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While it’s always a disappointment to see your daydreams dispelled, I was beginning to feel excited about living without a set plan. I decided to enroll in graphic design because I considered myself a man of letters (I had no idea how literally that term would soon apply) and because I had an affinity for album covers and music posters. I found that studying design was supported by three of my chief personal attributes: being and acting smart; an ability to create dense and overambitious projects; and a need to control them at the most minute, obsessive level.

Fast forward to post-graduation, June of 2003. I am driving a U-Haul truck containing the sum total worldly possessions of myself and two roommates to our new home in Brooklyn, with enough money in my pocket for three months of living. My sole goal in that time is to find work in order to survive. I had never done an internship, had no professional connections or any way to display my work other than the one hand-bound portfolio that represented the fruits of my print design education and, secretly, a five-minute animated film I made during my senior year in order to teach myself After Effects and Pro Tools. I didn’t really consider this a true ‘design’ project, however. Little did I know that it would turn out to be my sideline pursuits — making short animations and recording music — which would get me work.

In three months time I was broke and broken, reduced to eating crackers for dinner, doing my laundry in the bathtub, and being turned down even from Craigslist jobs. Sitting on the roof after an unsuccessful interview, at the end of a sweltering summer, with an empty Old English in my hand, my old dreams felt far, far away. In fact, far from being a famous artist, I couldn’t get work as a hack designer.

But, out of the blue, I heard from a friend who knew someone who knew someone who was looking for someone who could animate in After Effects and had good design skills. I overdrew the hell out of my already dry bank account to buy a website to post my movie, and to get some half decent jeans for the interview. The person that needed to see my movie saw it, I had the interview, and in a week I had my first freelance job. And though my animation skills were found severely lacking, their combination with my rigorous print design background made me stand out. I started to sense the potential of this new world. It was extremely nerve-racking at first. I was all thumbs at the keyboard when I needed to be an octopus. But after a few challenging jobs, the learning curve flattened out enough for me to feel comfortable.

Motion design is a field ripe for exploration by young designers with an aptitude for technology and rhythm and a desire to do things differently. Good motion designers are, in a sense, trilingual. They are able to speak to sophisticated, refined design sensibilities as well as to boundary pushing animation fanatics while occupying their own unique visual space. Motion designers with strong conceptual skills will go far, as there is a general tendency amongst hard-core animators to focus safely on the technical aspects of a project without addressing the larger problems or exploring possible solutions. A strong idea done simply is a good approach in any field.

Personally I have had the pleasure of working with both more traditional design clients branching into motion for the first time as well as more established animation companies seeking a refined design style. People working in motion design tend to be multitalented and branch out into other areas. Through my motion work, I’ve been afforded many opportunities, from recording music and doing sound design to directing music videos, doing print work, illustrating for magazines, contributing to books, designing apparel, working on documentary films, and creating personal work for gallery exhibitions. It was at one of these gallery shows that I first realized I had somehow stumbled into my old daydream: there is a painting on the wall with my name on it; I’m in New York City (well, Brooklyn, but close enough). But the reality has turned out to be so much more interesting for its unpredictability and variety than the old straight-line vision of success. By accepting the challenge of working in a new field, I was afforded chances I would never have otherwise received and I expanded the potential reach of my creative work.

Wyeth Hansen was born and raised in Fresno, California until moving to attend college at the Rhode Island School of Design, from which he graduated in 2003. While in school, Wyeth began experimenting with combining animation, music, literature, and installation, out of which his current work as a freelance designer has grown. He currently works in a collective design/silkscreen studio in Brooklyn that he helped establish with several friends.

I Hate It

I make all the decisions.
When there’s no work, there’s no money.
I stress about projects… and money… and time… and the future.
I have to fix the printer/light bulb/accounts/internet/mistakes…
Nobody covers me on my holidays. Do I get a holiday?
I’m not getting enough feedback. Am I evolving as a designer?
I can’t switch off.

Working For Their Studio

I Love It

I get paid every month.
I get paid when I’m ill.
They’ve got all the responsibility.
They have a cleaning person/accountant/IT guy…
When there’s no work, there’s no worries.
They have a lovely studio and they are lovely people.
I learn from them.

I Hate It

I stress about the projects.
They get all the credit.
I have to work with whoever they hire.
They manage my time.
They make the final decisions on my design.
They choose the clients.
I think I could do better if I had my own studio.

Originally from Finland, Emmi Salonen moved to the UK in 1996. She graduated from University of Brighton in 2001 with a BA Hons in Graphic Design. Straight after, she moved to Italy to work at Fabrica, Benetton’s controversial young designers’ melting pot. After a year, she was back in London where she worked a couple of years at Hoop Associates until moving to New York in 2004. There she was with karlssonwilker, a company known for its wit and clever designs. 2005 she relocated again and started running her own practice, called Emmi, based in a converted gun factory in East London, UK.

What might appear to be a rather simple set of observations was really rather earth-shattering to me. These circumstances represented a level of success I never realized I had, because it wasn’t what I thought success would look like. I discovered it by looking in —instead of out — for approval.

Far from making me feel complacent about my career, this discovery freed me to take more risks. Somehow the idea that I had achieved success of some kind provided me with something to build on. I began to produce prodigious amounts of photographs, take on new projects and change jobs with a confidence I hadn’t known when I was in the early, striving stages of my career.

As I turned my attention back to the final exam I thought about how much more difficult it is for today’s students to sort out what constitutes true and lasting success, bereft as they are of real role models as opposed to the current proliferation of “celebrities.” I knew then what the content of the final exam should be. It would consist of one question: How will you know when you are successful?

The class — one of the best of my teaching career — was incredulous. After the initial “What’s up?” reaction and grinning was over, I explained that it was a serious question and that I hoped they would take it seriously. They did. Many, actually most, of them wrote lengthy answers, taking over an hour to complete their papers. When it came time to collect them, I told the students to keep them, as there are no wrong or right answers. Success for one would — and should — be very different than for the other and is for no one outside of themselves to judge. I only hoped they would keep the papers and consider them from time to time in the course of their lives, if only to save them the time it took me to make the realization I had made that day on the beach.

Much to the disappointment of subsequent classes, I never gave that final again.

Kathleen Creighton studied Photography at Pratt Institute. She has worked professionally producing work for the editorial, publishing and entertainment markets as well as exhibiting her work. An associate professor in the Communications Design Department she has taught for 15 years and developed new courses including a number focusing on Photography and professional practice. Prior to being appointed Chair of the department in July of 2005, she was the Associate Director of the Career Services office at Pratt and also co-published RSVP, the Directory of Illustration and Design. A lifelong resident of Brooklyn, she is at work on a book of her photographs.

Luckily for me, and my former band, Andre had volunteered to design the package. He asked me for some direction about what we were looking for. I tried to give him an idea of what I was thinking through the lyrics and songwriting. I even listed some examples of other art that expressed a feeling similar to what I wanted, but the idea of translating music into visuals is a tricky one, especially for me. As someone who is completely inept at any sort of visual expression I was extremely thankful to have someone else take the layout upon themselves. Nonetheless, I still felt a certain amount of stress; even if I couldn’t communicate my vision, I still had a specific idea of what I wanted to see. I could share what I thought about the music, but I could not for the life of me actually articulate what I wanted to see when looking at the CD or lyrics. I just knew that I cared. A lot.

In the best cases, working with designers allows me to get exactly what I want, even if I don’t really know what that is. I can’t ever remember saying anything to Andre about trees or building skylines or earth tones. But when I saw those images, I recognized them as exactly what I wanted. Designers can figure it out for me, by understanding what I want better than I do.

Maybe it was less about trying to convert the music into art and more about assigning art to the music, rather than just transcribing it visually. We, as a band, had begun the process of taking what was essentially a hobby and trying to make it serious; the design took us one step closer.

The final product was a piece that, to be completely honest, stood above and beyond our music. Although I am quite proud of the songs we made and the lyrics I wrote, I am also realistic — my band, and the music we made, was amateur. I believe there’s something to be said for expression and sincerity, whether it’s amateur or professional, and to that extent I am proud of the things I was able to express through that music. But when I think about that album and those songs, I also get a very clear picture of the design work that accompanied them. Despite the fact that no one in the band actually created or even envisioned it, that artwork is now inseparable from the rest of the album. It’s an aesthetic that broadens the scope of the band’s artistic expression, and for that I am both thankful and impressed.

Kelly Aiken lives in Seattle, where he impresses the kids he works with by having tattoos, being in a band, and riding a motorcycle. It’s working great so far.

Some back-story: in 1997 I was going to art school in Detroit and was generally bored as hell with it. Well, the first two years were fantastic, actually; I truly loved learning to draw, and my instructors were mostly cool guys with lots of funny anecdotes of dubious veracity. I had a job taking tickets at the local movie theater, I had clove cigarettes, I had no idea how I was going to survive outside of school… but I was 19, so what the hell? Around this time I lost all momentum in my schoolwork. I realized I was losing interest because I couldn’t see myself following the design and illustration world’s established path: learn the foundation design precepts; do an internship; interview for a position; climb your way up. I thought the first two ‘foundation’ years at art school were beneficial, but doing basic design assignments did nothing for me. I wanted to skip GO. I wanted printed work, I wanted my own studio, and I wanted it right away.

This urge happened to coincide with my discovery of the Detroit electronic music scene. Detroit techno was at the height of its popularity. There were parties every week and I thought it was the coolest thing I had ever come across. Every time I bought a new record it was a mini life-changing event. And the best part was that art and design were a huge part of the experience! From rave flyers to record sleeves, the music and design flowed together and swept me along in their current. It struck me that all of the great images I saw at parties and in record stores weren’t created by someone at an agency with a boss and a title, they were made by people who LOVED the music they designed the sleeves for and who LOVED going to the parties they created flyers for. Some worked in small groups and some did their own thing. They actually lived every aspect of their art. And these were young designers. Some had gone to school, some never did, and I wanted desperately to be one of them.

So, when I overheard that one of the top local flyer designers was leaving Detroit, I nervously approached the party promoter he worked with and offered to take over. He asked to see my portfolio, and I lied to him to cover up for the fact that I had never designed a single thing outside of school and had used Photoshop for a sum total of 3 hours. Thankfully, he needed a flyer so quickly that he didn’t have time to question me and just handed me the gig (unpaid, of course). Over the next two nights, working feverishly on a friend’s Mac, I crafted my masterpiece… There were Lego spacemen, there was lots of Eurostile, and there were bubbles! SPACE BUBBLES! God, was I excited.

When the printer got the file, he called the promoter because he thought there was something wrong with it. That’s how BAD this design was – the printer actually thought there was a disk error! I found myself sheepishly insisting this was exactly the way I had planned it. Those space bubbles and techno trimmings were there because I meant them to be there, dammit! When the flyers arrived from the printer, I was elated. Never mind the fact that they had a mysterious half-inch white border (my fault) and the colors had shifted from a sky blue to a sea green (I had provided the file in RGB format, natch), to me this was a thing of beauty, a beauty of my own creation! I practically wet my two-size-too-large khakis.

But there was another feeling that I hadn’t anticipated: the joy I experienced in watching my work distributed. Whether they were handed out at a party or placed among hundreds of others at record stores, my flyers were part of the scene. The idea that I could pour my heart into these ephemeral printed moments and that other people could share and appreciate them was addictive to me. And now I could synthesize the things I loved (art, music, Detroit) with my talent to create a thing which could, in turn, inspire and inform others.

Now, ten years after that first flyer, with many moves and countless projects under my belt, I am still excited when my design fulfills more than just an academic or monetary purpose. The work that excites me most participates in a commerce of ideas, memories, emotions, messages, and meanings — design that reveal the hands of the designer and radiates with their excitement for the work.

As was the custom with rave flyers in those days, I had quickly added a moniker to the bottom of mine: DEMO. Needing something succinct and having no idea what was going to come of this design thing, I figured ‘demo’ stood for ‘trying it out.’ And, although that first piece isn’t much to brag about, I am happy to say that all the work I have done is still undoubtedly and truly Me.

Demo was founded by designer Justin Fines in 1997. Born out of the love of his hometown of Detroit and it’s music, Demo began by churning out flyers and ephemera for the then thriving Detroit electronic music scene. Nine years, three cities, and countless projects later, Fines has found a home for Demo in New York City. In his work, the golden tint of suburban childhood nostalgia blends with the influence of the hulking abandoned factories and mansions of the Motor City. This combination creates a graphic language that balances between hope and cynicism. Fines’ work has been featured in publications worldwide, and recent projects include an animation for Nickelodeon, an artist series skateboard for Zoo York, and a series of designs for the Truth Campaign.