Last night I went to The Design and the Illustration Mix at Pratt Manhattan. Four acclaimed illustrator/designers speaking in front of me for two hours? Sure, I'm in the front row. Seymour Chwast, Tom White, Gerard Huerta and Dan Pelavin each have extremely dissimilar, yet intriguing personalities. Though the event was a bit disorganized (started late, projected presentation was imperfect, down to a typo in Dan's last name etc.) and the questions a little lame, each artist found a way to fit in some great talk about their specific work, process and inspiration.
All the designers admitted to usually thinking in words. We are all visual creatures, and someone who does communication design is likely to think about their work in visuals, BUT every artist said that words are a great aid and starting point.
Tom White spoke about how working on a number of projects simultaneously actually makes the work flow better for all. Super nice to hear, especially when here I am worrying about several projects and thinking they are detracting from one another.
The talk also made me once again start viewing deadlines as a treasure. "If projects dragged on forever, it'd be the worst!" said Dan Pelavin (who has got to be one of the most expressive and adorable human beings on the planet). Other artists also described working within crazy tight deadlines, like having 1 to 2 days to do a piece of work- everything from thumbnails to the final project and according to them some of their best work was a result of that.
They also emphasized never giving work away for free...which made me feel a little weird about my for college credit only internship but I think that's a different story. They made it clear that clients tend to value the work they paid the most for....just human nature I guess.
Linked below are examples of each of their work that I particularly liked.
