With a body of work throughout the 1990s that enthusiastically and provocatively amalgamated dualities—word/image, real/virtual, hand/machine, past/future—American graphic, type, and multimedia designer P. Scott Makela established his reputation as a creator of postmodern visual languages outside normative graphic design. While designers of different generations, mindsets, and training disagreed acutely (and sometimes quite nastily) about what graphic design was and what, how, and to whom it should communicate, Makela was his own kind of designer. An enduring inspiration was weighty, machined stuff—the primordial analog output of industrial production, which he frequently rebuilt into dimensional letterforms, married to meaning, and presented in a succinct, unambiguous single punch. “Actually,” Makela said, “I find 2D type a backward transformation from 3D, a 2D way of describing 3D events.” Revisiting his work and philosophy is an opportunity to appreciate his prowess in reconstituting meaning and breathing life into language. I interviewed Makela in the spring of 1997 as part of my MFA Thesis at Cranbrook Academy of Art. Our exchange, below, is lightly edited and condensed. 

I think of 3D type as your signature style. 

Well, I think that it has been for the last three or four years. I’ve really never gotten tired of the mass it creates and the ability to create [the appearance of metal] alloys. I’ve always been interested in this idea of alloys. It wasn’t specifically “Oh, I want to look at 3D type because it was on a Metallica or heavy metal cover.” It really was more because of growing up in a household with manufacturing and aluminum extrusions. 

So it was about material?

Yeah. It was about material and the way it was formed and the way it was extruded out of machining tools. I grew up in a household where all these pieces were around, and I grew up with these pieces and these forms. By the other token, 3D type has become such a popular mode of trying to get people’s attention, even more so recently, that actually I’m struggling with trying another strategy because it has begun to lose meaning. Like Dead History loses meaning after it’s out.

What was the first piece you did using 3D typography?

The first piece I did officially, a printed piece using 3D typography, was the Mohawk piece, Rethinking Design, and it was the “Do Nothing” article I did with Tucker Viemeister. Before 3D programs were available, I started to use a program called Pixar RenderMan[1987], which was the old animation special effects engine for creating shapes. I tried to form typefaces using that. 

Mohawk Paper Mills promotion “Re-thinking Design,” copyright 1992, pages 14-23, Tucker Viemeister and P. Scott Makela’s collaboration “On Doing Nothing.” Scans of the original, courtesy the author.

So you and the software grew up together? 

Yeah, and then when certain fonts were available, I’d import them into that environment and create new possibilities. That was the advent of what was called Pixar Typestry[1990]. The software became a real basis for the way I would do things. Most of the stuff I’d do would actually be by default; when you moved the object, it became a cheap effect. I became interested in looking at things head-on. That style became a boilerplate.

While cruising around the grocery store, I noticed three genres of 3D type on products. It’s interesting; each medium has a different way of using it, connoting different things. 3D type is used on junk food for kids, household chemicals, and dog food. On television, I noticed that it’s used in sports, news, and toy commercials and often to imply technology, speed, or power. I found it cheesy. What’s your definition of cheesy when It comes to 3D type?

I think cheesy is newscasts. I’m so enamored of this thing, floating, hanging …

It’s slightly menacing, which I like.

I look at Stanley Kubrick films and realize what I really like about his direct use of models, like in 2001, was feeling that weight and that gravity. I’m interested in that gravity.

When you’re using 3D type, what do you feel it means?

When I think of how I use 3D type and how I used these floating planetoids, I think of them as giving me the opportunity to have XYZ coordinates. Instead of an implied depth of field, having the object appear as a real 3D object with some of the shadows it throws on the surfaces allows for a natural photographic depth. At the same time, it has the effect of being very modern. I like it when it’s not clear whether it’s a 3D rendering on the computer or a photograph. Some other designers have worked with a pixelated quality. I’m interested in how it feels when it’s burnished, really brushed and direct. It’s about implying depth. I’m interested in small, massive chunks. I don’t have a lot of language in my work. [I have] A simple language. I find it interesting to create dynamics within that equation.

So you think of type as having a back, a top, and sides?

Yeah. Absolutely. And what’s behind, because there’s a thickness and depth to the actual object, at least to me. I see it through my eyes, and that’s a problem.

Why?

I see language in the way that I’d like to read it, and it’s about reducing. When I was a student here years ago[1989-1991], Michael Hall, the head of Sculpture, had a really big effect on me during my reviews. He talked about reducing and isolating the work. I still had a lot of extraneous asteroids floating around, which didn’t solidify the message. So, for me, it became about (attaining) focus and isolation.

How influenced were you by Pop Art?

One of the biggest influences in my becoming a graphic designer was the work of Ed Ruscha. He was one of the California Pop artists, but he went beyond that because he wasn’t borrowing from commercial culture as much as from pedestrian strip mall culture—almost a lack of style. Ruscha brought language to life with his thick, floaty words. He and John Baldassari had the biggest impression on me. In the last five years, I’d say Lawrence Weiner. 

The Minneapolis College of Art and Design 1993-1995 catalog, designed by P. Scott Makela;
Courtesy the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.

Is there a message in the work?

The overall message in all my work is simply levitating directness in front of you. The language in the work is formed by the message or problem I’m solving at that time, but its delivery vehicle is about putting the message in front of someone and letting It levitate with a certain degree of weight. That’s the formal message. That’s the formal container.

Is the type hollow or solid?

I’d like to think the type is solid (laughter). It’s definitely die-cast solid without a hollow core. And remember, alloys contain mixtures of metals.

To me, [even] if it casts a shadow, it’s not necessarily 3D. It has to have substance as an object, and your work and Glaser’s stuff are there, even though they’re hand-rendered and funky. 

Peter Max, as well. 

And Ji Byol Lee in New York, whose stuff is done in Adobe Dimension. He rotated Univers. It has a top and a bottom and a front and a back. I look at the range of stuff, and they’re all different vernaculars. You said something about moving away from it or redeveloping it.

Here’s the thing. The way 3D type was used, was part of the 70s vernacular. The airbrushed type that was always the standard art house solution had a masculine quality. Now, with post-rave culture, 3D type has become everyday and accessible, just like how Photoshop has become, so it has become a convention now, a new vernacular. Part of my struggle now is to keep defining my work. First, when we’re designers, we can make our work about constantly jumping ahead as if that’s the only impetus for making it. You’re trying continually to refine something. That’s why it’s still interesting to me to go into those three-dimensional (programs) and try to create hybrids, which are a kind of shaving-off of skin. There are so many people doing the 3D type thing right out of the box with Pixar that I can’t help but feel that my own work is reduced if I don’t move onto a new plane of seeing how I can add more weight, more mass, even if it’s implied or more psychological rather than becoming structural or formal. 

I know people have talked about looking at the interior of typography, and I haven’t seen that exploration done successfully. It’s like the first time you saw a ceiling in a film was in Citizen Kane. So this is the thing to explore. Legibility on the outside of the word isn’t even an issue. I think it’s [3D type] supremely legible, but to go to the inside of the word, legibility is not going to be the same thing.

Yeah. We’re going to [learn to] recognize new shapes.

All you can do is look at the inversion, the concave part of a letter. If you look at the upper inside corner of the slab [serif] on an “I” it will look like the inside of a metal bird box or like you’re stuck inside a heating vent. So it’s really difficult formally to move forward. It’s why I’m now trying to concentrate on a psychological mass of something that’s implied. And that might be about a mysterious billowing like Freddy Krueger with the stretching face emerging from behind a very black surface. There are ways to interpret inflation. It’s interesting that you mention it because I’m not as interested in super-chiseled letters that feel like you’re not sure if they’re filled with liquid or if they’re solid. Pneumatics. Air. Fluid. Hydraulics. 

I was talking to Ji about this because when I look at his forms, I’m not sure what they’re made of. Plastic? Metal? They could be ceramic; it’s twirled around in that way. He said they can be made out of anything – even chocolate; he doesn’t care, it’s fine with him.

Let me say this: I think it’s a downer to be labeled as the 3D-type guy. When we went to London and visited Vaughan Oliver, he said, ooh, the 3D guy, 3D, 3D. It’s funny, but my work has never been about fine details; it’s been about the macro chunks. And that mechanism, up to now, has been successful for me. This is a strong communication of this idea; it is a strong way to present this text. But now, I feel that I’m at a crossroads in moving forward because I’d like to leave everything behind—but it’s easier said than done. I still find myself trying to refine some of those things that I barely started to scratch the surface of. And unfortunately, or fortunately, people are researching the same areas. Maybe that’s the reason to go on even stronger and continue to refine it. I don’t know.

On one hand, everybody makes work that really characterizes and showcases their interests and affinities. And to say, “I have to make a change,” if there’s still appeal, I’d say go with your interests. Because everyone’s identifiable. Vaughan’s work is identifiable, too.

But also, it [an investigation] takes 10-15-20 years, like with a painter. But as time becomes more modern and people move to the next. Do the enema paint on the wall … make little plastic dolls with penis noses … so, it’s also about the shock of the new, being able to relate to what the new is. When Ruscha’s work came out, peo­ple couldn’t figure out if it was commercial signage or an actual painting. The question is: is it a painting?

The other thing about making “new” is about making “uncomfortable.” Have you done things with this style of type that have made you uncomfortable? Have there been shocks?

The biggest shock is when something is incredibly ugly because, to get to something beautiful to my inner eye, I usually have to go through some ugly things—like I showed you some of the Sweater things. There’s a fine line between what I might do and what a 13-year-old might do in his bedroom or what Mondo 2000 looks like. It’s wanting to slum a little bit. So there’s definitely a wanting to enjoy part of that slumming. I don’t know if that’s a good answer.

What was that Pixar-generated form that was gray and dimensional?

That was Summer’s (Summer Powell, Cranbrook 1997) font pumped into 3D. It became this floating monolith that made me think of those young ravers looking up at this floating thing in front of the speakers. We talked about it. It reminded me of 70s Led Zeppelin covers when they had these monoliths, and we all sat around the table looking at these things. So that was our idea. A new god. A floating, again, a levitation. Whenever something’s floating above you, you’d better take notice. To bring 3D type to life, that industrial quality is attention­-getting because it sticks out into the atmosphere from the surface. And that’s another thing, formally, that I can’t resist.

A Walker Art Center Fall promotion circa 1992 -1996. Scans of the original, courtesy the author

For more, listen to Debbie Millman’s 2020 interview with Laurie Haycock Makela on Design Matters Live; they discuss her revolutionary typography days at Cranbrook with Scott Makela, surviving two brain hemorrhages, and arriving at “the project of a lifetime.”

That’s why when I came upon photos of the new RIXO location in the Marylebone neighborhood of London, I was instantly captivated and had to learn more about the unique design concept and those behind it.

RIXO is a contemporary clothing boutique specializing in bohemian sundresses and vibrant prints. Their new Marylebone location brings the whimsical energy of their clothing to life, with brightly colored architectural motifs organically illustrated all over its otherwise crisp white walls. The saturated color palette and hand-drawn line quality create a pop-art-like look, infusing the space with a playful take on classical design elements. Illustrator Sam Wood developed this aesthetic in partnership with the design studio Cúpla, helmed by Gemma McCloskey. I reached out to Wood and McCloskey to learn more about the process behind their design concept and what it was like bringing such a fresh take on retail space to fruition.

(This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.)

What was the development process like for this distinct store design concept?

Sam Wood: The initial process was driven by Gemma. She approached me after seeing some of my work with Claridge’s and other clients in the UK and asked me to devise something bold and colorful that told the story of RIXO in a distinctly new way.

GM: When I first stumbled across Sam’s Instagram page, his use of color felt really bright and fresh alongside his beautiful, fluid style. I knew instantly Sam would be perfect for the new Marylebone RIXO; his handwriting lent itself to enveloping the whole space while still allowing it to breathe.

SW: After I had taken a look at the other RIXO stores and got a feel for their story, it was a pleasure to bring something of Marylebone to the space and interpret that in my own line. I spend a lot of time in the area because a local gallery I work with is down the road, so I’m always roaming about looking at the mishmash of architecture from Gothic Revival (which was the basis of the alcoves) to Neoclassical (which was the basis for the floral details). I hope the eventual style reflects the multiplicity of the area and is a playful reference to how I see things existing alongside each other.

What was the rest of the collaboration process like?

GM: We had an initial meeting where I discussed the concept, design, and materials being used in the space. One of the threads from our concept for Marylebone was this nod to classical London architecture; therefore, creating illustrated paneling with a whiff of Jean Cocteau was the foundation of the design. Within this framework, it was important to give Sam the breathing space to be creative, and it was exciting seeing him embrace the concept and bring his own stamp to the design. 

Once we had reached the final internal designs, we decided we needed to use these on the external windows to fully embrace the concept. When Sam was actually onsite doing the mural, it was a very fluid process, and we would discuss colors and tweak a few things with the benefit of actually being in the space. We also added in some of the pendants which sit centrally in the space and look great.

Did you first map out the design digitally and then bring it to life on the store walls? What was it like free-handing the motifs? Nerve-wracking, exhilarating?  

SW: I am a stickler for being analogue early on; I work on full-scale drawings on paper, which gives me an idea of how the motifs will work at scale as well as the tones and quality of line. The client does not always see these, but they are an essential part of how I conceive of a design and have the confidence to execute it. After this, I can mark up the digital renders to hone the design so the client can get a full idea of the vision.

A great deal of forward planning and preparatory drawing goes into making sure that when I put the pen on the wall, it’s all where it should be. That’s an essential collaborative exercise, in this instance, with Gemma, who was fantastic to work with. Building sites are often chaotic places, which is a far cry from my day-to-day in the studio, so yes, it’s a heart-in-mouth moment every time with the first mark on the wall, but I do get a kick out of it!

Is this markers-on-walls technique a style you’ve done before? Or was it specially created and executed for this particular project?  

SW: I’ve used Posca markers for years in various contexts, they have such a nice uniformity of tone, which is ideal for bringing to life a design which needs to keep its clarity and “poppyness.” I used them for the first time in a mural context last year for Bryan O’Sullivan Studio, painting a celestial ceiling which is still on show in their gallery on Brook Street Mayfair.

Ordinarily I use a brush and acrylic when doing murals, so it was fun to what is possible with these works in the medium.

How did you feel at the end of the process after drawing your last line, stepping back, and seeing the completed store? 

SW: It’s always a moment of thinking, “Is it finished now?” There’s always the possibility of another line, filling out this corner, or changing that line. I habitually look for flaws in a work, and the “finished product” is always an opportunity to see how everything has worked together. It’s a strange feeling to hand the thing over— after a couple of days of the room being yours, it now belongs to the client and, of course, the public, who interprets it in their own way. That’s why I love working so spatially— the works sometimes divide people, but once I’m finished, that’s down to the viewers.

What sort of experience do you hope shoppers have when stepping into this RIXO store? What sensations do you hope they feel as they move about the space you all created? 

SW: So much of what I do is about storytelling and creating places where people can escape in some way. Here, the murals are front and center in the design and are a key part of the store’s identity. I hope anyone coming into the space gets a sense of the layers of detail that go into evoking the story that RIXO wants to tell, as well as how my own journey as an artist marries with that.

GM: We want the shoppers to feel invited like they’re stepping into someone’s living room at home. We didn’t want a sterile interior, which can sometimes be intimidating for a shopper. There is also a sense of escapism with the store, which we hope the customers find uplifting.

For Charlene Prempeh, author of Now You See Me! An Introduction to 100 Years of Black Design, it became clear that Black creatives weren’t getting their due. Her book researches the contributions of Black thinkers and creatives across the fashion, architecture, and graphic design industries—hoping to open up a more nuanced and layered conversation about them rather than the typically quick mention in Black History Month lists.

The book covers a century’s worth of creative innovation, and for Prempeh, every single story came with an “a-ha moment.” Not only did she learn about people she hadn’t heard of before, but she also revisited the prevailing narratives about familiar names. 

“What I thought I knew about them wasn’t necessarily right, or did not have the depth required to understand their journeys or practices properly,” said Prempeh. She gives the example of Zelda Wynn Valdes, who often gets mistakenly credited with designing the Playboy bunny costume. In her research, Prempeh found Valdes sewed the costumes rather than designing them; that experience points to “how surface our information is about these individuals.” In 2019, The New York Times published Valdes’ obituary as part of the “Overlooked” project, which featured “remarkable Black men and women” that “never received obituaries in The New York Times — until now.” Valdes passed away in 2001.

Left: Joyce Bryant in a figure-hugging gown by Zelda Wynn Valdes, 1953; Right: Joyce Bryant wearing one of the “tight-tight” gowns designed for her by Zelda Wynn Valdes, 1953 – Images © Van Vechten Trust

Now You See Me incorporates significant materials that help tell each person’s story, such as a letter by Ann Lowe to First Lady Jackie Kennedy, whose wedding dress she designed. Lowe read an article featuring Mrs. Kennedy in the Ladies Home Journal, which referred to her as a “colored woman dressmaker,” diminishing her identity as a designer. While many texts about Lowe’s life focus on her connection to Mrs. Kennedy, Prempeh sees her story differently. Lowe was “this woman who was brave enough to stand up for herself in a moment where it would have been much easier just to cower.”

Left: Ann Lowe with the “First Lady” doll from the Evyan Collection, 1966; Center: Ann Lowe, Ebony Magazine, 1966; Right: Ann Lowe fitting a dress to a mannequin, 1966 – © Johnson Publishing Company Archive. Courtesy J.Paul Getty Trust & Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture

“As a Black woman, or as a woman [in general], knowing that someone else did that at that moment in history gives me a sense that I can do that, too,” said Prempeh. “That if something is not right, [I can] stand up and say so.”

Yet, Prempeh emphasizes that writing about these makers means including their shortcomings as well.

“We sometimes struggle to be critical where it’s actually completely fair to be critical and where there’s an important lesson to learn in that criticism,” said Prempeh.   

Now You See Me also weaves in Prempeh’s own upbringing and career trajectory, showing how her background shaped her perspective of the people she researched. Prempeh is the founder of the creative studio and consultancy agency A Vibe Called Tech; meeting business mentors is one of the challenges she has faced and continues to experience. Prempeh emphasized that it’s important for her agency to be “rooted in this idea of intersectionality and cultural storytelling,” and she hasn’t met many leaders who have done this while also ensuring their agency is a household name with a long-term history. 

Regarding the next generation of makers, Prempeh says we need better support systems, not just one-time accolades or grants. It takes considerable time “to build up a body of work and to feel confident in your work,” and many artists need financial support to create that space. In researching the creators featured in Now You See Me, Prempeh stressed that while short-term help isn’t insignificant, we still need to do more.

“How can we create creative support that allows people that time to develop?” said Prempeh.
“Because my experience is [that] without that structure and support, it’s impossible to keep going. There’ll be some mavericks in between who make it quickly and don’t need that support. Obviously, I love that for them. But I worry about who we miss out on because the structures aren’t in place to let them thrive.”

Left: Grace Jones wearing a black leather jacket and Eiffel Tower hat designed by Patrick Kelly, 1989, © Gilles Decamps. Collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Gift of Janet & Gary Calderwood, & Gilles Decamps, 2014; Center: Outfit from Bianca Saunders’s Spring/Summer 2021collection, “The Ideal Man,” Photo, Silvia Draz; Right: Sketch by LaQuan Smith of a jacket and jumpsuit outfit inspired by the Black Panther film, 2018, © LaQuan Smith

Prempeh worked with graphic design studio Polymode to bring Now You See Me to life. Some of the major visual decisions in the book, explained Prempeh, involved not using photography on the cover or in the section introductions.

We were really clear that we didn’t want to say that any one story or any one image is the most important part of the book. We needed to have some visual language that spoke to all of the different stories.

Charlene Prempeh

Left: Interior of Gando Primary School, Photo, Siméon Duchoud; Right: Paul R. Williams standing in front of The Theme Building, LAX, 1965, Photo, Julius Shulman © J. Paul Getty Trust, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2004.R.10).

The book uses a bold typeface: Jaamal Benjamin’s Harlemecc, inspired by the commercial lettering of Harlem Renaissance artist and painter Aaron Douglas. The book’s title, Prempeh explains, plays with the versatility of meanings: “Now you see me” as both a statement and a question that implies these Black creatives have always been important. The fonts VTC Spike, VTC Tre, and The Neu Black—designed by Tre Seals—appear in the subheadlines of the book, while the book copy uses Halyard, designed by Joshua Darden Studios.  

“We also really wanted the Blackness of it to come out in the colors,” said Prempeh. Polymode created an overall look that incorporated “African fabric and cloth block colors,” as described on the studio’s website.

Left: Emmett McBain, 1968. Reproduced with kind permission of Letta McBain. Courtesy of University of Illinois Chicago, Special Collections and University Archives; Center: Emmett McBain, 1972. Reproduced with kind permission of Letta McBain. Courtesy of the Emmett McBain Afro-American Advertising Poster Collection, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution; Emmett McBain 1973. Reproduced with kind permission of Letta McBain. Courtesy of the Emmett McBain Afro-American Advertising Poster Collection, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.

While the book contains numerous stories and spans many eras, its design and size make it easy to carry in a bag—a contrast from some larger, coffee-table-style books often published about histories like these.

“As much as the book is beautiful and the pictures are really, really beautiful, we wanted to make sure people took the stories home with them,” said Prempeh.

Calligraphy has always enthralled me, but until working at Shorthand, I had merely been a passive admirer. I leaped to invest in my own nibs and inks and fell down many a calligraphic rabbit hole on Instagram. While online art-making resources are wonderful, there’s still nothing quite like an actual instructional book you can keep on your shelf as a resource. Professional calligrapher, author, and educator Margaret Shepherd understands this all too well as the author of 20 titles geared toward teaching calligraphy.

Shepherd has been a professional calligrapher for 55 years, with her work currently housed at the Smithsonian Museum and the Rare Books Department of the Boston Public Library. She’s conducted freelance work for colleges and law firms and has taught workshops and given calligraphy demonstrations around the world. Her latest book focuses on the history and depiction of American calligraphy, specifically, aptly titled Learn American Calligraphy. The book takes readers on a visual trip around the United States, learning how to calligraph in multiple styles along the way.

As a somewhat novice calligrapher, I reached out to Shepherd to learn more about her love of the art form and what her new book offers. Her responses are below!

(Conversation has been edited for length and clarity).

It’s a lofty question, but why do you love calligraphy so much? What is it about the art form that compels you to dedicate so much of your life to it?  

It’s a good question. Basically, I flunked the transition from simple “manuscript” letters we learned in first grade to loopy, arbitrary “cursive” script that was forced on us in third grade. I ended up with terrible handwriting—a sort of hurried printing—until ten years later when a friend gave me an Italic pen. This opened up a whole new world; the problem wasn’t me; it was the limitations of cursive script. I gather that calligraphy offers a second chance to all those Americans who couldn’t learn script or were never taught—and there are many of us!  

I was lucky to have the right teacher (Norberto Chiesa, a former student of Paul Standard) at the right time (my early twenties) and in the right place (Sarah Lawrence College). The course in calligraphy was only offered once. Two students took it. We spent months on the Roman capitals, starting with weeks learning the letter O.

I’m convinced that calligraphy is just intrinsically appealing to everyone, from non-specialists to hobbyists and professionals, because it engages both sides of the brain.

I noticed that after every campus event, people saved the name tags I’d lettered and posted them on their dorm room doors. I’m convinced that calligraphy is just intrinsically appealing to everyone, from non-specialists to hobbyists and professionals, because it engages both sides of the brain. Scientists have determined that one side reads the words, and the other side sees the abstract shapes. Put them together and it creates a rich, satisfying experience for both writer and reader.

I love calligraphy because it lets me spend my days turning wonderful texts into visual art.  

Do you feel a responsibility to help keep calligraphy alive in our hyper-digital world? Why is it  important to keep teaching calligraphy? 

For decades, whenever I mentioned my profession, people would automatically comment, “Oh, that’s a dying art!” or some other off-the-wall comment. When I began teaching high-school art teachers, I found that the low profile of calligraphy meant that very few how-to-do-it books were available. So, I turned my teaching materials into a basic textbook, the first of 20 books I’ve written about aspects of the field. That book, Learn Calligraphy, is still in print, introducing beginners to the basics. 

That’s how calligraphy will continue to survive and thrive— by joining the culture in every country where it takes root.  

But calligraphy has changed in the 50 years since I thought I had summed it all up; America has finally declared its independence from Old World alphabet styles. The definition of calligraphy got bigger, stretchier, and livelier. Now, any survey must acknowledge the influence of sign painting, graffiti writing, Native American images, folk art, protest placards, penmanship instruction, cattle brands, and even the letters imagined by retro-futurists. My new book, Learn American Calligraphy, celebrates the New World’s stylistic independence from the Old World. That’s how calligraphy will continue to survive and thrive— by joining the culture in every country where it takes root. 

Postscript: I’m doing my part to resist the hyper-digital world, by being pretty inept at its processes.  

What do you hope readers take away from Learn American Calligraphy? What sort of  experience do you hope they have engaging with the book?  

I hope readers can enjoy learning about the rich variety of alphabet styles invented here or modified to suit American purposes. Readers can appreciate the letters around them and understand why they look the way they do long before they pick up a pen. Even beginners don’t have to limit themselves to historic calligraphy from Europe and England centuries ago. 

After waiting decades for someone else to write a book about American calligraphy, I have put together my own introduction. With every alphabet I included, I asked myself, “What makes it American?” and “What makes it calligraphy?” Each alphabet offers a back story, an explanation of how it relates to other American arts and simple instructions for how to write it. Readers will learn what, how, who, and most of all, why American calligraphy matters. I hope they will feel like Michael Sull, one of the early reviewers, whose review started out, “Finally!”

Patrick Duffy is the top dog of the cool cat creative team at DICE. The London-based creative leader and brand builder has been keeping brands weird and provocative for over 25 years, working for companies across tech, advertising, and publishing. Duffy formerly served as the art director of the style magazine Sleazenation, helped establish Airbnb in Europe, and jumpstarted DICE’s growth from a ticketing start-up in Hackney to the global live entertainment juggernaut it is today. Not only that, but Duffy’s unique creative vision and point of view have brought him into the realm of performance, taking the stage as a mime artist at the famed London venue Koko, playing his music on Radio One, and even launching a fanzine. 

In every other job, I’ve had to fight (and usually lose) to get weird interesting stuff made.

Duffy recently spoke at the OFFF festival in Barcelona, among 70 other creative luminaries. As one of DICE’s many appreciators, I reached out to learn more about Duffy’s thought process behind its branding.

Where does your humorous and quirky point of view as an art director come from? Have you always had this worldview?

I grew up in the North East of England in an environment where having a sense of humor was essentially a survival mechanism, especially if you were bad at fighting and flirting. I loved reading the third-rate cheap comics you might find on the shelf next to The Beano and Dandy—Whizzer & Chips, Buster—and ingesting Looney Tunes cartoons. I drank a lot of Tizer. I think these three aspects are largely responsible for my worldview as an art director.

I’m quite suspicious of ‘success,’ though. Anything that might be seen as ‘success’ is, in reality, balancing on a mound of failure, and building that mound is the interesting part.

What’s your secret to success for DICE? What core tenets have you kept in mind to make DICE the powerhouse brand it is today?

I just try to make work that I like, that fans might like, that is fun to make, and feels real. I’m quite suspicious of “success,” though. Anything that might be seen as “success” is, in reality, balancing on a mound of failure, and building that mound is the interesting part. As soon as you’ve done the work and it’s “successful,” it’s kind of dead, and you just want to start failing all over again. That’s what I love at DICE— the commitment to a DIY approach to unlock true creativity and productivity in the business and across teams.

How did you develop the black diamond character at the center of DICE’s branding? Where did that idea come from, and why do you think it’s charmed so many?

I’m very pleased that our little black diamond person (a.k.a. The Fan) has proven to be so charming. Our community loves it so much that someone even got it tattooed on their arm. I think people like it because it’s a bit naïve— it’s not polished, so it doesn’t feel so much like a piece of branding.

The design team and I were working on a bunch of ideas, but we knew we wanted something that could come to life, some kind of mascot. We played with different shapes and expressions. I was on a train journey with my family and drew a little diamond shape with eyes and legs in my sketchbook and showed it to my six-year-old. He said he liked it so I considered it approved.

It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, though— a guy wrote a whole blog article about how much he wanted to murder The Fan, so we’ll want to keep an eye on him.

I was on a train journey with my family and drew a little diamond shape with eyes and legs in my sketchbook and showed it to my six-year-old. He said he liked it so I considered it approved.

What’s your favorite part about what you do?

Making weirdness. Not many teams get the opportunity to make what we make, and even fewer would get it approved so easily. In every other job, I’ve had to fight (and usually lose) to get weird, interesting stuff made. At DICE, it’s just the kind of stuff we all like, so there’s no fighting, which is good because I’m getting old.

What’s one piece of advice you‘d give to a burgeoning creative director or brand builder about creating compelling branding and branded content?

Don’t be entitled. You want people to want to work with you and your ideas.

To honor Adams’s legacy and impact and to chart his journey to stardom, Dania Beach’s Mad Arts is currently hosting a retrospective of his work entitled “CEY ADAMS, DEPARTURE: 40 Years of Art and Design.” The show contains over 60 of Adams’s designs in various media, including photography archives, mixed media collage, paintings, textile, fashion, street art, contemporary fine art, and more. The exhibition serves as a visual timeline of Adams’s artistic evolution, beginning in the 1970s when he started out painting graffiti on the streets and trains of New York City. The show is on view through May 26th, with Adams himself on-site this Friday, April 19th.

While in Florida, Adams will also make an appearance at The Museum of Graffiti for the launch of their latest exhibition, “Sneaker Stories,” which delves into the historical ties and cultural relationship between graffiti and sneakers.

I recently had the honor of speaking with Adams myself about DEPARTURE, and the secret to his success. Our conversation is below (edited for length and clarity).

Whoever said you can get more flies with honey than with vinegar knew what they were talking about.

Cey Adams

How does one go about curating a retrospective of this magnitude? Forty years is a long time! 

I sat down with the curator, Liza Quiñonez, and we talked about my journey and what it meant to me. I said I wanted this exhibition to be a vehicle to tell the story of a young teenager who started out writing graffiti. Along the way, I’ve had an opportunity to make art and meet some extraordinary people. I wanted to showcase everything I have in my archive and, if we’re lucky enough, to also find a lot of the original art from back in the day that I made when I was a kid. That was how we thought about it.

I still have relationships with many people from 40 years ago, and I got on the phone and asked people to loan me pieces. Folks were kind enough to loan us certain pieces—some things I had in my personal collection. I also have boxes and boxes of photos from back in the day, so we just laid everything out, and we figured out how we could make something that really makes people feel like they’re on this journey with me.  

How did it feel to excavate so much of your past like that?

It was really emotional because I don’t get to look at these things all the time; I’m focusing on what I’m doing today. But looking back has been absolutely wonderful because only a small handful of my peers are lucky enough to have a career. I could count on one hand the number of people I knew from back then who are still working at a high level to this day. 

A lot of the journey is about trying to figure out how to make it because none of this stuff was promised to us. That’s what I realized when I looked at the work—and I’m still working!

What do you think propelled you to this incredible career and a level of success that so many other artists will never reach? 

It’s a combination of talent, passion, and perseverance. And being a nice person; if you’re kind to people, people want to be around you. If you rub people the wrong way, they don’t want to be around you. That’s a lot of what it is! I know because I have friends who could not crack the code, and they haven’t been able to carve out a career for themselves.

I learned that, by being who I am, people who love your work and love being around you will call you. The same thing happens with people who support your work. Everybody who buys my paintings and supports my mural work are the people I enjoy being around, and the feeling is mutual. That’s not lost on me.

Everything is about the journey and if you’re not enjoying the journey, what’s the point of it all?

It sounds simple, but being genuinely likable can get you far in life! We lose sight of that sometimes. 

Whoever said you can get more flies with honey than vinegar knew what they were talking about. I learned that as a teenager, and you can see it in all the old photographs in the show. I’m always happy to be around people who treat me well. Everything is about the journey and if you’re not enjoying the journey, what’s the point of it all?

As humans, we get caught up in the mythical concept of a destination and “making it” or achievement, but that’s missing the point.

You hear people say it all the time, but you don’t understand it. But that’s one of the things that I was lucky enough to learn right from the start— the journey is its own reward. It might sound strange when you’re trying to get somewhere, and you think there’s some better thing, but you must remind yourself to be in the moment and to enjoy it because that’s what it’s about.

That is the essence of what being an artist is all about—getting to make what you want to make on your own terms. You have to take stock of that every day because that’s as good as it gets! You have to enjoy the moment.

What has been the biggest surprise of your career?

I didn’t imagine having friends I would know for 40 years; that’s certainly a surprise. And to have good friends is an even better surprise: people that show up. When I turned 50, I had a surprise birthday party, and the room was packed with all these people who flew into New York to celebrate me. I never imagined any of that! It certainly didn’t happen in my 20s; I don’t even know if it happened in my 30s. But by the time I reached my 40s, people started to show up in major ways. It’s been that way ever since, but I’m beyond appreciative because I’ve had these milestone moments.

It’s a beautiful thing to have people who care about you, support you, and show up for you. 

I’m not coming in after they’re superstars. I’m there to help shape what is going to be the thing that everybody’s familiar with. 

Looking back on your career for the exhibition, is there a time period, moment, or project that you’re proudest of? 

The thing that I’m most proud of is that I got an opportunity to do this kind of work. I got to be the guy that worked with Jay-Z. I got to be the guy that worked with Dave Chappelle. I got to be the guy that worked with LL Cool J, Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, Run-D.M.C.—I’m talking about from ground zero. I’m not coming in after they’re superstars. I was there to help shape the thing that everybody’s familiar with.

Usher was the Super Bowl halftime show this year—do you know how big you have to be to be the Super Bowl halftime act? And I worked on his first record! Like, wow! I’ve been very fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with so many amazing, talented people before anybody else.

Have you maintained relationships with any of those stars you helped create? 

Sure! I was in LA a couple of months ago at a dinner with Jay-Z, Jermaine Dupri, and Diddy— everybody was there. We’re all sitting down and enjoying each other’s company, and it felt like, you know, that thing where you’re at a reunion, and everybody showed up. Nobody’s got security, hangers-on, handlers, and all of it. It was just us—just like it was back then. And we had the best time that night. I never wanted it to end because it was so wonderful.

I’m one of the lucky ones that gets to be treated the exact same way as back when we first started.

People hadn’t changed. There’s a perception that people are this way or that way, or they don’t want to be bothered. I realized that I’m one of the lucky ones who gets to be treated the same way as back when we first started, and that’s exactly what you want. You could have this dream that maybe one day I’ll run into so-and-so, and they’ll be really kind to me, but most people don’t get to experience that. I got to experience that. It felt as good as it did in the beginning, only better, because now we’re dressed up! Everybody’s happy! Everybody’s needs are all met, and they’re as friendly as can be! That is not a small thing.

Way back when, did you ever get an inkling that any of those guys would get as big as they did?

No! You can’t predict anybody would get as big as these folks have gotten. You just can’t! Also, I didn’t have that kind of vision because I hadn’t been there. The idea that I started as a graffiti artist, and by 2016, I was on the National Mall making a giant piece of my original artwork in front of President Obama in a ribbon-cutting ceremony! That’s the definition of a dream come true. And I get to have my name alongside all these great people who have come up in hip-hop; it’s just the best! It’s the absolute best.

A lot of my career has been about being first, and that’s what’s so amazing to me. It’s that I got an opportunity to be one of the first, and it’s come around again and again and again. It’s not lost on me because there’s no blueprint.

Is your career now a blueprint for the next generation?

I doubt it because so many things had to be aligned for it to happen. Also, you can’t put the genie back in the bottle. This was the very beginning when hip-hop was not in its infancy, but right after that. I got to benefit from all the hard work that some of the early pioneers from the 70s put in, but because I was an artist, and nobody had seen anything like that. I was really fortunate to be in the right place at the right time, and that’s also the benefit of growing up in New York City.

Ancient Awakening features the work of “self-taught” artist Matthew Marcot, who specializes in Abstract and Neo-Expressionist approaches. During these stressful days at the brink of who-knows-what, I am drawn to words and images of upset and struggle, and particularly an underlying theme in Marcot’s painting: giving visual expression “to unseen ritualistic and cosmic forces”—benign and menacing—that define modern civilization. “This was a facility of ancient artforms based on superstition and religiosity, such as in African sculpture, religious manuscripts and cave drawings,” which Marcot says he invests in “contemporary life.”  

Marcot’s embrace of primal expression includes his hieroglyphic-like calligraphy, biomorphic semiotics and austere geometric portraiture. Through these means “he brings the human being back to their roots.”  

Interested what his artistic intentions are—to express himself or a larger zeitgeist—I engaged him in the following lively inquiry.

There is a volcanic quality to your paintings. What is erupting that causes this sensation? 
The stimulus to begin working for me is friction. It’s a reverberating uneasiness, a kind of feral energy that I can never quench by any outer force. So there comes a moment where some primal force erupting inside of me needs to reproduce itself outward. That’s where the work starts.

Similar to Hilma af Klint, a spiritual medium artist (and perhaps the first recorded abstract artist), I feel that I am being used as a conduit, or a vehicle, for these primordial abstractions to take place. The sensation of friction is what impels me to begin working—but once I am in the midst of working I feel that I am being guided by an outer force to reproduce these expressions. I see that the “volcanic” energy of my work is a relationship between the subtle vitality of the force that is guiding me and the screaming passions of myself. Creating art is my singular addiction, because of what you explain as this erupting quality: It’s a state of unearthly enchantment, endless mystery and wonder.

In your work you use words, letters, numbers, scribbles—in other words, graphic design elements. Where does this influence come from? 
Since I was very young I’ve had the oddest fascination with ancient art, or tribal art. Whenever I would travel infrequently to the Caribbean as a kid with my family, I would always bring back the masks from that region. By the time I finished high school I had a bedroom full of jarring tribal masks. In my early twenties, this fascination with geometric sculpture and tribal masks consumed me, and the deeper philosophy of certain methods of African sculpture began to organically become the overriding ritual of my art—which was the act of rendering spirits as a solid to become sovereign from them. 

It has become apparent to me that the influence of these ancient artforms could not have possibly been born from my upbringing of Matthew Marcot, the white middle-class suburbanite from Long Island. If I found out I was a sculptor of deities for Hindu temples in India in a past life, it would explain the seeming discontinuity between me as Matthew Marcot here and now, and the source of the art that pours out of me. Of course, this is sheer speculation. Either way, I find my artistic expression to be a privilege, and thoroughly enjoy the mystery of it.

Tell me more about the spiritual sense that informs your imagery.
When I was 22 years old I moved into a Hindu Temple on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Having grown up since age 13 in the freneticism of New York City, I felt a deep yearning to take a step back and to develop an imperturbable peace that I could bring to whatever career path I chose. While living at the ashrama I became engrossed in the daily rituals, such as singing bhajan (sacred hymns), chanting on japa beads, as well as delving into ancient texts such as the Bhagavad Gita, wherein I developed an inexhaustible affinity for the intricacies of the Sanskrit language, both phonetically and artistically. This instilled in me an insatiable curiosity for ancient art forms, that would later transform into passions for Islamic manuscripts, Egyptian scrolls, cave drawings and African sculpture. My first introduction into Sanskrit I see now was the inflection point on my interest in crafting modern symbology and language systems that are in relationship with our ancient past.

The use of biomorphic shapes, semiotics and calligraphic elements in my work is approaching my work from the same ritualistic perspective as these ancient artforms—to approach my work from an ancient perspective using modern materials. I find it essential that in a human community that appears to be sacrificing its humanness in the hope of a digital salvation, that I bring my awareness to ancient ways of understanding the world around me—that feel more harmonious in my spirit than what’s being plated for me as a Gen Z’er. By rendering my own calligraphic system of language through my hieroglyphic-like script, while too birthing my own species of forms, I am essentially creating my own pictorial universe to endlessly explore in a world that I feel is being stripped of its underlying humanity … which I guess makes me a Gen Z dropout.

How do you think that being self-taught has molded your art making? 
I’ve many friends who have been classically trained, from different angles of approaching art. And what I hear from them often is that it can sometimes be difficult to forget their technical skills and rawly express themselves without adulteration.

What I’ve found by being self-taught is that I have no art curricula baseline to return back to; I don’t have the burden of memory to bring in the reigns on my immediate expression. I am actually not very interested in art—however I am maniacally focused, and nothing short of possessed, to express and reproduce the avalanche of energy inside of me outward. That’s what I see as the advantage of being self-taught. I feel like endeavoring to make an art career out of being an autodidact is like jumping out of an airplane with no parachute, but there’s also no earth. It’s unbridled freedom.

I’ve always been curious how artists describe themselves. Neo-Expressionist comes to mind. What do you want, if anything, as a rubric? 
I’m reminded of the Jackson Pollock quote, “Technique is just a means to making a statement.” For the viewer, having a historical label I think is useful for penetrating a work of art to contextualize it and thereby make it easier to communicate with it. Personally, I find labels or rubrics to be dysfunctional—even though I would be the first to say that my work does resemble Neo-Expressionism, and my purely calligraphic works could easily be placed under the umbrella of Abstract Expressionism, or Calligraphic Abstraction. 

If I was given the full-ranged facility to categorize my work without placing it in a historical group, I would coin it Primordial Abstraction. My work is about opening myself to these universal forces and ancient ritualistic means of expressing myself, while operating in the arena of modern art. So to answer your question, working through my aversion of labels or rubrics, I would tentatively describe my work as Primordial Abstraction.

I love the vivacity of Las Vegas and the duality of the desert together. I hope this exhibition sparks joy, connection, and a sense of wonder for everyone who dives into the experience.

Cj Hendry

The installation, dubbed Public Pool, ran in Las Vegas from April 4 through April 7. Steeped in glitz and whimsical kitsch, Public Pool‘s hot pink flamingos, neon inflatables, and colorful floral motifs invited visitors to indulge in the extravagant and fantastical.

To commemorate the exuberant exhibition, a sampling of limited-edition drawings and editions, along with a collection of beach towels, floaties, sunscreen, totes, hats, t-shirts, and other pool-themed items, are available for purchase at CjHendryStudio.com.

I’m far from immune to the appeal of a giant inflatable pool in the desert, and I had to hear more from the artist herself. I asked Hendry some questions about the project and her joyful artistic perspective.

How would you describe your POV as an artist?

I really want to keep pushing boundaries and challenging perceptions. I believe in the power of hyperrealism to captivate and intrigue, blurring the lines between reality and the surreal, while at the same time, keeping my exhibitions immersive.

Also, have fun with everything and a sense of humor.

How did the idea for the exhibition, Public Pool develop?

The idea for Public Pool came to me me as I contemplated spaces of communal experience and recreation. I wanted to create an immersive environment to transport viewers into a nostalgic yet surprising setting. The concept evolved from the desire to play with scale, perspective, and nature— inviting visitors to dive into a world where the ordinary becomes extraordinary, with the vibes of a Las Vegas pool party in the middle of a desert.

Where did your idea for that super fun and unique Public Pool promo come from?

That was a stroke of whimsy and spontaneity. I wanted to capture the essence of the exhibition—its vibrancy, its playfulness—in a way that would resonate with audiences. It was all about infusing a sense of joy, wonder, and interaction.

What’s your favorite aspect of Public Pool?

My favorite aspect of Public Pool is how it plays up paradoxes and blurs the lines between reality and illusion. Creating a Las Vegas pool party with an Olympic-sized pool in the desert is quite a scene! It’s unexpected and fun— every element is designed to provoke a sense of wonder and fascination. I love watching visitors lose themselves in the immersive environment, exploring every corner and discovering new surprises.

WWhat experience do you hope people have when they interact with Public Pool?

I hope viewers experience a sense of childlike wonder and curiosity when they visit Public Pool. I want them to feel transported to a world where the ordinary becomes extraordinary, where the mundane transforms into the magical. Whether they’re enjoying the pool or marveling at the intricacies of my artwork, I hope they leave feeling inspired and invigorated, ready to see the world through fresh eyes.

McNair isn’t keeping these skills to herself, either. She’s been teaching stained glass workshops in New York City since 2017, spreading her love of glass and its creative possibilities to the masses. I connected with McNair recently to learn more about her practice as a glass artist and educator and piece together what makes glass such a special material.

How did you first come to stained glass as a medium? What’s your origin story?

At 26, I was in Norfolk, VA, going through a crazy year— I closed down my vintage store of four years, ended a seven-year relationship, and went through a ton of intense personal growth. My fantastic friend and artist, Charlotte Potter, suggested I join in on a glass studio program she had developed. The assistantship program at the Chrysler Museum Glass Studio is a six-month residency mainly for undergrads looking to get better at glass processes and to learn how to keep a hot shop running smoothly.

…there was something so wonderful about the jingle of shards that I dug through to find my pieces. The colorful bits covered the table and begged to be arranged and handled again and again.

I walked into the program knowing very little about the glass world but was totally inspired by my peers (some of whom were five or six years younger than me) who all obsessively wanted to learn all they could about the material and processes. There were demo workshops on things from neon to bead making, glass blowing, and kiln casting. My favorite, and the least stressful, was stained glass! The process is slow and detailed, and no one was particularly good at it off the bat, but there was something so wonderful about the jingle of shards that I dug through to find my pieces. The colorful bits covered the table and begged to be arranged and handled again and again.

Fast-forward eight years, my desk is covered in the same shards of glass, filling out templates, in piles for exploring color, on a light box, and in my windows. I’ve been happily exploring and discovering glass as a medium ever since!

I learn more about its potential during every new project, constantly uncovering more of what glass can really do.

What does stained glass offer as a creative medium that others don’t?

Stained glass is inherently valuable before the first cut is made in the material. To create glass, soda ash, lime, and silica must be mixed at a tremendously high temperature, and then solvents, minerals, and other things are added to the mixture to produce color and texture. The glass is then poured onto a steel table to cool in sheets that eventually make their way to me so I can score, break, and grind them into the desired shape.

Glass is ancient, mystical, and magical. It can also be dangerous and change with the lighting of any given space. I learn more about its potential during every new project, constantly uncovering more of what glass can really do.

How would you describe your design aesthetic? How did that develop?

Getting into stained glass design can be challenging if you don’t feel comfortable with your drawing or illustration skills. I’ve tried many different styles, from using photos as inspiration to researching vintage wallpapers and zooming in to find small shapes for creating patterns.

Once I started making larger pieces, I finally found my way. I was inspired by the shapes I saw in the Bauhaus and Memphis design movements. I practiced drawing the shapes coming off of each other into other shapes until I finally got the hang of filling space equally. The exploration led me to a style that felt distinctly like my own.

Teaching is such a special process I am devoted to sharing while creating my own work and further exploring the material.

At what point did you start teaching the art of stained glass? What’s your favorite part about the teaching aspect of your practice? 

I started teaching about one year after I devoted myself to working in stained glass. With the encouragement of my mentor and artist Rachel Rader, I pitched my first class, “Taking Shape,” an abstract 3D glass class, to UrbanGlass in Brooklyn. They loved it, and on January 4, 2017, I started my epic teaching journey.

Since then, I’ve taught hundreds of people how the process works and how to make an object in a day (or three or six weeks). I’ve taught glass processes to people of all ages: high schoolers, NYU students, elementary-age kids, and even a class of 18 kindergarteners! Sharing this art form has brought me immense joy because 99% of the people leave my workshops in awe that they, too, can create things with such magnificent material. Teaching is a special process I am devoted to sharing while creating my own work and further exploring the material.

In a world that seems to get bleaker by the day, children’s media reminds us to keep our sense of wonder—that innate curiosity that all children have.

Anyone who came of age before social media, smart TVs, iPads, and even the internet understands the glory of magazines. Here at PRINT, we have a particular affinity for the form, as a formerly printed publication founded in the 1940s, and we’re quick to wax nostalgic about other printed magazines of yore. I have strong memories of growing up in the ’90s revering Highlights, for example, a monthly magazine for kids filled with games, puzzles, and written features. While the magazine landscape has changed immensely since my Highlights days, some small but mighty publications are still kicking and doing their darnedest to keep printed media alive.

Studio Anorak, the publisher behind ‘Happy Mags for Kids,’ has produced two titles geared toward kids, Anorak and DOT, for 18 years and counting. Founded by Cathy Olmedillas in 2006, who now helms Studio Anorak as the editor-in-chief and creative director, issues of ‘Happy Mags for Kids’ are released quarterly and are sold on newsstands and in museum gift shops, boutiques, and bookshops worldwide. Both Anorak and DOT are geared toward kids ages 6+. Printed on recycled paper with vegetable ink, the magazines offer illustrated stories, games, and activities, with each issue structured under a given theme.

In celebration of their 18th anniversary, Olmedillas answered a handful of my questions about the ins and outs of keeping a printed magazine going during the digital age and the power of children’s media. Her responses are below. 

(Conversation edited for length and clarity).

What’s the origin story of ‘Happy Mags for Kids’? When did you first decide to start a children’s magazine? 

Around 20 years ago, I was working for The Face, where I fell in love with the craft of magazine-making. I was itching to launch my own but wasn’t really sure what it would be about.

In 2002, I became a Mum, and that’s when I realized the children’s magazine market was poorly served. It had evolved into a sea of pink or blue plastic-filled throwaway magazines. I had fond memories of the ones I used to read as a child, so I set out to launch one that reminded me of the ones I used to enjoy: one that would educate, look great, make us laugh, and last beyond one quick read.

In hindsight, I realize how bold that was because every aspect of our magazine went against the super well-established rules of children’s publishing: our paper, our tone of voice, our aesthetic, our frequency—everything, basically! Nonetheless, I just did it (despite many people advising against it), and with very little money.

I publish our Happy Mags because I love making them, writing them, working with illustrators, and receiving feedback from families about how they spark creativity in their children.

What is it about the magazine form specifically that you love so much? What sets magazines apart from other mediums? 

As a child, I loved that magazines were like a good “brain snack,” i.e., something that didn’t require as much commitment as a book. As a teen, they were my Bible because we had no internet back then! As a grown-up and parent, I love the craft that goes into making them and the fact that they are multi-faceted, i.e., they carry many different types of content. I love the niche magazines; the ones that focus on one passion.

As a publisher, I love the process involved in making a magazine: putting words on a page, sending them to an illustrator, seeing them turn into a story, and, a few weeks later, ta-da! You have this physical thing that you can share with people. Doing that for the children’s market is the most rewarding thing.

What’s the team makeup behind ‘Happy Mags for Kids’? How many people do you work with day to day, what are the roles, etc.? 

We are a tiny but mighty team. I write, commission artists, and run the business. Ben is our main illustrator and designer. We commission many different freelance illustrators who come on board for specific issues. We have Karolina, who does our PR; Max, our proofreader; Slava and Eritobi, our accountants; and Marcus, who looks after our site. That’s it!

I know that in numbers magazines aren’t doing as well as they were 20 years ago, but their role is just as important, if not more.

How do you feel about the changes in the magazine and printed media landscape over the years? Do you feel a sense of responsibility or pressure to keep ‘Happy Mags for Kids’ going while so many other magazines have folded?

The role of magazines has certainly changed in the last 20 years. They—along with newspapers—went from being essential for culture and information to being an alternative to what the internet offers. I know that in numbers magazines aren’t doing as well as 20 years ago, but their role is just as important, if not more. Plenty of titles are closing down, but many great independent ones are also launching. Whether they last as long as the behemoths of the past or sell as much is doubtful, but you never know! We are celebrating our 18th anniversary this year with new markets opening up in China and Korea, so … there is hope!

I publish our Happy Mags because I love making them, writing them, working with illustrators, and receiving feedback from families about how they spark creativity in their children. These are the only reasons I keep our magazines going, along with the crucial fact that they sell! As soon as they stop selling or I stop loving making them, I will reconsider.

What’s been the most rewarding part about helming ‘Happy Mags for Kids’? What’s been the biggest challenge? 

The most rewarding thing is seeing children explore their creativity, receiving drawings from them (which we feature in the magazines), and getting emails from parents about how much our mags spark conversations.

The most fun is putting the mags together. 

The most challenging part is distribution. Magazine distribution is wasteful and expensive, as no one in that chain pays promptly, so I focus on the business online, where most of our revenue comes from. We are lucky that because of our high production values, we are accepted by and work directly with bookshops, and we have one trusted book distributor who looks after our titles well.

In a world that seems to get bleaker and bleaker by the day, children’s media reminds us to keep our sense of wonder; that innate curiosity that all children have.

What lessons can people of all ages learn from children’s media?

In a world that seems to get bleaker by the day, children’s media reminds us to keep our sense of wonder—that innate curiosity that all children have. That fuels our Happy Mags, and it’s a gentler way to approach the world around us!

It’s really exciting to just make the change you want to see.

Michelle Norris and Forest Aguar can’t be stopped— and thank God for that. The creative power couple are the co-founders of the studio Tropico Photo, where they’ve curated a distinct signature aesthetic dominated by brightly saturated colors, patterns, and vibrant vibes. Now, the duo has taken their talents and keen design eye to retail, opening their very own vintage store in Atlanta called Space Queen.

I’ve been an avid follower of Norris’s Instagram over the last few years, where she has become somewhat of a vintage-shopping, image-making, fit-finding tastemaker. The leap from her prowess as a shopper to owner of her own store feels natural and almost destined. I was thrilled when she announced her long-time dream of opening her own vintage shop was becoming a reality, and of course the images she shared of the shop’s space did not disappoint. The store officially opened its doors last weekend, and Atlanta just got a little bit—nay, a lot a bit—brighter.

Before I’m able to plan a trip to Atlanta to check out Space Queen in person myself, I reached out to Norris and Aguar to learn more about their process of designing and opening the retail space. Check out their responses below.

I read on your Instagram, Michelle, that opening your own vintage store has long been a dream of yours. Why is that? What is it about having your own store that you coveted? 

Vintage shopping has always been one of my favorite activities. I love that you never know what you’ll find and that creates an environment of wonder and exploration for me. I want to give that to others. Also, in a larger way, I think vintage and resale is more important now than ever. Not only do I love these special items, but I think that this is the path forward for fashion-loving folks to enjoy shopping in a way that’s sustainable. 

How have translated your distinct aesthetic as a creative duo into a brick and mortar retail space?

We approached it like the other projects we’ve done interior design for, leaning into our love of color and playful forms. For Space Queen, we really wanted it to feel bright and airy because the space has gorgeous skylights and lots of natural light, and then sprinkle in our bolder palette to create something playful and fresh.

What are a few of your favorite details in the store design?

The squiggles on the center table and in the archways, the vintage chandelier, and the paper flowers that I found at a yard sale in Middle Georgia.

How have you gone about curating the products for the shop?

I lean on my own sense of style and love of eclectic items. It’s a variety of pieces that are for all ages and types of folks, but they are tied together by an unusual element, whether it be a bold color, unique cut, playful detailing, or subject matter.

Were there existing stores you looked to for inspiration in designing and developing Space Queen?

I’m so inspired by Century Girl Vintage, Saint Claude Social Club, Blue Dream (all three are in New Orleans), as well as Antique Antics in NC and Seven Wonders Collective in NYC. They all have something special in their curation and presentation that keeps me coming back!

What’s been the most exciting aspect of opening your own store?

Creating something that we’ve wanted Atlanta to have. We’ve taken over a beloved building that the neighborhood has been waiting to see brought to life for awhile. It’s really exciting to just make the change you want to see.

What’s been the biggest challenge?

Completing a renovation at the same time as figuring out the logistics of a new business.

What advice would you give someone looking to open up their own store?

Wait for the right space. The availability of this really wonderful building that suits all of our needs really inspired us to take the leap, and know that we could do something magical because it’s the perfect place.

Allen Ginsberg was one of the foremost minds of his generation. He was also a prolific collector. From his extensive archives at Standford, Pat Thomas worked with Peter Hale of Ginsberg’s estate to pull nearly ten thousand items for consideration. From this, Thomas narrowed it to 1,000 items encompassing Material Wealth: Mining the Personal Archive of Allen Ginsberg.

The three most remarkable pieces, according to Thomas, are a satire of Ginsberg’s Howl written by screenwriter Terry Southern (below); a transcript of a call between Ginsberg and Henry Kissinger about ending the war in Vietnam, one in which the famously exhibitionist Ginsberg suggests they discuss the issue naked on national television (below); and (not pictured), a letter from the American Nazi Party to Ginsberg about all the reasons they wanted to assassinate him: likely a “commie,” possibly gay, definitely a Jew.

The book is a collection of 600,000 words and 300 pages, yet it is also light (uncoated paper!). Andy Outis took us through the myriad of design decisions that give this book its singular aesthetics. He began the project by reading Howl aloud to internalize it (during the pandemic). Outis leaned heavily on 90s graphic design, specifically deconstruction, for inspiration in creating a book that was more than just the sum of its artifacts—the unique open spine, the leveraging of low-resolution scans with all the original scratches, dirt, and flaws, and the use of color. Outis also typeset the accompanying text on an Underwood 315 typewriter. From there, he scanned it, making the book’s pages look very much like archival material they hold.

Ginsberg was neither conventional nor conservative. So, Andy went for it …
It’s a work of art.

Pat Thomas on collaborating with Andy Outis, designer of Material Wealth

For those who find the intersection of history fascinating, Thomas has a beautiful sentiment about this very thing as it relates to Allen Ginsberg, Stonewall, and The Beatles about 38 minutes in. You’ll also hear a surprising admission from Steven Heller, who, as a young Ginsberg fan, stole a copy of Howl from Doubleday Book Shop (eventually returning it to the shelves after he read it).

Our conversation wound from music to poetry to design to politics to culture, so there’s something for everyone. Register here to watch the discussion.

Don’t own a copy of Material Wealth: Mining the Personal Archive of Allen Ginsberg? You can order one here.

Coffeehaus at COLLINS hosts a monthly communal gathering for people from all walks of life who share the goal of simply showing up to experience creative community. March’s event featured a conversation, book signing, cocktails, and treats with the illustrious Craig Frazier, who discussed his newly released book Drawn, a compendium of his illustrations for prominent publications and businesses around the globe.

An internationally renowned illustrator with a career spanning since 1978, Frazier’s illustrations are celebrated for their wit, optimism, and simplicity.

His creative contributions have appeared in the New York Times, Time Magazine, Fortune, Bloomberg Business Week, Harvard Business Review, and The Wall Street Journal. Frazier has an impressive roster of blue-chip clients, including Adobe, American Express, Boeing, Chevrolet, Deloitte, MasterCard, Mohawk Paper, Navigant, The Royal Mail, U.S. Postal Service, and United Airlines.

He has also designed eight postage stamps, including the beloved 2006 Love stamp and the commemorative Scouting stamps in 2010/11.

Frazier’s artistry goes beyond fulfilling client requests; he illustrates what he feels will make people stop, look, and think. Coffeehaus at COLLINS was a packed event, buzzing with creative energy from like-minded folks. I was fortunate to connect with Frazier at the event and followed up with some questions about his process and the importance of work that invites people in.

(Interview edited for clarity and length).

During your talk, you emphasized the importance of creating an approachable book with meaningful stories rather than just a visually striking but weighty coffee table book. What is the significance of incorporating narrative elements, and how does this approach enhance the reader’s experience? Additionally, how did you strike a balance between narrative and visuals?

It’s not unlike my work. You must invite people in and make them feel welcome. Physically, I wanted the book to have weight yet a manageable footprint. I wanted it to be functional on a desk, in your lap, or on a plane (thus the slightly smaller dimension than many monographs). I wanted it to feel useable, not monumental. There is something intimidating about an oeuvre of someone’s lifetime of work—so I wanted to soften the barrier. The scale of the book, the use of Garamond, and the size and pacing of each illustration contribute to its approachability. My amberliths, sketches, and sketchbooks demystify the process and invite the reader backstage. The idea of narratives woven throughout the book breaks the rhythm and reminds the reader that the illustrations are the products of a greater effort—both conceptually and professionally.

My life experience and my choices inform my work—the two are inextricably connected. I have found the result immeasurably rewarding and hope the work reflects that. This is the part of work life that I wanted to reveal. Things happen. We can’t control everything, but we can lend a guiding hand.  

This book is for the curious. Whether you are a designer or not, revealing the ‘whys’ of my work will alter your understanding of it. My intention is to allow people to see parallels to their own lives and careers, regardless of their profession. We all make choices that shape how we feel about our jobs. I’m curious how creative people make their work and connect their life stories to it. Asking those questions leads to a deeper appreciation and a chance to learn something. I want that experience available to the readers of Drawn.

It is predominantly a visual book, no question. One can enjoy it on that level alone. The written content is micro-dosed to not compete with the visuals but complement and contribute depth.

I draw elements that support the story, not decorate it.

Your work is celebrated for its visual riddles and graphic wit, often embodying both simplicity and depth. How do you balance clarity and complexity in your work, especially when dealing with abstract concepts or visual puzzles?

Simplicity is a guiding principle in all of my work—design or illustration. I subscribe to both the aesthetic and conceptual orientation, so it’s easy to abide by. It works—simplicity serves comprehension in its elegance and functionality. Simplicity is necessary now more than ever when we are all operating at the edge of our visual threshold—it becomes an attractor because it asks less of us. When we overload our messaging (or visuals), it’s at the risk of getting passed by. I stick with singular messaging, which makes for singular illustrations. I draw elements that support the story, not decorate it. Simplicity equals clarity. The more abstract, the simpler the equation must be. If done right, there is beauty in simplicity. Embedding riddles and wit in the illustration brings a smile to the mind. The illustration’s depth is in the reader’s mind—it’s the place the illustration takes them.

When discussing your creative process, you mentioned taking something to the brink and then stepping it back. How do you recognize when you’ve reached that edge, and what factors influence your decision to pull back or further refine your idea?

This question is challenging because I don’t have a specific formula for it—it’s intuitive. The best way to describe it is to say that when I think I have found an angle to tell the story—I then attempt to regulate how the reader discovers the answer within. It’s a matter of leaving breadcrumbs rather than the whole loaf. It’s always a matter of leaving room for a reader to invest time (often only seconds) and mental energy to understand the message. Breadcrumbs also leave room for interpretation, crucial in talking to a larger audience. I’ve learned that people are smarter than we often give them credit for. Clients always want to make sure their readers get it, but in doing so, they often eliminate the fun by over-explaining it. It’s a delicate balance, and I stand my ground with clients. I’ve got a good instinct for it by now.

There is a lot of attention to creativity, how we do it, and the secrets to turning it on. I’ve never paid much attention to that and tried to develop good habits and a problem-solving discipline. If you sign up to be a designer, your job can’t wait until the muse shows up.

Drawn delves into curiosity, self-doubt, and confidence, all of which are common experiences for creatives. How have these themes influenced your journey as a creative? Can you share any personal anecdotes or pivotal moments where you’ve grappled with self-doubt and how you overcame it to push your creative boundaries?

Curiosity is key. We must be curious about what others make and how to inform and inspire our own creativity. We also must be curious about the oddities around us. These are the fuel for ideas. Self-doubt and confidence are opposites, yet both motivate us. Both are necessary to keep the other in check. Self-doubt—however uncomfortable it is—is critical to doing good work and growing. The better our judgment, the easier it is to become complacent and make safe work. I find my own self-doubt to be often an indicator that I’m breaking new ground. We all experience self-doubt because creativity isn’t science—it’s experimental by design. The good news is that with experience, self-doubt wanes and gives way to confidence, and if we are lucky, humility lies right in between both—the most essential element of personal growth.

I frequently have doubts about my work particularly when I’m sketching on assignment. When I give it a little time to breathe and look at the work with fresh eyes, the doubt often subsides. I remind myself that new is often uncomfortable and these are the chances we must take.

There is a lot of attention to creativity, how we do it, and the secrets to turning it on. I’ve never paid much attention to that and tried to develop good habits and a problem-solving discipline. If you sign up to be a designer, your job can’t wait until the muse shows up. Though she does make appearances, we must operate in an ‘always go’ position.

As it relates to ideas, my solution is to keep sketching. It is the cheapest and fastest prototyping method out there. It is a discipline that I have practiced my entire career, and it never fails. Every sketch I make is an experience of seeing something and understanding it better. I have far more unsuccessful sketches than successful ones, but they are not mutually exclusive. You must turn over rocks until you find what you are looking for. I have a confidence in process—the more you produce, the better the chances are of arriving at something new—it’s that simple.

Your work has inspired many aspiring illustrators and designers. You offered the valuable insight that “style comes just as much from your deficiencies as well as your expertise.” Could you elaborate on this concept and explain how embracing one’s shortcomings can contribute to the development of a unique artistic style?

Understanding what we each ‘have to offer’ is an endeavor you can’t suddenly take on one day. It’s an understanding that comes over time and practice. We never fully understand it, but we must move toward it and often get out of its way. That said, we work to develop personally and professionally, and the goal is to find where we can each put a spin on things. Our fingerprints on our work are the characteristics reflective of both our strengths and weaknesses. Our ability to accept both of those—our deficiencies being the toughest—is where our individuality and point of view reside. The world is full of people—and companies—trying to create a mass consumable perception. But—as practitioners—we shouldn’t take that approach. The baseline is to be a good problem-solver. However, the expression and articulation of those solutions can be personal and unique to each of us. Herein lies the risk and the satisfaction. One reason this works is that it is honest and defendable. It’s easier to stand up for our own ideas than it is for others. The second reason is that unique work stands the best chance of being novel in the eyes of the public. As designers, we don’t have to have thousands of clients. We must have enough to support the economy of our practice. I have found that making what I can make and searching for audiences that appreciate my sensibilities is much easier—and more satisfying—than working in the inverse. Differentiation serves the competitive nature of our job.

As designers, we don’t have to have thousands of clients. We must have enough to support the economy of our practice … making what I can make and searching for audiences that appreciate my sensibilities is much easier—and more satisfying—than working in the inverse.

If you want to get your hands on Drawn, which I highly recommend — it’s fantastic; you can order his book here.

Plasse is fascinated by the energy and tone of a space and is hellbent on harnessing that in his imagery. He and I connected a few weeks back, where we chatted about his creative journey to a unique space within the art world, and his distinct signature style. Early in our Zoom call, I had a hunch Plasse was live-illustrating me as we talked. And I was correct! He followed up afterward with this fun (and flattering) interpretation of me in my messy home office:

I’ve conducted countless interviews with artists over the years, and this is a first! Our conversation, brought to life in his sketch, is below.

(This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.)

What’s your origin story as an artist? 

I went to school for illustration at Parsons School of Design. After I graduated in 1995, it was the dawn of commercial digital art and the commercial use of the Internet. During the last year I spent in college, I got really into using interactive media, in addition to doing illustration work, and I learned how to use what was called Macromedia Director, which was a precursor to what was called Flash, and then eventually became what’s called CC Animate, which has become a little bit defunct. It used to be a big tool for creating websites, interactive games and CD ROMs as well. I liked it because I had done a little bit of animation in college, and I could animate in it, use sound, and create interactivity in it. That was exciting to me: taking my art and making it come to life so that people could interact with it.

Right after college, I took a five-hour HTML class and learned everything you needed to know to build websites in 1995. So, in this burgeoning era of interactive media, I started working for little multimedia and interactive firms. Big ad agencies didn’t know how to do any of that stuff, so they’d hire these little companies that worked out of lofts to do all of this exciting work. I found a niche in starting to do that type of work because I had a design and art background, but I also knew how to use some of these tools, which were pretty novel at the time.

I found my way into advertising through interactive digital media. Some ad agencies were starting to add that skill to their teams while everyone else was still doing traditional print, TV, direct mail, and out-of-home. I knew all these tools and built websites, but they liked that I could illustrate, too. Eventually, I went off on my own, and I decided to freelance. This was during the dot-com boom, so there were jobs a-plenty. I did that for six years, but then dot-com went bust, and all that work went away; it just disappeared. So, I started doing apparel design and eventually got into TV animation.

Eventually, I got another full-time job at an agency as an art director. We built a lot of websites—fun, interactive, engaging stuff. We pushed the envelope of what people were doing, which was exciting. My background in animation came in handy because I could use that technology to bring things to life in a cool way. 

At what point did you introduce sketching the people around you into your art practice? 

I started drawing people on the subway in the ’90s, and then, in the mid to late 2000s, it became an obsession of mine. I’d carry these little Moleskine sketchbooks around, and since I lived in Brooklyn but worked in Manhattan, I’d be on the train for 20 to 30 minutes every day. This is before your phone worked on the train, so while most people would be zoning out, sleeping, or reading, I thought, look at all these amazing people around me! So I started sketching. 

While most people would be zoning out or sleeping or reading, I thought, look at all of these amazing people around me! So I started sketching. 

It taught me a new approach to drawing. When you’re on the subway, the subway is moving; sometimes, you’re cramped, and people are moving on and off in front of you, so you have to draw quickly. I’d look around the car and say, Oh, this is interesting, and zone in on something. I’d quickly capture the essence of what I saw and then add other details instead of doing a slow, meticulous rendering, which didn’t work in that environment. I’d been an illustrator before, but this was when I started drawing from life in an expressive, capture-things-quickly kind of style. 

Were these subway sketches purely personal, or did you share them with the public in any way? 

I created a blog because I wanted people to see the subway in a different way. Nobody ever thought anything good or interesting about the subway, it was always this blight that we had to deal with. But here I was, highlighting all the interesting things and people that you can come across on the train, and the tapestry of cultures that all came together for 20 minutes in these little sardine cans under the ground.

Here I was, highlighting all the interesting things and people that you can come across on the train, and the tapestry of cultures that all came together for 20 minutes in these little sardine cans under the ground.

How did the public receive these sketches back then? I could see a modern-day Instagram account posting daily sketches of people on the NYC subway being a big hit.

It had a decent following. I wouldn’t say I blew up, but I got some people’s attention and write-ups. This guy made a short documentary about me, and then in 2012, I published a little book of 80 of my thousands of drawings. That was fun! I didn’t get famous from it, but I made some inroads and some people saw it and appreciated it. 

At what point did you move to Austin, and how did that affect your art practice? 

Around 2011, I was getting sick of what was happening in New York, and it was a difficult place to live with three little kids. My ex-wife was also ready to leave (she worked in technology, too). So, I managed to get a job in Austin. There’s a train there (sort of), but I wouldn’t take it; I drove everywhere. But I was kind of addicted to drawing things like that now, so I started going to see a lot of music; the music scene here is very accessible. I thought, well, this is where I’m going to start drawing because this is where the energy is here.

I started going to see a lot of music; the music scene here is very accessible. I was like, well, this is where I’m going to start drawing, because that’s where the energy was here.

I started going to festivals and discovering bands. What was cool about drawing in Austin, unlike New York, was that I could access that community. When I drew people in New York on a train, I drew them, and then they were gone, and I never saw them again. Here, I draw people, I tag them, they see me drawing, and I get to know a community and interface with them.

When drawing someone, what features or details do you typically focus on to characterize them visually?

Whatever calls to me when I look at them. A lot of times, it’s a gesture. Starting with a gesture, an expression— it’s the energy and movement of things as opposed to more static details. Whatever a person’s energy is, that’s what I pick up on.

When sketching a band, I’ll try to figure out what’s drawing me in and start there. I call it “gonzo drawing”— the idea of being immersed in the subject matter. There’s a lot of motion in the crowd and many things happening, and I try to reflect that in the drawing. So, the drawing isn’t a perfectly still representation or an aloof observer. It’s from the point of view of where I am, which is generally surrounded by people.

This style is about not trying to overly intellectualize the composition, it’s more about what you feel.

I’ll hone in on a particular point, which sometimes differs from what you’d expect. Sometimes, there’s someone who’s really interesting on stage, the most dynamic in some way. There are just certain things that compel me. I like to focus on little details, like how the bass player holds their hands or the way the singer holds the microphone. This style is not about trying to overly intellectualize the composition; it’s more about what you feel. Outside of it being instinctual, it’s an expression of what I see and feel at the moment.

You often illustrate on your iPad. How is that drawing experience different from using paper?

When I draw on the iPad, I create more compositions. When I draw on paper, even though instinctually I’ll draw a composition, I’m completely flying by the seat of my pants. When I use the iPad, I’ll throw a lot of things down, but then I’ll move them around and almost create a composition out of them. 

The iPad is also much faster. I can immediately get things down. Obviously, I can’t carry around big tubes of gouache in the middle of a crowd. With the iPad, I have all the tools. When I have a little more time or space, I like to bring watercolor, markers, or sometimes gouache so that I can paint what’s going on.

Another element of your practice is a sort of performance art: projecting your iPad screen as you live draw at concerts, shows, and events. How did this come about? 

Austin Design Week invited me to be part of the projection show in 2017, and I created a reel of all the animations I did to live music. They had it run on the wall; I loved that vibe and having something come to life. I love bringing my stuff to life in real space, and that was an amazing way to do that. When I got the iPad, I could hook it up to a projector or any type of display. I started by drawing some conferences and meetings that way, and people were excited about it. People like the drawings on their own, but when they see them come to life in real-time, it really excites them. 

Then, a couple of years ago, I was invited to a jazz dance performance, and they wanted me to paint on stage. I told them I thought it’d be really cool if I drew with my iPad and projected it. The dance performance had a bunch of different vignettes, so I drew them when they were performing. Then, in between, for the segways, I’d re-project what I just did and run the time-lapse so it became part of the performance.

Are most of your subjects appreciative and flattered that you’ve drawn them?

People really like it, bands especially. I get a lot of good feedback; it’s something different. I’m not the only person who live sketches, but there are not many of us, so it’s novel, especially when it happens in real time. That’s what I love about it; there’s a place and time and being out in the world, I feel really connected to the bands.

I hate going to arena shows; I find them super uninteresting because I like to be as close as possible to draw. That’s why I like going to small clubs, where I can be five or ten feet away. It’s harder to connect with the artist when you’re far away. A lot of times you see a side of someone when they’re on stage performing that’s really genuine, that’s harder to capture when you’re just talking to them; it’s inspiring to me.

Durst is the first African-American woman inducted into the Interior Design Hall of Fame and recipient of its first-ever Leadership Award. To her, protecting and implementing EDI ideologies is a way of life. To learn more about her journey through EDI leadership and the state of EDI in 2024, I asked Durst a few questions directly.

*While DEI and EDI can be used interchangeably, many in this space prefer to lead with Equity, including Durst.

(Interview is edited for clarity and length.)

So many things in life are about the strength of our values— and EDI practices are no exception. 

Let’s rewind to the beginning of your career. How did you begin your fight for diversity and inclusion in the interior design industry? 

The EDI “space” is just life for all of us. As a Black, female leader in an industry that has skewed around 90 percent white and is still predominantly led by men, I have been a part of bringing inclusivity to the design industry from day one. When I took on the role of Executive Vice President and CEO of IIDA in 1998, I received racist threats. We have made tangible progress since then, but there is certainly still work that we need to do, and it is urgent work.

There is certainly still work that we need to do, and it is urgent work.

I consider fostering inclusion for people of all backgrounds, abilities, and ages and creating opportunities for greater diversity within the industry a core part of my mission. During my tenure at IIDA, we’ve prioritized this work by launching initiatives and scholarships that empower the next generation of designers, recognize women and people of color doing great work in the profession, and advance both discussion and action around EDI for companies and individuals.

We’ve also worked to promote an understanding of how design impacts human behavior and affects all aspects of shared spaces— essentially, how design can extend a welcome to all.

What advice would you give to companies struggling with embedding EDI initiatives into their business? What’s the jumping-off point?

Diversity initiatives begin with authentic intentions, but those intentions must lead to tangible, empowering action. In other words, we must walk the talk— transparency is a big part of that. So, start with gathering data: engage your staff in an inclusive, open study of your EDI practices and workplace inclusion in your organization. How is your organization’s culture experienced by everyone with access to it? Are you actively working to do business with partners who share your values around EDI?

Find out where you really stand and share that information, as well as the steps you’ve mapped out to change things. Those next steps are the key: take action to create change and stick with that journey. Too many companies start strong but fade on the follow-through. Bring your intentions to the forefront, seek participation and feedback, and invest your energy in continuous progress.

Too many companies start strong, but fade on the follow-through. Bring your intentions to the forefront, seek participation and feedback, and invest your energy in continuous progress. 

How do you suggest companies ensure EDI initiatives remain an on-going priority and are not just a tokenistic fad that fizzles out?

So many things in life are about the strength of our values— and EDI practices are no exception.

Research has shown that employees are more engaged, and retention rates rise when everyone understands the “why” of their work. What are we investing our time and attention in, and what are we striving to achieve collectively? Inclusivity and greater diversity should be a part of your organization’s values, which should be clearly, consistently, and constantly communicated to everyone.

Embrace radical transparency. How are we doing on our goals? What are our next steps, and how should we adjust as we reflect on feedback? What does our recruitment look like, and could we be doing more to support a robust cohort of diverse young talent? 

When everyone is engaged in the great project of creating an inclusive workplace and business environment, we can hold ourselves accountable for making progress and create an organization that actively fosters acceptance, comfort, and creativity—an organization everyone is proud to be a part of.

What positive strides have you seen in companies embracing EDI? Where do you see the most room for improvement?  

I’m an optimist. And I have seen amazing progress. Design, of course, is essentially human and concerned with humanity, so it makes sense that our industry would understand and embrace the need for inclusiveness, broader perspectives in our work, and new voices at the table. That inclusiveness makes our work richer and ultimately improves the lives of our clients and end users. Design touches every life, often in profound ways, so our ability to impact every kind of community is incredibly powerful.

Design touches every life, often in profound ways, so our ability to have impact on every kind of community is incredibly powerful. 

I have been especially encouraged to see many companies working to build more robust pathways for young people to discover design and pursue careers in the industry. This outreach is how we build the design industry of the future, and at IIDA, we have seen this firsthand. In just four years of our Design Your World pathway program, we have seen multiple program alums entering design school, taking the next steps toward making design their profession. Building a pipeline for a more inclusive design workforce is a long game, but seeing these amazing results so quickly is incredibly exciting.

We’re also launching a program to cultivate IIDA student membership at HBCUs, so we’re continuing to build a path that will support these young designers through school and into their early careers, building resiliency.

Of course, there is plenty of work to be done! I’m excited to see designers advocating for sustainability regarding the built environment’s impact on under-resourced communities. That thinking challenges us to do more, to educate ourselves, and to be stronger advocates for creating a better model.

We also need to continue to broaden our ideas about what constitutes diversity. Are we truly embracing neurodiverse designers and end users? Are we addressing age inclusiveness for a multi-generational workforce? Are we inclusive of all faiths and all definitions of gender in our public spaces?  

And, although many of our design industry partners are championing diversity through multiple entry points, I’m wary of a shifting mood in the corporate world at large, a pulling back on organizational EDI focus. We have seen many people who were hired as leaders for company-wide EDI lose their jobs as attention shifts away from keeping these issues front and center.

I’m proud of our work at IIDA and in this industry. I think we sit in a fortunate place— inherently focused on humanity, with the ability to powerfully impact the lives of everyone. The more we champion diversity and inclusivity in all its forms, the better we fulfill our mission to serve. And that’s something designers can do better than anyone else: bring purpose and human-focused values to the world around us.

Eliot Noyes (1910–1977) was the grand master of “good design,” or what is known as Midcentury Modern. Having studied architecture, in 1938 Noyes joined former Bauhauslers Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer’s firm in Cambridge, MA. Next, from 1939–1946, Noyes was director of industrial design at MoMA. Years later he opened his own design consultancy in Connecticut that served major American corporations, notably IBM, Westinghouse, Mobil and Cummins, where he introduced the revolutionary practice of design and aesthetic consistency in everything from architecture and products to graphics and identity, hiring consultant practitioners including Paul Rand and Charles and Ray Eames.

Now, a new film from Jason Cohn celebrates Noyes. Cohn is the Peabody Award–winning director of The Architect and the Painter, a film about the Eames duo. Modernism, Inc: The Eliot Noyes Design Story premiered at the New York Architecture + Design Festival in 2023 and will have have a general release later in 2024. I recently saw it for the first, second and third time. I admit to knowing a little about Noyes from Gordon Bruce’s Eliot Noyes biography, but not really knowing. Modernism, Inc. fills in the major gaps. After watching the doc, I asked Cohn to tell me more of the backstory of making this revelatory must-see documentary.

Why did you decide to do a film about Noyes?
In 2012 I released a film about Charles and Ray Eames, and in the process of that I met Eliot’s son, Eli, who is a very creative animator and filmmaker in San Francisco. He told me that the Noyes family was interested in having a similar type of film made about their father. Of course, I knew a bit about Eliot Noyes because he had played such a large role in Charles and Ray’s careers. He was the guy who basically discovered Charles, along with Eero Saarinen, in his role curating industrial design for the Museum of Modern Art, and he commissioned the Eames Office to do some of its most important communications and exhibition work under the aegis of the IBM design program. I also knew that Charles had confided to friends that Noyes was one of the only people he would bother to consult with when he was struggling with a design problem. Charles had very high standards, and that endorsement meant a lot to me. 

The first thing I did was read Gordon Bruce’s book (Gordon worked under Eliot for many years and wrote a great book about Eliot Noyes for Phaidon Press), which made a good argument for Eliot’s importance in the development of integral corporate design systems, the type we’re so familiar with today because of Apple. So he was clearly a significant figure in design history, but I still wasn’t sure it was a great story.

And then Eli Noyes shared a movie he had made in 1970 that showed his father being attacked by a new generation of what the Berkeley scholar Greg Castillo calls “Hippie Modernists” at the Aspen design conference. That sealed the deal for me because it provided a really interesting tension to the rest of the story. I started to see Noyes as a guy whose story weaves through the entire history of Modernism in postwar American. That’s when I was sure there was enough meat on the bones to make a good film.

Incidentally, Modernism, Inc. is the perfect title for what Noyes created. I wish I had thought of that for my own book on Midcentury Modernism. This is a silly question, but I don’t suppose you had any direct contact with him?
No, I was 10 years old when he died. And I’ve never worked in design or architecture. I’d be a terrible designer! I’m a journalist who has developed an interest in the field because I feel like it allows me to investigate this important aspect of our lives that’s hidden in plain view. I love contemplating the way our lives are shaped by this accumulation of small decisions that make the built environment. And I’m also really interested in the ethical dimension of it—Good Design is a marketing term but it hints at a deeper impulse shared my many designers to make the world better through this incredible power they have to conceive and shape our physical world. And like all ethics there are lots of gray areas that have to be negotiated. The story of how Modernism was used and coopted by big business in America is one of those gray areas.

The film is quite good in presenting Noyes’ major innovations in organizing industry into what is now called “branding.” Also you capture his singular importance to postwar corporate Modernism. The film shows the warts and all. What was your opinion of Noyes’ work once you assembled the film?
I think it’s a very impressive body of work, and sadly the film has to leave out a ton of it. For example, we hardly touch on the corporate architecture he did. He was involved in literally hundreds of major architectural projects for IBM over the decades. He was the lead architect for some of them, like the landmark Aerospace Building in Los Angeles (it’s now part of the Otis College of Art and Design), and the Design Management Building in Poughkeepsie, which is a very significant building. In other cases, he was working with other architects like Mies van Der Rohe, Eero Saarinen or Skidwell, Owings and Merrill. But in any case, he was deeply involved in establishing the brief and overseeing the development of all the architectural projects from start to finish. There are a lot of things that didn’t fit in the movie for one reason or another. It was a relatively small office that had its hands in an unbelievable quantity of top-flight work.

But I think what set Noyes apart from other designers of his era is the role he played in curating the corporate image, or what he preferred to call “corporate character.” It meant that he wasn’t always the one authoring the designs, but he was the ultimate arbiter of what was good and what represented the values of the companies he worked with. In a time when these ideas of branding and corporate image were not really part of the understanding of what businesses do, he was breaking really important ground. And when you think about what that has meant for the generations of designers who came after him, who now had a template for what a truly integrated design program could bring to the bottom line, he was an enormously influential figure.

You have uncovered some research treasures, including recorded interview with Noyes, home movies and more. Did you have any difficulties obtaining material, or was it easily retrievable?
Archival research is always a struggle. Fortunately the Noyes family had a lot of material but it was in the process of being transferred to Harvard, so it was in a bit of a jumble. I was able to spend a little time digging around before it went through the acquisition process. Gordon Bruce had also pre -4selected hundreds of the best images, which he used in his book, so that saved a lot of effort. And the IBM archivists were enormously helpful. To their credit they are very proud of their design history and they do a great job of helping researchers. In any case, I like to think we found some things that even Gordon Bruce and the Noyes family had never seen. 

Paul Rand talked to me about Noyes’ patronage of him, but not to the extent that you got into (e.g., that Noyes had to smooth ruffled feathers of IBM execs owing to Rand’s “my way or the highway” attitude.) In fact, I wondered why you didn’t discuss other corporations that Noyes and Rand worked on, like Cummins and Westinghouse?
As a filmmaker I try to avoid what I think of as lateral storytelling. You’re telling versions of the same story but in a different location or with different characters. Instead of moving the story forward you start moving laterally. I felt like IBM was where he developed his understanding of how to do the corporate work, and by focusing on that we could discover it along with him. Jumping laterally to Westinghouse and Cummins Engine after already telling IBM would have provided some good information but diminishing returns emotionally.

Among the most fascinating parts for me were showing what IBM looked like under Thomas Watson Sr., before Noyes got his hands dirty. Rand often talked about the Queen Ann furniture look, but I’d never seen the actual machines. How did Noyes get to accomplish such transformative work?
It’s very impressive to see how things transformed between the first IBM electric typewriter and the Selectric, for example, in something like a five-year time span. The mainframe computer systems are even more impressive. By the time you get to the revolutionary System/360 in 1964, about 10 years after Noyes took on the design director role at IBM, you see a design program that’s really firing on all cylinders.

To answer your question, my sense is that he did not change things through any kind of authoritarian command structure. Of course, he had the support of IBM’s CEO, Tom Watson Jr., who was his friend from their days working at the Pentagon together during the war, and that obviously helped a lot. But it was not heavy-handed. I don’t think that was in his nature and I don’t think it would have been possible for an outsider to come in yelling and screaming in order to get IBM to change. Instead, he projected a kind of sturdy New England competence that inspired trust. He also had an ability to translate between different types of people. On the one hand you have a guy like Paul Rand, for instance, who was this pugnacious Jewish artist from Brooklyn who had very little patience for anyone who questioned his authority on matters of graphic design. And Eliot Noyes himself was an excellent artist, both as an architect but also as a painter. Before switching to architecture at Harvard he had wanted to be a fine artist. So Noyes could relate to a guy like Rand. And then, on the other hand, you had legions of engineers, salesmen, middle managers and executives who made up the majority of IBM employees. And Noyes’ role was to get them all on the same page. You couldn’t do that by stamping your feet and insulting people. It was more a kind of code-switching, I imagine that allowed him to speak the right language for the right audience and get them to see the value of what he was trying to do for the company.

I also think that success in business gives a person authority. And he made some smart decisions by, for instance, focusing on some of the low-hanging fruit before tackling the thornier problems. The first thing he did was hire Paul Rand to remake the IBM logotype and institute a unified graphics protocol. You could make an impact by reforming graphics without having to dig into the engineering of products, so you can do that relatively quickly. The Selectric typewriter was another example of a very successful product with a very fresh design appeal that made a lot of money for IBM and proved the point that the Noyes approach to design was good for IBM. At some point he probably stopped having to repeat the argument that “good design is good business,” because everyone had seen it at work. It became part of the DNA of the company.

Noyes was a capitalist white knight, just like the Streamline industrial designers of the ’20s and ’30s. Do you think American industry would be the same without him?
There was nothing like a comprehensive corporate design program that integrated everything from graphics to communications to product design and architecture prior to Eliot Noyes. At least in America. You had Olivetti and some others in Europe but they were much smaller companies. But that doesn’t mean it couldn’t have happened without him. I think he had a knack for being the right person in the right place at the right time. He was obviously a gifted designer with a brilliant eye for talent and great communication skills. So all that helped him, but I also suspect that some of these ideas were in the air and it was probably only a matter of time before someone else attempted to do something along the lines of what Noyes accomplished with IBM and some other companies. In that sense one of the things that really differentiates him from other designers was the relationship he had with the CEO of IBM, Tom Watson Jr., because that gave him the power to assume a kind of responsibility that would not have been otherwise possible for a designer at a company on that scale. But I do think Noyes deserves the accolades because the quality of what he did really stands the test of time. 

What do you want the viewer to take away from this film?
I’d like for Eliot Noyes to emerge out of the shadow of some of the other Midcentury design giants like Charles Eames, George Nelson and Eero Saarinen. He was not much of a self-promoter, and in fact a lot of his success was due to the fact that he empowered other designers to do great things and let them enjoy the credit. But he deserves to be discussed in the same conversation as those guys, and not just because he hired all of them!

I think you’ve succeeded in casting a revealing spotlight on his integral role. You’ve also posed some interesting questions about the ideals of Modernism and the business of good design.
I’d also like the viewer to think a little bit about the fate of Modernism as a movement. Eliot Noyes started out as a disciple of Walter Gropius and the Bauhaus, which was a specific flavor of Modernism that developed in Europe between the wars. There was a kind of idealism—a social reform aspect—to it. Modern design promised to improve people’s lives in tangible ways by making high-quality goods and housing affordable for everyone. Once Modernism became installed in America after WWII, however, it lost a lot of that idealism. It was adopted by multinational corporations like IBM and it became the preferred architectural style of the super-rich. I don’t think Eliot Noyes was consciously trying to make this happen, but he was probably as central to this evolution as anyone. I try to let viewers make up their own minds about whether Eliot Noyes made the world better or worse as a result of the work he did in corporate design, but I hope they at least think about what might have happened if Modernism maintained the more independent spirit that it had before if became “Modernism, Inc.” 

What Souza started as a grassroots effort to build an event featuring 13 Black designers on an online panel has now blossomed into a bi-annual program that serves as the only national effort to establish young Black professionals and recent college graduates in design careers.

This year’s State of Black Design Conference will be held this week (in-person and virtually, on March 15 and 16) in Nashville at Tennessee State University’s Art and Design Department. To learn more about the history of the conference, its offerings, and its impact, I had the pleasure of speaking with Souza. He opened up about the struggles he’s faced as a Black designer himself in the design industry and academia, the difficulties of putting on the SOBD Conference, as well as the extreme joy and fulfillment he feels from creating opportunities for so many Black students and designers who have otherwise been excluded. Our conversation is below.

(This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.)

What has your personal experience been like as a Black designer navigating the lack of diversity in this industry? 

There’ve been a lot of difficulties in many regards. My current institution has been the most supportive of my work and my line of research, but at past institutions, there have been a series of things. I’ve had faculty members who went to school in time periods when people who looked like we weren’t allowed to study with them. So when you have a professor who’s getting published, getting a certain type of attention, and challenging the status quo, that is often met with resistance. There have also been power struggles, especially regarding some of the positives that I’ve attempted to do with the State of Black Design.

When you have a professor who’s getting published, getting a certain type of attention, and challenging the status quo, that is often met with resistance.

Being the only Black person in a particular space is difficult. I teach UX design, and we talk about ingroups and outgroups all the time. As an example, I ask my students, “Who has an iPhone?” The majority of the students raise their hands. Then I ask, “What color is it when someone who doesn’t have an iPhone text messages you?” And they all go, “Oh, my God, green!” And then I ask them, “What inconveniences them when you text back?” And no one has an answer. When you’re in a space where you’re the only Black person or the only person of a particular group, and you fall within that outgroup, no one cares about what your experiences are, what inconveniences you have, or what makes it difficult.

When you talk about those issues and bring them to the forefront, because you’re not in the ingroup, they act in greater annoyance to you for bringing up something that they don’t care about, especially if you’re asking them to change. That’s been my experience as a professor and designer. If I talk too much about race, it annoys some people. If I’m getting too much attention about my work around race, it annoys particular people. If I’m raising too much money and creating too much change, and certain groups don’t feel included—even though there’s not much work to make me or other people like me feel included in the industry—there’s pushback given as well.

How did you first get the idea for the State of Black Design Conference? How did it develop? 

In 2020, I taught at Texas State University (south of Austin in San Marcos, Texas). It was a Hispanic-serving institution (similar to the one I’m currently at) that was predominantly minority— I want to say it was 53% or 54% Other. I was one of 80 faculty members in the Art and Design College, and I happened to be the only Black one who was tenure-tracked. So when the George Floyd incident happened, many students were trying to figure out what they could do, especially in their field of practice. When they began looking at faculty members, they asked, What are we going to do? All of them looked towards me as the sole Black professor. They asked, So what are you going to do?

There were ideas around potentially getting a Black designer or two to talk about what it feels like to experience racism, and I told them I didn’t want to do that. Because who wants to relive their trauma for an audience? At the time, there were few conferences featuring people of color on their stages, and when asked, the typical response that we would get was that there weren’t enough qualified designers of color or they didn’t know of any.

So, when considering what I could do, I thought about gathering a number of Black designers from different corners of design and having them speak about what they wanted to talk about, which was very different from what other conferences were doing.

We were expecting about 100 people, and ultimately got 5,000 people registered for the first event.

I got 13 designers and broke them into four categories: entrepreneurs, professors, design activists, and people working in the industry. I asked them what they wanted to discuss, and then we made 30-minute panels for each category. We live-streamed it on YouTube; we didn’t even get real estate on the university’s website— we had to share it with our students via Eventbrite. But then our students shared it with their friends, and their friends shared it with their friends, and so on. We were expecting about 100 people and ultimately got 5,000 people registered for the first event.

How did the SOBD continue to grow from that inaugural year in 2020? 

We started getting contacted by several companies and a number of those same organizations that weren’t featuring speakers of color in the past, with interest in partnering with us and recruiting from our next conference. So we added a career fair to the following conference, and instead of 13 speakers, we had close to 50 speakers of color. IBM recruited from our event— they were our title speaker—and within a day at our event, they recruited between 12 and 19 Black designers from their partnership with us, which was more designers than they had recruited in the history of their design program. We also had companies like Amazon, eBay, Microsoft, USAA, and several other tech companies come to recruit.

The following year, we were able to repeat having 50 speakers and having the career fair, and we were also able to raise sponsorship dollars for scholarships— we gave about $50,000 worth of scholarships away. My mother was a design aspirant and dropped out of college when she got pregnant with me. So I named the scholarship after her and told the students who received it that my mother couldn’t finish it due to cost and life, so giving them the scholarship felt like I was giving my mother a second chance. Our third event was headlined by Nikki Giovanni, which was amazing considering her history.

What was the development process like for this year’s conference? 

We had a long conversation about what we wanted to do for our first in-person conference and how we wanted to be different. We found that many conferences, especially those focused on equity in partnership with companies attempting to recruit people of color, usually go to destination cities like New York, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Although these cities are beautiful, they’re wildly expensive to visit and stay in. Many people who need these events get priced out often before they can attend.

The goal for me was to find cities with high Black populations that resided in flyover country instead of going to these destination cities and bringing our partner companies to these locations. This would make these types of careers more tangible for people who traditionally don’t see people who look like them in these roles and never see these types of companies visit their communities.

With that, we started looking at cities like Jackson, Mississippi; Jackson, Florida; St. Louis, Missouri; Cleveland, Ohio; Detroit, Michigan; Mobile, Alabama; Memphis, Tennessee; and Nashville, Tennessee, where we landed on hosting this year’s event. Nashville is uniquely situated with three HBCUs in one city, including Tennessee State University, our host institution. We also secured a partnership with Scarritt Bennett in Nashville, who is willing to rent dorms at a much cheaper rate to students for the events, making it more accessible.

What are you most looking forward to regarding this year’s conference?

I’m really excited to see how the students of Tennessee State University respond to this. I don’t think anything like this has happened on their campus. For these students to see designers that look like them, walk like them, talk like them, and have the same cultural backgrounds as them, end up in some of these areas that they’ve never even heard of before, I feel like a lot of students will have their minds blown.

For many of our partners and allies who aren’t of color and are coming to a historically Black college, it will be a cultural exchange that will also be really interesting. I think it will be amazing for them to see some of the Black Greek organizations, some of the bands, and the cultural offerings of Nashville in general. I’m looking forward to the conversations that will be had afterward, too.

What do you hope participants of the SOBD walk away with? 

For the students of color who attend, I want them to look at the designers and careers there and feel like they belong. I want them to feel like there’s an opportunity for them and that even if they’re not confident in their skill sets yet, they leave with a better understanding of what they need to do to improve.

For designers not of color who are attending, I want them to come willing to experience something different and gain an understanding of people who belong to an outgroup. We don’t always do a great job of taking people who belong to an ingroup and placing them in a scenario where they have to learn more about outgroups. The conference not only exposes them to another world but also gives them an opportunity to understand a demographic they may be designing for and designing with in the future.

For the companies that are coming, I’ve been trying to challenge the recruiters to show up and look at it differently. Instead of saying we want your best and your brightest, I want them to look at it from the standpoint of investing in this particular audience to make them the best and the brightest. To work with and nurture versus going to destination institutions that everybody goes to to recruit. In my opinion, that keeps design extremely incestuous and locks people out, and not just people of color. There are plenty of white designers in Nashville and white designers in these flyover countries who also don’t get an opportunity to speak to these companies. So, if we shift how companies build relationships with institutions and how they recruit, I think it would benefit us all.

I can throw something together and then open a pathway for others so that when they graduate, it makes it easier for them to get into a field that was extremely difficult for me.

What aspect of the SOBD are you proudest of?

Every time I throw this conference, I tell myself I will never do it again because of how difficult it is. The day the conference ends, I go home, turn off my cell phone, and go to sleep because I am just exhausted. But then the next day, and for the next two weeks, I am flooded with “thank you” messages from people telling me they got an internship with this company that they never thought they were going to. I’ve had friends who have gotten partnerships with companies to do design work because they saw their participation in the event. Or people who get internships with companies like IBM or Amazon just because of the strength of the conference. For me, that’s what makes it worth it. I can throw something together and then open a pathway for others so that when they graduate, it makes it easier for them to get into a field that was extremely difficult for me.

There’s so much in the world that’s not positive, so if you’re creating something, why not make it brighten somebody’s day? 

Mary Lai has no time for pessimism. The Los Angeles-based multimedia artist moves through the world fueled by positivity and happiness, and this is reflected in all of her work. The next chapter of her joyous exploration is a solo exhibition entitled Synchronicity, which is on view now at the DTLA gallery, The Art Room. Replete with 30 pieces of Lai created over the last two years in various mediums, Synchronicity is a visual manifestation of meaningful coincidences. “Meaningful coincidences seem to happen when preparation and hard work meet opportunity, validating our artistic journey,” she says.

I had the pleasure of speaking with the effervescent Lai about Synchronicity and received a hardy dose of her signature warm-hearted enthusiasm in the process. She walked me through her journey from handbag designer in New York City to multi-hyphenate fine artist in LA, provided some insights about the show, and reflected upon her always-positive worldview. Read our interview below.

(Interview edited slightly for clarity and length).

Can you walk me through your creative journey? How did you make the leap from handbag designer to fine artist?

I’ve been in this creative industry now for 20 years, and the first decade was in New York. That was great for learning and building a foundation. I studied graphic design in college, and began doing graphic design for kids bags, but I ended up falling in love with product design. So I was doing handbags for a very long time, and even had my own namesake handbag collection.

Then, one of my previous bosses in New York, who had moved out to LA, started building these beautiful homes that he would curate with art and furniture to then sell as one whole package. He wanted to build his design team in LA, so he offered to relocate me and my husband to LA to help with the design curation. That’s when I transitioned from handbags to the design side. It really pulled the curtain back on the art world for me, where I got to see how the art world runs.

Art was something that I’ve always loved; I just never pursued it because I didn’t think I could make a living at it. I would always go to all the different exhibitions and Art Basel and paint murals on the side. Once I moved to LA and the project with my former boss ended, I took that leap to be a full-time visual artist in 2019. I haven’t looked back since!

Since then, I’ve expanded all the different mediums I use. Because I have a graphic design and design background, I love creating and experimenting. I’ve done murals, sculptures, paintings, and mixed media, so it’s a wide range.

I’m always curious to hear about artists’ studio spaces. What’s yours like?

My studio is in Lincoln Heights, about five to ten minutes from Downtown. I’m in this cool space called Keystone Art Space. It’s a community of artists that have studios within the warehouse. So there are 50 different artists, and then in the center, there’s a gallery, and everybody shows in the gallery. It’s a nice community space of like-minded people.

In a creative career, there’s no formula. You’re putting work out there and hoping for the best. 

Can you describe Synchronicity? What are the main themes of the exhibition?

In my career, I’ll have these moments where I feel like the stars align, and I’m like, Oh! I have to do this! In a creative career, there’s no formula. You’re putting work out there and hoping for the best. 

So recently, I was at Art Basel in Miami with an eight-foot sculpture, and it was on its way back to LA. I had yet to sell it; I thought it would go into storage. Then, I met up with the Art Room and had a five-minute conversation with the co-owner and founder, where he looked at photos of my work. He said, “Do you have that sculpture coming back? Do you want to put it on the front patio?” He told me they’d just had an artist postpone, so they had a slot open. “Are you ready for a solo show?” I said, “Oh, my God, yes!” It was two months away when he asked me that, and even though I wasn’t really ready, I wasn’t going to say no to a great opportunity. 

So everything lined up. I had all of this work that I’d been actively creating in 2023 and exhibiting nonstop, so I had some existing pieces, then created some new pieces and pulled the Synchronicity show together in two months. The base of this show coming together was serendipitous—a bit of luck, a bit of the stars aligning—and that’s why I titled it Synchronicity.

What sorts of artworks are on display in the show?

There’s a huge range within price points, series, and styles, but it’s curated very well because there are many different areas. When you enter the gallery side of the space, it’s divided into two areas: I have my new works in the front and my earlier works in the back, so it has a nice flow.ow.

Within the 30 pieces, there’s the sculpture right in the front, smaller sculptures in the gallery, and then paintings made out of wood that I call my “Cloud Series.” So it’s a blend of many different series but curated in a way so that they’re in distinct areas. That said, they all come together with this vibrant, contemporary, and modern color palette. There’s always an uplifting, positive vibe to my artwork, which you can see consistently throughout.

What sort of experience do you hope viewers of Synchronicity have? What feelings and sensations do you hope they walk away with?

The sculpture right out front is eight feet tall, called “The Dream Portal.” It’s the best introduction to the collection because I created that sculpture to inspire people to create their own doors and paths of opportunity. The sculpture looks like a big door, and if you look at it from afar, it seems almost like a rainbow arch with a sun and cloud shape, but there’s also a door handle. It’s also activated by AR (augmented reality), so viewers can go into this dream portal world.

I feel like all of my art and everything I’ve done, is the result of me making my dreams a reality.

The whole point of “The Dream Portal” is for each person to be inspired to create their own doors and make their dreams a reality. All of my art and everything I’ve done is the result of me making my dreams a reality. So if other people come, see the artwork from the beginning all the way through, and then leave saying, I’m inspired. I want to go after my dreams, that would be a great takeaway from the collection.

Part of your ethos as an artist is having what you call a “Dreamer mindset.” Can you elaborate on what you mean by this? 

I’m definitely a glass-half-full type of person. I have this mentality of abundance versus a mentality of scarcity. I’m very optimistic and always try to see the best in situations. I keep that sense of what’s presented in the artwork; somehow, when people see the artwork, that’s the emotion they get, too. People say my artwork makes them smile or makes them happy. I know that sounds very fluffy, but that’s exactly how I am. I can have the worst day, but I try to walk away smiling and ask, What did I learn from it?

I always try to see the positive, what I can learn from it, and what I can change to do better. So that’s the “dreamer mindset”— making more positive art. There’s so much in the world that’s not positive, so if you’re creating something, why not make it brighten somebody’s day?

Photography by Meg Hudson

Dr. Lanteigne is a Principal of Research at Steven Winter Associates (SWA), where she’s developed a new resource aimed at helping practitioners embed equity in the design of the built environment. Introducing the Building Equity Standard (BEST). Aided by her background in public policy, Dr. Lanteigne created BEST as an antidote to the Universal Design school of thought. “The truth is, considering all people at once doesn’t genuinely enhance the lives of anyone,” she says. Because while it might sound like a swell idea, designing for “everyone” is impossible, considering the innumerable differences within the human race. Humanity can’t be treated as a monolith, where we flatten and simplify nuance and variety between humans in the name of equality. Instead, we should strive for equity within design, where marginalized identities are acknowledged, celebrated, and specifically designed for.

Upon hearing about BEST, I was eager to speak with Dr. Lanteigne directly to learn more. She recently gave me a primer on her research and opened my eyes to some of the pitfalls of Universal Design and the ways BEST attempts to address those gaps. Our conversation is below.

(Interview edited for clarity and length.)

What’s your background in the field of equitable and inclusive design? When did you first realize that Universal Design isn’t the solution?

I’m unique in the architecture world because I have a background in public policy; I started my career doing disability policy work. I was essentially given a portfolio of all of these cases of non-compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. It became apparent that compliance and accessibility were really important, and non-compliance was a huge problem.

From there, I just snowballed into understanding not only the legal requirements but how little they do in terms of affording accessibility. I learned about the idea of going above and beyond what was required by law and code to enhance experiences for people with physical disabilities, sensory disabilities (hearing and vision), different cognitive abilities, and how people process information. That interest early on in my career made me curious as to how we create spaces that go beyond disability inclusion, looking at marginalized groups based on gender, LGBTQ identity, race, religion, or if you speak English as a second language. So, how do our environments shape our experiences, and then what are the design strategies to achieve those more equitable environments?

I took an illuminating disabilities studies course in college where my professor framed disabilities as socially constructed. People are only disabled because the world around them isn’t built for them, which is what creates an inability. Learning that definition was mind-blowing to me.

I love that you just shared the Social Model of Disability with me! Not many people know of it or even understand it. It describes a key shift; it’s not an inherent problem with the person. It’s how the environment is designed (or not designed) to adapt or support people of different abilities.

Can you give an example of a Universal Design concept that typifies how most of our designed world doesn’t meet marginalized people’s needs?

The curb cut is the most classic example of Universal Design (which is boring, but it gets the job done). It’s a classic example because its intent is to support people in a wheelchair and people with mobility issues, but at the same time, it also supports somebody pushing a stroller or people carrying rolling luggage, bikers, and young children. The premise of Universal Design is that one design strategy can be cross-cutting, so it supports disability inclusion, but it’s also beneficial for everyone.

This terminology is like “design for all” or “design for everyone,” which started in the 1970s and 1980s, maybe a little before, but we still see it today. The reality is that one design certainly can’t benefit everyone. Realistically, that’s impossible when we look at this from an equity lens—which is just beginning in architecture. Right now, there’s this idea of one design for everyone versus having an equity perspective, which is making sure that we’re prioritizing marginalized groups’ and marginalized communities’ needs. Those are two different things.

Universalism says one for everyone. Equity says we’ve got to shore up these gaps and make sure we’re designing spaces for overlooked groups that have been underrepresented in design forever. We’re just beginning to see spaces that say, This is designed by and for the LGBTQ+ community. That’s important to me because I identify as a member of that community. These places use design strategies that reflect a safe space; we surveyed the community, and that’s reflected in that design. We’re not going to say it’s also designed for everyone. It’s a nuanced difference, and it’s still hard for the architecture industry to get behind because there’s that “usefulness” of architecture that people want to fall back on. This idea that, yes, it’s for a specific group, but it’s still good for everyone. That’s an interesting, ongoing debate. I don’t think Universal Design is wrong or bad. Equity is just a different way to look at it.

Can you point to an example of a design or concept created with the BEST framework?

BEST is still really new, so it has yet to be applied. However, the research I did to develop it is based on four case studies that tapped into various marginalized communities, listened to what those communities were saying, and summarized and synthesized that into this resource.

One of those case studies was the Wing Luke Museum of the Asian American Experience in Seattle, Washington. The architects and the museum worked hand-in-hand with the AAPI community in Seattle to make sure they were designing a culturally safe and celebratory space that also captured the Asian immigrant experience. So, you see a lot of very specific design strategies in that project. For example, artwork that captures both the beauty and difficulty of the Asian immigrant experience. The community also wanted to maintain certain aspects of historical design that they felt told the narrative and story of immigrant experiences, so there are a lot of historically preserved artifacts and pieces. And then something as little as the community wanted a celebration room. Before the museum, there wasn’t a space to gather and celebrate, so they included this beautiful, celebratory space. These strategies directly reflect what the community said they wanted and needed.

Another one of the case studies was the memorial at Harvey Milk Plaza. The team there has been working to revitalize the Harvey Milk transit stop in the Castro District for many years and surveying the community to figure out how this space can not only work to honor Harvey Milk as a civil rights and LGBTQ+ rights leader but also how can it better celebrate the community.

This project is still ongoing, but really interesting design elements there speak to supporting ongoing activism for LGBTQ+ rights. As an example, there’s a pedestal at the corner that the community wanted to keep to elevate and raise the voices of the LGBTQ+ community physically. It’s a unique strategy that might not apply to all projects, but it fits here. These kinds of unique design projects are what I built BEST around, and I hope it will be used to create in the future as new projects begin to adopt it.

What are your long-term goals for BEST? What’s your dream scenario for seeing BEST implemented across the architecture industry?

Right now, it’s in a piloting phase, which is exciting, and we are actively looking for the right partners to begin building this. Those partners can look very different. They can be university academic partners, community-based organizations, or tenant representation organizations. A broad brush of stakeholders is going to help expand BEST.

My ideal hope, whether it’s with BEST or whether it’s just with equity in general (though I hope it’s with BEST), is that we get to a point where equity is considered an integral part of the design process, just like sustainability is, and just like how healthy building is beginning to be. Right now, we’re very far away from that. I hope that as BEST continues to grow, it will become a resource that is robust enough to be an industry-adopted standard, like LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), like WELL, like Enterprise Green, etc.

Indian block printing was put on the map in Jaipur by a craftswoman named Kitty Rae in the 1960s. Known as the “Godmother of Block Printing,” Rae was pivotal in introducing and popularizing this craft in the West. She ran the oldest block printing facility in the region called KIN Fabrics, located in the heart of Jaipur, peddling furniture fabric. In 2016, an American named Sarah Zellweger came upon KIN, a moment marking the genesis of SZ Blockprints.

After Rae’s passing, Zellweger maintained contact with her daughter, Manju, and granddaughter, Yuva, who had taken over KIN. Working closely with Manju and Yuva and KIN’s puraana blocks, Zellweger honed her eye and skill in creating her own Indian block print patterns and then ultimately launched her label SZ Blockprints out of the KIN studios. SZ Blockprints keeps the 4th-generation block printing studio alive, continuing Rae’s legacy in craft and spirit. All of their clothing is small batch, with every piece produced block by block, with each pattern fitting together like a puzzle.

Central to SZ Blockprints is their dedication to the Jaipur creative community. They provide long-term employment opportunities to over 120 skilled and dedicated local artisans, and each of the tassels used in their designs is hand-made in a women-run tassel business in Jaipur. This attention to detail and handcraft emanates from each SZ Blockprints’ design and garment and is the heart of what makes Indian block printing so singular.

Completely captivated by Indian block printing as an art form and the SZ Blockprints’ story, I reached out to Zellweger to learn more. Her responses to my questions are below.

The entire process is so human, so flawed, and that is why I think I fell in love with it.

What is it about the technique and look of Indian block printing that you find so captivating? Why have you dedicated so much of yourself to standing guard for this ancient technique? 

I find the element of imperfection to be really captivating. Each piece is a museum-quality mini artwork created by a master craftsman in their element. It’s the small details, the differences of mere millimeters, that have a huge emotional impact on the overall feeling and presence of a print. The entire process is so human, so flawed, and that is why I think I fell in love with it.

Why do you think Indian block printing has endured when other fashion trends and styles have not? What sets Indian block printing apart?

Indian block prints are timeless, and I believe that’s why their prominence and endurance are limitless. The prints and process both derive from a life source that is so personal to the people who played a part in the creation of the print— the artisan who carved the wood block, the artisan who mixed the dyes, printed on the fabric, washed the fabric by hand and foot, etc., etc. The popularity of Indian block prints isn’t driven by trend; it’s driven by the innate wondering and longing for person-to-person connection.

The popularity of Indian block prints isn’t driven by trend, it’s driven by the innate wondering and longing for person-to-person connection.

Do you see Indian block printing as a much-needed antidote to the ever-growing world of fast fashion? 

Absolutely. The fast fashion cycle is so careless and really skews the reality of what it means to select, purchase, and care for a garment. At SZ Blockprints, we are the absolute antidote to this harmful and destructive cycle and thrive on our distance from fast fashion.

What’s the most challenging part of the Indian block printing process? 

The most challenging part is it is a wild and unpredictable process and art form. I wouldn’t describe it as challenging per se, though; it’s more of a lesson in letting go. Weather, mood, health— it all plays an essential part in the dance of the actual printing.

How does it feel knowing you’re keeping Kitty Rae’s legacy alive? 

Firstly, I could never imagine taking credit for any of this, specifically keeping Kitty’s legacy (and prints!) alive, as any sort of solo mission. Every single part of the business and the design process is a collaboration. On an emotional level, Kitty’s family are my partners with whom I have grown the business, and we deeply trust one another. Our vision, which continues to refine and evolve, is symbiotic and flows together. There is an ease in these relationships, which can only be described as “meant to be.”

Her large-scale cut-paper works celebrate Black cultural figures, among them August Wilson, Seth Parker Woods and Charles Johnson. Thomas encourages extended viewing of her vibrant portraits, notably those in The Transformation Room, a luminous installation created from light and intricately cut Tyvek that offers a place for reflection.

Her deeply philosophical and emotionally forceful images leverage the power of light and dark, framing shards of color. Here, I ask her to reflect on The Illuminated Body and the power of her work to trigger creative revelations.

Cut paper is a venerable craft. What caused you to adopt this medium?
My first close-up experience of large-scale paper cuts came in 2013 through Karen Bit Vejle’s exhibition at The Nordic Heritage Museum here in Seattle. As a printmaker, I was intrigued by the clean lines and graphic boldness of her folkloric cut images, but most of all I was captivated by the possibility of producing my imagery in large scale. My first attempts in 2015 were lanterns with my cut imagery that wrapped around the four sides. Next, I experimented with and ultimately adopted the use of Tyvek, an industrial construction material used as a moisture barrier; it is a durable, translucent paper like archival material. Using an Xacto knife like a pencil, I cut large compositions that I simply attached to the wall with pins. It was a way to free myself from my delicate and painstakingly detailed paintings and prints. For my two-dimensional portraits, I use hand-printed color for the background “illumination” and cut my imagery from black rag stock. The black silhouette feeds my graphic impulse. In the immersive installations, I gave myself over to creating larger-than-life-sized spaces where my viewers could step inside my world of light and shadow, completely fashioned by hand. It was a perfect outlet for my obsessive need to work to the edge of my endurance while willing the material to become something.

The lighting gives these an ecclesiastical stained glass feeling. Was your intention to create secular yet spiritual images and environments?
I’m drawn to the grandeur of cathedrals, temples and the majesty of ceremony, as well as the symbolic gestures that are created to overwhelm and center the human experience as part of something larger. I understand this, and I use the idea of the ecclesiastical or spiritual space as a reference, not a destination. I reference what happens when human hand works in the service of the soul’s obsession to conjure and push itself to design a space of wonder that disarms.

With each new exhibition, I have an opportunity to rethink how the installation can be configured to adapt, enhance and utilize the architectural bones of the location. In the case of the Arthur Ross Gallery, I am provided with a space that is already beautiful without my efforts. My challenge was to lean into the beauty and, in doing so, I created a new 16-foot panel that incorporated my response to the gallery’s Venetian Gothic architecture and its distinctive ornamentation. I honored the space through acknowledgement of its specificity, then made it my own by reimaging the double windows, to which I added these words: Entangled, divided, we fall, to merge into the divine mystery.

What do you anticipate the viewer will experience from your work?
When my viewers step across the threshold, I hope they will see, feel and experience the dazzle of the light and shadows as the imagery of a million cuts flicker through the history of the place, filtered by the light of their own experiences, in a shared space where we are all invited to wonder.

What do you hope will be imparted—appreciation of your craft, or message?
I come from a long line of makers. My mother crocheted, embroidered and sewed just about everything in our house. When I embroidered, she’d walk over, take my work, flip it over, look at the back side to ensure that it was as beautiful as the front. At that point I knew nothing of fine art, but I understood that part of the beauty was the passion for craft, embedded in the making. I find they are inseparable. I want my viewers to be held not only in the beauty but feel, in the multiple cuts, the energy of the making. I want the work to inspire wonder, not just by what I’ve made, but because it can reveal the viewers ability to see, feel and experience, of which they are a part, as my gift to them.

Is this exhibition an extension of your previous work, or is it a new turn for you?
The work in The Illuminated Body contains nine individual two-dimensional figurative works, three glass story vessels with sandblasted images, and the The Transformation Room, a large-scale immersive installation. All formats are about creating form through light and shadow, and each is an extension of work I have done over the past 10 years. With each new show it’s an evolution. I’m drawn to the interplay between what is narrative iconography and what are abstract forms.

I count myself as one of Howard’s many admirers who has fallen under her spell. She captures an abundance of spirit and character within her illustration style, from her soft and soothing color palettes to her free-spirited yet impeccably controlled lines. Howard’s illustrations ooze playfulness, joy, and retro timelessness. I connected with Howard to learn more about her point of view as an artist and to figure out, most importantly, why shoes?

Howard’s responses to my questions are below.

How would you describe your illustration style? How did this develop?

I’d say hand-drawn is the main component. I love messy, thick lines with lots of texture and imperfections.

I’ve always been into art. I embroider, draw, sew, paint, and build stuff, and I’m just a doer. In 2019, I made it my goal to draw people. The first face I drew looked like a kindergartener had drawn it, but everyone has to start there. I had a handful of artists who inspired me and helped me land on the style I have now: Damien Cuypers, Yu Nagaba, and Haley Tippmann, to name a few. They have very different styles, but I’ve always admired their bold and effortless lines. I would try to straight-copy an illustration they’ve done, not putting any of it out there but using it to help me work on my technique and see if anything felt true to me. Then, I’d try to emulate their style on other subjects

Eventually, I started coming up with a style that was unique to me. One of my biggest accomplishments is coming up with my own style. It was a long and frustrating process, but something I’m really proud of. My style developed with hours and hours and hours and hours of practice— there’s no shortcut.

I occasionally like to look back at my old sketchbooks to see how far I’ve come and to motivate me to keep going. It feels good to see an illustration I was proud of at the time and think, “Wow, I sucked.”

When I’m looking for inspiration, I like to find a challenge.

Your shoe illustrations have clearly struck a chord with the masses. Why do you think that is? What do someone’s shoes say about them?

I think shoes, especially the loafers I’ve been drawing recently, strike a chord because they’re distinct and tend to remind people of someone. I get comments about how I’ve drawn the exact pair someone’s grandpa wore. There are comments from people who think I’ve drawn Tyler The Creator’s shoes or shoes from the movie Jojo Rabbit. I absolutely love hearing whose shoes people think I’ve drawn.

I don’t know what people’s shoes say about them in real life, but they’re often the focal point in my drawings. Oversized shoes that are either polished or sloppy add character to my characters.

How do you decide which shoes to draw?

I love sneakers with long loopy laces. I’m into the loafers now, partially because the shine allows me to draw the harsh shadows that I love. Primarily, I find shoes that lend well to my style, and any shoes I think are fun.

What’s your creative process typically like? Do you carry a sketchbook with you at all times? What sorts of people, things, and scenarios compel you to draw them?

I love the idea of being someone who sketches people at coffee shops, but really, I do my best work snuggled up on the couch.

I take pictures of people, shoes, or interesting color combos out and about, but you can’t beat Pinterest for inspiration. I also love collecting old books for reference photos or kids’ books from my favorite illustrators. I recently found a pair of red leather shoes at a thrift store, and I took a photo of them to draw. You’ll be seeing those soon!

I like drawing people in motion and exaggerating my favorite part, the shoes.

What do you hope your illustrations communicate to your viewers? 

Honestly, I’ve never thought about that. When I’m looking for inspiration, I like to find a challenge. A different angle I haven’t tried or new subject matter. Colored pencils were also new to me when I started to develop my style; they’ve always been my least favorite medium. I like to use colored pencils like a crayon: with a dull tip, ultra-pigmented, bold, and messy. So I hope my process inspires people to try something new and challenging.

Epigraph of My Life in Paper by Beth Kephart

What does your paper say about you? Receipts in totes, scribbled notes shoved in pants pockets, birthday cards tucked in desk drawers, ticket stubs saved from clammy first dates to the cinema. This paper ephemera carries our stories and marks moments in a singular, physical way nothing else can. Such is the power of paper, to which author and paper maker Beth Kephart has become wholly devoted.

As part of Kephart’s ongoing exploration and adoration of paper, she recently penned a love letter to the medium as a memoir-style book entitled My Life in Paper (Temple University Press, 2023). After Kephart’s brother gifted her their mother’s old copy of the paper maker Dard Hunter’s (1883-1966) autobiography My Life with Paper (1958), Kephart’s obsession with paper extended to a deep and profound connection to Hunter. Through My Life in Paper, Kephart mines her bond with this kindred spirit through letters to Hunter interspersed with poetic reflections about categories of paper ephemera.

I had the pleasure of speaking with Kephart directly about her memoir, her love of hand-making paper and books, and the experience of moving through the world as an artist who defies category. Our conversation is below.

(Interview edited for clarity and length.)

When did you first develop the book arts side of your writing practice?

The death of my father in early August of 2020 was the beginning. I had been taking care of him on an almost daily basis for years, and then COVID hit, and I could only be with him when he was suddenly dying. It was a very rainy night. It was very late. I almost didn’t hear the phone. They allowed me to be with him for the first time in such a long time, and I was there at his death. It was so frustrating and heartbreaking.

What my dad always wanted was a funeral. When he was sick before that, and he couldn’t get to funerals, I would go to his friends’ funerals, and the first thing he would always ask was, “How many people were at the funeral?” It mattered to him for some reason; he thought that would be the measure of his life. And, of course, we buried him on the hill, my brother, my sister, our children, and that was it because of COVID. So what I began to do out of that sadness was, with very little knowledge, make these booklets; they were Gelli printed, they were hand stitched. They were designed for people who had loved my father to record their own stories. That became a two or three-month project, but I couldn’t stop.

How did you go from stitching those booklets to making your own paper by hand?

I was fascinated by hand-making paper, and then my husband gave me marbling paint. Then I started cyanotyping and solar fasting over cyanotypes and Gelli printing underneath them all. It just became something that felt suddenly inherent to me.

Because I am married to a real artist—he went to Yale, has his Masters in Architecture, and is an extraordinary oil painter and ceramicist—it didn’t feel like it was my domain. I was words, and he was art. And yet, it has become what binds us even more. Right now, actually, I’m making this handmade paper, and he’s going to be printing on it, and then I’m going to be adding words to it. There’s more integrative power. We’ve always done stuff together in a very long marriage, but now it’s really together.

It took me such a long time to become a writer who was not only not afraid of making mistakes but eager to make mistakes.

It’s interesting to me that you first put yourself into that words-only box. I’ve grappled with that myself, and I know a lot of other creatives do, too. We feel like we might need to choose a lane and stick to it, but if you are a genuinely creative being, usually that means you’re breaking down barriers and exploring different forms of art and media. What I love so much about My Life in Paper is that it feels like you’re doing a similar exploration by creating your own genre while writing and breaking existing genre molds. You’re expressing yourself in a form that doesn’t exist yet.

My work is so un-categorizable. Whether I’m writing young adult or history or whatever it is, what everybody says about me is, “You can’t be categorized in publishing’s tiered system. We don’t know where your work would go.” It is frustrating.

It took me such a long time to become a writer who was not only not afraid of making mistakes but eager to make mistakes.

I now don’t think I could write a book without having time in a day to go stitch one.

Can you elaborate on what it is about hand-making books and paper that you find so captivating?

Before working on the Dard Hunter, I was obsessed with Virginia Woolf. I’ve written many books that never get published, and one of those books was trying to put myself into her mind as she made books with her husband, Leonard.

I found that story to be remarkable. Virginia found, in paper and bookmaking, calm. Before she and her husband bought what turned out to be a broken press that they had to fix, she had one of her famous and long-lasting nervous breakdowns. Her half-brother was publishing her first novel, and it was making her anxious. Leonard, thinking, how can we salvage this great mind? went with her to buy the press on her birthday. She was the one who would place the typeface in; he was the one who would press it, and she would bind it.

I have that same relationship. I love making. I love making words. I love making a book. I’m terrified of the process afterward; I will not look at this book now that it’s there. I read from it once, and that’ll be it. But this idea of the letters, the typography stuff in her hands, the paper, and the ink on her fingertips calmed her— I find that to be very true in my own practice. I now don’t think I could write a book without having time in a day to go stitch one.

The crux of My Life in Paper is your infatuation and fascination with the great paper maker, Dard Hunter. Can you share more about your relationship with Dard?

Dard opened something in me. I was reading his My Life with Paper during a season when I doubted myself in many ways. But while reading Dard, I felt this sense of failure, a sense of disappointment in my work—not with fame but with the artistry of it. And I just fell into this conversation with him that felt entirely urgent.

Dard was imperfect. We’re all imperfect, but he used terminology when he was writing that is understood to be inappropriate now, like “primitive handmade paper.” When trying to understand how Dard’s encapsulation of some of the cultures he visited feels now versus my own sense of being swept into who he was in his time, I’ve been fortunate to be educated by a handful of artists and historians. They were able to nest my effusive love for Dard in, yes, but look at this. Yes, but consider this. And that is a way of honoring Dard, too.

The art that excites me the most is art in which I can feel the artist grappling with something in the process of making it, which is very much the case with so many of the ideas and themes you’re addressing within My Life in Paper.

My letters to Dard are intense; I cried writing to him. Especially when I thought about the end of his life. I felt like he was in the room with me. In my letters, I was saying, “Dard! I know it’s horrible! I feel that! I’ve been there! They can treat you like shit, Dard. But you’re somebody, and you’re somebody to me.”

It is so important as a writer to realize that you can fully empathize with and honor someone whose political philosophies differ greatly from yours. When you look at another’s life with complete sympathy and empathy and do the work of imagining it, everything else falls down. I think it’s important that we keep remembering the power of the empathetic imagination in this world, especially right now.

I was hoping you could walk me through the considerations that went into the design of My Life in Paper. Obviously, the book’s subject matter makes the physical book object incredibly important.

It was a rainy Saturday morning, and one of the cyclamens in my yard fell. I use cyclamens a lot; I always work with the plants I have here. So the cyclamen on the cover fell from the pot it was in. I said to myself, It’s so beautiful; I should see if I can make the cover design with that. I wanted to take a soft piece of sheer paper from the dictionary and find the word “paper,” but I used the veil on top of it because what does paper really mean? Those are my scissors; that is my thread.

This rough piece on the side is a failed attempt at a Gelli print cyanotype, but I thought My Life in Paper was imperfect, and the colors were right. So I got a stool out, and I found this one rectangle of grayish light on the floor, and I just stood with my big camera and arranged things. I did not do the typography; Kate Nichols of Temple University Press did the interior and typography. That was her first attempt, and it was perfect.

For the interior, I sent them three different sheets of marbleized paper to choose from. In real life, it’s much punchier; it’s more precise. For the chapter divisions, my idea for the book launch was to give everybody a handmade bookmark, which I made with a combination of cyanotype and Gelli. I told Kate Nichols, and she told me to scan them and send them over. We talked about how they might be used. So even though they’re faded, they’re almost positioned where you would slip a bookmark.

In my first conversation with Sean (of Temple University Press), he said, “I can see this book, and it has to be beautiful. It has to be a hardback; it has to have endpapers.” In today’s world, it would have been a $16.99 paperback, but it wouldn’t, as an object, have felt like what I was saying a book is. So they went all out in making it an object, too.

This book holds in it everything that I currently am.

For me, the experience of reading has to be physical; it has to be on paper. I understand the value of eReaders and PDFs, but to enjoy and luxuriate in the words and story that the writer is sharing with you, you owe it to the author to have the container of those words honor them.

I agree with you, even right down to the deckled edge. That’s how paper comes off the mold, and Dard cared a lot about the deckle. I care a lot about the deckle, but it makes a more expensive, therefore a less “successful” book. But, if people were to ask me, “Has this book succeeded?” In my definition, yes, because it’s the book that I wanted it to be. You have to keep your eyes on not what you want but who you are. Who are you as an author?

This book holds in it everything that I currently am. It holds my love for the people in my life; it holds my love for playing with and breaking language, finding raw urgency and truth inside storytelling, and just the art of the book itself.

At least, not yet.

A year ago, its introduction caused anxiety about the unintended consequences of this technology and how it might affect everything from critical infrastructure to job security. Will rogue A.I. take over the power grid? Will sinister bots drain our bank accounts? Will DALLE, ChatGPT, and Midjourney become our clients’ default design platforms for DIY branding, design, and illustration?

There are many unanswered questions, yet the adoption of A.I. is already becoming mainstream and promoted prematurely as the new “silver bullet” for product and service enhancement across all segments of the economy.

Who knows how A.I. will affect our world a year from now. What if half of our fears come true? How will we adjust to new realities, and is it time for a serious “Plan B?”

In this spirit, I have reached out to three graphic designers who, years ago, decided to leave the profession to pursue other passions while still using design to shape their future. I posed several questions regarding their career beginnings, work experience, and what inspired them to change direction. Here are their responses:

Gregor Beer: Helicopter Pilot

Originally from Bern, Switzerland, where his family was involved in graphic design and advertising, Gregor Beer was encouraged to draw and paint at an early age. His initial training was in printing, but he made a radical decision, “I followed my passion and became a paragliding instructor at the age of 20.” A few years later, the concerned hand of parental guidance tapped him on the shoulder and urged him to “get a real education.” His response? “I want to become a graphic designer.”

Following his apprenticeship with some top Swiss agencies, he felt restless. When I asked Gregor what inspired his career change, he said, “I always loved the creative part of design but could not deal with being in the office all day long.” At 27, he worked in New York but decided to return to Switzerland. “Back then, I earned a lot of money as a freelance art director and immediately knew what to do with the cash on hand – train to be a helicopter pilot.” Gregor was born to fly.

I’ve been tracking Beer’s career and learned he is no ordinary pilot reporting on traffic. He has multiple certifications and licenses and works in Chile, Sudan, Kyrgyzstan, and Nepal. He specializes in high-altitude flying that requires specialized training for helicopter pilots. A while back, I received a cheerful email from Katmandu in the Himalayas, where he was making daily flights to snowy mountain peaks.

I believe my work matters, and after 26 years, I have extensive experience in my field.

Gregor Beer

Now he’s back in the Swiss Alps enjoying the glow of a successful career. “I work as the Deputy Head of Training for the biggest helicopter company in Switzerland. Also, I fly commercially within Swiss Helicopter to teach students and other flight instructors. The Swiss government hires me to conduct yearly checks on other pilots. I believe my work matters, and after 26 years, I have extensive experience in my field.” His CV states – 19,810 “landings to date.”

Although often in the clouds, he still relies on his design experience in his job. “When it comes to creating new training materials for the flight school, I have the design skills to produce them.” In addition, he takes extraordinary photographs while in flight, which he uses for large-scale, meticulously drawn landscapes.

When asked if he does an occasional freelance design project, he confessed, “No, others do a better job than me.”

Yvette Lenhart: Fitness & Wellness Coach

Her path to design began with a childhood interest in drawing, color, and seeing patterns in everyday life. She continued this interest in high school while also studying dance. “In my senior year, my art teacher had a friend come to speak to our class. He was a graphic designer. I had no idea what that meant, but that presentation was a turning point. I thought, “That sounds really cool.”

At The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, she applied for a double major in graphic design and dance but discovered it was not an option. “So I chose graphic design.” After college, she worked as a junior designer on packaging, signage, and poster projects at the Carbone Smolan Agency in the late 1990s.

But what about dance, and how did she develop an interest in fitness? “I started taking Pilates in 2003 and was often told by fellow students that they liked to sit near me in class so they could follow my form. After several years as a student, I was interested to know more about the practice and pursued my certification in Pilates Mat. I was hooked once I started teaching my first weekly class and witnessed its overwhelmingly positive impact on the students. Within a couple of years, I taught daily classes all over NYC.”

Her training in design informs much about her process and interaction with students. “I do not doubt that my design training shapes my approach to every class or session. I have a through-line meaningfully and thoughtfully relating one move to the next, like designing a book. I think it’s an instilled discipline that affects every choice I make, like the flow, the pace, the rhythm, the vocal quality, the music, and even what I’m wearing! It all contributes to the user experience and helps make a class memorable.”

I am often asked, “Who is Pilates good for?” My answer is anyone with a spine!

Yvette Lenhart

Now certified in numerous fitness modalities, she teaches various group classes at facilities in New York City and New Jersey Additionally, she has a private training practice with clients managing an injury or condition or prefers a more personalized session. I am often asked, “Who is Pilates good for?” My answer is anyone with a spine!

In 2016, when she co-founded STRENGTH & SERENITY® Pilates and Yoga Retreats with a friend. “My design background was invaluable to every aspect of the business. It helped us shape the brand image and marketing materials and informed our choice of venues, how we craft the itineraries, create the menus, and so on. There is an attention to detail put into every aspect of the process, which is evident to all our guests.”

She still enjoys keeping her design skills nimble and does an occasional graphics project for long-term clients. But on the horizon are other exciting ambitions. “As my next venture, I plan to bring my designs to the world of luxury activewear. That will be the ultimate way to combine my two passions!” Watch out, Lululemon!

Clement Mok: Restaurant Entrepreneur

Widely celebrated in his career, Clement Mok is a designer, digital pioneer, software publisher and developer, author, design patent holder, and restaurateur. Last year, he won the coveted Cooper Hewitt National Design Award. His career history is singularly impressive, from his early days at Apple, where he helped Steve Jobs launch the Macintosh in 1984, to creating digital-ready photo libraries and Internet software. Clement is a designer who feels comfortable with change and quickly capitalized on opportunities outside the graphic design service model that put him on an entrepreneurial path.

The ability to frame, shape, and give form to an idea inspired me to become a graphic designer. That was the driving force for each of my work endeavors.

Clement Mok

Initially wanting to be an architect, he realized that math and physics were not his strengths, but he remained hungry for a creative outlet. Seeing a magazine article about graphic design in high school, he discovered it was something you can do as an adult. “So instead of taking woodshop or automotive shop in my sophomore year, I signed up for a graphic workshop class — this was in the early 70s when print shops in high school were relatively common. I was a sponge and learned how to craft letterpress and other print-making techniques and was using the shop’s offset press to print posters and tickets for school events.” Mok adds, “The ability to frame, shape, and give form to an idea inspired me to become a graphic designer. That was the driving force for each of my work endeavors.”

By Clement’s account, the path from design as a service to product development was gradual and, at times, perilous. “When living and working in Silicon Valley surrounded by people who want to reinvent the world constantly, that energy rubs off. Work-for-equity opportunities with startups were a common practice. I’ve made plenty of mistakes and had many false starts — some decisions were nearly fatal. I’ve learned over the years to pursue things that one has knowledge or adjacent knowledge of. And more importantly, you must be passionate about it.”

Fortunately, food and cooking are passions that prepared him for his latest role as the co-founder and managing partner of SUGAR FISH, a celebrated sushi restaurant with seventeen locations in Los Angeles and New York. “A sushi business is about quality food and needs to reflect that in all its expressions — whether how the food is presented on the plate, the sequential order of the food delivered to the table, how the server presents the food, every aspect of the dining environment and the thousands of communication interactions before and after an engagement with all our restaurants. Here, great design and execution are totally in sync.”

With everything on his plate, does he have time to design for other clients? “The five restaurant concepts (including burgers and pasta) keep me plenty busy with branding and design work. It’s been a constant challenge with many learning and growing opportunities. The only side hustle I engage in is mentorship.”

These three designers acted on their restlessness, ambition, and passion. No external threat, technical or otherwise, forced a “Plan B.” For Gregor, Yvette, and Clement, it was more of an internal drive for emotional satisfaction to engage with something significant, whether flying, fitness, or fine cuisine. Additionally, each draws on their fundamental belief in the power of design as essential to hone their new career. Another thing they share is that their new professions depend on disciplined human dexterity and high-touch skills that an alien algorithm will likely not replicate anytime soon.

If by this time next year, generative A.I. proves to be an existential threat to your career, you have twelve months to reflect on an inner passion that is ready and waiting for your undivided attention to lead you in an exciting new direction.

P.S. If you followed my previous WONDERLUST column, I thank you. This year, I will feature fewer stories from my artist journals but will offer eclectic, timely, and visually compelling topics. I hope you will enjoy them. Happy ’24

Ken Carbone is an artist, designer, and recipient of the 2012 AIGA Medal. He is a Senior Advisor to 50,000feet, a strategic branding and design firm with offices in Chicago, New York, and London.

Images courtesy Gregor Beer, Yvette Lenhart (photographed by Colin Key), and Clement Mok.

I’ve profiled a handful of agencies here at PRINT that are actively combating this agency stereotype, including Six Cinquième in Montreal and Rev Pop in Milwaukee. Another refreshing take came to my attention: an agency in Austin, Texas, that wears the additional mantel of creative community facilitator—introducing Preacher.

Founded by partners Rob Baird (Chief Creative Officer), Seth Gaffney (Chief Strategy Officer), and Krystle Loyland (Chief Executive Officer) in 2014, Preacher emerged around the pillar of “soul”—making more soulful decisions, finding more soul in their work. AdAge named Preacher the Small Agency of the Year in 2019, 2020, and 2022, and maintaining this boutique agency’s size and energy is central to the partners’ mission. 

At the end of last year, I had the opportunity to chat with Preacher CCO Rob Baird. We had a lively conversation about Austin’s creative exuberance, hybrid office spaces, and what growth looks like for a small agency.

(Interview edited for clarity and length.)

How has being based in Austin affected Preacher’s ethos and work?

There are three founding partners of Preacher, and we always say that Austin’s the fourth partner— it was somewhat intentional. Two of us are from Texas, me being one of them.

We all met working at Mother in New York. I think people often start agencies because they’re frustrated or there’s some sort of gap they see, but honestly, we were really happy. We were working on global brands and loved our life in New York, but the idea came through some projects happening in Austin. We kept watching the change and the growth, and we started to feel like, Man, if we were to do anything different, it would just be having our own place to get to make all the calls and decisions. Even if we made the wrong decisions, at least they would be our decisions. 

So we dreamed and schemed for a year and a half. The more we thought about it, the more we felt like Austin was the move. It’s always been kind of mine and Krystle’s spiritual home, and now Seth also loves it as well. We started Preacher in 2014 when life in New York began to feel like we were in a little bit of a bubble; it’s kind of its own thing in New York. And the more we spent time coming to Austin, we were like, Wow, there’s a genuine, generous kind of creator-maker-DIY culture here. It’s still going on despite all the changes in the tech industry; Austin still has this vibe of generosity and camaraderie, like, Let’s make amazing shit together. 

It turned out to be the best decision because it shaped the work and the agency’s makeup. Also, the location influenced how we operate with our clients; this is a big-time hospitality town with food and drink, and we’ve adopted that. The entire downstairs of our office is more like a cafe-store-art-gallery-hotel than an office. Being in Austin has changed our approach to everything.

What is it like operating as a “small” agency? There are a lot of connotations around big agency culture and the grind that comes with it. How is Preacher doing things differently? 

We’re a good size; we can work on global clients, big projects, or smaller brands within huge corporations. But I think we’re also pretty nimble, and our size lets us still design album covers, make music videos, and do stuff that is harder to do if you’re a giant. It’s a nice sweet spot. We never had a number dream, but I think the team has been around 65 or 70 for a few years now, and it feels good.

I’ve always been interested in what “growth” means for an agency like yours. Because in agency land, bigger is by no means better, and getting larger shouldn’t necessarily be the goal. Preacher has found other and more interesting ways to keep growing outside of size. 

That’s how we’ve been thinking about growth, actually. We started doing this free art and literary zine called “The Good Word,” we built a recording studio in our new office just because we were working on so much music packaging. You don’t make much money doing it, but it’s a lot of soul and pride for the designers and the crew that works on them. 

In the same way, our art gallery gives 70% to the artists very intentionally. The gallery doesn’t make much money; its purpose is to let the artists make more and, hopefully, give back to the community. The recording studio has the same model. In Austin, musicians struggle for the money and the space to get their music going, so we built one as part of our new office. Hopefully, in 2024, we’ll have our first artist record their album there. In the short term, it’s enabled us to do more projects with a music angle, which has been cool. 

So for us, that’s the more exciting growth. We make a lot of merch for the Preacher brand, just for ourselves, but now, fashion companies are approaching us for collaborations. So, that’s the growth: intentionally pushing into things and seeing if some of it sticks. 

Because there’s such a massive creative community here, it’s been cool to play a little bit of a connector role for ourselves and others.

How does it feel to be the epicenter and facilitator of all of this creative energy?

We used to laugh at the fact that, for a while, people in Austin just thought we were an art gallery; they didn’t realize what we do. 

Because there’s such a massive creative community here, it’s been cool to play a little bit of a connector role for ourselves and others. We showcase illustrators, designers, and artists in “The Good Word.” Then, when we have our huge South By [SXSW] blowout party, people from Portland, London, San Francisco, and wherever are here take a copy, and suddenly, those creatives are getting hired to work on Nike jobs. Or a photographer friend who showed in the gallery gets an A-list photo rep. Or a few people come together in the space, and the opportunity presents for an amazing local photographer to do a photoshoot. It’s been really fun to see that kind of energy. We’re not doing it with any hope that it comes back to us, other than it feels fun to be in the middle of all that. We thrive off of it. 

We’re trying to encourage people not to feel like they have to make such a hard line between their work stuff and their side hustle…. Don’t be afraid to cross-pollinate a little bit.

By definition, agencies inherently bring together a wealth of creative people, so it’s great to see you all leaning into that with these offerings. How does that mentality extend to your employees?

We’re trying to encourage people not to feel like they have to make such a hard line between their work stuff and their side hustle— This is my work, and this is my creative passion. Bring your creative passion into your work! If you’re a fantastic photographer but your role is strategist, bring photography into your strategy work to tell the stories. Or, if, in addition to being a killer copywriter, you’re really into short-form fiction, let’s create a literary festival or a writing symposium, or let’s put together a compendium like McSweeney’s. 

There’s a lot you can do if you can get people excited. Don’t be afraid to cross-pollinate a little bit. We’ve tried to set the space up where people can use it to make the most of their talent and time as long as they’re here.

Having a physical office space is central to Preacher, not only for how you tackle your client work but also for hosting events and being this creative hub. How have you gone about preserving that in the context of the work-from-home culture boom we’ve seen develop in the COVID era? 

We like the flexibility of the combo. So we’re back in the office on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, and then on Monday and Friday, we all work from home. The three partners believe that, overall, we work better together in person. There’s a more creative, collaborative thing happening.

Of course, we all proved how much we could get done during COVID, but if I’m being honest, I don’t enjoy the work-from-home days better. I like having that flexibility, and it’s great for our staff, but some of those work-from-home days end up being the ones where I’m just grinding from meeting to meeting to meeting to meeting for 10 hours straight.

In the office, it feels alive! It’s outside, it’s inside, it’s in groups. Sometimes, things that take a half hour on Zoom can be done in nine minutes if you drop by somebody’s desk. You get back to printing things out and marking them up or watching a cut together— it’s so much more of a tactile, alive, creative experience.

Images courtesy of Preacher.

In addition to Landekic’s praise, the director of Saltburn, Emerald Fennell, shared an inside scoop about the title card via Twitter/X in conjunction with the film’s release.

Hand drawn? Gilded? Stop motion? This title card pushed all my buttons— and I had to learn more! So, I reached out to the graphic designer and illustrator behind the title card, Katie Buckley, to hear more about the meticulous process that Fennell alluded to in her post. Buckley generously responded to my questions below, illuminating the journey she and her assistant, India Paparestis-Stacey, took to bring the Saltburn title card to life.

(Interview edited for length and clarity.)

Can you describe what process(es) you used to create the beautiful effect of the opening title card? I know illustration, gilding, and stop motion were all involved.

The process for the animation was hand drawn, hand painted, then gilded. I did, however, send Emerald some pencil stop animation of each thorn growth to check she was happy with the feel of it. 

There were over 300 cells for the piece of animation. We needed to check that the gold leaf read as gold because gold is notoriously not great unless it’s real. A lot of time goes into digitally creating the gold sparkle; without that, gold can look very “grey.”

Is this process something you’ve done before, or did you develop it, especially for this project?

Saltburn was my first title card and animation project. I was lucky that Emerald believed in my style enough to let me into the world of the title. So, yes, this was specially developed for this project; I relied on my instinct rather than knowledge.

Emerald asked me to do the Saltburn titles because, I quote, ‘I’d like it to feel like the crazy lady in the attic, scratching at the rafters.’ How could I resist that brief?

Katie Buckley

How did the concept for this title card develop? Did you work closely with Emerald to land on the idea, or was it something you conceived and pitched to her?

Emerald asked me to do the Saltburn titles because, I quote, “I’d like it to feel like the crazy lady in the attic, scratching at the rafters.” How could I resist that brief?

To start with, Emerald had said she didn’t want any animation— just 25 title cards, hand drawn and painted. She had mentioned that she liked the Hammer House of Horror (1980) “feel” to the lettering. 

Emerald had said she would like “Saltburn” to be in a banner; here are the first sketches that we talked about regarding what she wanted:

After seeing the banners, Emerald thought she would like the Saltburn titles animated and asked if I was prepared to do it. I said yes, but I was honest. I hadn’t done animation before, so I would always keep her up to date in case she wanted to go to someone with more experience. I was so lucky that Emerald had complete faith in me because there were moments when I had to take a few huge gulps! (So did she, I’m sure!) There were doubting voices, but I kept saying that none of us knew exactly what Emerald wanted, so let’s buckle up for the ride.

At first, I played with creating a font that Emerald liked. We went through a few different samples of fonts below. The third one is the font that Emerald decided on as soon as she saw it.

[Spoiler alert below]

The whole concept developed quite organically. Emerald had said she wanted the lush green foliage to turn into thorns and be black and threatening. It felt right that the blood red seeped into the black and that the gold was the final creeping vein as the want of riches killed off the whole cast. One of the mood boards had the saying, “Everyone wants to eat the rich because they are so delicious.”

While creating something so time-consuming and meticulous, do you find yourself getting impatient and going a bit mad, or do you relish the lengthy process and enjoy it? and enjoy it?

I felt the pressure of being hunched over tracing, drawing, painting, and gilding for sometimes 15-hour days with very little time. I never felt impatient, but I definitely thought I was going mad. I sent Emerald a photo of my studio one day just to show her that I was the crazy lady in the attic; it was completely covered in gold leaf (it does go everywhere; I still find bits of gold leaf in my garden today), paint, and screwed-up bits of trace and paper.

I can honestly say I have never been so invested in a project.

Katie Buckley

How did it feel once you finally finished the title card? What was it like seeing it in use in the movie?

I can honestly say I have never been so invested in a project. I am so proud of the work my assistant, India, and I did on this. It was thrilling to see the final film and to be part of the coolest film … ever! And to top it all, it’s probably the only film I’ve ever worked on that both my 17-year-old daughter and 82-year-old mother completely loved.

At its heart, Who Are We Now? is a set of surveys Agüera y Arcas conducted between 2016 and 2021, asking thousands of anonymous respondents questions about their social behavior and personal identity. The resulting window into people’s lives is akin to the famous Kinsey Reports, which quantified as it scandalized postwar America more than 70 years ago.

Today definitions of heterosexual “normalcy” is on the wane, and Agüera y Arcas observes that the landscape today is—”in every sense”—even queerer. After ages of being biblically and practically fruitful and multiplying, we’ve strained our planetary limits. Domesticated animals far outweigh wildlife, and many species are in catastrophic decline. Human fertility is now stemmed by choice rather than by premature death.

On the heels of Agüera y Arcas acclaimed 2022 novella, Ubi Sunt, a winner of AIGA’s 50 Books | 50 Covers Award, Who Are We Now? sets the stage for what he calls Humanity 2.0, exploring how biology, ecology, sexuality, history and culture “have intertwined to create a dynamic us that can neither be called natural or artificial—but rather an existence between existences.”

This is a profoundly visual document in analog and digital formats designed by New Zealand-based James Goggin, and published in the United States by Hat & Beard Editions. Prior to publication, Agüera y Arcas shared his motivations for authoring this psychological and philosophical wellspring of existential ideas that are defining our current paradigm shifts.

This book asks some very important questions about how we will live our collective and individual lives over the next 20 or so years. What prompted you to tackle such an existential project?
In 2016, when I began running the surveys that provided a lot of the data presented in Who Are We Now?, one of my concerns was fairness and bias in AI systems. (Although AI isn’t the book’s main topic, some findings from that period do turn up—for instance, in Chapter 14, why AI-powered gaydar doesn’t work.)

A core question was: How do AI models behave differently for different groups of people? Studying fairness rigorously required understanding how people think about their individual and collective identities, and that motivated some of the first surveys I ran. Identity was also playing an increasingly dramatic role in politics over that time, and learning how it interacted with beliefs and behaviors was also a motivation.

As I got deeper into this work, though, my reasons for doing it evolved. I began learning surprising things (to me, at least) about human identity, and wanted to share those insights in a way that did them justice. It was a deep rabbit hole. To be honest, I would probably never have begun the project if I’d known how deep, and how many years it would take to complete.

But also, between 2016 and 2023, the world changed. AI advanced tremendously, of course, and in the responses to it, I see a mixture of our very human tendencies: on one hand, the drive toward cooperation and symbiosis, the sense of great collective opportunities. On the other hand, fear and rejection of the “other.” These are the same very human tendencies that are driving the culture wars.

You have quite an extensive litany of questions and answers. Have you covered all or just some of the trigger points of the early 21st century?
It is indeed a long list of questions, but nowhere near long enough to be exhaustive. People are infinitely complicated; their identities and concerns are like a fractal, with ever more detail as you zoom in. However, one of my overall findings was that many answers correlate. That means that, while not everything can be covered, certain big, overall patterns are obvious, even if not every question was asked.

A caveat, though: Race is a big topic that I only address in a few places in the book, and far more superficially than sex and gender. The main reason is that while my survey data is from the U.S., I attempted to focus on more global patterns. Each country defines race in its own way, and has its own tangled history; the American story is especially knotty. So no, I certainly didn’t cover all of the trigger points!

In the promotion for the book this is called Humanity 2.0, exploring how biology, ecology, sexuality, history and culture have intertwined to create a dynamic “us” that can neither be called natural or artificial. Hasn’t this exploration been examined continually throughout history?
Sure—every generation believes it is “modern,” and perennially asks how artificial or “unnatural” the lifestyles of the young are relative to previous generations. As one survey respondent put it, “We were once the younger generation and some of us were wild and crazy, but not all. In so many ways the different generations are more alike than people want to believe.”

Still, I’m inclined to defend my claim. The world is now culturally and economically integrated in a way that it wasn’t when I was a kid—and never had been. The internet has become a kind of planetary nervous system. All of the world’s cities have become nodes in a realtime network. And at the same time, global warming confronts us with a truly planetary emergency; we haven’t experienced anything like that over the past 10,000 years, the entire span of recognizably human culture. We’ll also begin to decline in numbers this century, which is equally unprecedented. To crib the title of an old sci-fi novel, we are, as a species, at childhood’s end.

Doesn’t custom, intellect and knowledge change our mass behavior on a regular basis? Where does what we were and who we are combine to make who we’ll be?
Humans are cultural to an extraordinary degree. Unlike nearly every other animal, most of our behaviors are learned, and our knowledge accumulates over generations. That is both the secret of our success and the reason we are unstable, exponential, unsustainable.

My hope is that our culturally accumulated intelligence will allow us to think our way through the coming century. It certainly seems possible, but our continued success is by no means a foregone conclusion. In the past, there were many competing human tribes, countries or other polities, all with different ideas; they rose and fell, sometimes competing and sometimes cooperating. Our eggs were not all in one basket, as they are now. We have—or are—one planet.

Who Are We Now? incisively confronts how societies today perceive human identity, specifically gender and sexuality “driven by irrefutable data rather than ideology.” Where does the data come from? And how do we separate ideology (or belief) from the equation?
Of course the data still needed to be interpreted, and interpretations should always be subject to scrutiny. That’s why there are so many graphs in the book. I show the data, rather than just citing percentages. In the online edition, the graphs can be further customized, and the anonymized data downloaded for further study. So while I don’t think any analysis of social data can truly be a “view from nowhere,” I do my best to put my own cards on the table, and leave the door open to alternative interpretations.

In addition to the data visualizations, you’ve filled your book with dozens of visual pop-culture examples. How much input did you have in the selection of images to tell your story?
Dozens? More like hundreds! The design of the book was a deep collaboration with James Goggin, a brilliant book designer based in New Zealand, along with web designers Marie Otsuka and Minkyoung Kim, plus frequent input from my longtime research assistant, Johan Michalove. In general, I picked the images, but we often discussed and debated them, and sometimes needed to find alternatives. Then, we sweated the details of the layout. The four of us met weekly for over a year.

I am very interested in your take on the pronoun wars. I’m probably a hold-out for the binary solution of life. Why am I wrong … or can I be partly right?
Well … one of the book’s points is that there is no absolute wrong or right; words are culturally defined categories. That doesn’t mean that they don’t correlate with objective evidence—and gender does correlate with sex characteristics, which are approximately binary. However, as shown in the book, the correlation is not exact, and neither is sex exactly binary, no matter how you define it. These are both facts, not opinions—by which I mean that saying otherwise would be in conflict with the data.

Of course, it is also a fact that some people disagree with others about language and definitions. We should celebrate that! Without such variability, language could not evolve, and language must always be evolving to suit our changing needs.

Speaking personally now, though, I will add that if someone asks me to refer to them in a particular way, I will do my utmost to honor their wishes. That just seems to me like basic decency. In the book and in my life, I try to adjust my mental models to fit the evidence, rather than assuming that my preconceptions are right and the evidence is wrong. And when the subjects are human beings, what they have to say about themselves really is the relevant evidence, in my opinion.

What have you learned from Who Are We Now? that is a surprise or revelation?
There were quite a few surprises for me. Here are a couple. Intersexuality—meaning a mixture of male and female sex traits—is a lot more common than most of us realize. It has usually been thought of as a private medical condition rather than a public identity, which is why it remains so obscure. This has some interesting implications, which the book explores, but at bottom, I wish it were more widely understood and normalized, as I think that would also go a long way toward removing its stigma.

Another surprise was the dominating role of population density in determining people’s beliefs, politics and identities. It’s common knowledge that the countryside is more conservative than the city, but really seeing the data on this, exploring the reasons why, and unpacking the implications kind of took my breath away.

From the data you’ve collected, can you predict the future or see the present more clearly?
Supposedly it was Yogi Berra who said, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” Whoever came up with that, I really like it! There are some sensible approaches to prediction, though. One comes by way of another famous observation, this one from cyberpunk author William Gibson: “the future is already here—it’s just not very evenly distributed.” In particular, when we notice that cultural evolution happens faster when people gather at higher densities, we know where to look for the future: in cities.

Another helpful observation is that while certain variables are inherently unpredictable—like the weather—others have inertia, and are subject to predictable long-term trends, like the climate. We know that global warming is real, and similarly, there are demographic, land use and technological trends that tell a clear story about the coming century. Those are explored in Part III of the book.

As for the specifics of identity politics … that might be more like the weather, though we can safely expect that many young people will continue to check the “it’s complicated” box.

Elissa Altman recently started a series of breakfast conversations for paid subscribers of Poor Man’s Feast featuring a wide variety of artists, writers, musicians, and thinkers. Many include a recipe. A portion of the proceeds of every breakfast conversation will be donated to a number of organizations dedicated to feeding children, beginning with Save the Children.

The latest installment features PRINT’s very own Debbie Millman. Elissa Altman has graciously given us permission to feature the conversation in its entirety.

I find brilliant podcasts to be a great comfort, and I am highly selective when it comes to them. It started here: more than twenty years ago, I was driving to New York from my mother-in-law’s house in Farmington Connecticut, it was an early Sunday morning, and I heard Krista Tippett interview Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, then the chief rabbi of Great Britain. Hearing these two greats of divinity and thought, I was nudged off the highway and onto the shoulder in the early haze of a New England morning by the combination of distraction and focus, to listen closely and scribble notes on a used Starbuck’s napkin with an eyeliner. Thus began my true understanding of what good conversation is, and its possibilities.

Few podcasts — that’s a strange word for what this was; it was an intimate and revelatory dialogue — have had a similar effect on me. In conversation format, they necessitate the host do two things that are anathema in our culture of distraction and me-first-ism: they require that the host ask, and listen. And Debbie Millman is among the few astonishing hosts who do this, and do it brilliantly and with great generosity. Over the years, I have listened to her conversations with Temple Grandin, Indigo Girls, Celeste Ng, Chip Kidd, Rick Rubin, Megan Rapinoe, Steven Heller, Cheryl Strayed, Jacqueline Woodson, Dani Shapiro, Nick Cave and Bob Faust, Anne Lamott, Tim Ferris, Krista Tippett, Maira Kalman, Priya Parker, Hrishikesh Hirway, Oliver Jeffers, and so many others, and every one of them has delighted, enthralled, moved, and educated me. I was honored to be among Debbie’s guests when Motherland came out in 2019 (I had an epic headcold that day), and she was the first person to ask me about the place of music in my life—a question I neither expected nor had a suitable answer for that would not leave me weeping. Debbie’s Design Matters is about the broader world of creative culture, and seems to me to be rooted in Dieter Rams’ key for good design: that it be honest and authentic. Every one of Debbie shows is, profoundly so.

Over the years, I have had the honor and pleasure of getting to know Debbie, who also is the author of the seminal Look Both Ways: Illustrated Essays on the Interaction of Art and Life, and Why Design Matters, and is the Chair of the Masters of Branding Department at School of Visual Arts, and the editorial and creative director of Print. A born-and-raised New Yorker, she lives with her wife, author Roxane Gay and their dog, Max. Their lazy-day-breakfast ritual makes me swoon.

As a fellow New Yorker with certain ideas of what breakfast is, I am not surprised that Debbie’s days must begin with a cup of coffee. Here’s what she told me.

Of all meals, breakfast seems to me to be the most personal and ritualistic. What is on your table every morning? Does it change on the weekends? 

I am a creature of habit and there is absolutely nothing—nothing—that I can consider doing in the morning before having a cup of coffee. But it has to be a very specific kind of coffee, as I take my coffee very seriously! I’ve been buying my beans in bulk from McNulty’s Tea & Coffee, a heavenly 125-year-old shop on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village that has been one of my all-time favorite places to visit for decades. Several years ago, after moving in with my wife Roxane [Gay], she got into the gloriously generous habit of setting up the coffee-maker to go off before I wake up every morning, and then bringing me a cup while I’m still in bed. This is especially kind of her, given she only drinks her coffee from Starbucks (don’t ask).

While my first cup of coffee is always consumed at home, I often stop for a yummy iced-latte from Sullivan Street Bakery en route to my office at the School of Visual Arts. As for any accompaniment; sadly, I am not much of a breakfast eater. Frankly, it is the only time of day I am not really hungry, so I have forsaken it without much thought for most of my life. When I do indulge in “breakfast food,” it is usually during weekend brunch wherein I will devour a classic Eggs Benedict (sans ham) from the Empire Diner or the Huevos Rancheros from Cookshop, which is the absolute best in the world. (EA: Agreed.)

I’ve found that the children of breakfast people tend to grow up to be breakfast people. Is this true in your case? Did you grow up in a breakfast-loving household? What was your childhood breakfast tradition like? 

Both my parents had strange, disordered eating habits. My dad was a junk food junkie and often indulged in Drakes Ring Dings, Yodels, Coffee Cake, and Devil Dogs, which I confess I also loved for years and even redesigned in 1998. (Did you know the Drake’s mascot is named Webster?) My mother was hypoglycemic and macrobiotic and I (thankfully) have no memory of what she ate in the morning. For a few years, she pressed her own carrot juice from a new-age juicer, but she abandoned it all after turning orange. An occasional treat for me were steaming bowls of homemade hot cereal—Wheatina or Cream of Wheat—lovingly prepared by my dear maternal grandmother, Lillian, when I slept over at her apartment in Brooklyn. Sometimes she even threw in some sliced strawberries or bananas.

The most extraordinary breakfast I’ve ever had was in 1987 in the Hotel de Crillon in Paris.

Debbie Millman

I know that you do a lot of traveling; is there anything that you long for/have to have/must have/carry with you in the mornings when you aren’t home?

Coffee, coffee, coffee. I often buy a small half-pint of fresh milk after landing in a new city so I don’t have to add the dreadful creamers hotels often provide. While Nespresso’s are preferable to any instant coffee, they are not even close to a freshly prepared latte from a local cafe, so that tends to be my first stop before I do anything when I am not at home.

What is one of the more extraordinary breakfasts you’ve had? Where were you? 

The most extraordinary breakfast I’ve ever had was in 1987 in the Hotel de Crillon in Paris. Yes, the scrambled eggs were perfectly fluffy and buttery, but it was the grilled foie gras—which I tasted for the first time in my life—that was truly mind-exploding. I was in a white, too-large bathrobe, we had ordered room service and I will never, ever forget that first warm, rich, sensuous bite. Sigh.

It’s a quiet weekend morning; your schedule is open and there’s nowhere you have to be. Do you prefer to have breakfast in or out? What would be the ideal scenario for you? 

I am home and I have slept late; it is 11:30am. I take my first sip of McNulty’s coffee from bed. I lounge a little bit, then take Max out for a walk, and we stop at Sullivan Street Bakery and order an iced-latte for me and get a cornetti to go for Roxane. Then we slowly make our way over to the little Farmer’s Market on 23rd Street between 8th and 9th Avenue and get a bagful of cinnamon rolls and an olive loaf from the lovely, shy bread man selling Orwashers, some new pickles and mixed olives from the rowdy pickle-monger at the Pickelicious stand, some Honeycrisp apples and Kirby cucumbers from any of the wonderful fruit and veggie stands, and with some fresh flowers, depending on what they have. Then we walk back home and make a plentiful, colorful spread for me and Roxane and Max to eagerly tuck into.

It’s been my experience that, as adults, we become somewhat steadfast in our breakfast styles and habits, especially when we’re single. When Susan and I got together almost 25 years ago, we faced an impasse: she was tea, I was coffee; she was sweet, I was savory. She eventually won me over by making me a breakfast of the most extraordinarily perfect poached eggs on toast that I’ve ever eaten anywhere, before or since. Has being married altered or changed what or how you both eat breakfast?

Not yet. I am still not much of a breakfast eater, though I have recently begun to experiment with oatmeal if Roxane makes a Starbuck’s run. I add some dried raisins and cranberries and it is not bad! Roxane is a bit more like my dad—she loves a good piece of coffee cake. It’s too bad he passed before we met; they could’ve shared their love of the crumbly, cinnamon treat. Her dad happens to make a superb coffee bundt cake; I am sure he’d have loved that too.

Thank you, Debbie.

And now, I need a good cup of coffee.

This post was originally published on Elissa Altman’s blog Poor Man’s Feast, The James Beard Award-winning journal about the intersection of food, spirit, and the families that drive you crazy. Read more on her Substack, or keep up with her archives here.

Banner photo of Debbie Millman by John Madere.

Under the nom de plume TraceLoops, Brown is on a glorious journey of visual experimentation through his animation practice, in which he deploys various tools and techniques that he’s constantly pushing in new and innovative directions. Perusing his body of work is a thrilling experience, as you can chart his evolution as an artist over time, seeing what styles or tools he’s using for a period before morphing in a different direction for a spell. Brown also composes the music accompanying his animations, creating immersive sensory worlds in a bite-sized form.

Captivated by both Brown’s stunning work and the audacious mind behind his creations, I felt compelled to learn more. His thoughtful reflections on his background and ethos as an artist are below.

(The interview has been edited for clarity and length.)

Why stop motion? How did you first come to this process, and what do you enjoy so much about it?

In, I think, fifth grade, I took a week-long summer class that was generally about using some computer programs—Photoshop, Premier, Macromedia Flash—and I enjoyed making things move. I also made flip books during year-end standardized testing in middle school when we were only allowed a book for when we were done. 

When making animations in Flash, tweening always looked bad, so I would do mostly frame-by-frame animation. I’m not sure what I do now is exactly “stop motion.” I do some work that takes an object, moves it, photographs it, and then moves and photographs it again, but the shift is meant to advance to a preexisting frame. I think of stop motion as progressively repositioning or augmenting an element and not replacing it all at once.

I like things that re-contextualize an understanding of information. Animation constantly jumps from one state to another, and what you perceive is never what you see. It’s flashes of information that compile into a sense of motion. It’s a very time-consuming process that gets crunched down into fractions of seconds that gain new meaning when reformatted. I struggle sometimes to be clear in words. I can talk and talk about an idea that feels very direct and concise, but when the idea is realized, it communicates better than I can. A complex, perhaps bloated, collection of ideas and processes crunched down into fractions of seconds that are understood.

I never want to feel like I can’t share how something is done for fear that it will be the end of my ability to create work…I have learned from people who share and I appreciate that I might be able to do the same for others.

Matthias Brown

Looking at the evolution of your experimentation is such a fun way to experience your process. Is laying out your work sequentially like this on social media intentional, or did you stumble into it? How did this sharing process come about?

I really like process. There’s a quote I think about often that gets attributed to different people: “A joke is like a frog: there are few who want to dissect it, and the frog dies in the process.”

I’m a comedy nerd. In middle and high school, I used to download audio recordings of Comedy Central Presents episodes and burned CDs that I would fall asleep while listening to. I wanted to know why things were and weren’t funny with slight changes. I get the sentiment of the quote, but I wouldn’t say I like to leave things unknown. For me, the joke doesn’t die when dissected; it takes on new meaning while broadening the scope of possibilities.

IIn that same summer course, when learning about the basics of Photoshop, the teacher showed us work from Jerry Uelsmann, who would make surreal photographs in darkrooms, combining imagery from several negatives into one final image. Uelsmann published books on his processes, which felt like a sharing of knowledge, a means of documenting work, and letting go of being too precious about techniques. I never want to feel like I can’t share how I’ve done something for fear that it will end my ability to create work. Some people hold on to techniques and are very successful, but I don’t like that idea. I have learned from people who share and appreciate that I can do the same for others.

What’s your process for composing the music that accompanies each video you’re creating? Do you create the visuals, and then the music is produced in response, or vice versa? Or are they made simultaneously, each informing the other?

I started making music when I started doing more live streams. During early COVID, streaming platforms began cracking down on the use of licensed music; it used to be a lot more lax. I started making simple note patterns with a drum machine— initially, songs were 10 minutes long because I was trying to fill hours from scratch. I got more intentional and better about it as time went on. I bought better equipment and have made hundreds of songs over the last few years.

I use Korg Gadget on my Nintendo Switch now. I record to an old cassette deck I bought on eBay, then digitize the playback of the cassette. I bought a bunch of used blank tapes and recorded most of the runtime but left little clips between my songs. Since first buying used blank tapes, I started seeking out tapes with interesting spoken word content: self-help, comedy radio hours, travel guides, and hypnosis. When I’m in the habit, I’ll make a song every day.

The music comes first, but the animations aren’t made for the music most of the time. I will listen to songs and see which fits well for an animation and then edit videos accordingly. I have done things where I make a tape with a constant BPM, and that will dictate the animation loop length. I’ve done 120 BPM, which works out to four beats every two seconds. Fifteen frame-per-second animation means 30 frames, and the animation will sync up with the audio no matter what.

Where do the ideas for your areas of exploration typically come from? For example, when thinking about tools to harness for animation, I wouldn’t think that using an airbrush would come to mind for most. How did you come to the airbrush as one of your go-to tools?

If I see something interesting, I like to try it. I like tools and less popularly known means of manufacturing and production. I don’t mean secretive things, but when a part of a machine has a name, I like to know the name of the part, if that makes sense. There are so many subcultures and groups of people that are hyper-focused on their subsections of the world and have meaningful ideas and opinions about things I’ve never heard of. Sometimes, those groups are insular and don’t really cross-pollinate with other groups. I think associatively and do my best not to think of a tool as only having its designated purpose. Tools are refined for a purpose, but they aren’t just for that, and so I like to explore those groups in forums and stuff, so I try new approaches.

The airbrush came from trying to make something more automated but still very physical. I got a Cricut machine to cut stuff out of paper after doing simple animations by hand-cutting stuff. I started messing with doing pencil rubbings, painting sticker paper, and then cutting it out. I then started messing with splattering paint using cheap toothbrushes. Certain things are easy to do one to five times and inspire the confidence to jump to doing something 30 times; splattering paint using a cheap toothbrush is one of those.

I made stencils using the Cricut, and it is weirdly tiring to hold a toothbrush and pull your thumb across the bristles repeatedly. My thumb got tired in a way that I didn’t know it could, and I didn’t feel like it was a good idea to do that long-term, so I looked into other methods of getting paint onto a surface through a stencil and bought a small compressor and an airbrush.

There are things about any tool or process that give it a sense of identity. People often try to obscure those identifiers because the idea isn’t informed by the tool, but I like process, so I want the tool to work with the idea. With airbrush and stencils, you’d typically want the stencil flush with the surface and the paint to be evenly applied. I might as well work digitally for that effect, so I lift the stencil off the surface instead, and let things get out of focus in ways inherent to the process.

I work in a variety of mediums, and I forget that not everybody is aware of the techniques and processes I’ve explored. I have a habit of getting into a process for one to four months, producing a lot of work, and then abandoning it for six-12 months until that skill is reintroduced as practical, either for a paid job or a new, different process. I’m only saying that because I don’t feel like the airbrush is my go-to tool, but it is part of a collection of tools. I’ve been working most recently with stacked, cut paper animations, informed by the work I did with the airbrush stencils, which were informed by pencil rubbings that were informed by 3D animation rotoscoping, which came from an attempt to do traditional cel animation, and so on.

I’ll undoubtedly start using the airbrush again in a few months. I took a break because I messed up the fans in my laptop with the aerosolized paint.

I recently spoke to YuJune Park, a designer, speaker, and educator with deep expertise in creating hybrid physical-digital experiences in the cultural heritage sector, to get her thoughts on this renaissance and what the future holds.

Park co-founded Synoptic Office, an award-winning design consultancy that partners globally with leading cultural, civic, and business organizations. Fast Company, the Webbys, Design Week, the Art Director’s Club, and the American Institute of Graphic Arts have all honored the studio’s work. Park is also an Associate Professor of Communication Design at Parsons School of Design. In 2022, Creative Review selected Park for their Creative Leaders 50 list, celebrating global leaders advancing their field.

Below is our conversation, (edited for clarity and length).

Why are experiences and interactivity critical in engaging audiences with history?

The study of history can often be perceived as something distant or irrelevant to daily life. Digital experiences, when done well, have the potential to make history more accessible and immediate. They can immerse audiences in historical narratives through multi-sensory engagement by breaking barriers between the past and present, connecting singular narratives to broader ideas, and moving outward from there to other sources of knowledge. Ultimately, the past shapes the conditions of the present. How can we situate ourselves within the history of ideas?  

The best educational digital experiences can promote active learning over passive consumption by interweaving content and interaction, past and present, and singular narratives to broader themes and perspectives. They help you see and experience a new perspective, challenging points of view and prompting you to reflect on how you see the world and where you sit in the history of ideas.

The Brooklyn Public Library: The Book of HOV

The Brooklyn Public Library recently put on an amazing exhibition on Jay Z. The exhibition website was an incredible piece of design that featured a mix audio rendered in beautiful ways. The exhibition lead to a huge surge in new library memberships.

In what formats are we seeing digital interactivity expressed? 

It is an extraordinarily exciting time to work at the intersection of education, arts, and digital design. We are seeing cultural institutions creating hybrid, digital, and physical experiences. They are truly becoming borderless institutions, opening up access to knowledge to the broadest possible audience.

Digital interactivity is being expressed through online exhibitions and virtual museums, digital installations/exhibits, AR, VR, websites, apps, and games—all with the goal of digital storytelling. These products enable the audience to physically experience art and history—whether it’s a historical artifact, painting, or piece of music—and learn more about the context of the work through multimedia experiences. They invite audiences to engage deeply with the work, experience it, and learn more about its origin and the ideas it represents.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Unframed & Replica

The Met has also been doing some interesting work with The Met Unframed, a virtual space offering immersive access to digital galleries and augmented realities of iconic Met masterpieces.

The Met Replica is an initiative that allows you to scan the physical artwork in the museum and then it comes to life on your phone through AI.

Following the news of V&A’s launch of an interactive website for adolescents, Mused, and the National History Museum’s major installation plans for interactive exhibitions aimed at 8-14-year-olds, why are we seeing organizations target younger audiences this way? 

A museum’s mission is to share the transformative power of knowledge about the human condition and the world to the widest possible audience—through art, history, science, music, and more—in a way that invites us to see anew. However, many teens might perceive these institutions to be stodgy and unwelcoming. Or worse, many may feel as if they do not belong. Layer those perceptions on top of other factors: The first is that Generation Alpha is digitally native; the second is that the Internet is flooded with questionable sources of knowledge, and many sites are unsafe or do not meet the broadest accessibility standards.

Amid that perfect storm lies an opportunity. Digitally engaging websites such as the V&A’s Mused can invite the broadest possible audience—there is no need to travel or pay an admission fee—to interact with “5,000 years of human creativity across the V&A collection.” By interweaving contemporary culture with history, teens can explore the human condition and new perspectives enabled by engagement with the arts. 

Digital experiences can be utilized in and outside of the classroom. They also have the potential to transform passive learning into active learning through prompts, questions, and spaces for writing and reflection that can often lead to a deeper understanding of content. Digital exhibitions and discovery sites can also create personalized learning journeys and meet all kinds of learners (visual, auditory, read/write, or kinesthetic) where they are and support learning differences by meeting robust accessibility standards. 

From your experience as Associate Professor of Communication Design at Parsons School of Design, what makes digital interactivity appealing and accessible to younger audiences? 

Teen audiences are already digitally fluent. They are used to hybrid learning experiences. The best digital learning experiences utilize immersive multimedia and prompts to encourage deeper engagement with ideas. That being said, I do not believe digital interactivity is a panacea for all challenges in education. The value of in-person experiences, peer-to-peer, and community building in the classroom is critical. In an ideal world, these digital experiences work hand-in-hand with in-person learning. In a few years, it’s possible to imagine a world where students will have an AI-powered learning assistant to supplement in-person classroom education.

The New York Public Library: Insta Novels

This was not a history-focused project, but a few years ago, Mother New York did an amazing project for the New York Public Library where they put entire novels into Instagram stories. They essentially hacked Instagram stories to become a digital bookshelf. Here is a great video about the project.

Why is it so crucial for young people, in particular, to connect with art, design, and ideas from history? How does design play a vital role in making these things accessible and memorable?

Engaging with the history of ideas is essential to understanding contemporary culture. The ideas we dialogue with today have precedent—they are born from and are in dialogue with historic ideas and the past’s social, cultural, and economic conditions. We must engage with these ideas to better understand ourselves and the world we live in today. Design is pivotal in transforming data into knowledge, increasing engagement, deepening understanding of content, and making learning more accessible and equitable. 

The 90s are back! (Particularly our enjoyment of technology). How has this impacted museums’ transition into the digital space? The elephant in the room is, of course, AI. How are you thinking about deploying fast-evolving AI technology in the exhibition space?

We should realize that the methods and technologies like machine learning and image recognition that are part of AI have been with us for some time. They have already been deployed behind the scenes in a variety of different ways. We should never lose sight of the fact that exhibitions are about curation and storytelling and that any technology, from static wall text to AI, serves those goals. Because AI excels in working with large amounts of data, the technology opens up opportunities for visitors to peel back the layers of an exhibition and engage more dynamically in the information that is summarized and surfaced in an exhibition.

Online Collaboration+ Tool, Figjam

Design studio Figma is using AI in thoughtful ways for Figjam, a creative notetaking, organising, designing platform, which is actively used in a lot of classrooms.

Speaking of fast-evolving, any advice for organizations, institutions, and brands on future-proofing their interfaces against rapid technological change?

While interfaces change quickly, there is a lot that institutions can do to future-proof their content and data, which are at the heart of every organization. Future-proofing means adopting a technology stack that separates data, business logic, and presentation from each other. All technologies will need to be upgraded and replaced eventually, but it is about maximizing their lifespan and allowing these updates to occur over time. 

Legacy brands and museums can be slow to change and adopt new ways of seeing and doing. What misconceptions do organizations have about creating meaningful, impactful, and long-lasting experiences, and how do you help them overcome these?

The most common misconception we see is that all the digital work has to come out as one big bang. That can feel very overwhelming. We often advocate for an incremental approach that allows the organization to grow alongside its digital properties. 

If you had a crystal ball, what would it reveal about the next five to ten years of digital interactivity? What’s your biggest hope based on what you know of our growing capabilities?

If we take history as precedent, predicting the future of interactivity is tough. For instance, who knew that the Internet (first confined to the desktop screen) would be a key driver for mobile computing and, by extension, the interfaces we interact with daily? In this vein, we think generative AI will have a similar but bigger transformative impact.

Banner image from The Met Unframed.

The effort has gone viral and Pablo quickly built a website to house the burgeoning results. I had the opportunity to talk with him about how and why he started this initiative, his thoughts about artificial intelligence and why he’s not worried about the future of artificial art.

Debbie Millman: Pablo, I understand this project really started as a joke. What was the inspiration?

Pablo Delcan: I spend a lot of time drawing with my son, drawing things he wants to see, or things that make each other laugh. The day when I started this project, I was at the studio starting a fire, trying to get the studio to a decent temperature, while I waited to see if the logs were catching the flame, I had this idea that made me laugh. I thought it’d be funny if I turned myself into a non-AI artist that spits out simple drawings of any prompt it gets, I named it Prompt-Brush 1.0. So I put this on my social media, announced that I had created the very first non-AI art generator model and that I was taking in prompts to showcase it.

I had recently seen the latest announcement from Google Bard and I had been toying with the new GPTs feature from OpenAI, where you can train your own AI model. I’m in awe at how powerful and useful these tools are already. 

The response was immediate and viral—why do you think people responded so vigorously?

There is a real tension about how AI is going to change everything. I think the excitement is overshadowed by the destructive potential it could also have. The idea of poking a little fun at this serious concern drew people in. It’s also really fun to be able to ask someone to draw something for you, see them interpret something you’ve thought of. With AI we’re all commissioning endless amounts of images and text, but it’s interesting how different it is when that same process is applied to one person instead.

Talk about the new website: what do you hope to accomplish?

I’ve done around 200 drawings that I’m slowly updating to the website every day, there is also an embarrassing queue of more than 200 prompts that I’m trying to catch up to. I think by the end of this month I will have chipped away at most of these prompts, I’m getting faster and better. It’s hard not being an AI. 

I’m not sure where this project will lead but I’m really enjoying it as it is. I’m connecting with people in a new way, and I’m developing these drawings at the same time. I want the drawings to get looser as this progresses. As opposed to Midjourney and Dall-e, that keep getting better and better and highly detailed and hyper-realistic. I want these drawings to get rougher, still communicating something but in a more direct way, more child-like. 

How can people participate?

I’d love for more people to participate. If anyone is interested, it’s very easy.

Visit Prompt Brush.com input your prompt in the text box on the main page, add your email so I can send you the drawing, and then be patient… The biggest difference right now between Prompt-Brush 1.0 and any other generative model is how slow it is. Prompt-Brush doesn’t operate on weekends and sometimes takes vacation days.

What have been some of the prompts that have surprised you?

I really enjoy the ones that become a mental puzzle. I’m trying to create something that speaks to the prompt, so the image and the text compliment each other but aren’t redundant. Those are more challenging. “5 second rule” was fun in that way. There are some that are more abstract, there is more for me to interpret. For example, a one word prompt I got was “Forgiveness”, it took some playing around to get to an image for that.

I want these drawings to get rougher, still communicating something but in a more direct way, more child-like.

Pablo Delcan

Any particularly difficult or challenging prompts?

The harder prompts are the ones where there is something that I don’t know how to draw. Yesterday I had to draw some frogs, different breeds of dogs, an ostrich and some horses. I don’t think I had ever drawn a frog before. So it’s a bit of a crash course on drawing anything well enough that someone might identify what it is.

What are your goals for the site?

I’m hoping the site keeps archiving these drawings for the rest of 2024. It’d be fun to see how these drawings change, or don’t change. I’m hoping to finish the year with hundreds of them and see what the next chapter, Prompt-Brush 2.0, might be. I’d also like to offer the option to have an original drawing of their prompt delivered. That might come next. 

You’ve stated that that this is “a topic that has consumed so much of this year, and will likely pick up even more next year – especially for artists and illustrators.” How are you feeling about AI? Are you scared, worried, excited, all of the above? What do you think its power really lies?

Once AI is able to do the work that I do better, there won’t be a reason for me to continue doing it anymore. I don’t think I’m scared of that possibility. I think there is an existential edge to it too, would anyone want to create something that a robot can do faster and better? Once that happens the work will have to change, maybe my work will need to be more human, and I’ll have to figure out what that means. I’m mainly very excited to see all the changes that AI will bring. So far, at it’s current stage, it’s been an immensely helpful tool.

There is something AI can’t replace yet. The uniquely human need to connect with the maker.

Pablo Delcan

Have you used any AI prompts in your own work? If so, which ones and how did you feel about the results?

I use AI every day for my work. I created a GPT assistant to help me organize the prompts and keep a running queue for the Prompt-Brush project.

For my editorial images or the book covers I make, I frequently use Midjourney, Chat GPT and the new Photoshop generate tool for sketching. The results are great and get better and better each month. It’s fun and empowering.

You’ve stated that “there is something about being able to make people laugh or smile with what I’m doing that just seems so incredibly gratifying!” How do you try to do that in your practice with other projects?

I’m always trying to spark some kind of emotion in myself with the work that I do. Either making myself laugh or get that feeling of a deep breath of fresh air you sometimes get when you see something beautiful or profound. If I can get a bit of that during the process, hopefully that eventually carries through to someone else.

Anything else you’d like to share?

There is something AI can’t replace yet. The uniquely human need to connect with the maker. Consuming music, reading a book or watching a movie generated by AI is going to be an artificial connection, no matter how good it is. And I don’t think most of us will want to consume artificial art, I don’t think I would. I’ll want to feel a real connection and the real warmth of something made by another human.

The storyline follows a long-ago conversation between two gay Latino men, one near death, the other young and eager to learn about life. A 1941 compendium of case studies titled Sex Variants: A Study of Homosexual Patterns acts as a literary and visual motif. The older man owns a rare edition he’s bequeathing to the younger, two heavily redacted volumes covered with black marks that obliterated the findings, so all that remained were words and phrases like ‘narcissistic,’ ‘tendency to femininity,’ ‘abnormalities,’ and ‘mincing.’ 

The winner of the 2023 National Book Award for Fiction, Blackouts is replete with memories, dreams, descriptions of the mental institution where the characters met, family histories, and other references, including French and English literature, the Bible, films, and song lyrics.

Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (FSG), the book has been called “a masterpiece,” “magical,” and “an artwork.” I was privileged to enjoy online conversations with Na Kim, who designed its jacket, cover, and endpapers, and the interior page designer Gretchen Achilles. Both designers worked with Torres, editor Jenna Johnson, and production manager Nina Frieman.

(Conversations edited for clarity and length.)

Ellen Shapiro: First of all, congratulations on the excellent reviews and the National Book Award. To begin, how do you generally approach the design of an illustrated novel?

Na Kim: We get a questionnaire filled out by the author with broad guidelines of what they’d like to see, if there are any visual inspirations for the book, any artwork they’d like us to consider, and what they absolutely don’t want on the cover.

ES: Do the cover designer and the interior book designer work together or independently?

Gretchen Achilles: We work separately (on different production schedules) but often consult each other and try to coordinate design elements when possible and appropriate.

ES: Do you usually present one design or more?

Achilles: For interior designs, we present a set of layouts to the editor and author, showing the front matter and an example of each design element as it will appear in the text. From there, we revise or tweak the design until we have approval from both.

Kim: Some books run through rounds and rounds of designs, and there are others when a single cover is presented with a strong sales pitch. We often present three to five options to the editor, but I find that presenting one with real conviction can be the most successful.

ES: Gretchen, did you research and find the illustrations and photographs? Was there any back-and-forth about which ones to use and where?

Achilles: They were all supplied by Justin Torres, and he determined where they needed to fall in the book. For the redacted pages, he made color photocopies of torn pages from his copy of Sex Variants and made the redactions in Sharpie. We scanned them in-house and manipulated the images to sharpen the text and heighten the contrast so they could be seen as part of the reading text rather than stand-alone art like the photos.

ES: So it’s not true that authors have little or nothing to say about a book’s design. At FSG, how much is the author involved? 

Achilles: The author is involved as much as they want to be. We are an author-centric house. We incorporate suggestions and advise on the best ways to visually achieve what they are looking for. Justin was very involved.

ES: Justin, did you need to get permission for every piece? Looking at the three pages of illustration credits, that must have been quite an endeavor. 

Justin Torres: Getting permissions for the images was insane. I didn’t know anything about how complicated the process would be. I had to hire a freelance editor to help hunt down the permiss images; some are from children’s books illustrated by one of the characters, Zhenya Gay, others are from Sex Variants, some are photos by Thomas Painter, another character in the book, whose archive is at the Kinsey Institute. Other images are personal.

ES: Was there any pushback about male frontal nudes?

Torres: Not at all. My editor is the best, and her constant refrain was, ‘Make the kind of book you need to make; let me worry about the rest.’ If there was any internal pushback, she didn’t mention it. We had some conversations about why certain images were important, and we definitely made a lot of jokes about just how many penises are in the book.

ES: Let’s talk about the redacted pages from Sex Variants. Was there a method for choosing which lines of text to black out and which to leave in? 

Torres: Each blackout poem had its own method. For one, I focused on the word ‘to,’ transforming the text into a kind of ode. For another, I focused on reducing the language to simple first-person declarations: ‘I came, I saw, I conquered.’ Another focused on internal rhyme. I varied my approach with each blackout.

ES:  The New York Times Book Review chose Blackouts as one of the year’s most notable book covers. Tell us about the black gloss rectangle on the dust jacket.

Torres: When asked to describe my ideal cover, I said something like, ‘All black, only my name and the name of the book in embossed gold lettering.’ I wanted the cover to recall the original Sex Variants book, which my novel circles around: all black with gold titling.

The brilliance of Na’s design is that it’s the exact shape of one of the erasure poem images. I recognized the shape instantly and just loved it. The rectangle-with-one-torn-edge is the shape of the torn page that recurs throughout Blackouts. I made those erasures myself by photocopying the Sex Variants pages and tearing the photocopy to make it appear as if it had been torn from the book itself. I’m not sure how many readers realize the source of the shape on the cover; it’s a subtle connection. 

Kim: The black-on-black also nods to the stories within the stories, shadows existing in the dark. The peeking hyena is pulled from the illustrated children’s book within the novel.

ES: Justin, do you have a special relationship with or feelings about the hyena? What does the animal mean to you?

Torres: Impersonating the hyena’s laugh functions as a queer cry of recognition, a code, so certain characters can recognize one another.

ES: Is there a reason the typeface used for the chapter titles and initial caps isn’t on the cover or jacket?

Achilles: I chose Poster Bodoni, with its ‘censored’ rubber-stamp look yet classic literary feel that would marry well with the Adobe Caslon text. It’s heavier than the font Na used on the cover so that it would drop out of the solid torn rectangles.

ES: How did the choice of brown ink on cream stock come about?

Achilles: That’s a long story! Justin and Jenna wanted the book to have black text and sepia-toned images. I suggested doing it as a two-color job, black and dark gold Pantone 124U ink. We made duotones with the two inks to create a sepia tone, kept the text black, and used the gold in accents like the drop caps. Nina ran estimates every which way, but the book was not making margin (that is, keeping production costs in line). We could make margin with a lower-grade paper, so we settled on that, but when we were routing the page proofs, Jenna looked at me and asked, “Is this book really going to look good on this paper?” And I had to admit that I’d never run a two-color job on that kind of paper. So Nina and I reviewed the pages with redacted text and concluded that the [lower-grade] paper wouldn’t hold the detail. We returned to the higher quality, smoother, cream-colored sheet we’d originally wanted—the paper we stock for poetry titles and books with art that can carry the extra cost. On that paper, dropping the second ink, the book made margin. Jenna didn’t want to lose the sepia-colored images, so I suggested printing in one color, a deep brown (Pantone 2322U), so the text would be dark enough to be legible and so we could manipulate the images to create the ghostly sepia feel the author wanted. All the printer had to do was clean the press and replace the black ink with the Pantone color, and we wouldn’t have to pay for a two-color job. FSG is a smaller house, and we have smaller budgets.

ES: Thank you for sharing insights into what most graphic designers used to do, specifying ink on paper. In-house designers often get short shrift. I sometimes hear comments like, “When there’s a really great project, we send it out.” What are the plusses of being an in-house designer?

Kim: We’re pretty democratic regarding who gets to work on ‘big’ or ‘fun’ titles. Each of us has individual strengths and talents, and we work hard to make sure that everyone in our department of four gets an opportunity to work on a title they’re excited about. The plus-plus of being in-house is the relationships we build with our authors and editors. There’s a lot of trust. If there’s negative feedback, it’s easier to take when you know and like the person behind the remarks. It allows for more clarity and understanding about why something does or doesn’t work. 

Achilles: The biggest plus is that you are part of a team working in different ways for a book to succeed. Here at FSG, a smaller company, the publisher and editors make you a part of something we’re all doing together. The important thing we do is create a mood and support the text in a visual way that helps the reader make sense of it. The text is the star. The most successful designs are ones you don’t notice because they’re in service of the text rather than distracting from it.

ES: When you go on speaking tours and give interviews, do journalists and reviewers usually ask questions about the design?

Torres: I get a ton of compliments on the cover, but not really in the form of interview questions. The interior design comes up quite a bit, though. The brown ink really makes an impression on people. It’s so unusual for a novel not to be printed in black and white. No one asks such design-specific questions, but they do wonder why it was important to me to create such a stylish, visual book.

Lola Landekic is the editor-in-chief of the wonderful website and critical resource Art of the Title, an online publication dedicated to title sequence design in film, TV, and beyond. I had the joy of interviewing Landekic last year about Art of the Title and title design at large. Now, the always generous Landekic shares her favorite opening titles across TV and film from 2023.

Dead Ringers (TV series)

“[Dead Ringers] features a main title reveal—rather than a full sequence—that appears at the opening of each episode, but it’s done with flair. The typography itself is a beautiful choice: the blood-red typeface with wide open curves and sharp serifs. The title appears differently in each episode, giving a sense of the unexpected, melding with the footage in an often fascinating way. I really appreciated this simple yet effective approach. It’s designed by Randy Balsmeyer of Big Film Design, previously of Balsmeyer & Everett, Inc., who actually designed the titles for the original Dead Ringers film 35 years ago.”

The Killer (film)

“David Fincher loves a title sequence, and this one was clearly part of the vision from day one. The sharp, slick slideshow of weapons being prepared and deadly actions taken fits in neatly with Fincher’s standard aesthetic and sets up the world of the titular killer.”

Poor Things (film)

“I loved the opening and closing titles for Poor Things—and the chapter headings throughout the film—done in a hand-lettering that immediately seemed to me a beautiful ode to Pablo Ferro’s long-limbed inky style from films like Men in Black, The Addams Family, and Stop Making Sense. The design is by Vasilis Marmatakis, who also created the fantastic posters for the film.”

May December (film)

“May December features elegant, gentle opening titles with typography that’s large yet light, a hollow all-caps sans serif in a pale color overlaid with footage. I was delighted to see it was designed by Todd Haynes’ regular titles collaborator, the activist, artist, and designer Marlene McCarty, who was also joined by designer Teddy Blanks.”

Infinity Pool (film)

“I’m obviously a fan of the Cronenberg clan, so I had to check out his son Brandon’s third feature film, Infinity Pool, which has a vibrant, colorful opener of various incarnations of typefaces and styles. The title logo is fun because it has a sense of symmetry and reflection, which echoes the film’s themes of death, rebirth, and the eternal return. It was designed by Aleksander Walijewski with music by Tim Hecker.”

Leave the World Behind (film)

“I enjoyed this title sequence because it was so unexpected and because it’s an obvious nod to titles of the past, specifically those designed by Saul Bass for Alfred Hitchcock: the simplicity of Psycho, the spiral abstraction of Vertigo. The imagery in Leave the World Behind‘s titles hints at what’s to come—the scale of the dreadful events, the gravity of the impending situation—but doesn’t give too much away. The film’s narrative arc reminded me very much of Hitchcock’s The Birds—what initially seems to be a harmless getaway for the well-to-do turns into a mysterious, apocalyptic nightmare—so the stylistic nod and connection feels apt. Antenna Creative designed the sequence with music by Mac Quayle.”

Saltburn (film)

“I can’t forget Saltburn’s terrific opening titles! A stunning crimson red blackletter typeface with gold embellishments shimmies and shakes, almost mimicking an optical effect, over footage of main character Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan) and the opening scene. It’s a grand spot of style— modern meets old money, designed by Katie Buckley with assistance from India Paparestis-Stacey.”

What sort of trends in the opening titles space were prevalent in 2023? 

Landekic: Recent title sequences increasingly embrace the history of the art form. We see this in the nod to Pablo Ferro’s work in the titles to Poor Things, the use of the original Dead Ringers film title designer Randy Balsmeyer for the new series, the collaboration between veteran designer Marlene McCarty and relative newcomer (he’s worked in the field for ten years, so truly not that new) Teddy Blanks for May December. I want to think that’s because the history of title design has come out of the shadows and become more accessible to designers, filmmakers, and fans thanks to sites like Art of the Title and the attention that the art form has gotten over the last decade.

Painter Jessica Brilli aims to do the same.

We all have similar exposure to images that evoke nostalgic feelings. These images tap into similar experiences and memories, like an unspoken language that can bridge individual experiences from the broader cultural context.

Jessica Brilli

Brilli is preoccupied with nostalgia and how it can be portrayed visually through her paintbrush. After gathering 35mm Kodachrome slides and old photographs while traveling around the United States, she felt compelled to start painting them. “I view thousands of slides and photos to find the ones that move me emotionally,” she shares on her website. “I’m constantly on the hunt for photos that mirror scenes from my childhood or that I feel a connection to through personal or familial experience.”

Through this creative process, Brilli has found that many of her feelings surrounding these nostalgic images strike a chord with others. “My experiences are part of a common thread that many Americans share regardless of age, race, and gender,” she writes. “The images that produce a flood of involuntary memories for me often evoke similar cascades of feelings and thoughts in others. Why is this?” Brilli isn’t necessarily interested in answering this question but instead poses it tenderly with a discerning curiosity that guides her work.

Her paintings also explore the effect of color on memory. “When looking at vintage photography, I see the color as a built-in time stamp,” she elaborates. “Different types of film age in various ways because of unstable color dyes— the faded color scheme adds a Gestalt effect that evokes these nostalgic feelings.” As such, the carefully considered color palettes Brilli works with mirror and experiment with these same hues, conjuring warmth and sentimentality.

Something of a retro aesthetics obsessive myself, I quickly became immersed in the patina-soaked world of Brilli’s work upon first discovering her; I reached out directly to learn more. Brilli’s responses to my questions are below.

When did you first embark upon the process of painting from old Kodachrome slides and photographs? What initially sparked this project? 

I had been painting vintage objects like typewriters and radios. I started collecting 35mm slides and photographs as an artistic exploration and soon realized they are also tangible artifacts. Photographs are also objects that carry unique narratives, emotions, and layers of history, and I wanted to capture and convey these complex moments that had been frozen in time.

Can you describe how it feels when you come upon a source image that speaks to you in such a way that compels you to paint it?

If the image resonates with me, it can be a visceral experience, going beyond the visual appeal. That emotional spark is a part of visual recognition. Sometimes, that spark has complex layers that are difficult to explain, and you want to explore and convey them to others.

What is it about retro aesthetics that you’re drawn to? Have you always had an affinity for that vintage look and feel?

I’ve always been drawn to retro aesthetics, not as a particular fondness for the past, but more the clean and simple designs of some vintage objects, particularly if there is a timeless elegance. The simplicity means less visual clutter, allowing each element to stand out.

You masterfully use color and shadow in your paintings— what’s your process like for nailing down your color palette for a given painting?

Thank you. I’d like to think that I’ve developed a deep understanding of the nuances of color, light, and shadow over time. I don’t let something go out of the studio unless I’m happy with it and it has the right look and feel.

Why do you think people respond so intensely to your paintings? Why is nostalgia so powerful?

To some degree, we all have similar exposure to images that evoke nostalgic feelings. These images tap into similar experiences and memories, like an unspoken language that can bridge individual experiences from the broader cultural context.

Thus concludes the bio of Volker Hermes on his website, succinctly capturing his essence. Based in Düsseldorf, Germany, Hermes is a drawer and painter who, over the last few years, has embarked upon a series called “Hidden Portraits,” in which he reworks classical portraits with wit and whimsy.

Taking venerable paintings of ancient socialites, Hermes uses digital collage techniques to conceal the faces of the subjects. The concealment can take the form of an absurd mask, a mound of fabric, or a ridiculous wig entirely created from details of the original work itself.

Quite tickled by an aristocrat wearing a collar so ostentatious that he could no longer see, I reached out to Hermes to learn more about the series and his practice. His responses to my questions are below.

How would you describe your personal design aesthetic and ethos as an artist? 

I use a wide range of techniques in my work, from painting and drawing to digital. Of course, they all have different challenges and require different approaches, so it’s not easy to condense them all into one term. But perhaps what all of my thematic series have in common is that I span an arc between the times, and I think about the general concepts of art.  

It’s important to me that my works are contemporary and autonomous artistic inventions. “Artistic invention” is probably the most essential term to me. Additionally, I believe it’s important and possible to shed new light on our cultural heritage of painting. This heritage can still tell us a lot, even though we no longer know much of its vocabulary.

How did the idea for your “Hidden Portraits” series come about? 

At a certain point, after I studied painting at the Academy of Arts in Düsseldorf, I started thinking about the social environment of art. What does a society expect from art? And, How does an elite, for example, use artworks for its purposes? Historical portraits are a good example, as artists were commissioned to depict the social significance of other people. But I have realized that today, we hardly notice the codes in the paintings that convey the messages of the commissioners. Nowadays, we are so obsessed with the face that we overlook many metaphors in these paintings. We can no longer read them. I wanted to work with this thought, and since I didn’t want to imitate the historical way of painting, I decided to use image processing. I cover the faces with what I find in the paintings, and this actual limitation enables a completely new approach.

Your reimagined portraits are infused with a hardy dose of wit and whimsy. Where would you say your sense of humor comes from? Have you always incorporated a bit of comedy into your work?

Oh, that’s hard to say! I would describe myself as a person with a sense of humor in many fields— even as a German. You’re probably born with it or not. 

In my opinion, humor is rather different from comedy. A comedy or a gag creates a quick punchline that then quickly disappears. But humor works differently and has a longer-lasting effect. For me, humor is an important tool for taking a sometimes critical look at the environment of historical art. Compared to today, there is a completely different image of society in the portraits I work on, power relations that we today would describe as toxic, a strange understanding of the role of women in society, and so on. I can point this out by humorously shaking things up and exaggerating other things so that we notice this different context. Humor can be a sharp knife, and it’s not didactic. It conveys content or evaluations without pointing fingers. These are reasons enough for me to enjoy using it.

From where do you source the portraits you repurpose in the series? How do you decide if a particular portrait is worthy of a “Hidden Portraits” installment?  

I browse the online archives of museums, other institutions, or auction houses almost every day, very intuitively. I then select the portraits that “speak to me” or are suitable for a particular statement I’m working on. I go through all the eras wildly; I soak up the art like a sponge. But sometimes, it takes me a while to work on it, and some artworks need a lot of time. Generally, it’s a very intuitive and organic process.

Everything should fit together plausibly, and form a kind of contemporary idea on the original painting. It’s important to me that the original spirit is preserved, which has something to do with respect for the original artist.

Volker Hermes

What’s your typical process like for creating one of these pieces? 

The most important first thing is looking at the painting. What does it want to convey? What are the special characteristics of the artist? What does it say to me? Then I think about my modifications; what is my statement as an artist? I try out a few things, still very roughly, and start the detailed process when I think it might work. For my interventions, I only use elements already present in the painting. That is, I cut things out and combine them into new contexts.

In the end, everything should fit together plausibly and form a contemporary idea of the original painting. It’s important to me that I preserve the original spirit, which has something to do with respect for the original artist. Since I don’t want to imitate historical paintings, I don’t print anything on canvas, and I don’t use fake historical frames. My works are contemporary photographic prints, which I produce in a small edition and frame in a current way. The technique change is an essential method, and I make this clear both in my approach and production.

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