Josh 1

Have you ever made a decision, which you later regretted? I regret not having that full university experience. Moving to an unfamiliar city, meeting new people, living on campus. The way I got my degree worked out a lot cheaper, but it would have been cool have had those experiences too. Has there been a major event in your life that acted as a catalyst that made you what you are today? I moved out of home when I was 15. There was a lot going on in my life then, but that decision changed a lot of things, including what I wanted to do and what kind of person I wanted to be. About a month earlier, I was set to study biology, chemistry and physics for my HSC – I ended up changing those electives to art, design and technology and I.T. instead. Bad situations can make or break you – mine has given me an incentive to succeed and disprove the people that didn’t support me. What would you like to accomplish in the next 5 years? Professionally, I’d like for my work to be seen by more people. Exhibit my photography or have it used in a major publication. Develop my illustrations more and use them to develop a line of t-shirt designs. I’d love to be doing design work that focuses on humanitarian issues, because that’s something I’m very passionate about. It would be amazing to be involved in one of Amnesty International’s campaigns – I love their use of guerrilla marketing, so that’s something I hope to get involved in. In my personal life, I’d love to travel some more. In 5 years I’d like to have seen most of the countries on my bucket list and maybe consider working abroad for a bit. Have you ever had some "interesting" clients? I’ve had a lot of “interesting” clients. I’m not 100% sure of this, but I suspect one of our clients was Amish. Maybe they weren’t, but they certainly dressed that way. Or perhaps I’ve just fabricated all of this in my head. I remember them talking to me with no expression in their voice or on their face – it made meetings super uncomfortable. But fun to laugh about when everyone had gone. Have you thought about starting up your own business? I’ve thought about it. I don’t know that I’m cut out to run a business. I’m a really organised person, but I feel like if I started my own business, I’d cross the line from being “organised” to “neurotic”. Maybe down the track, but for now, I’m happy not having that kind of stress in my life. Would you rather work as a freelance designer or work in a team environment? If the team environment was positive and creative enough, then that one for sure. Being around people when you’re working makes life a lot more fun. I think it helps you to develop your creativity more too – but the thing I like about freelancing is that you can do it anywhere and that you needn’t commit to anything you don’t want to do. Sadly, there aren’t great agencies in every city, so until I find one that suits me, I’m happy working independently. Have you ever regretted working for someone? I think of every situation, good and bad, as a learning experience. So while I have worked jobs that I absolutely hated, I’m glad I did them. They taught me things that I wouldn’t have learned otherwise. They helped me appreciate other situations more. Where do you gather most of your inspiration? Do you find that you have to have more than one source? It’s odd, as much as I love looking at design for ideas; most of my inspiration comes from adjacent fields or things completely removed from what I do. I can be really inspired by fashion and tribal art, listening to the lyrics of a song, or even spending 6 hours watching films on Vimeo. Those things give me so many more ideas than looking at my “competition”. I think inspiration can be found anywhere – you just need to pay attention. How do you prepare your design brief and your design solutions? I like to break everything down into steps, so that I can execute different tasks gradually. I like to make sure the client knows what I am doing, how long it is going to take me to do it and how much it is going to cost them. I tend to create and recreate any design I work on 3 times before I decide to show one of them to the client – my best ideas rarely come straight away. I think good communication helps things run smoothly. And deadlines. Deadlines make sure that you get your damn work done. Period. Does teaching interest you more than working for a client? At this point in my life, yes. I love designing. All designers love designing – but I think most of us would be happier designing for ourselves and getting paid for that. Sadly, that’s not a realistic notion. So we essentially pimp our skills to people with money and compromise our vision until they’re happy. I sound so cynical. Some clients can be great. But advertising and design has become so consumer driven that designers are now treated less like visionaries and more like tools. The thing I love about teaching is that even if I have a terrible day, I can go home and say to myself “Look, the students didn’t know how to create this element at the start of today’s lesson. Now they do.” And it’s nice to be surrounded by people that respect your talent and want to learn from what you know. How did you establish yourself as a designer and how do you continue to get your work out there now? I immerse myself in design. The only way to get better at something is to surround yourself with inspiration and just practice. The best way to get your work out there is to enter competitions, promote yourself on the web as much as possible and network with other creatively minded people. I still have so much growing to do, so I can’t elaborate much further than that…yet. Is there a particular style or artist that you aspire to? I appreciate so many designers’ styles, but I don’t really look at their work and steer my own in the same direction. I love Jublin’s illustrations and Nirrimi’s photography. But when it comes to my own work, I guess I just like…shiny things - I know that’s kind of vague. I aspire to the genius of designers like Sagmeister & Shepard Fairey, I think conceptually they’re on top. Is there any specific piece that you love above all of your other works? I love my 2009 Gaza poster. I don’t love the design as much as I did then, but I think the concept is cool and it got a lot of exposure. I also love my design “Cryptic Word Vomit” but that’s sentimentality more so than anything else. I’m the only person I’m aware of who can read it. Oh and the “Trouty Mouth” sticker I had printed. I think that’s super cute. What is your favourite tool? There are so many! I’m going to say my camera. I use it so much and for so many different things. I can shoot straight photography, create elements to use in my designs and capture video with it. It’s also heavy enough to bludgeon somebody, so I don’t bother locking my doors at night anymore. Why do you like your favourite software? My favourite program for design is Illustrator, but I use Photoshop a lot for photography. The thing I love about Illustrator is that it gives me control and structure when I’m designing – I can use grids and enter coordinates and dimensions and do all those unadventurous OCD things and still manage to create designs I’m proud of. What piece of work you have done has gained the most public attention/exposure? Aside from commercial work, I think one of my tee designs (based on Kurt from Glee) has had something like 25,000 views on deviantART and it’s been favourited 1,000+ times. I don’t know of anything else I’ve done that’s been appreciated as much as that. The tee was actually removed from RedBubble because Fox Broadcasting Company saw it and complained - they thought I was infringing copyright or something. I’d be upset if having Fox see my work wasn’t such a big deal! Do design competitions interest you? Competitions? For sure. I think they’re a great way to get your work out there. What I resent is when “clients” use “competitions” to exploit designers. Those “We need a logo! Send us your best design and the winning one will be used by our company!” situations. Exposure is great, but it doesn’t pay the bills and 9 times out of 10, the exposure is about as useful as one of the Kardashians. (Who, ironically, have lots of it and no talent.) If you want to see how I would approach branding your company, pay me. Do you find it hard to teach first years? It’s not hard, but you definitely need to invest a lot of time if you want them to develop well as designers. Half the task is giving them information and teaching them skills – the other half is finding a way to make them care about the subject and get proactive about their learning. Teaching someone who has never used a Mac before can be either really rewarding or the most frustrating thing in the world - usually it’s the former. I’m pretty proud of my students, though I prefer to think of them more as protégés – I think student is too formal a word. Do you intentionally/unintentionally pick favourites in a class you are teaching? I think it’s unavoidable, unless you’re completely detached from your class. That being said, if I favour some students more than others, it’s probably because they work really hard and show a level of passion for design that I empathise with. I’m obviously not going to favour you if you skip my lectures and make my life more difficult by submitting poor quality work. What is you least favourite letter in the alphabet? S. Do you know how hard that letter is to build from scratch? It’s so out of place. We should abolish it from the English alphabet. I’m not even kidding. Do you think being colour-blind limits your abilities as a designer? Or if the client finds out? It can, but believe it or not, being colour-blind has its advantages too. Sure, I can’t distinguish colours as well as other people, but I guarantee you that my understanding of HSB & CMYK colour values more than compensates for any perceived loss. You say orange, I say H30, S100, B100. Aside from the odd times I’ve been asked to look through a Pantone book, it’s never been too much of a problem. Do you have a favourite colour? I love green. I hate that it’s so hard to create a vibrant green using CMYK. Maybe I just want what I can’t have? RGB or CMYK? (without the consideration of if it is going to be on screen or print) RGB. I love vibrancy and it’s easier to mix. Was money ever an issue in making your dreams/career choice a reality? For sure. Camera equipment is so expensive. I still don’t have all the gear I want. I’d like a new MacBook. My Wacom Tablet stopped working a year ago. Not that I’m poor – I would just rather see Montreal or New Orleans than buy things I want but don’t need at this point in time. Have you ever been discriminated against? In a work situation? Not that I can recall – or not blatantly anyhow. Unless we’re including age discrimination – because let’s be honest – the quality of one’s experience is more important than the quantity of one’s experience, right? Let’s just clear that up. Did where you go to school influence your decision and career path? Not really. I mean, if I had considered myself a traditional artist then I guess going into graphic design would have seemed more practical in a city like Wagga, where there isn’t a huge art scene. But I think deep down I really am a designer / photographer, so it didn’t affect me a whole lot. Do you have a favourite country you would like to live in? Of the places I’ve visited, I would most like to live in Spain. I don’t think people realise how much of an international design-hub Barcelona is. That being said, if I were to move Spain, I’d probably go back to Granada – the street art alone is reason enough to live there. It’s just such a beautiful country. Where would you like to go on your next Euro trip and why? I’m done with Europe for now. I’m hoping to head to the USA & Canada at the end of the year – it’s time to explore a new continent for a bit. But if I were to go back to Europe I would love to travel to Sweden & Finland. Oh and Portugal – I really should have done that when I was in Spain. Hindsight. Europe has so much cultural diversity though - you could spend your whole life exploring it and never see everything it has to offer.

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