Born in Marseille, and trained at the public Art schools of Paris, Delphine Perrot is a Graphic Designer specializing in print and creative realisations. She has produced an array of artistic installations for the likes of Design Week, The Affluenza Exhibition, and The New Economics Foundation’s ‘Bigger Picture’ Festival of Interdependence. With her experience in producing work for arts, cultural and educational output, Delphine is currently working in London for the multi-award winning Studio Myerscough. Notes on Design caught up with Delphine to find out all about her practice and motivations.

Notes On Design: Can you give us an insight into your background?

Delphine: I successfully completed a BA and MA in Graphic Design in my native France. My studies were a very important phase for me, where I explored the freedom of self-initiated projects. I was taught by inspiring teachers, especially my MA tutor David Poullard who really gave me the confidence to push my personal work.

Since my MA final project, which took inspiration from the Parisian flea markets, I have researched and catalogued an extensive collection of advertising slogans, in French and English, that I feel encompass the 20th century. These form a strong thread that can be found, at least in part, in many of my installations and artwork.

Notes On Design: Can you tell us about your self initiated work?

Delphine: I just love being a designer. It gives me the opportunity to work on a wide range of engaging and interactive projects that touch audiences. Outside of my day job though, it’s vital I submerge myself in creating my own self-initiated art and design work – it keeps me curious and offers a creative balance.

My approach to my personal works is to emulate commonplace advertising words/slogans, through historical and typographic contrasts, and the clever addition of discrete commercial messages in various, and unexpected situations. For me, it is not about selling anymore, but about surprising, entertaining and opening up new possibilities and performances. It is a question of explaining these slogans in other contexts in order to draw our attention to them, and to challenge and change their meanings. Within my work, these messages manifest themselves in diverse places, in wild and unexpected displays, and across a myriad of media.

The Affluenza Exhibition, London, 2009.

Video installation: At Nottingham’s Surface Gallery, 2009.

Notes on Design: What would you say was your creative break?

Delphine: It was a fantastic opportunity to be a part of ‘Nothing Works’, a 2008 group show for Design Week, curated by Amanprit Sandhu and artist Michael Czerwinski (Design Museum). Open in September 2008, the show coincided and formed part of the London Design Festival and the London Open House weekend.

The show brought together 20 visual and cross-disciplinary artists and designers, to produce a series of installations in the basement of Shoreditch Town Hall, London. The collective aimed to provide a space and platform for cross-disciplinary artists and designers to respond to site-specific briefs, produce new work, and in turn create dialogue with others – all with an intent to promote and showcase the multiple media in which artists and designers were working.

Set in the labyrinthine basement rooms of the grade 2 listed building, the show examined our preoccupations and romance with provocative disused architectural space. Exhibitors were asked to respond directly to the spaces and the history of Shoreditch Town Hall in order to produce installations that involved visual art, design, sound and performance.

For me personally this was a fantastic platform to showcase my ideas, and being part of the same exhibition as Margaret Calvert felt quiet special too!

Nothing Works, Design Week, 2008.

Notes on Design: Can you tell us a little about your work and role at StudioMyerscough?

Delphine: Working at StudioMyerscough has been fantastic, offering me a broad spectrum of exciting and challenging projects to work on. So far I have had the opportunity to work with architects and other specialists on a brand identity for an educational institution, designs for major international exhibitions, and popular music and cultural festivals.

Notes on Design: Do you have any self-led projects you’d like to tell us about?

Delphine: I am interested in the use of projections and temporary light installations in interesting spaces – an approach I would like to take to different cities in the future. I am also keen to further develop my catalogue of advertising inspired slogans, and am working on a limited edition publication to showcase these. I am also working on my website, which is something I am excited to have, to really document all my activities and ideas.

Delphine Perrot, Sketchbook.

Notes on Design: So, what was 2009 like for you, and what does 2010 hold?

Delphine: I had a great year in 2009, I was involved in many interactive events and I received hugely supportive feedback from the public, other artists and critics alike. This year, I began working 4 days a week with Studio Myerscough, so I could dedicate more time for my personal projects. So, for 2010, I would literally say ‘watch this space!’

Todd Weinberger is the creative director of Inked, a luxury tattoo magazine that he redesigned and re-launched in 2007. Notes on Design caught up with Todd this month to find out more about his creative journey.

Notes on Design: Can you tell us a little about your career so far?

Todd: After graduating, I moved to Boulder Colorado and spent some time as a freelance designer working for different kinds of clients: bands, snowboard companies, celestial seasonings tea, etc. I moved back to Philadelphia and worked at The Bailey Group as a designer for a few years doing mainly corporate branding and packaging design. I decided to try my hand at advertising and moved on to Gyro Worldwide (now Quaker City Mercantile) and was a Senior Art Director there for about 3.5 years working on Camel, Salem, Winston, Puma, Glenfiddich, Hendricks Gin, and a bunch of other random clients. I used to get this magazine called Philadelphia Style, and would rip apart the horrible design and brag about how I would take the Creative Director job if they ever fired the CD at the time. So one day we got a press release that she was fired, and all the other art directors called me out on it, I interviewed and took the job. I redesigned the magazine and realized how much I loved magazine design. After 6 years doing Philadelphia Style and DC Style, I moved to NYC when I was offered to job to relaunch Inked magazine. The president of Nylon magazine met me in Philadelphia and brought me to NYC to utilize my fashion and advertising background to make a beautiful high-end fashion and entertainment magazine for people with tattoos. I absolutely love it.

Notes on Design: What drove you to choose Graphic Design as a career path?

Todd: I have always been into art, and for a while I wanted to be a comic book illustrator, and even a ceramicist. In college I was drawn to my art classes but not math and science, so I researched 3 career art paths (graphic design, advertising, illustration) that had a strong job market so that I could justify spending a 5th year in college to transfer to the art school. I met with a professional in each industry and really liked graphic design. I pitched the idea to my parents and they were ok with me spending an extra year in school. I immediately fell in love with type and continued to graduate with a BFA in graphic design.

Notes on Design: What would you describe was your greatest creative break?

Todd: Working at Gyro brought me to the forefront of attention in the advertising realm and I got a lot of exposure while working there. I was on the board of the Philadelphia AIGA chapter for a few years, and all the design that I did for them brought a lot of attention to my work locally and nationally. Moving to NYC and working in the publishing industry garnered me some SPD awards for my work at Inked, which is an amazing accomplishment for our new, small magazine to achieve such recognition.

Notes on Design: How did your role at Inked Magazine arise?

Todd: I met the president of Nylon magazine through a friend, and when he bought Inked, he hired me to design and art direct the first issue by myself, while I was Creative Director at Philadelphia STYLE. The first issue was a huge success, and I immediately moved to NYC to work on it fulltime. Since then I have been basically running the magazine.

Notes on Design What was 2009 like for you, and what does 2010 hold?

Todd: 2009 was a rollercoaster ride. Trying to put 10 issues out a year with an editorial staff of 3 is brutal! But also the most fun I have ever had. I learned a lot about tattooing, and rallied an amazingly talented group of photographers, stylist and artists I support for what we’re doing. We’ve more than tripled our circulation and newsstand sell through, and it seems like everyone has heard of Inked. 2010 is going to be a bigger year for the magazine; we hope to get even bigger celebrities into INKED and I want to increase our exposure.

Zara Arshad is a British designer currently based in Beijing, China. Having also lived in the UK, Syria and Indonesia, she continually promotes internationalism as well as the potential of design to solve social, economic and political issues. Previous experience includes working with the British Council, and Don’t Panic and Icon magazines; she is also a persistent volunteer for Architecture for Humanity, which she represented at 100% Design, London. As well as practicing as a freelance, multi-disciplinary designer, Zara is now working as Greening and Environmental Support Officer for the British Embassy in Beijing. Zara is joining the Notes on Design team this month, to bring us design news from China, so we caught up with her journey to date to welcome her to the team!

Notes on Design: Where are you originally from?

Zara: Good question! My family are originally from Pakistan, but I was born and raised in London. Over the years though, I’ve also been fortunate enough to live in Jakarta, Damascus, and Beijing where I am currently living.

Notes on Design: How and why did you choose a career in Graphic Design?

Zara: This was actually an accident. I’ve always been creative; from a young age, I was constantly producing drawings. My family are fairly traditional and were not very keen for me to engage in a creative career, however, when it came to picking potential courses for university (I was schooling in Indonesia at the time), the only thing that I could think of that I really wanted to do was Design. This was set to be a basis for a career in Advertising – well, that was the plan then!
 I accepted a position on the BA (Hons) Design course at Goldsmiths College, University of London. Coming from a strong academic background, with a limited knowledge of design, the first year was quite a struggle. I had to do quite a lot of catch-up reading on things that everyone else already appeared to know from undertaking specialised design and/or foundation courses, and every project was a new learning experience.

This struggle, however, also helped me to find focus quickly. I soon realized that Advertising was not the right choice for me and that I was more interested in the social aspect of design. I also found that I enjoyed graphics and immediately started teaching myself how to use design software and some of the rules of graphic design. So, with the combination of conceptual thinking taught at Goldsmiths, an interest in where and how design overlaps (ideas and disciplines), and the self-taught technical skills, I found myself working as a graphic designer.

Notes on Design: What would you say was your creative break?

Zara: Somehow, I don’t think I’ve had it yet. I envision a “creative break” to be something really life-changing. So life-changing that you immediately recognise it whenever you look back on your career. Perhaps, my “creative break” was working for Icograda in Beijing. Having said that, I see my life as a series of chapters where this magical thing called a “creative break” doesn’t really exist. Living and schooling in Indonesia, for example, was one chapter; life at University was another. Now, I’m in China and it’s the start of another one, where I’m in an amazing situation where design is just getting started, where people outside the design profession don’t really understand what it is, and I’m amongst amazing people that speak a whole other language and think in an entirely different manner. It has been a lot of hard work to find my footing here – you have to be very very proactive to find work.

Notes on Design: What has been the pivotal piece of work you are most proud of?

Zara: My Unity Flag and Prayer Flags are two pieces that I am especially proud of. Both were conceptualised and created whilst I was a new graduate – I had a couple of post-grad months in London before I embarked upon my adventure to Beijing, and was unsuccessful in obtaining a job (or even an internship) because I couldn’t commit long-term. I still felt like I should be doing something to fill in the time though, so I hunted around for some socially-focused design briefs online. This is when I came across the briefs for the 2 projects mentioned above: one from Adbusters, and the other from Colors magazine. With Unity Flag, this was a pivotal piece because I was in this weird place where I had no idea where to start (the project). Then, all of a sudden, on one afternoon, I ended up drawing so many ideas so quickly, that each one looked like chicken scratch. Prayer Flags became a basis to explore isometric (and other gridded) papers. This paved the way for various future projects. Both were lessons in being proactive – something that would define the start of my career in China. These pieces will remain pivotal to me as they are all about transition: from graduate to designer, from London to Beijing. They signify personal change.

Notes on Design: What led you to working at the British Embassy?

Zara: To celebrate months of hard work at the Icograda World Design Congress 2009 in Beijing, I had planned a trip to Xiamen (south of China), to visit a friend. Then, a couple of days before I was due to leave I received an e-mail from another friend working at the Embassy, informing me a job had been created that entailed greening the FCO. Beijing is a strange place as opportunities come and go; you really have to learn to grab something whilst you can. At that time, the momentum for Copenhagen was also building, and the eco sector is something that is really taking off here in China, so I decided to go for the interview. By God’s good graces, I got the job. I’m now trying to intertwine design into a non-design practice. I think it’s important to show the impact and potential of design outside the design bubble.

Notes on Design: So, what does your working day at the Embassy entail?

Zara: I currently jobshare the ‘Greening and Environmental Support Officer’ role – my counterpart is the information, whilst I’m the creativity and the design. We’ve only been working in this role for a couple of months now; the initial few weeks were spent gathering information from various people within the Embassy (including the voluntary Green Group, who were doing our job before we were officially employed). Once we had gathered all the information in one place, we decided to run a series of mini-campaigns – each one focusing on a small area that we would like to green: i.e. “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle,” transport, kitchen waste, water usage and energy usage.

The first mini-campaign was called “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle,” which approached stationery and office supplies, printing, recycling etc. We drew up a list of things that had already been done, where they could improve and what new things could be implemented. For things that could be improved or newly implemented, we’re really trying to get people excited about being more environmentally-friendly; one way to do this is via good design. For our present recycling system, for example; I am now working on new labels that have more information and are more visually appealing. Hopefully, these will get people more excited about recycling (an otherwise monotonous and dreary practice for most). It’s these simple things we’re looking change.
 A lot of our job entails chasing up various people; a large portion of the day means e-mailing both internal and external contacts, or being on the phone.

The Embassy itself is split over 2 buildings, which means that we have to spread our work to cover the two. We are working in close collaboration with the British Council, who are in an entirely different area altogether! I am also trying to approach and involve local organisations, businesses and/or individuals wherever possible. The Green Group has previously held lunch-time talks with Greenpeace China, for example, but I’ve started to get involved with the really local market and offer them a platform to communicate what they do to a more international audience.
 Once every fortnight, I also spend time creating our greening newsletter, BE: Green Express. This was a new creation on my part, and has become our main communication method. The newsletter is circulated internally to all Embassy and British Council staff, can be downloaded from our Intranet, and publicly on the “UK in China” website, whilst printed versions are pinned on noticeboards. We found that one of the weaker areas of the greening work that had already been done was communication; a lot of impressive sustainable measures had already been taken by the Green Group, but barely anyone seemed aware of them. The new, BE: Green Express, newsletter aims to change that.



Notes on Design: So, how would you advise other creatives to work with people and clients who don’t understand design?

Zara: To not understand something is simply not knowing how it works. Designers are problem solvers; we are taught to question everything around us in order to innovate. We question how effective things are in communicating a certain message, what visuals and aesthetics work, what don’t work; we consider the context of things. If you strip away all these qualities, how do you start to understand things? To deal with clients who don’t understand design, you have to place yourself in their position. Become the user; pretend you have no idea how design works or what it is supposed to do. Don’t patronise, but go back to the basics. How would you explain, for example, how a website works? Start with a wireframe for a website (you’ve previously completed) and present this to the client. You can use this to explain various aspects of the website: navigation, where links go and why, why the logo of the company is placed at the top, why does it link back to the homepage? If you are effective enough in explaining how things work, this process may build up trust between yourself and the client. More importantly, when a client requests a change to the website that you think wouldn’t work, you can explain why with validity. You have to take the time to make your client feel comfortable as they embark upon a project that covers (for them), new territory.

Notes on Design: Here’s the big question – do you think design can make a difference to the world around us?

Zara: Definitely! This is what I’m all about! Design can certainly make a difference to the world around us. It’s just taking the time to make people understand and realise that! The “recent” Obama campaign was a pivotal point in illustrating the impact of good design, whilst the UK recession has seen many articles predicting that businesses would be calling upon creatives to help boost their profits. Design is everywhere in everything, and its potential in bringing about change is limitless.

Notes on Design: Do you have any recent freelance or personal projects you’d like to tell us about?

Zara: I do have a couple of projects I would like to share. They are recent ventures, completed in collaboration with a couple of British artists also living in Beijing. The first, is a piece commissioned by Plastered8 (Beijing’s iconic t-shirt brand) owned by Dominic Johnson-Hill. He asked me to illustrate a portrait of Jiang Zemin (former President of the PRC) in a stained-glass window effect. I wanted to do something a little less traditional, and ended up incorporating a lot of triangles into the piece. This was, initially, hand-drawn and then digitalised in Illustrator, so ended up being quite freeform. There have been some problems realising this piece though; factories here in China are refusing to make it into a product because Jiang Zemin is still alive. It has caused quite a stir, apparently, so only time will tell what happens with this one.


The second project is a collaboration with Martin Barnes, a British artist based in Beijing. After reading the concept behind Martin’s original “chicken, handbag and heels image”, I decided to abstract the Chinese characters for “Ji Nu” (pinyin for “chicken girl”); this was then drawn on isometric paper and used to fill out the hollow chicken shape in an attempt to make the image pop (see a sneak preview here). I liked the idea of this piece being something that one could stare at for a long time, but still be able to find new shapes and details. Some areas appear more 3D than others, so I think this helps to draw the eye around the canvas. It also gets people wondering about the concept more!

Notes on Design: What are your dreams for your future?

Zara: Quite simply, to keep helping people through design. When you graduate, you have these ideas about how big you want to make it; I’ve come to learn that it’s best to just take it as it comes (especially in China!) and focus on what is around you: who needs you, and how can you make a difference, even if it’s a small one.

“The devil’s in the details, and that’s where I love to be.”

Emily Pilloton

I’ve seen some designs come out of the poorest villages in Africa that trump anything coming out of any design firm in the US. — Emily Pilloton

Recent Colbert Report guest and Bay Area native and designer Emily Pilloton was underwhelmed with the home product decision-making that made up much of her working life when she started Project H, an organization of volunteer designers who work to connect design with communities most in need. Her work encouraging local Project H chapters to bring better products to schools, hospitals and shelters led to the book “Design Revolution: 100 Products that Empower
People.”

In February she’ll kick off the Design Revolution Road Show, a traveling exhibition and lecture series that will visit 25 high schools and university design programs nationwide across the nation via an Airstream trailer that highlights 40 humanitarian design solutions highlighted in the book. You can follow the cross-country tour, which will take Pilloton and partner Matthew Miller to schools from Austin to Baltimore, on the site’s itinerary and @DesRevRoadShow. Emily Pilliton is interviewed here by Emily Goligoski.

Notes On Design: What your initial motivation for starting Project H?

Emily Pilloton: I started Project H mostly out of frustration, but the kind of frustration that is laced with optimism: where you wake up one day and realize that you don’t like the way things are, but you think you know how to fix it.

I’m trained as an architect and a product designer, and grew up always taking things apart and putting things together, and came to design believing that it would be a great skill set for solving problems in a physical, creative, and critical manner.

A few years out of graduate school, when I found myself working as the store architect for a retail clothing company, where design was synonymous with choosing doorknobs and other such minutiae, I had had enough. Design had, in my own career (mostly because I had huge student loan bills), become so far removed from why I originally became a designer: to solve problems. I quit the doorknob job the next day, started writing and making up my own rules, and eventually started Project H as an avenue to apply design to the things that mattered.

The Design Revolution Roadshow Airstream

NoD: How did the idea for such a non-traditional book tour come about?

Emily Pilloton: As a natural contrarian, I tend to find the expected and the usual very boring. This was particularly true when I wrote “Design Revolution” and the time came to think about what kind of book tour I would embark on. The usual book signings and library talks seemed valuable, but not in keeping with the tone of the book, which is so much about a grassroots, bottom-up, “just do it” approach to design that really belongs at the doorsteps of designers who care, not in Barnes & Nobles. I wanted people to be able to see all these great products featured in the book, to pick them up, use them, and to be inspired by them. More importantly, I wanted the book tour to be an educational tool–a way to distribute a toolkit for designers and creatives to not just start designing for the greater good, but to do it in the best, most engaged way possible, with a critical eye and with real impact.

The Design Revolution Road Show was the result: 25 high schools and colleges in 75 days, 6300 miles across the country, in a vintage Airstream that my partner and I custom-built out (while living in) as an exhibition of all these great design solutions.

Design Revolution: 100 Products that Empower People

NoD: Beyond size, how did you select which 40 products made it into the Airstream?

Emily Pilloton: There are 115 products and projects in the book. I would have loved to have fit all of them, but some are too abstract or big or just unrealistic (like the BikeDispenser bicycle vending machines in the Netherlands). We selected the 40 based on a few factors—logistically, it depended a lot on what we could get our hands on, either by purchasing, having them donated, or from the designers themselves. Size was obviously an issue, as was the need to curate the 40 products in the same way we approached the curating of the book: there needed to be a range, from retail products like OneTouch blood glucose monitors down to feats of ingenuity from the developing world like the Paraguas Project- a bottle shredding device that turns plastic bottles into long strands suitable for craft weavers to make into baskets. There are also 8 categories in the book: Water, Well-Being, Energy, Education, Play, Food, Mobility, and Enterprise, and we wanted each one to
be well-represented.

NoD: Do you have a favorite category, or some favorite products?

Emily Pilloton: As for my favorite category, by far the Enterprise category that combines ingenuity with awesome business models. As for my favorite products of the ones in the exhibition, I love the SpiderBoot, the Adaptive Eyecare glasses, and the DIY Soccer Ball Tape!”

Spider Boot, Adaptive Eyecare glasses, and DIY Soccer Ball Tape

NoD: What is an area/industry that a Project H chapter hasn’t yet explored but that you’d like to see smart volunteers take on?

Emily Pilloton: Project H is oddly structured–in a good way, I think. We run on volunteer passion, but we function like a design firm. We aren’t Habitat for Humanity where the entry level for volunteers is relatively easy. If you volunteer for Project H, you’re a designer, and you’re going to be around for a while, and you’re going to work your butt off.

What that means is that our volunteer design teams embark on projects that go on for months if not years, and really dig their heels in to build single case studies into models that could work on a wider scale. Public education (K-12, not college level design education) is becoming one of our key strengths, and something I’ve tried to lead by example by leading and working directly on some of our key educational projects like the Learning Landscape math playground. We’ve delved deeply into systems-level design for education projects through a partnership with the Bertie County School District in North Carolina–the state’s poorest county–where I’m actually in the process of getting certified as a high school shop teacher to teach Studio H starting Fall 2010, a design/vocation/community program.

So as far as issues we haven’t yet explored, I am actually much more interested in investing deeply in what we’ve just started- a hard look at how design can improve environments, systems, services, products, and experiences for youth and public education students and institutions in the US. We’re working in our own back yards a lot more, and every single project is local. You will never see a Project H Design team in Chicago working on a project in Africa.

NoD: How important do you think a formal design background is to making better products?

Emily Pilloton: I’d like to say yes, but I think in most cases, no. If you’re going for form, and for things that sell, then a formal design background matters immensely. If you’re going for things that are appropriate, things that work, and things that are the result of ingenuity, then no. I’ve seen some designs come out of the poorest villages in Africa that trump anything coming out of any design firm in the US.

NoD: Can you share one of these designs of ingenuity that you’ve come across?

Tire Shoes, Kisizi Hospital, Uganda

Emily Pilloton: Definitely. One in particular. This child who was being treated at the children’s ward at the local “hospital” had very weak limbs and 2 broken ankles. His mother fashioned some shoes for him out of motorbike tires so that he could walk on the rigid casts. This photo was taken by my partner Matthew Miller at the Kisiizi Hospital in Kisiizi, southwestern Uganda.

That being said, what a formal design background does offer is a process, which to me is the most valuable component of design. As designers, we learn “how to see,” how to problem find, and how to go through a process that engages users and ultimately results in something that does both: that sells AND that works. The problem with so much design training these days is that it is not process-focused, it is form-focus. If all our design programs really focused on developing a process instead of teaching aesthetics, we would be much better off and have much more to offer.

NoD: How did you select the schools participating in the roadshow? What are your main goals for it?

Emily Pilloton: At first, we had chosen colleges off-the-beaten-path that usually don’t pull the high profile design speakers (not that we’re high profile by any means, but we wanted to bring something really cool to places that are sort of forgotten by the usual circuit). We targeted places like Auburn and NC State and colleges that have multiple design programs- product, graphic, architecture, etc., and that ideally also had IDSA chapters to support the promotion. About halfway through the planning, however, I was in North Carolina working with students at Bertie High School, where we’ve done a bunch of design work, and realized that this was our audience– not college students who had already been convinced of design’s value, but 16-year-olds in rural locations who have never thought of design as a career, but for whom creative capital would be the ultimate catalyst.

At that point we cut down our 25 potential colleges to about half that, and added about ten high schools, in locations that had a good link between the colleges and the high schools, or in places we knew would be interested, like my own high school in Larkspur, California, where the tour kicks off.

NoD: What project that you’ve been involved in in the past year have you been the most excited about?

Emily Pilloton: Definitely our partnership with the Bertie County School District in North Carolina. We’ve set up shop in Windsor with huge support from the superintendent to transform the district through smart design. We’ve completed the construction of four Learning Landscape math playgrounds for their elementary schools, just finished two new computer lab spaces at their high school, and did a countywide graphic campaign called Connect Bertie that will provide free broadband to the district’s families in order to promote networked learning outside of the school walls.

This partnership will continue with our high school design/build program Studio H, which starts Fall 2010, for which my partner and I are moving there and getting certified as shop teachers. The ability to work deep rather than wide, to invest in one community at a variety of levels, is hugely gratifying. I don’t ever want to skim the surface, and our projects in Bertie County are really allowing us to make the case and provide the proof that design makes a difference.

I’ve written about using LinkedIn to find design jobs here and here, but I’ve yet to suggest ways to use Twitter or Facebook as part of a design career search.

Needless to say, it is an obligation today that during the application process for a new job you take a moment to see if the company offering a position to which you might apply maintains a Facebook page or Twitter account. If so, Fan and Follow them, read some of their social media content, and then tailor your application / cover letter based upon the insights you have gained by doing this little bit of homework on the company. I know all seems obvious, but it is still worth illustrating because each experience using social media for this purpose is different.

For example, I’ll go look at Coroflot’s Twitter feed right now and check the most recent job announcement to see if this whole application process using social media works…

OK, here is the latest job posted on Coroflot’s Twitter feed:
CI Creative Director: Landor Associates New York, NY http://bit.ly/6H9LnM

(Note: if you are not following Coroflot’s Twitter feed then you can do so here.)

After reviewing the ad, I’ll visit the Landor Associates site and familiarize myself with them, and then search Twitter to see it they have a Twitter account, which they do, and here it is:

http://twitter.com/landor_dot_com

So in addition to what I know of Landor from their website, and from the ad, I now know from their Twitter feed that their CMO has published a short video about branding for non-profits: http://ow.ly/Q2dg

Why would they publish a video about branding for non-profits? Very likely because it is a target market of interest for them. I, personally, have worked for non-profits so have that to mention in my cover letter for the job. If you have worked for non-profits in the past then you too have that context to work into your cover letter. If you have not, fine, make reference to something else you find on their Twitter feed that matches a skill or interest that you have. And make sure they know you learned of it by reading their Twitter feed.

So with this one example of using Twitter as part of your job search process several things have been accomplished, and it took you all of 3 minutes to find and read through the prospective employer’s Twitter feed.

First: If you do a little homework using social media then when you apply for a job you’ll come across as someone that does everything you do with a little extra effort.

Two: You have shown business savvy and you are coming across as someone who “gets” the value of social media.

Three: In the example I provided above, you will have mentioned the CMO by name in your cover letter and, therefore, flattered a C-level executive in the company by commenting on some of their work.

Four: You are showning that you not only have a portfolio of work, but that you have expertise in a market that they are interested in pursuing which, in this case, is the non-profit market.

The list goes on.

I’ve not really touched on Facebook but you can apply the same priciples. Find the comapany on Facebook, fan them, and find something that you can work into your application/cover letter.

So add Twitter and Facebook to your job search strategy and you’ll not only find jobs, but also be able to tailor your cover letters to prospective employers and get an edge over other applicants.

BNE Was Here sticker -- Photo taken in Sukhumvit, Bangkok by Nat Wein

Thanks to Mother I recently interviewed, via email, a graffiti artist known as BNE.

Mother is big ad agency with big clients (like Coca-Cola and Stella Artois), that does interesting and creative work. They are opening a huge New York office (36,250 sq. ft.) at 11th avenue and 44th street in Hell’s Kitchen and across the street from Ogilvy. I was there last Thursday to attend a party they threw in celebration of their new office that was also promoted / co-sponsored by New York culture magazine ANIMAL. The guest of honor was BNE, but he/she/they was not present…as far as I know.

BNE has a secret identity and is prolific in the sense that the stickers and painted stencils that say “BNE” are in major cities all over the world. Enough to get print, tv, and web media coverage by major and minor outlets including a recent New York Times article. Coverage garnered, I suspect, thanks to a little help from trend / cool hunters representing agencies that tell the media what is cool and news worthy. There is no other logical explanation, because prolific tagging is not new.

BNE at Mother -- Photo courtesy of Mother, New York

The party was also billed as BNE’s first art show. The art at the opening included the big BNE initials/acronym that have provided the attention to date, and then some pieces where the BNE acronym were placed on top of brand icons like Bart Simpson and Spiderman obscuring the iconic characters as though the brand of BNE is so large, and aggressive, that it is stealing the exposure, the real estate, the consumers’ attention from the long established brands that play by the old rules of branding.

The party seemed to be Mother illustrating a point on branding, and the point was to blur the lines between branding and art, between commerce and art, between life and commerce, between life and art, between old established brands and “brand you.”

Mother and I actually have a lot in common, they build brands and advertise which is pretty much what I do. The only difference is that I do it illegally and my product is art. – BNE

There were same graffiti writers at the party that tagged up a wall in the basement of Mother New York’s new headquarters. For the most part the attendees were people like me — mostly younger — drinking the Stella ( a Mother ad account ). Nothing wrong with that!

BNE, if he / she / they do exist, is/are a tagger, that has been co-oped by a brand, and the brand is an ad agency out for some media coverage but perhaps more importantly an agency with a ton of money to burn in order to have a more impressive reel to help sell *their* brand to more clients. And the way they sell their brand, and get new clients, is to provide examples of the new branding strategy that is hard to explain but much easier to illustrate.

DJ Johnny Santos, Gui Borchert, CD of Syrup (New York) and Paul Malmstrom, ECD of Mother (New York) -- Photo courtesy of Mother, New York

The branding strategy on display at the BNE opening at Mother is that a brand has to create associations with or even actually create new micro-brands to be successful. In other words, you have to buy credibility. A brand has to appear to be new by moving away from the consumer so the new brand or co-oped brand association is foregrounded using very big budgets to help saturate the market. If you are Budweiser you can make your money through microbrews. If you are Disney you can make your money through smaller production companies. You can then sell to an increasingly cynical and jaded but, importantly, broader target audience because that target audience does not have to buy Bud anymore but can instead buy the sub-brand that feels more unique, more “outsider”. Like outsider / street art, for example.

BNE is similar in terms of market saturation. Where the money comes from I don’t know, but the strategy of market saturation is the same. And, probably as a result of this truth, the majority of people I talked to at the party, including several of Mother’s own staff, seemed cynical about the sincerity of both BNE and Mother.

BNE Was Here work at the Mother opening -- Photo courtesy of Mother, New York

It is interesting to explore the evolution of what branding means and to create a dialogue about commerce vs. art. This BNE art opening by Mother was an effort to do so and to stay near the leading edge of that dialogue. But there was no moment where Mother moved the dialogue forward. Sure, as the stickers say, “BNE was here”. But Kilroy was as well, over 60 years ago.

Kilroy Was Here graffiti -- Source Unknown, Wiki Creative Commons

Here is my interview with BNE. Facilitated by the PR director of Mother. I’ve not had any direct communication with BNE.

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NoD: I’ve heard you are Benet (San Francisco-based graffiti artist) and a Sydney-based hip hop band called Bliss N Eso. Can we proceed with the questions assuming both of these identities are true?

BNE: Benet was a graffiti writer from the 90s who is not around anymore. And no, I am definitely not part of an Australian hip-hop group.

NoD: What I take from your stickers, and the sheer volume of them, is that there is a tension being built that is about to explode. Perhaps you have something on your mind and you are going to share that with us…or you don’t and you are more of a Forrest Gump character that will one day simply say, “I thank I’ll stop now.” (< --- Read like Forrest Gump.)   So which will it be -- (a) the big message / meaning of life (my fingers are crossed) or (b) a romantic Forrest Gump moment / Art for Art's Sake / "I thank I'll stop now"?

BNE: This is something that I  have been doing for about 15 years and have no plans to ever stop. My work in the street is very repetitive and is meant to be that way. There IS  meaning and a message in my work, I just don’t feel the need to spell it out. 

NoD: The media coverage you have received surprises me.  Not that you are undeserving of some attention, but it is still somewhat surprising at the level of coverage from major outlets and it is interesting how polarized people get over what you do.  Are you surprised by the coverage? Why do you think you have received so much attention.

BNE: I am  not really surprised by the coverage. I get a lot of media attention because people are curious and there is a story behind the mystery.

NoD: You are having your first art opening with an advertising agency.  Does that contradict what many find inspirational about graffiti / street art? The attitude of taking back public space vs. selling it?  Or perhaps the opposite it true, that Mother New York is giving the streets back. Hmmm…what’s the relationship between you and Mother? (That sounds like a really personal question!)

BNE: I don’t think that I’m contradicting myself at all. I’m not anti-advertising. I do take public space and always will. Nothing has changed. Mother understands and likes my art. They provided me with a space to do what I wanted to do. Mother and I actually have a lot in common, they build brands and advertise which is pretty much what I do. The only difference is that I do it illegally and my product is art.
 
NoD: Are you a fan of any street artists?

BNE: I don’t like the term “street artist,” but as far as the streets go, I like and respect people who put in work consistently for a long time. Running around for 6 months or a year doesn’t make you somebody in the streets. An ice skater or pianist will spend their whole life perfecting what they do with decades of hard work behind them. Graffiti is no different. MQ DMS and TIE ONE ( Rest In Peace) are artists who I respect.        

NoD: What commercial art do you like? Films, books, websites, etc?

BNE: Do you think someone as narcissistic as me actually pays attention to what other people do!? I’m just kidding. I like a lot of stuff. Too many to mention.

NoD: Do you do other street art other than your stickering?  Do you work alone? Are you a “you” or a “them”?

BNE: Stickers are just one of the tools I use. And when it comes to the labels, I work alone.

NoD: What do you do to make money?

BNE: From now on….art.

NoD: How old are you?

BNE: BNE

NoD: Where are you from?

BNE: BNE

NoD: What is your name?

BNE: BNE

NoD: Did I get you to confess!?

BNE: BNE BNE BNE BNE BNE BNE BNE BNE

So, post a comment to this entry below and we’ll start investigating. When we find out who the designer is we’ll share their name with you and may even try to get a Q&A published with them, and YOU can be the interviewer. Also, feel free to suggest designers whose names you know and whom you would like to interview.

Scott

Christine Nguyen

You’ve not seen work like that of Christine Nguyen. Much of her current body of work involves combining original photography, items from nature, and a salt crystalizing process that makes each piece organic and delivers unexpected and otherworldy results. She is a busy artist and solo exhibitions of her work have been featured at the Hammer Museum (Project), Michael Kohn Gallery, Andrewshire Gallery, and Sam Lee Gallery in Los Angeles. Group exhibitions include Laguna Beach Art Museum, Laguna Beach; 4-F Gallery, Los Angeles, PH Gallery, New York; San Art, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; Sprueth Magers Projekte, Munich, Germany; and 10 Chancery Lane Gallery, Hong Kong. Christine currently resides in Los Angeles, California. She received her B.F.A from California State University, Long Beach and M.F.A from University of California, Irvine.

Here, professional photographer and curator Laina Karavani interviews Christine in a series of emails, Internet chats, and phone calls.

NoD: Hi Christine. Where are you from?

Christine Nguyen: California. I grew up in Northern California and currently reside in Los Angeles.

Work by Christine Nguyen

“My work draws upon the imagery of science, but it is not limited to technologies of the present. It imagines that the depths of the ocean reach into outer space, that through an organic prism, vision can fluctuate between the micro- and macroscopic.” – Christine Nguyen

NoD: Oh. Where north?

Christine Nguyen: I was born in Mountain View and then grew up in San Jose. My dad was a commercial fisherman. He fished mostly in the bay area during my childhood and then in Southern California in my late teens. I realized about 3 years ago a lot of my work is partially inspired by the ocean due to the things my dad would bring home and spending a lot time on his boat as a kid. I’ve always been fascinated in nature, the sciences, geology, the macro/ micro, and outer space. Lately, I’ve been into growing salt crystals and collecting minerals and crystals.

NoD: Do you have photographs from your childhood of you and your father near water?

Christine Nguyen: I’m not sure. That’s a good question. I don’t recall any off hand, but should look into it. I always wanted to go out fishing with him when I was a kid on his boat, but he wasn’t allowed to since it was a commercial fishing boat. He did take me out once to see a light house when I was in high school in San Pedro, CA. I was sooo excited. The sad part was that I ended up getting really seasick. It’s pretty ironic how I love the ocean!

NoD: You were recently selected as one of the Visions from the New California artist’s fellowship by the Alliance of Artists Communities. This involved a residency, yes?

Christine Nguyen: I received the fellowship last year. The residency was in the Marin Headlands which is located a few miles across the Golden Gate Bridge at the Headlands Center for the Arts for the month of October. It was amazing out there. The art center buildings are historic military buildings that have been converted and restored.

NoD: oh wow, Sausalito is really nice.

Christine Nguyen: Yes, it’s amazing. I had a huge studio to work in with natural lighting all to myself. The beach was 10 minutes away walking distance. The beaches in that area are gorgeous….sea mounds, multi-colored pebbles, shells, and beautiful cliff sides. There were hiking trails everywhere filled with wildlife and nature. The dears and owls were my favorite creatures to encounter. I was in paradise.

NoD: What did you create?

Christine Nguyen: During my residency, I salt crystallized various vegetation and collected things in the area while on my walks. To salt crystallize something I submerge the object in a super saturated saltwater solution to which the salt crystals form and grow on. I also made drawings on Mylar and took photographs of the surrounding landscapes.

Work by Christine Nguyen

NoD: In your artwork the sea & space really come together, it’s angelic.

Christine Nguyen: Thank you. I do see the two different environments very similar.

NoD: I’m looking at this photo-based piece of yours I really like… it has many layers…
These salt crystallize things are really pretty too. How do you present this work?

Work by Christine Nguyen - Humming of a Symphony

Christine Nguyen: The piece you are talking about is called “Humming of a Symphony”. It’s a photo-based piece that was actually partially inspired by my experience at the Headlands such as the multicolored background landscape.

In the past, I have put the salt crystallized stuff on multiple shelves. I think for my next project I am going to just have one long shelf. In fact, I need to make more for an up coming show in January.

NoD: What are you showing in January?

Christine Nguyen: I’ll be showing some crystallized plant stuff on a long shelf and a large photo-based piece. The exhibition is a group show in Kiel, Germany called “Doppler Effect” at the Kunsthalle zu Kiel.

In the summer of 2010, I will be having a solo show at the Huntington Beach Art Center. I will be salt crystallizing a row boat. I had an installation idea where the room is filled with crystallized things, sea shells, coral, and such and have the row boat in the middle of it. The working title for the installation is, “What the Ocean Left Behind”.

NoD: It’s very interesting how similar your photographic work and drawings are. Can you describe some of your processes?

Work by Christine Nguyen - Juxtapose

Christine Nguyen: The photo-based work is a combination of drawing and a photographic process. “Negatives” are drawn on layers of Mylar, which are projected onto light-sensitive paper. The paper is developed in a color processor, creating a camera-less, photographic image. What you are seeing is a negative of the drawing. I use paints, inks, pens, pencils, and also grow salt crystals on the Mylar to create my drawings. When I know I am just making a drawing I use the same techniques with drawing and salt crystals, but think about the layers more and what will show through.

NoD: Where is your favorite place to travel?

Christine Nguyen: Anywhere that is in the woods, by and in the ocean, crystal caverns, and such. There’s so much out there that I haven’t seen and would like to see it all someday within my lifetime.

Work by Christine Nguyen

NoD: How you have been involved in SO MANY shows over the years?

Christine Nguyen: I just keep busy and continued to make work to exhibit them. Those shows lead to other exhibitions and also through referrals. You just never know who is going to see the work and where it might lead you to next.

Earlier this year, I did a residency at the Tamarind Institute in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I worked with two master printers for two weeks. And they made editions of 10 -12 of the attached the two lithographs. http://tamarind.unm.edu/editions/nguyen_img.html This came about by the Gallery Director, Arif Khan, whom came across my work through the Armand Hammer Museum website. At the end of year, the Hammer Museum will be publishing a book titled: Hammer projects 1999-2009 that will include my work. I’m sure the book will bring more exposure to my work.

Also in 2010, I have a residency at the Montalvo Arts Center in Saratoga, CA. I was nominated by John Souza, a Los Angeles based curator, to apply for this residency earlier in the year.

Christine Nguyen's home studio

NoD: Do you know what kind of work you will be producing during this residency?

Christine Nguyen: I plan to continue making drawings on Mylar and to continue to crystallize the local vegetation and materials in the area and incorporate them in my drawings perhaps. I also want to make large cyanotype prints (also known as sunprints). The cyanotype is an early 19th century photographic process. To make a cyanotype, you place objects on the coated sensitized paper and place it in the sun to be exposed and then you wash it under water to develop and fix the image. I have drawn and painted on the paper before coating it with the light sensitive cyanotype chemicals. I’ve included a sample image of it.

NoD: How did you begin working with this crystallization process?

Christine Nguyen: I’ve always been interested into crystals and minerals and looking at their formations. And then a friend of mine had sent me this Magical Forest kit that grew salt crystals on this cardboard cut outs of trees and mountains. I think it just got me thinking and such. I bought a crystal making kit which wasn’t what I was quite looking for. After doing research about growing crystals, I decided the salt crystal would work best for to experiment with since I think it relates to the ocean. The ocean being salty and all.

NoD: You are also a photographer for the Getty Research Institute in the Digital Services Department. What types of photos do you take?

Christine Nguyen: I take photographs of special collection materials that range from books, manuscripts, maps, engravings, and such that are for patrons and for in house projects that are archived in a database. I have also taken the Scholar portraits for a few years and have photographed events and lectures in the past.

–

You may review more of Christine Nguyen’s work here:
http://www.lephant.com/

You may view interviewer Laina Karavani’s site here:
http://www.lsk-photo.com/

Celeste Prevost

After a stint in Colorado where she earned recognition for a clean, often humorous body of work now detailed on her newly redesigned site Designisfine, designer/illustrator Celeste Prevost has landed her creative talents in Minneapolis. In addition to working in-house at marketing firm Zeus Jones she takes on freelance projects that inspire her creatively. Here Celeste describes her career path, shows us the mood boards she creates for inspiration, and let’s us have a look at her design space at Zeus Jones where she and husband (Rob Angermuller of www.lifterbaron.com and designer for ARTCRANK) spend their weekends being creative at their adjacent desks. Celeste is interviewed here by Emily Goligoski.

NoD: You sometimes make your designs available for little or no payment. What are your thoughts around arguments for creative and media work being shared for free online?

Celeste Prevost: A typeface I created and posted for free download, Hand of God, is kind of gimmicky and I made it to be used publicly. I’m not a professional typographer, but I was happy when a small Boulder company called Humanoid Wake approached me obout using it on one of their wakeboards soon. It will stay free for them.

Hand of God Typeface by Celeste Prevost.

I love to share my work and give back — sharing in our community is very important as long as it’s not abused. It’s empowering that people can use your work and I believe that having work out there is good for you. I’m a believer in Joy Engine’s mantra that “sharing is caring.”

NoD: Joy Engine is a Boulder-based online design magazine. You are from Colorado, yes?

Celeste Prevost: Yes, I grew up in Boulder and Denver and studied graphic design at the Art of Institute in Denver. I interned at an agency in Boulder, MoxieSozo, before freelancing at Sukle. Given the fact that Boulder doesn’t host major industries, freelancing there was tough, and good work and creative undertakings were often overlooked by the mountains. I worked on a few regional and national campaigns, and took on a lot of projects in the community, sometimes for pay, sometimes not.

NoD: What brought you to Minneapolis?

Celeste Prevost: My husband Rob and I were looking for a new city to land in, and Minneapolis seemed like a good place to be creatively. Large companies like Target and 3M have brought lots of smart people to the Twin Cities, and I was glad to find Zeus Jones,and keep doing my personal and freelance design projects.

NoD: What projects/clients are you currently working on at Zeus Jones?

Celeste Prevost: I’m currently working on a packaging for new home fragrance lines for Thymes. We just recently finished up a new site for Bobbi Brown Cosmetics, and are about to kick off a really exciting project with Nordstrom> (Can’t say what… but it involves some futuristic Internets!) :)

Thymes Packaging Design by Celeste Prevost / Zeus Jones.

NoD: You’ve worked at a lot of ad agencies. Is advertising your primary interest?

Celeste Prevost: No. I don’t mind doing advertising as one component to a project, but billboards just aren’t as effective now as a Twitter account and solid branding. I love doing logos for small and medium size businesses and for people who trust what I’m trying to do for them. I like helping people identify their role within their community and being involved from the start of strategy and concepting.

NoD: Have you seen agencies/design firms adjusting their approach to projects because of the effectiveness of Twitter and solid branding?

Celeste Prevost: I think Twitter can be a great tool to communicate and connect with others. I think lately agencies have been overlooking the fact that Twitter is just a tool and that any business can do great with or without twitter if they have a strong brand and are offering something of value. It’s not the end all be all and sometimes it’s just not appropriate. I think Twitter is most effective with companies that can provide something of real use and have the time to truly engage their market. They basically can’t be in it to make a buck or to interrupt the market with ad like rhetoric.

NoD: Given Designisfine’s emphasis on logos, do you get asked to do a lot of logo redesigns?

Celeste Prevost: Sometimes a logo redesign isn’t necessary. But I think that the best brand refreshes are those that are clean and have a modernizing effect.

FreshSimple Cafe (Brooklyn, NY) Identity Package by Celeste Prevost.

I really like interchangeable logos that have multiple icons that can function in a variety of ways. Being able to move the icons and change their colors can give people a more concise idea of what the brand is, and I think the City of Melbourne is a good example with their recent redesign.

City of Melbourne Logo by Landor. Before and After.

NoD: How did you approach the graphic look you just created for K.I.D. Collective?

Celeste Prevost: The creator, Casey Keasler, had seen my work in Boulder and asked for a header for her site. As I began to build a mood board and create visual icons that identified her recipes and designs, a pattern came together. I turned into a site skin and showed her how to make back-end changes in Wordpress—I want clients to feel empowered to run with their designs.

K.I.D. Collective Identity and Site Design by Celeste Prevost.

For freelance work I only take on topics that are of interest to me, which keeps me excited. My hobby and passion is design, and beyond art shows and lectures, my husband and I spend most weekends on laptops across from each other.

NoD: What is your mood board setup like? Any chance you might be able to provide an image of your work/studio setup?

Celeste Prevost: My moodboards are usually digital only. I rarely make a physical moodboard with cutouts, but when I do they usually end up on the wall next to my desk.

Celeste Prevost digital mood board.

NoD: Any chance you might be able to provide an image of your work/studio setup?

Celeste Prevost: So my desk is uber boring, but I attached images anyway.

Celeste Prevost Desk at Zeus Jones.

NoD: How do you select the people you want to work with, be they clients or collaborators?

Celeste Prevost: I like working with people who are naturally creative and can appreciate aesthetics. A sense of adventure helps, as well as being open to what will happen in the creative process.

People come to me because of what I’ve done in the past, and knowing that makes it important to live up to their expectations. As my work evolves, I try to grow those skills any my own creativity. Money is not always the priority—the work is.