Matthew Richmond?

If you go by The Chopping Block’s website, Matthew Richmond is Assistant to the Aide of the Scout Leader. But we know him better as partner and creative director of one of the most innovative graphic and interactive design studios around. The Chopping Block is well known for cutting-edge aesthetics blended with tons of tech trickery when working with clients like They Might Be Giants, Rachel Ray, and Nickelodeon. Matthew Richmond gives us a sneak peek at how the firm assembles their incredible concepts… (more…)

Josh Chen

We met San Francisco-based Graphic Designer Josh Chen at the HOW design conference, where he made a presentation about using handwork in graphic design. Josh is the founder of Chen Design Associates, and has over twenty years of experience in design, broadcasting, journalism and music. Named one of the “50 People to Watch” by GraphicDesignUSA, Josh is also the author of three design books and numerous articles for HOW magazine. He recently released a book entitled Fingerprint: The Art of Using Handmade Elements in Graphic Design.

Fingerprint:The Art of Using Handmade Elements in Graphic Design

The book showcases projects from an impressive roster of designers, using handwork techniques that range from lettering, illustration, mixed media and surface embellishments, to printing methods such as letterpress and silk screening. It is an inspiration and a call-to-arms for all designers to step back from the computer and reconnect with our repertoire of non-digital tools, especially the brain. Josh and his team of designers shared with us their collective thoughts and philosophies about handmade design. Afterwards, Josh mentioned he was struck by the synchronicities in his team members’ approaches. “Personally,” he said, “this reminds me again what a special group of talented, intelligent designers I get to work with day in and day out, and how thankful I am to have them be part of the CDA team. I wouldn’t be able to do half the things we’ve done as a design studio without these guys.”

CDA team members who participated in this interview include:

Josh Chen, Principal & Creative Director, Chen Design Associates

Max Spector, Senior Designer

Jennifer Tolo Pierce, Senior Designer

Kathrin Blatter, Designer

Shadi Kashefizadeh, Junior Designer

Q. Your presentation at the HOW design conference was called “Perfect Imperfection: The Art of the Handmade in Design.” Do you think adding handmade elements to design connects the process more with art, rather than feeling like a strictly commercial endeavor?

Josh Chen: I guess it’s not so much just a connection to art that’s the most important thing to me, as it is how it adds to the human connection that we all are craving for. After all, the basic motivation behind all the work we do as designers is to communicate an idea, a thought, or a message from sender to receiver. That might be accomplished completely with computer-generated art, or it might be completely handmade, or somewhere in between. I cringe when designers come up to me and ask whether handmade is the new “trend.” When they ask that, my assumption is they are just concerned about aesthetics once again. Isn’t the challenge we already face as designers, in order to be taken seriously by clients, to show that design is about more than just aesthetics? (more…)

Brian Edlefson

Brian Edlefson strives for more graphic thought and less visual clutter. As a lead designer in Whirlpool Corporation’s multi-disciplinary Global Consumer Design studio, Edlefson is responsible for infusing household brands like Whirlpool, Maytag, Kenmore, and Amana with smart graphic design strategies. Prior to moving to Michigan, Brian developed design solutions at Target, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, Herman Miller, and McDougal-Littell Publishing. He earned his BFA from Western Michigan University (1996), studied color in Bali, Indonesia with Ohio University (2000), and achieved an MFA from Yale University (2005). Edlefson’s work has been recognized in many national and international creative competitions (New York Art Director’s Club, Communication Arts, Creativity, Graphis, HOW, Print, STEP Inside Design) and chosen for inclusion in the National Design Archive at the Library of Congress. Recently, Brian was a featured speaker at the 2007 HOW Design Conference in Atlanta.

A limited edition poster commemorating Charles and Ray Eames. 24×36in, hexachrome offset

I’m curious about your current position at Whirlpool. What are you doing now that you’ve left Target? I heard you’re no longer in Minneapolis- is that true?

Brian: Yes, I left Target and Minneapolis to accept a position with Whirlpool. Although I love Minneapolis-and my time at Target was rewarding-this new role offered the unique opportunity to help lead a multidisciplinary design team. It has been a very natural professional evolution. My most rewarding design experiences have involved collaborations with colleagues outside typical graphic design practices: architects and interior designers at Herman Miller, curators and historians at MoMA, marketing strategists and interior architects at Target, and now consumer product designers at Whirlpool. My current role also builds on my interest in defining and differentiating a collection of brands. Whirlpool is a big, global company with many household brand names (Whirlpool, Maytag, Amana, Kitchen Aid, Jenn-Air, Magic Chef, etc.). Making compelling design solutions-in collaboration with product designers—on a collection of ‘un-sexy’ products—offers a lot of challenges. In some ways it is different than Target because the ‘bullseye’ caché is almost universally appealing. Target uses design as a powerful marketing tool-whereas Whirlpool uses design to make tedious tasks like laundry and food preparation more pleasurable, easier. (more…)

Luke Wroblewski

Luke Wroblewski is a Web strategist, designer, and author. He is currently Senior Principal of Product Ideation & Design at Yahoo! Inc. and Principal of LukeW Interface Designs, a product strategy and design consultancy he founded in 1996. Luke has authored a book on Web interface design principles entitled Site-Seeing: A Visual Approach to Web Usability, as well as numerous articles on design methodologies, strategies and applications. He is also frequent presenter on topics related to Web strategy and design, and a former member of the board of directors of the Interaction Design Association. Here, the hardest working man in web design shares his insight into the most important topics in the field today… (more…)

Sheila Levrant de Bretteville

Sheila Levrant de Bretteville, the head of the Graduate Program in Graphic Design at Yale since 1990, is also a practicing designer, public artist and Feminist.

In 1971, de Bretteville founded the Woman’s Design program at Cal Arts, and later co-founded the historic public space ‘The Woman’s Building’ with Judy Chicago and Arlene Raven 1973, and the Communication Design program at the Otis Art Institute of the Parsons School of Design in LA in 1981. Her many public works reflect a deep commitment to social activism through the engagement of community voices and respect for collected local memories. In 2004, she was awarded an AIGA medal for outstanding contribution to the field of design. (more…)

Scott Kelby is one of the top names in Photoshop, educating millions of users about everyone’s favorite digital imaging app. He’s the president of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP), editor-in-chief of Layers magazine, author of dozens of books about Photoshop, and a nominee for the 2007 Photoshop Hall of Fame. We’re getting his take on the latest version of Photoshop, the Photoshop phenomenon, and more…

Q: I think many of us follow this timeline when we upgrade to the latest version of Photoshop: Get psyched for the new features, order the program the second it’s available, install it the second it arrives, and instantly fall back into the same old tools and workflow we’ve used for years. What’s a new feature of Photoshop CS3 that everyone should try right now and make part of their daily toolset?

Scott: If you’re a photographer, without a doubt it would be the new Camera Raw 4.1 in Photoshop CS3. It adds new features and tools that take raw editing to a whole new level, and honestly, it’s worth the entire upgrade price all by itself. (more…)

Emily Cohen, Doyenne of the Creative Brief

Emily is a creative consultant with an expertise in the creative development process. Emily has spoken at: How’s “InHOWse” Design Conference, AIGA/Chicago, (Discussion Panel: “The Path to Profitable Growth”), Apple Store in New York City, (Presentation: “Winning Strategies for Creative Professionals.”

Q: What issues do creative professionals face over and over again? Can you recommend any alleviation for these issues?

Emily: While I find designers incredibly smart, many often have little or no experience running and managing a business or a creative services department. They often leap before planning in many areas of their business, from how they market their firm to their hiring strategies. This organic growth strategy ultimately has its limitations. At some point, designers realize they want more from their business: higher fees, better clients, more respect, and more staff. This is when the common issues become apparent: How can I charge more money?

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Sara Horowitz is the founder of Working Today / Freelancers Union

In 1995, Sara Horowitz founded Working Today to meet the needs of the new, independent workforce. In 2001, Working Today launched the Portable Benefits Network (PBN), (later renamed the Freelancers Union), to deliver benefits to independent workers in New York City’s Silicon Alley.

Currently serving as executive director, Sara takes an entrepreneurial approach, pursuing creative, market-based solutions to pressing social problems. The organization seeks to update the nation’s social safety net, developing systems so that all working people (especially freelancers) can access affordable benefits, regardless of their job situation.

Sessions.edu’s own Scott Chappell spoke with Sara Horowitz about the ties between employers and employees and membership in the Freelancers Union.

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Lew Baldwin

Lew Baldwin is a creative art director for web, film, sound, broadcast and motion graphic design projects. He works out of his Los Angeles-based studio team agency, which just recently located from New York.

Lew recently shot and directed a series of video for Nike Soccer, including a music video starring Clint Dempsey from the U.S. National Team. He is also a musician and created the musical score for the Sony feature film “November” (sonyclassics.com/November) starring Courteney Cox.
He has exhibited artwork at The Whitney Museum of American Art, The New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York, Foundation Polar in Caracas, Venezuela and is recognized internationally for his videos, visual art and installations.

Lew currently resides in Los Angeles.

Margaret Penney has known much of Lew’s work since he launched one of the first online interactive narrative art projects at Redsmoke.com.  Lew’s style is distinctive, as it moves across a variety of mediums from new media to film, television, theater, and music.

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Andrew Clemente, Creator of Devlounge.net

Andrew Clemente is an award-winning site designer / developer and creator of Devlounge.net, a well-known design and developer resource. Devlounge provides original content covering web design standard and usability. Most people that have been in design and development for 7 years are not in high school, but Andrew is. He is 17 years old. We had to talk with Andrew to find out how he founded a successful design resource site with a larger international following before he moved away from home.

Devlounge - Homepage

Q: Andrew, I recently heard that one of your “first-ever” design projects was when you created a site close to 7 years ago for your Little League team in 2000. Can you tell us a bit about the project? (How long did it take? Is the site still up? Was this when you first started thinking about design as a “career”)?

Andrew: The site (if you can call it that) was nothing amazing. I had created a Homestead account (free at the time) and laid out a site using a WYSIWYG editor and various images from around the web. At the time I was so young and I didn’t even think what I had just figured out would be worth something some day. I was really just a kid having fun.

The site is no longer up, as Homestead went the paid road (more…)