought of I would like to go work at this other place and I’m looking to to do something different. But I always come back to: I love being here because of the people that are here, whether they’re new or old.

Yeah, you can kind of count on them.

It’s just fun being able to have have that group but also have full control of the entire process which is really fun, and that control comes by working together which is really great. And then at circle it’s it I always think of this as like that’s meaningful to me because of what it means for people that are using the product, like what it’s doing for their lives. I know the kids hate it, but looking back at my childhood and then looking and now as a parent like seeing how important -0 especially the screens have become so just ingrained into every single aspect of our lives the idea that there’s something that you can do to choose to turn it off, and it kind of helps you turn off everyone else’s so you can come together or do something together. I think it’s definitely all about people. So any product that that does something really wonderful like that or a business that brings people together I think is is really meaningful, and I like that.

That’s awesome! And what sort of recommended reading would you give to students who are still trying to figure out their lives in design school?

Oh, man. I think it’s not necessarily always about the design books. There’s there’s a lot of really wonderful books. “The Happiness Advantage” is one that I read two years ago now, and it’s really stuck with me. It’s like a way to approach how you live and what you do. It’s a very business-y. There’s things that you can apply to every aspect of your life in there which I really, really love. And then design books. I mean, I have a “Manufacturing Processes for Design Professionals”

That’s a good one.

“The design bible” as people call it. And when I first got it, like I use it for class, I didn’t really read it as leisure, and then after I graduated I just sat down and I read it cover to cover. Like I re-processed everything in there I hadn’t learned about so just understanding the tools that are available to you and like you don’t have to stick to the to like the the big ones that everyone knows about. Like, there’s little things that can open up ideas that you didn’t even know were there yet. And then you know just latch onto designers and things that you that you enjoy and like what you’re passionate about and the things that you like, find people that work within that, or find people that you can you can look to that have been there before that have done it before and like learn about them and their process and learn about you know their ethos in a way. And then if you can meet them, that would be awesome. I tried tried to I tried to I kind of stalked Naoto Fukasawa in Tokyo one time, and I looked for him and I wasn’t able to find him. But but I had some photographs.

What a great adventure!

Yeah. I had some fun adventures on the way. But yeah, just just being curious and listening to those around you and those that you admire and read what they’re reading.

Any final thoughts on design?

I think what I like to always say to younger people or even people older than myself, too, it’s like when you get stuck and when you get really, really focused on something, it’s good to step away, and it’s always good to ask for help because you you always feel like you’re alone in your mind sometimes when it comes to design, but there are people all around you, and everyone has wonderful, amazing minds and ideas and souls and they can apply those things in ways that you’d never even imagine.

So being able to reach out to anyone is is key. And people everyone is willing to talk to you and to to help you. So just being not being afraid, not having that fear.

You can find more of Sean’s work at both Grovemade and his personal site – SeanMiKelly.com

Next week, we’ll be talking with co-founder of Grovemade, Ken Tomita, about his origin story, his path of looking for challenging environments to grow and what his business means to him.

Are you a professional 3D artist or designer? I’d love to talk with you about your work! Reach out to me here and maybe you, too, will be featured in the ProTalk! 

The post ProTalk: Designer Sean Kelly – Part 2 appeared first on PolyPlane.

I’m excited to announce that today marks the day we start a new format for the ProTalk design series. Instead of just reading, I want you to hear the interviews that I capture. So that you can get the subtle nuance of to conversation and really pay attention to the joy, sorrow, pauses and banter. I want you to feel more included. That being said, I want to introduce Sean Kelly of Grovemade:

Sean Kelly is the design lead at Grovemade.

Let’s take a listen to the first part of our interview with Sean here:

My name is Sean, and I was born here in Portland, so I’ve been kind of just sticking around here. And one thing I really love about this city is that I didn’t know I wanted to be a designer when I was young. All the signs were there like leading towards a creative path or a creative career, but I didn’t see it coming. And luckily I had people in my life that kind of inspired me and guided me in that direction, but Portland as a city grew as I grew into the design city that it is today, and I feel really lucky that I was able to kind of be here.

I feel really lucky to be here and sort of my first moment where I knew sort of what I wanted to do was because of my grandfather. He was an architect in Eugene, Oregon. And he designed mid-century like late mid century houses like in the early 70s kind of. And they were all hillside houses, and so he realized specialized in that kind of design. But he wasn’t a trained architect. What he did was he would draw plans. He was really good at drawing, and he did the watercolors and things like that as a hobby. But he would he just learned by doing. He would draw up the plans. He would take them to an architect and get them certified and  figured it out. And then he would build the house himself.

That’s amazing!

Like pretty much by himself. It seemed like my dad would help him every once in awhile as sort of like free labor in a way, but…

And and you were you were sort of on a perch watching this happen, or…

I think I didn’t I didn’t necessarily realize what he was doing until I could I started to understand like people were talking about these houses that I had visited when I was young because they used to live in them, and I don’t have very much, if any, recollection of actually seeing the houses or being in them when I was young, but when I would go to my grandparents’ house, I would be able to play in his office sometimes or just hang out in there. And I would see all the stuff he was working on and see his setup.

So it was kind of really ingrained from a young age of what was going on? There was there was no like no big epiphany?

Yeah, and also my my dad, too, like my parents bought this this old house in Southwest Portland and it was really small and then they had three kids. And my dad just took this house, and he with the help of my grandfather kind of kept adding on and changing and improving the house. And so I grew up in a state of kind of constant improvement of the of the space I was living in and seeing like my dad being able to pick out things and just try to make everything a little bit better in some way and at times even being able to help him; the basement was separated from the upstairs. And so we’d have to walk around the house to do the laundry because the the laundry room was downstairs. And so my dad just dug a hole from an addition that he did in front of the house, dug a hole into the ground down along the foundation which was like a cinder block foundation.

Once he got to the depth he wanted, he just took a sledgehammer and just started bashing through the wall. And I remember him like taking me down in this hole and giving me the sledgehammer and just having me just break through this wall. And then it was amazing because it was it just connected our main lives here to this downstairs area.

So you you really got to see those those transformations take place…

Yeah, and be involved a little bit, too, like like having being pulled in and being able to interact with the process.

Do you remember that first process? Did you say, “Oh, this is part of a process”, or were you more like, “Oh, I’m doing what they’re asking me to do?”

I think I was I think I was just excited just to see like what was going on. I just remember like the stages, like there were specific stages and how I would interact with a you know a half-done part of a house in different stages and you play differently in a room that’s just all plywood floors and like framed out walls than you would in a room that has furniture…and everything’s finished. So being able to have lived in all of those situations was very inspiring just to see that you can you can start something, and you can take it all the way to something amazing.

And so I think that I think that definitely left an impression on me at a young age. I mean all my family members left a creative impression on me in different ways, but those moments specifically kind of led me to want to be an architect. That’s what I wanted to do when I grew up and because you know I felt like you could make money doing art, and people were telling me like art, you can’t make money doing art, like maybe something different in architecture which my grandfather was doing, and I loved houses and I loved buildings like interacting with buildings. So I thought that would be a cool thing to try. And then I lucked out because in my high school they had an architecture elective.

Oh, that’s perfect. So how did you go from architecture to product design?

That happened at the U of O. So I went I took the architecture classes in my high school, found out there was an elective, architectural drawing and mechanical drafting. And we did CAD for it. So we would do hand-drawn stuff at first, and then we’d jump to the computer. You know, black work screen with a grid. And we just started laying stuff out. And I immediately, the first day, I like started like you know pulling orbs and cylinders out. I’m like you know like; “Oh, I wish I could like work with this, but we had to do the 2D stuff.”

But I went from there to then running track my first year of college at a community college and getting like you know a scholarship and getting all my prereqs out of the way. And then I went to the U of O, and I knew they had an architecture program.

So that was kind of like, that’s where I wanted to be. Leading up to it, I took a lot of printmaking, sculpture, drawing, painting classes, like a lot of art classes leading up. And I actually got into the art school at the U of O first as a sculpture major and did a bunch of sculpture stuff, and then I was about to transition into architecture, but I had to take one last math class. And math class is not has never been my strong suit, and I worked really hard at that class. I just barely didn’t get it. And I was like, okay, well, I have to take this class again if I want to get to the next thing which was like a type of math that I was better at. And it was like a year out before I could take the class. I’m like, “I can’t wait a year because this is like the one thing that’s holding me back.” And then product design kind of appeared out of nowhere at the U of O. This was the first year…

Out of nowhere?

Yeah. It was the first year they were offering it. My mom wrote me, actually. She was like, “Hey! I was on the U of O’s website.” I don’t know why she was on there, but she she saw a link to that thing, and she sent it to me. She’s like, “What do you think of this?” And I was looking at it. It’s like, this is really interesting. And I I started reading more about it.

And then I ended up, I think I ended up talking to one of the professors about it for a little bit and then I saw that it was the perfect blend of what I had been doing and what I wanted to do which was I wanted to be an architect, but I loved the art that I had been doing. It was this kind of middle road between the two. Also I saw immediately that there’s just so much that you can do. I liked variety. So being able to to kind of choose a path and go on that path for a bit and then choose another path or discover a new path is is really exciting. So I applied. I actually started taking classes before I even got in, so I applied the next year because it was already too late, but I started taking classes at the beginning of that year. So I was in the very first the very first day of product design at the U of O, very first class. I was in that class. So we were the guinea pigs.

Did you feel like by the time you graduated you were validated at the end of it in some way?

Yeah, I think it it’s funny because I interned at Grove, so being here since I was in school, it almost feels like it’s connected to school in a way because I interned here, so that was part of my learning, and then I still feel like I’m directly connected to school by working here still. It’s good and it’s and it’s bad in some ways. So I still feel it almost makes me feel like I haven’t graduated yet. But I think that’s a good…

We should have Ken [Tomita] plan to get you like an honorary diploma.

I think that’s a good mentality to have in anything you do really is to understand that where you were when you graduated is totally different from where you’re going to be eight years later. And looking back, like I’ve learned so much here and doing other things and just in life in general. And that drive and that need to keep learning, like I don’t want to ever feel like I’ve graduated or I’ve finished. I want to I want to keep pushing forward into new things.

I’m going to ask you sort of a particularly cliché question, and I only ask it because I love the wide array of answers that I get to it. Sean, what is design?

What is design? Oh, man. It’s something that I that I that’s a question I often think about, and it’s really, really hard to nail down. , I like to think there’s all these objects in the world that that exist that we use and that we interact with on a daily basis. And I love thinking about the the fact that those things were in someone’s brain at one point. Like it was it was a thought. It wasn’t a thing at some time, and because of nurturing and time and collective effort of different people, it became a thing.

So I think design for me and the way I think about it is like it’s how you it’s how you take those thoughts and those dreams, and you put them into reality. But the main tool for that to happen is you. Like it’s it’s the people that come together to make something real, and without that I mean there wouldn’t be design. So thinking about like just the relationships of people and how they work together I think is is a big the biggest part of design.

The last time I saw you, you had a smock on, an apron on. Is that standard apparel?

No, actually. It’s it’s very strange because everyone used to wear them. And I feel like it’s almost like I’m old guard at Grove now because because I just like wearing it. And I think it’s because you know when you’re prototyping as a designer, you want to have your tools handy. And I don’t like maybe it’s because of like lean manufacturing at Grove or like the way we’ve been working, but I don’t like having to walk too far to get what I need. So I like the the apron and the smock because I can have all my tools right there and ready to go so I can just flow.

It helps me flow. And also it it’s almost like a security blanket in a way, I guess.

Okay, yeah. You’re kind of swaddled...

But I’m standing like with my hands in it. I like to just I don’t know I just like having it on. It just feels it feels good. When you’re eating lunch like the crumbs drop on it.

You’re protected.

Yeah, I mean, it’s it’s great. It also has some history on it, too. Like there’s objects, little things on it that are leftovers from different people who have worked at Grove. It’s just…

Oh, okay. So this isn’t your apron.

It is my apron, but there are symbols of things that have happened to the apron and and things that have been given to me that I keep with the apron. Just kind of little memories. Because a lot of people have come through these doors and and left to go do other amazing things. So I like keeping little memories of those people.

That’s awesome! Sort of like a totem blanket.

Yeah. Or like a what is it? The the flare from “Office Space” on the on the on the restaurant jackets. One of my flares fell off, though, recently, so I have it up on the board, but I’m going to put them back on.

That’s great! Okay. I might have to take a photo of that. So it’s safe to say you’re sort of the head of the design component of Grovemade, here.

Yeah, but it is it’s very very team-oriented, so Ken and I work really closely, and then when Kevin was here we were all a very, very tight unit. And there was no one. I was sort of helping directing and guide and the energy of the design, and Ken was helping direct us in terms of you know the fits and what the business needed. We all helped each other.

When I was talking to Ken last, we talked about how this place is it’s not really a company. It’s a team–It’s a family. And I mean that was reinforced. I just heard it again, and I wish I recorded it again of the meeting happening. And you hear applause. You hear laughter, and like it’s a it’s a genuinely warm environment. And the fact that you keep totems of people who used to be here, I mean, you don’t see that, that often.

Yeah, and it’s kind of nice.

You have sort of a unique opportunity to foster what products get to the consumer. Is there something that you do to identify what might make it to the product line and what won’t?

Well, earlier on about probably two years ago we had more of a wide scope of what we thought would go with our customers would accept and also what we thought that we could make. And we tried a bunch of stuff, and we we saw what worked and what didn’t work. And then that recently has been do- the more of the guiding force for what we’re designing and when.

Just this year we’ve been really getting to know our customer a lot more, really diving in deep. Ken and Jim and Nick and I, recently we did phone interviews with a bunch of our customers who had bought iPhone cases in the past just to kind of learn who they are, where they’re from, what they do for a living, like what they like, or why they bought our case, like kind of just learn about like what brought them to us and like what that relationship is and what they’re like as as people, what they’re into.

That’s great. I mean, the reason that’s great is because you keep skipping ahead with my questions. It’s really funny. I was going to ask you, how do you empathize with your potential users? It sounds like you’re doing focus research.

Yeah. For a long time, like we were the users. So we were designing things that we wanted to see in the world and that we would use for ourselves. And there are you know we we thought that you know there are a lot of people like us. And they appreciate the same things. So we wanted to design things for ourselves that were for those people that we would use and that they would use. And we discovered what was working through that process and what wasn’t working and one thing that we wanted to add to that was really focusing in on who are our customers because that’s something that we thought we knew, and you know early on when you’re selling iPhone cases, your customer base is so broad. But as you start getting more specific into the desk-related stuff, you know, everyday carry-related stuff and anything else that we’re designing, the people become more specific. And so we really wanted to jump in. And so learning that dive was about iPhone customers specifically. So we were talking to them, learning from them, and one thing that we found out, too, is that a lot of people own multiple of our products and the the reasons for buying them and the directions for buying them are totally different from buying an iPhone case. One fun thing from the interview, it says I think at least four of the people I interviewed are coming in for tours when they’re in Portland.

That’s really unique. You don’t hear about too many businesses that not only design their product but manufacture it saying, “Hey, come on in, customer! Come see everything else.” But I think it’s a great opportunity for you to really create some intimacy with the people you’re working with.

How do you put yourself in their shoes regarding experiencing the design problems that they do?

When Kevin and I were working together a lot, we did a lot of sort of things what we called brainstorms, but they were also brain writes. We would we would try to embody and think about a situation so we would when we were designing a certain collection, we would think about the moment that you’re using that collection and like what’s happening before that? What’s happening after that? What’s happening within that moment? And what is the person who’s using that product? Maybe it’s an existing product already. What are they going through? Like, what’s in their mind? What are they feeling when they’re doing it? And we would write all this stuff out, and we would talk about it and discuss it. And then we would kind of dive into the lifestyle, maybe the person that we were designing for so we we would look at different websites or magazines. Or we would go places to actually like be in spaces where we thought our products would be used. And we would just experience that that space and that moment and try and identify where the points of tension were and also where the points of opportunity were. How we could change something that’s been the same way for a long time or how we could improve on something that’s been the same way for a long time.

I think the catch-all that we did for the entryway collection is a good example because everyone has stuff that they carry with them, and we all throw it different places. For me personally it was just on my kitchen counter like in a bowl.

Thinking about like we were designing for a specific kind of style of house and the specific style of lifestyle. So thinking about what does this person have in their home? How do they enter and exit the home? What’s going through their mind? What do they want to do? How do they want to unload and also gear up? And what solution can we design? And it wasn’t a shelf. It wasn’t a piece of furniture. It wasn’t a bowl. It was something between all those things that combine those things and created sort of a station.

That’s cool. I every time I go on the website, I’m always kind of fascinated by how the collections are laid out and everything just fits really well together. It’s really well-designed and very thoughtful on how each piece relates to the other piece. I can’t wait to see the blotter pad. That’s just going to be rad.

I like what Jim, our COO says about it sometimes. He talks about this idea of a red thread like interlinking everything. And at Grove there’s certain aspects of each product that come from the very original product that we did. So we made an iPhone 3 case a long, long, long time ago and there is like one specific detail that carries throughout every single product.

It’s like a specific angle or a specific shape, and that’s the thread that ties the product that we just designed to the product that we first designed. But that thread also as we’ve designed more and more, it it’s become more subtle and subtle and subtle and subtle as you move out. But there is an essence especially when designing for a brand you have to keep that continuity over time but also push it in a way that makes the products new and exciting. And that’s actually one of the really fun things about about working here is is doing that.

Are there any problems you have have a harder time seeing because you’re the one solving them versus experiencing them?

I think so. I mean, it’s it’s really hard to to get out of your head sometimes or get out of your personal level sometimes in terms of like your thought process and really think differently. That’s a hard question. I think that sitting here you know doing something on screen or drawing it or putting up sticky notes like it it doesn’t have hold weight sometimes against actually going out and doing the thing.

So it’s sort of a design assumptions versus design experience.

I feel like it’s very easy to make assumptions. When you’re designing things and when you’re when you’re thinking about people, especially even like even just thinking about your coworker or even your significant other or your children. It’s like it’s very easy to assume what they’re feeling or or what they’re going through when in reality we are all in ourselves alone and like we have we only we know what’s going on. And so it’s really hard unless you just ask someone. I think as designers, it’s important that we ask questions constantly and like talk to people. Talk to the user.

Well, I think it’s it’s interesting because I learned a lot about cognitive therapy, and a lot of people don’t take the time to think about what they’re thinking or feeling. They just take it sort of for granted. And so you have to come in and almost be their “cognitive guide” so that when you wind up solving a problem for them, they’re like, “Oh! All of a sudden, this is easier. Oh, this functions so much better. Or, “Oh! My experience is so much smoother now.“ A lot of people kind of take that for granted, I think. I don’t know, though.

I think it’s because we just move so quickly. I know that we we load our lives with things that we feel like we have to do or we need to focus on a lot of the time. And I think a lot of our brainpower is put towards that when in reality if you make small shifts, you’re able to kind of step back and see yourself from outside yourself in a way and and be able to recognize where these things are that you want to grab — things that you’re really trying to grasp, and then you’re able to to to move forward those things.

You can find more of Sean’s work at both Grovemade and his personal site – SeanMiKelly.com

Stay tuned for next week when we continue on with Sean’s interview and learn a little bit more about paring down ideas, the parting line of a human being, and the value of Post-it Notes.

Are you a professional 3D artist or designer? I’d love to talk with you about your work! Reach out to me here and maybe you, too, will be featured in the ProTalk! 

The post ProTalk: Designer Sean Kelly – Part 1 appeared first on PolyPlane.

Byron Mosley works in freelance illustration and graphic design.

Byron, thank you so much for taking some time to chat today. I really appreciate it! Tell us a little bit about your backstory. Where are you from and where are you going? Your illustration skills are really great and fun!

I grew up in Detroit, MI. I always had a love-hate relationship with that place because, on the one hand, Detroit had a very specific mold of what it was to be a “real black man” in which I did not fit in — on the other hand, that city taught me what real strength is, what tenacity and grit and the right attitude can get you.

As a Detroiter myself, I can totally understand what you mean about tenacity and grit! Word through the grapevine is that you have a soft spot for fantasy art, D&D, and  such. What role have these forms of media played in your development as an artist and designer?

When I was a kid, my mom took me to an onstage performance of The Hobbit at the Fisher Theater. I loved all those fantasy elements. Later, she put me on some of dad’s old favorite books, like Elric. From there, it was a done deal. I grew up with Magic the Gathering and D&D and comics. We didn’t have a Sega of Super Nintendo, so all the art from the games and comics would capture my imagination and take me to all these places. Sometimes, I would just stare at the wall, creating all these stories in my mind, glance over to a D&D book to help create that scene that was in my head. It wasn’t until I was in college that I discovered Joseph Campbell and realized that I had been teaching myself the power of stories and characters and how they can inspire us.

These days, it certainly seems like storytelling is becoming more realized by creative professionals as a critical part of the ability to communicate. With that, what’s the why behind your creative drive?

I just want to tell stories; the kind that take you far away from where you wanted to get from, where you can find yourself. I guess I have a lot more work to do to get that skill level, to be honest. When working with clients, my “why” is simply to have a really happy client and take away additional intrapersonal and technical skills at the same time.

Byron, this comic cracked me up. Thank you for including it in this interview.

A happy client while being able to grow professionally is an awesome “why”! How is your design process unique to you?

I’m not sure how my approach would be different from other designers; I know I try to communicate as much as possible with clients about what they want, how they want it, and take my ego out of the process as much as possible. If possible, I like to do as many face-to-face meetings, taking notes and remain completely open to ideas and edits.

I totally agree. When concepts are being pruned during the creative process, removal of ego is a vital tool to develop. I once told a client that the concepts aren’t liver transplants. Nixing them won’t end the world.

How does your relationship to design influence the way you live and perceive the world around you? (The first time we met, you mentioned that you ask other people what shows they are watching as a way to gain insight about them, do you gain similar insights about the world by watching what the world is doing?)

So much of life (including design) seems to be strongly affected by your attitude; remaining open, flexible, with ego in check is a lesson that I use both in my relationships and in business. It helps me to have a “can do”/”what needs to get done” attitude, cutting through all the drama and bullshit that tends to muddy up everything. In order to be at my best as a “creative person”, I have to do that inner work all the time. Meditation, mindfulness, exercise, and right mind-right action.

Any interesting side projects you can share?

Currently, I’m working on designing an infographic/comic on coping with difficult emotions. This is a weird project because these techniques work for me, and I’m not sure how they will be received by others – – I’m really feeling some resistance within myself to do this, but it’s a great opportunity to flex that “Shia LaBeouf ‘Just do it!” muscle. I  grew up in fear of what others would think of me if I was to really express myself, and now I’m fighting against that.

Internal analysis can be exceptionally challenging. It can be scary to self-assess. What advice would you give to someone who wants to get into designing and doesn’t know where to start and why?

Answering the question of “why” you want to work in design is important, first. Once you have the “why”, your motivations set and clear, your path forward becomes a bit more clear. The technical aspects of design are actually pretty simple, but mastering them takes a long, long time. Practice everyday. Rearrange your day-to-day perspective to see design everywhere, how things fit together in a aesthetic manner and why. Design is something that you live and breathe everyday; finding beauty and symmetry and harmony where you can in the world around you.

You have an interesting mix of brand-centric design as well as illustration. Do  you love one over the other and what, if any, critical role does research play in your professional work?

I definitely gravitate more toward illustration and comics because of the storytelling elements (and I feel I have more aptitude in that department). I taught myself a lot of the basic principles of design, color theory and psychology, layout, etc., and I did a few internships to help get my foot in the door. I suggest you get paid for your work, even in an internship, but to be honest, very few people offer paid internships. It’s very difficult, and I understand why people don’t go down this route, but to me it’s better to work for free for a bit, sharpen your skills and make contacts and be doing something, than to not work at all. It’s a tough decision, but if you can swing it, make the sacrifice and do that non paying job; use whatever form of frustration and anxiety from being paid in “exposure” to fuel your forward momentum. Eventually, your body of work will speak for itself and you will get out of that state.

It’s a lot like getting into stand up comedy; you eat dirt for awhile and you have to  earn your stripes. When it comes to research, I do a lot of it. I’m always looking at how other designers put their work together, their influences, and how I would use their techniques in my own way. Research keeps you up to date and tapped into where the themes and styles of design are going. You have to stay current.

Where is your heart in regards to your work? Is it more about survival, seeing your ideas out of your headspace, or a larger mission?

Right now, my heart is on survival. No bones about it. I hope to get to a more grounded, reliable place as soon as possible. One of my favorite and most influential illustrators, Scott Kurtz of Pvp-online.com, had a great quote; “You know what serves your art best? Cash.” It’s taxing to always be hustling, chasing people down for the money they owe you, worrying about bills all the time — you don’t have much gas left in your tank for doing actual “creating”, but you find the time and energy. You have to. I can’t wait to get a more stable place where I can just create what I want on my free time, after work, with the peace of mind knowing that I’m stable and that certain things are taken care of.

In regards to getting your idea out of your head and into the computer, do you draw first or jump right into illustration?

I write things out first, describing what I see in my head and how I want to depict it. Then I start out with some rough sketches, refining as I go. Inks and colors come very last. It’s a longer process, for sure, and I’m looking to find ways to make it more time efficient. But first, I always try to have a strong image in my head to work from.

Who or what is the largest influence on your work where it s currently going?

Oh man! So many influences! Scott Kurtz (Table Titans and Pvp Online comics, Brad Guigar (Evil Inc. webcomic), Jeff Smith (Bone), Genndy Tartakovsky (PowerPuff Girls, Samurai Jack) Mike Mignola (Hellboy), Ben Caldwell — my favorite artists have influenced my style so much; that blocky, simple looking yet deceptively hard to draw style, archetypical style with bold colors and heavy black inks. I love that cartoon style because you can evoke so much personality and story with just a few lines. A hero can become a villain with just the slightest tweak to line width and color.

Byron, it’s been a pleasure chatting with you today about your inspiration, process, and next steps in your career! 

Byron’s collection of illustration can be found on the web at his website, Instagram, and on Tumblr  which has more doodles, daily sketches, etc.

Are you a professional 3D artist or designer? I’d love to talk with you about your work! Reach out to me here and maybe you, too, will be featured in the ProTalk!

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