Photo via Rod Begbie.

The eighth post in our series, Brief Interviews with Assiduous Mules. Read past interviews with Jessie Char, Shawna Seth, David McCreath, Nila Salinas, Paula Chang, Stewart McCoy, and Katie Gillum.

What did you study in school? How did that lead to or influence you in your current role?

I went to art school and was even stupid enough to get a master’s in it. Art and client services are worlds apart. Idiotically, some people lump them together as “creative things.” Design is a business skill. Sure, there’s creativity involved, but that’s true of ANY field. Try keeping your wife from finding out about the 10 year old son you had with the maid; that’s some creativity right there.

But the skill I picked up in school that turned out to be the most valuable was learning how to take a punch. We had these insane critiques where we’d trash each other viciously. We took pride in how brutal we could be to one another. I think it went way beyond constructive. It was an art form in itself. We were basically trying to see if we could get each other to drop out of school. And professors were the worst—we had one guy who’d slash paintings, which is completely devastating, right? I mean you work your ass off on something and your teacher just walks up to it and literally rips it to shreds. It’s kind of magnificent. And afterwards, we’d all go off and drink and have sex with another. But those critiques taught me how to not take criticism personally. It was always about the work. And if the work quality wasn’t there you were marked for demolition.

What was your first job/title in the industry?

I was a “designer” at the desktop publishing department of a local copy shop. I completely lied about my qualifications to get the job. You had up to 30 minutes to complete any job that came in the door, be it type a resume, design a logo, or lay out a brochure. I got really, really fast and to this day I still think of executing things in 30 minute increments. If something’s not right after 30 minutes, start over and try again.

You’ve repeatedly said, “Don’t work for free.” What advice would you give to the young, inexperienced (read: near-desperate & Top Ramen-fueled) designer struggling to get a foot in the door?

Work with other designers as much as possible. Get yourself into a situation where you can see other people practicing your craft. If you’re young and inexperienced you need to learn your craft. People learn by mimicking, and if you’ve never seen a more experienced designer do the job then how are you going to learn it? It makes me cringe to see so many young, talented designers go to work at product companies where they’re the only designer on staff.

Also, get fast, really fast at making and recognizing your mistakes. I’d rather be working with a designer that’s made 30 crappy comps in one day than one who’s slaved over the same comp all day. The former has at least recognized that he wasn’t solving the problem 30 different times and tried other approaches. The latter just spent the day trying to work himself out of a hole of his own making. And when your goal is to dig yourself out of your own hole, it stops being the client’s goal.

You’re hiring a visual designer. Besides a conscience, what do you look for in his/her portfolio?

Your portfolio will get you in the door. But it’s your approach to solving problems that’ll get you hired.

What’s one question you wish clients would always ask?

“Would it be possible for us to pay you more for less work?”

If there’s a question I need a client to ask, I’ll figure out a way to get them to ask it. If something is tied to a project’s success, you can’t hope for it, you need to find a way to make it happen.

What would be your dream client project?

The dream clients are the ones that do things you believe in. But since I don’t work on things I don’t believe in, they’re not really dream clients. They’re clients. Once you figure out who your dream clients are, just figure out what it’ll take to work with them.

What blogs or sites do you visit daily?

I live on Twitter. It has everything interesting from all the other sites on it if you follow the right people.

In an idealistic world, what would be the best use of the web? What’s the best example right now?

Kickstarter is very close to the best possible use of the web, at least from a high-level. It’s people helping people make things they think are cool. It’s also a fine example of a socialist web. Those who have wealth distribute it to those who need it, as long as those who need it can make a case for what they’ll do with it.

What’s your secret to life-work balance?

Leaving at 6 every day. Not answering e-mail or the phone after hours. I will bust my ass for you between the hours of 9:30 and 6. You can have all those hours, but the ones in between—those are mine.

If you could have any superpower, what would it be?

Invisibility. All the other powers are for chumps. Invisibility gets you everything you need. You can come very close to achieving this power in real life by convincing other people to do things for you while you remain in the background. It also helps if you buy all your clothes at the Gap.

What was your most prized possession as a child?

My grandmother had a set of glasses with pirates painted on them. Oddly fluted glasses shaped like goblets. No matter the situation or number of guests, my brothers and I always got the pirate glasses. “Those are my grandkids’,” she’d say if someone else took one down. As time went on what started as a full set of six eventually got whittled down to four. Wet hands, three. Carelessness, two, etc. When my grandmother died and we were cleaning up her house, I found one remaining pirate glass. They’d long fallen into disuse and had made their way to the back of the topmost cupboard. I stood there holding it, remembering all the times my grandmother filled it with milk. What it looked like in her big, work-worn, hands compared to my little hands, yet to accomplish anything in life. Wondering what she had thought as she put it away for the last time, our visits becoming more and more infrequent. I carefully wrapped it in an old dishtowel and packed it carefully in my bags. It sits in my kitchen cupboard now, 6000 miles from its original home, but a constant reminder to me of what a good home that was.

Tweet | Written by Tina Lee on May 20, 2011 |